Podcasts about Prudential

In this thought-provoking episode of The Reformed Brotherhood, Tony and Jesse explore the complex relationship between Christian vocation and professional ambition. Moving beyond the obvious prohibition of inherently sinful professions, they examine whether certain legitimate careers might still be inappropriate for Christians if they compromise our responsibilities to family and church. The hosts challenge the common assumption that Christians should seek maximum worldly influence, suggesting instead that faithfulness in our threefold calling—to work, family, and church—should guide our vocational choices. Drawing on Reformed theology's rich understanding of vocation, they offer practical wisdom for believers navigating career decisions and workplace responsibilities while maintaining spiritual priorities in a culture that often glorifies professional success at any cost. Key Takeaways Vocation is threefold: A proper understanding of Christian vocation includes responsibilities to our work, our families, and our church—not just our careers. Lord's Day conflicts: Professions that regularly prevent church attendance and Lord's Day observance may be inappropriate for Christians, regardless of their potential for influence or impact. Family obligations: Scripture teaches that Christians who neglect family responsibilities are "worse than unbelievers" (1 Tim. 5:8), suggesting that careers demanding excessive time away from family may be problematic. Christian influence vs. gospel proclamation: We must distinguish between transforming culture through worldly influence versus the actual proclamation of the gospel, which can happen at any level of employment. Sacrifice is expected: Following Christ often requires sacrificing career advancement, prestige, or financial gain to fulfill our primary callings. Priority check: When considering job opportunities, Christians should evaluate church options in a new location with the same care they give to schools, housing, and other community factors. God calls us to faithfulness: Our primary calling is to faithfulness in our responsibilities, not necessarily to positions of maximum influence or cultural power. Balancing the Threefold Calling The hosts challenge the idea that Christians should prioritize career advancement and influence above all else. They argue that vocation in the Reformed tradition encompasses more than just our paid work—it includes our responsibilities to family and church as well. This means that even if a career opportunity seems beneficial for "kingdom influence," we must evaluate whether it allows us to fulfill our other God-given duties. Tony points out that while some professions clearly contradict Christian ethics, others may subtly undermine our ability to be faithful in all areas of life. A high-powered executive role might provide platforms for influence but could require such time commitments that family relationships suffer or regular Lord's Day worship becomes impossible. As Jesse observes, "vocation is fundamentally God's doing," not simply about finding personal fulfillment or maximizing impact. This framework helps believers evaluate career choices more holistically. The Question of Christian Influence A central question emerges throughout the episode: Should Christians pursue positions of maximum influence to advance kingdom values? While this idea sounds appealing, the hosts suggest it often masks a "theology of glory" rather than embracing the "theology of the cross." Jesse notes that "God doesn't call us to necessarily have outside impact. What he's calling us to is faithfulness." They distinguish between the transformative power of the gospel—which can be proclaimed regardless of position—and other ways of transforming culture through worldly influence. Tony explains that "whether you're the janitor of the hospital or whether you're the CEO of the hospital, the gospel is the same and your role in proclaiming the gospel is the same." This perspective challenges Christians to reconsider whether pursuing leadership positions always aligns with God's calling, especially when such roles might compromise other spiritual obligations. The hosts argue that faithfulness in ordinary circumstances, not exceptional influence, should be our primary aim. Quotes "Would it be great if the CEO of a major Fortune 500 company could be a Christian? Yeah. That would be kind of cool. But if the trade-off is that person has to sacrifice their genuine Christian convictions, that's not worth it." - Tony Arsenal "I do think we have to sit back and ask, is that the calling? So that we're pursuing what is our vocation, not just our potential... I think there is a real temptation to somehow say like, what we need to do is to infiltrate in all the places. And I think what we mean by that is that things here will be better." - Jesse Schwamb "I think the Bible is clearer about a person who is taken away from their home more than is reasonable and more than is healthy for their family, or a Christian who never is able to worship on the Lord's day... than it is on something like identity politics and some of the tangential ways that might cause a person to need to compromise a little bit at a high level." - Tony Arsenal Practical Applications The hosts suggest several practical considerations for Christians evaluating career opportunities: Will this job regularly prevent Lord's Day worship? Does it require sacrificing time with family beyond what's reasonable? Could you negotiate Sabbath observance with potential employers? When relocating, evaluate church options with the same care given to schools and housing Consider whether a lower-paying job that allows faithfulness in all areas might be better than a higher-paying one that doesn't Full Transcript [00:00:00] Introduction and Episode Overview [00:00:08] Jesse Schwamb: Welcome to episode 458 of The Reformed Brotherhood. I'm Jesse. [00:00:16] Tony Arsenal: And I'm Tony. And this is the podcast where even your work is unto the glory of God. Hey brother. Hey [00:00:24] Jesse Schwamb: brother. You know that's right. It [00:00:26] Tony Arsenal: is. That's why I said it. [00:00:28] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, it was. That's a great way to open. We, I think from time to time come back to the topic of work and we've got a great, I think, conversation in the queue for this particular episode. [00:00:39] Jesse Schwamb: Now it's gonna sound maybe on the face. Right off the top here. Familiar. So of course, like we've talked before, how scripture makes it clear that Christians are to be salt and light in the world. And we've talked, I think, at length about, well, how exactly do we carry out that? And though we know that we're not saved by our good works. [00:00:57] Jesse Schwamb: Again, the Bible teaches very clearly that God expects good works from Christians, that that is in fact what he saves us to do. Again, we're not saved by those good works, but the question I think still remains, and we're gonna come to it in this conversation about what exactly does he want us to do and where does he want us to do it. [00:01:13] Jesse Schwamb: So in other words, we know that according to scripture, God providentially, governs and cares for his entire creation. So how does that play out in human society given the reality of sin? So we're gonna get to topics like. Well, should Christians be in every line of work? Is that the ideal? Are there jobs or positions or responsibilities that seemingly may not be obvious that Christians really shouldn't be a part of? [00:01:37] Jesse Schwamb: Because it takes them too far afield, maybe from the responsibilities that God gives us holistically to think of our calling is and our families and our churches in our work. So it's a bit more nuanced play of a conversation we had before, but hopefully something that's gonna have all kinds of practicality wrapped around it. [00:01:55] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. So that's what's coming. [00:01:56] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. I'm stoked. I think this is gonna be a good conversation and I think I, I think this is one of those topics where like there's a lot of different angles to come at it from, right? We talk about vocation and work, and we've had those conversations before, and I think other shows and other venues have had that conversation before. [00:02:15] Tony Arsenal: I don't think that I've encountered a conversation really to this like angle of it. So I'm looking forward to this. [00:02:23] Jesse Schwamb: Me too. It's gonna be great. And of course, before we get to all that goodness, all that greatness, which I'm sure is about to transpire shortly and will be of course the definitive conversation, the one to end all to, I guess both to your point, bring it into the world. [00:02:36] Jesse Schwamb: Then to shut it down because we'll have accomplished both ends in just a single hour. [00:02:41] Affirmations and Denials [00:02:41] Jesse Schwamb: Before we get to that, let's do some affirming or denying. This is the part of our conversation where you and I always pick one thing either that we're affirming with and kind of the tradition of the reformed faith, where we take something that's undervalued or something that excites us, we think has great merit or worth, and we put out into the world and say, we're standing behind this thing, or conversely, we deny against it in that same kind of tradition by saying, this thing is overvalued, not worth it. [00:03:05] Jesse Schwamb: Not our jam. So in our tradition, I ask you are you affirming with something or are you not against something? [00:03:11] Tony Arsenal: I'm affirming with something specific that will lead to something general. So, okay. [00:03:16] Exploring AI in Learning [00:03:16] Tony Arsenal: I mentioned a couple weeks ago that I've been playing around with Google Gemini, which is Google's AI platform. [00:03:22] Tony Arsenal: And uh, I've been using it in a sort of interesting way. So Google has, uh, Gemini has these things called gems, which are basically like predefined personalities or predefined. I dunno, like instructions. So they have one gem that is a learning guide where basically you can give it a topic and it will, it will deliver mini lectures, give you quizzes, you can prompt it. [00:03:46] Tony Arsenal: So like I can paste in, um, you know, I can take in Lagos, I can paste a copy of the Bible, like a chapter of the Bible into the learning guide. It'll summarize it, it'll ask me questions. It'll basically gimme many lectures on it. Um, that's the specific thing. This is such a cool technology. And in my mind, this is really where AI is strong, is that you can take large sections of text and it will summarize it and synthesize it into a very usable format. [00:04:14] Tony Arsenal: Um, so what I've been doing, like I said, is I'll read, I'll read a, a chunk of text from whatever it is I'm reading, and then I'll copy and paste that entire chunk of text if it's an electronic text into the learning. Learning guide module and ask it to act as like a seminary lecturer and quiz me on the content. [00:04:33] Tony Arsenal: Um, which really helps to solidify the content I'm reading rather than just passing my eyes over it. I'm actually, um, processing it and retaining it more. I think you could probably do something similar with just about any AI platform if you had the right kind of prompt, which is where the general one comes in. [00:04:50] Tony Arsenal: And I would encourage you, listener to think a little bit about how you might utilize this, because I think we all read lots and lots of things. Our, our, um, particular audience tends to be a little bookish, and so I'm sure we're all reading things as we go, but I'm not sure we're always processing things in the most effective way. [00:05:07] Tony Arsenal: So think a little bit about like how you might use something like chat, GPT, which is available for free, or Claude, which is available for free to do this kind of like. Almost like simulated classroom lecture. Um, and I know there are some questions about ai. Like I, I heard an argument that ai, when you're generating content is, is a sort of form of sophisticated, uh, plagiarism, which I'm not sure I buy it, but I understand the argument. [00:05:33] Tony Arsenal: This is something very different where you're really just using the, using the AI to synthesize and summarize text and sort of spit it back to you in a new format. Um, you're not trying to generate anything new. You're not trying to create anything. That you're gonna publish or anything like that. It's really just a, a form of synthesis. [00:05:49] Tony Arsenal: So I've really found this to be super beneficial. Um, I'm having a really great time at it. I'm, I'm using it for language studies, so I'm reading through mount's basics, biblical Greek. And I'll copy and paste the whole chapter in, ask it to act as a lecturer, and it will walk me through the chapter. It'll stop to do quizzes. [00:06:08] Tony Arsenal: It'll drill me on vocab as I'm going. And then when, when I up, the instruction I get is, don't move forward until you are convinced that I've mastered the content. And so when I get something wrong, it goes back and makes me redo it. So it continues to iterate until it's, until the AI has. Synthesize that I have mastered the content, and then it asks me to provide the next chapter. [00:06:30] Tony Arsenal: So it's a cool technology. It's a, it's a sort of novel use for the technology. Um, again, Google has built in modules that do this, but I think you could probably use chat, GPT or Claude or Orrock or whatever AI model you're using to accomplish the same goal. [00:06:45] Jesse Schwamb: There's no doubt that AI is great for like building study notes, helping you create space, repetition, all those like little hacks that we have long talked about. [00:06:53] Jesse Schwamb: And this provides it to you in a really bespoke course customized way, but it gets you involved. I'm with you if you wanna do this the old fashioned way. I'll go back to something I I've affirmed with before and that's this very famous book originally authored in the 1940s called How to Read a Book by Mor Mortimer, j Adler, and that is an exercise. [00:07:13] Jesse Schwamb: Helping you do some of that stuff in real time as well. Yeah, so I think there'd be a lovely compliment to say you're reading actively and then you get to test immediately that active reading by way of using ai. So even before, like, maybe even just jumping to like, well, let me read it, but I'm, I'm gonna trust that AI's gonna really kind of supplement me or fill in the gaps and just gimme what I need to know. [00:07:33] Jesse Schwamb: Trying to do that in real time. Pausing in your reading. Again, kind of studying as you go along, thinking out loud through what you've just read and then saying, alright, now test me is a great way to, 'cause who wants to like read stuff unless you can remember this stuff and then unless you can apply it, right? [00:07:48] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. So it's such a joy to be able to read things and then to remember. And if you haven't had that experience yet, I like your affirmation. I think this is a great way to test it out. [00:07:56] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, just to maybe flesh this out. So I, I asked it to, and I'm, I'm doing this sort of as an experiment just to see how it works, but also just 'cause it's, it's useful. [00:08:06] Tony Arsenal: I asked it to act as a seminary lecturer and I copied and paste the entire first chapter of the Westminster Confession. And rather than split it up by section and actually combined paragraphs that were. Um, related to each other. So it combined the list of Bible, uh, books, and then the chapter on apocrypha and gave me some like lectures. [00:08:25] Tony Arsenal: But here's what it said about, um, about chapter 10. It says, paragraph 10, declares the supreme judge can be no other than the Holy Spirit speaking scripture. This is the ultimate outworking of sola Scripture, means that every other authority is lesser authority that must submit to the judgment of the word of God. [00:08:42] Tony Arsenal: This includes decrees of church counsels. Opinions of ancient writers, doctrines of men, private spirits. It goes on for a little while longer. Then it says, I will give you a brief final quiz covering the whole of chapter one, and it asks questions like A historian makes the following claim. The Bible only has authority. [00:08:59] Tony Arsenal: It does because influential councils in the early church, like the Council of Carthage officially voted on which books would be included in the cannon. The church therefore gave the Bible its authority drawing from your knowledge of paragraphs three, uh, three, four, and five. Provide a two-part critique of the historian statement. [00:09:16] Tony Arsenal: Which then I had to type it out. It critiqued, um, it analyzed my answer. Um, I happened to get that question right. I did at one point think maybe this is actually just like finding a way to say everything that I say is right. So I purposely put a wrong answer in and it did identify that the answer was wrong, and then it made me go back and revisit that content. [00:09:35] Tony Arsenal: So it's very, it's a very cool use case. I'm glad that Google kind of built this in. They have all sorts of other gems. If you have, if you have a way to get access to Google Gemini, um. It's not the best AI for everything, but it's got, it's pretty versatile. It's got a lot of utility, so check it out. [00:09:53] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, that sounds great. [00:09:53] Jesse Schwamb: Again, there's all kinds of fun things I think we could be using AI for to help us be better learners or to really enjoy our interaction with data and information more. Yeah. It is a really great way to conversationally help you to learn something, and that's what makes it so much better. It stands way far apart from, again, just leading, just reading or just creating flashcards or even just, just creating study notes, but that back and forth to test you on something, even if it's just like casual knowledge that you can really want to internalize. [00:10:21] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. I found that to be super valuable. Again, like, man, if you're a learner, if you're a reader, if you're a human being, what an amazing time to live in the world where data is so prevalent, but it's increasingly being brought into a place where we can put our arms around it in a way in which we're trying to really understand it. [00:10:38] Jesse Schwamb: You know, I think about how we used to search for something, I mean. Used to like this that like, that wasn't like last year. You know what I mean? Like we just go on to our, your favorite search engine. Type in a topic or maybe type in even a specific question. And at best you'd have to sort through this litany, this plethora, this morass of all these links about articles that may pertain to what you asked. [00:10:58] Jesse Schwamb: Or maybe they pertain to it generally, but not really specifically. Yeah. The specificity with which you can have a conversational interaction that engenders knowledge is wild. I mean, I really think that is like the huge play of ai. Just lean into it and enjoy it. [00:11:12] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. Jesse, what are you affirming or denying tonight? [00:11:16] Nasal Spray Affirmation [00:11:16] Jesse Schwamb: I'm going a totally different direction. It's an affirmation, but I'm taking it from my ears, nose, nose, and throat doctor who affirmed this to me, so I might be totally late on this. There are very few things that I can say like somebody's recommended to me or affirm. It's been like absolute game changer, like just drop dead from the first moment I used it or employed the thing that it just changed everything. [00:11:38] Jesse Schwamb: This is one of those things. Which maybe I've just already oversold, but the affirmation is with something called it's, it's spelled X-L-E-A-R, I think it's still pronounced clear, but it's called literally phonetically XL nasal spray, and it's a. This doesn't sound very exciting, but bear with me everybody. [00:11:57] Jesse Schwamb: It's a natural, non-addictive saline nasal spray featuring Zi Atol as its primary active ingredient. So if you're not familiar with Zi Atol, which I wasn't until I went to my ENT by the way I've seen for many years and only just recommended this to me. So I had some words 'cause I was working, where's this been all my life. [00:12:14] Jesse Schwamb: But Zito is a naturally occurring alcohol sugar. It's found in like many fruits and vegetables, and it can be commercially produced from like birch wine or corn fiber. It looks and tastes similar to like table sugar, but it contains fewer calories, so it can be used and is often used as like a sweetener in sugar-free foods like chewing gum, mint candies, jam, stuff like that. [00:12:35] Jesse Schwamb: Here's one of the strange side effects. That they notice though about Zi atol, and that is it totally, uh, cleanses, moisturizes and soos nasal passages. And it gives you all kinds of relief from like common congestion stuff like colds, allergies, low humidity, humidity, science, pressure, stuff like that. What it does is it actually breaks down or lubricates your inner nasal passages, including like flushing out the mucus. like it works actually with your body. So what's amazing is it's, it's really great for, it's kinda like a soap for the nose. It clears up bacteria, pollens, dander, molds, like all kinds of irritants. [00:13:14] Jesse Schwamb: It also studies have shown blocks, adhesion of other pathogens like bacterial, fungal, viral to the mucosal tissues, helping the body to wash them away. So [00:13:23] Jesse Schwamb: this thing is absolutely. Wild. And I can say for certain that if you're the kind of person like me, where let's say like you're, you're hitting the Flonase hard at different seasons because you got those seasonal allergies because of the fall and because sin is real. I'm with you. That dries out your nose. [00:13:42] Jesse Schwamb: This thing is like a, a sauna or a spa for your nose, and then it literally like clears everything out. It's almost magical. I, I'm serious. It's so fantastic. So if you've been looking for something to really help with that and it, again, it's safe. There's no drug in it. It's not addictive, so you can use it all the time. [00:13:58] Jesse Schwamb: It's just saline and zi etol. It is phenomenal. So go get yourself, do yourself a favor. Do, do your, do your nose and your sinuses a solid and, and get the solids outta them by using. X clear. I feel like a bat just flew by your face or like a giant bird. [00:14:17] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. So, uh, first of all, that sounds like a really great thing to check out. [00:14:22] Tony Arsenal: Is this clear stuff? Um, I have had struggles with like sinus infections over the last couple years, so I'm gonna check this out when it gets to allergy season in the fall year. [00:14:32] Hummingbird Moth Encounter [00:14:32] Tony Arsenal: But yes, uh, one of the rare, uh, moths that I've learned lives near my house is called a, uh, what's it called? Uh. It commonly, it's called like a hummingbird moth. [00:14:44] Tony Arsenal: Have you heard of these things? Yeah. Oh yeah. Um, I've never seen them before, but the reason they're called hummingbird moths is 'cause they look like hummingbirds, but they're actually moths and I right now. Hopefully this will change eventually, but. It will have to, 'cause it gets cold here. Um, I'm recording outside and a hummingbird moth literally just flew between my computer and my face. [00:15:05] Tony Arsenal: Um, I wasn't talking at the time so you wouldn't be able to see it on the screen, which is too bad. Uh, but yeah, Jesse saw me freak out a little bit, which is uh, which is fine. [00:15:16] Jesse Schwamb: It happened the [00:15:16] Tony Arsenal: first time I saw one. I was like, is that a huge bee? No, it's just a hummingbird broth. [00:15:21] Jesse Schwamb: Somebody, everybody should look them up though, because they're kind of wild looking. [00:15:25] Jesse Schwamb: Like if you've seen it in real life, they have that hummingbird pose where the body, body is kind of laid back and the wings are going crazy. Like they literally do hover like that. Yeah. And they're, they're almost that big. The one that tried to attack you there was pretty large. [00:15:38] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. They don't, um, they, they. [00:15:41] Tony Arsenal: Move a little different than hummingbirds, which is why the first time that I saw one, I thought it was a bee. Um, because when they, when they land on a flower, they crawl inside the flower the same way that a, like a bee or a bumblebee will, um, they don't hover outside the flower like a hummingbird, but they do. [00:15:57] Tony Arsenal: They, their body is, I mean, their body is probably an, an inch and a half long like a hummingbird. Um, and it's thick like a hummingbird. They don't look like moths at all. So I'm not sure they must be part of the Moth family, I guess. Um, I'm trying to remember. It's. They have like a specific name, I wanna say Scarab, but that's not right. [00:16:14] Tony Arsenal: But it's something like that is the, the technical name of it. They're like a scarab moth or something like that. But [00:16:20] Jesse Schwamb: yeah, I've just come up. It's a wild name. [00:16:22] Tony Arsenal: This is your top 50 Entomology, uh, podcast apparently. As well as the top 50 health cath. We're gonna, we're gonna uh, com combine the two tonight, so yeah, I'm gonna check that out in the, the spring or in the fall here, Jesse. [00:16:34] Tony Arsenal: My, my allergies always go a little bit crazy when we get to September. Yeah. With all the, like leaves falling down and crumbling up and stuff, it just gets in the air, so I'll just, I'll spray some artificial sugar. It's not artificial. I'll spray some pseudo sugar in my nose and see what happens. [00:16:48] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. It does have the added benefit that because it is a naturally occurring. [00:16:53] Jesse Schwamb: Sugar, like it's a type of sugar alcohol that if it drips down the back of your throat, all you get is a little like, mm, sweet. [00:17:03] Tony Arsenal: I wanna know who the first guy who was like, let me put some of this fake sugar in my nose and see what happens was it's, [00:17:09] Jesse Schwamb: I'm telling you, it, it's better than any actual, like, prescribed nasal spray I've ever taken. [00:17:15] Jesse Schwamb: You can get it like just at your g it. Yeah. Or you can get it on Amazon. I, I will, I forgot about it for a while. I, maybe I use it daily now it's become my go-to. But I mean, I don't wanna make this weird or gross, but it's the kind of thing like if you wake up in the morning and you're stuffy and you, it feels like somebody parked like a bus way up in your sinus cavity. [00:17:32] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. And you're like, I can't even blow my nose. There's nothing there where, where's all this stuff? There's nothing there. If you use this, when I use this within two, two, I'd say like seven minutes, I can just. Drop a huge load of mucus right outta my face and you feel like a million bucks. I don't know how to describe it. [00:17:49] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, it's like better than like a sinus rinse or a netty pot. I know this sounds wild, like I'm way too excited about this stuff, but that clear spray is wild. And what I especially love is that it's all natural, that I'm not doing any harm to my nose or my face by using it. And that it, I just feel better afterwards because it's like moisturized everything. [00:18:08] Jesse Schwamb: So, and there's, there's, the debate is I think ongoing. There's a lot apparently, because I went down the rabbit trail and looked at all these scholarly studies and peer-reviewed journal papers, all this stuff. There's a lot, I guess, uh, still somewhat in debate about like its ability to really help prevent certain things like COVID, any kind of like nasal airborne kind of like, yeah, because it helps to flush and it prevents literally bacteria from sticking, uh, inside your nasal passages. [00:18:34] Jesse Schwamb: So that could be a benefit. I can't say anything about that. I'm not a doctor. What, [00:18:40] Tony Arsenal: what I would love is, uh, if you are a listener who has seasonal allergies or whatever, uh, if you would join our telegram chat at t.me/reform brotherhood. Well done. We have what's normally a tastings channel, which is like people get like new foods they wanna check out, or a beer they like or whatever, and they'll, uh, they'll do a little tasting and a review. [00:19:04] Tony Arsenal: I would love if some people would join the channel and do some, some clear, clear. We'll go clear, uh, a tasting of this nasal spray. Yeah, please don't show us. 'cause that's disgusting. Right. But, uh, let us know. Let us know what you think of it. I think that'd be great. So that's t me slash Reform Brotherhood. [00:19:21] Jesse Schwamb: There you go. Come hang out with us. It's a lot of fun. I see we've had some people join that group this week, so I see you out there, brother Sean. Crushing it, getting in the mix. Welcome everybody. Come again. Spend a little time in there. And there's, I love that the channel for like the conversation about our episodes is. [00:19:37] Jesse Schwamb: Hot. It's going strong. I love that. And we gave the call last week. You should listen to last week's episode when we were really speaking about, uh, God's faithfulness and a challenge of how we seek after piety, under the care and the direction, the kind direction and the convicting influence of the Holy Spirit. [00:19:55] Jesse Schwamb: So many good things were said there. I really loved reading all those. And it probably goes without saying, but I'm gonna mention it anyway. You and I read everything that pops in there. Yeah. For the most part. I mean, sometimes I look at it and there's 150 messages, right? And um, it got wild. But I go back through and always, always read those. [00:20:10] Jesse Schwamb: But I especially love like the conversation when we invite people to say, like, now it's, we'd love to hear from you. And so I think that's gonna be a large part of what we talk about. On this episode as well. [00:20:20] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. So, Jesse, why don't you lead us in here. This was the topic you brought up. I think it's a great one. [00:20:25] Tony Arsenal: I'd love to to dive into it here. [00:20:27] Christian Vocation and Work [00:20:27] Jesse Schwamb: I think one of the things that Christians always have to come to terms with at some point, every generation has to, but every person as well is, so where is my role as Christ child in something we might generally call like Christian activism? By which I mean like, of course, like Christians. [00:20:44] Jesse Schwamb: Attempt to improve or influence society through time, especially in our work. And as I was thinking about this recently, I think one of the hard things we have to measure out is well. Are there different places where we would, there's certainly jobs where we say Christians shouldn't hold that position because it contravenes God's law directly. [00:21:05] Jesse Schwamb: But what about these kind of, as we've talked about before, this threefold responsibility that we have in our callings, which you can go back to our previous catalog, which is all in the reform brotherhood.com, by the way. Listen to where we talked about this idea of like the vocation that happens in our work, in our households, in our church, and is it possible that in the work sphere that there are jobs that like Christians just shouldn't hold because it takes them too far away from their responsibilities in the other two spheres, which there are equally parts of their vocation, or if we want to put like a really fine point in it, and I don't really mean to derail the conversation with this question, but this would be exemplifying kind of what we're after here, which was like, should Christians be involved and. [00:21:47] Jesse Schwamb: In politics, are there other jobs like that where we'd say, listen, we, we tr we trust God in his sovereign superintendent will that he's always doing his good work. And you and I have talked at length about what it means to be living in the, under the normal principle of God using ordinary, normal means to do great and extraordinary things. [00:22:06] Jesse Schwamb: So how does all of that fit with our work? Are there lines to be drawn or. Does it not really matter? [00:22:15] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, I mean, I think for the sake of our conversation, we can just sort of take some professions off the table. Right? Of course, there are some professions of course, and calling them professions is probably even, probably even a misnomer. [00:22:27] Tony Arsenal: But there are some ways to earn money that are just intrinsically sinful that are outside of the scope of the conversation, right? You can't, uh, there's no argument for a Christian to become like. An assassin or like a drug dealer or a prostitute, like, there's no, there's no valid argument or discussion to be had around those. [00:22:45] Tony Arsenal: So we can just exclude those entirely. But I think for, for the sake of this conversation, we're talking about professions that do not involve, intrinsically involve sin, um, and, and may or may not have, um. Prudential reasons why they are not the best idea. Right. So I, I'm thinking like, the one that came to mind when you asked this was like, and it's funny because I, um, I mentioned the topic to my wife and, you know, she kind of joked, I was like, well, yeah, like Christians can't be. [00:23:15] Tony Arsenal: Can't like be porn stars, like that's not something you can do as a Christian. But then, then I, she said, well, what, what other professions would it be? I said, well, like, like a professional football player, right? And like the question is like, can a Christian be a professional football player? I think instinctively, right? [00:23:29] Tony Arsenal: We all say yes. But, but is that actually true? Right. And, and I would, I would make the argument that no, like a Christian can't be a professional football player or really, really any kind of professional sports, um, figure because it, it necessarily takes you away from the gathered fellowship of Christians on the Lord's day on far too often a basis. [00:23:47] Tony Arsenal: Right? I don't think you can make a good prudential argument to say like, well. It's fine for a Christian to be absent from the lord's uh, Lord's Day worship in his congregation of membership, you know, 60% of the time. Like, I just don't think you can make that argument. So I think in a lot of these cases, the immediate instinctive answer is yes. [00:24:07] Tony Arsenal: Uh. Christians can be part of any profession, and there's a certain, there's a certain way that that's true, but when we actually start to look at the way some professions actually play out, we have to analyze that a lot deeper. And this is actually not all that different than our conversation last week. [00:24:23] Tony Arsenal: Right. Involving like a. Pop culture and like media consumption is we have to look at what is actually, what the actual cost is. Uh, opportunity cost, I guess if we want to use like economic terms, what the actual opportunity cost is here of a particular profession in respect of. Our obligations and our commitments as a Christian and our obligation to the law of God, our obligation to our Christian brothers and sisters, all of that. [00:24:49] Tony Arsenal: So I think this is gonna be a great conversation. I'm excited to get into it. Um, but I do think it's one that we should think through a little bit more than just sort of like our gut reaction. Like we, of course, Christians can be involved in any profession. [00:25:00] Jesse Schwamb: Let me add to that. 'cause that's perfect. That's exactly, you're not on the same page as usual. [00:25:04] Jesse Schwamb: That's exactly where my mind was going. And what makes like this such a rich opportunity to really explore what the scripture has to say about this particular topic? I think you're right on that we need to weigh out, which we often just kind of glance over. What are the other responsibilities by taking on a particular line of work or job. [00:25:20] Jesse Schwamb: Does that necessarily mean that we must sacrifice and preclude these other areas? We should have direct or more intimate involvement because that is also part of vocation. Part of that, like we've talked about at length before, is responsibility in the Lord's day. So we might set that up as one particular test. [00:25:36] Jesse Schwamb: To that end, another one might be exactly what you were saying. So here's like the opposite of like the professional footballer or American football or whatever. Pick your, pick your sports. What about like high level? High responsibility, let's say leadership positions like in all kinds of areas of industry that would require the man or the woman to, let's say, like be on call continually, or maybe to sacrifice long hours at that job as part and parcel of what's required to do it effectively. [00:26:04] Jesse Schwamb: And that might mean that necessarily like not being very connected with family or having to be away from their family a lot of the time. I think what we often come to is this idea that, wouldn't it be great if Christians were just everywhere and were infiltrating all the things all the time at all the levels. [00:26:21] Jesse Schwamb: I think the question here that's under the surface is, is that what God assigns in a life of vocation? And maybe it's, it's of course more nuance than that and it could be for the person. Again, I wanna be clear that, like we said before, vocation is a very specific and narrow term in that we're talking about an actual calling being called out for a particular purpose. [00:26:42] Jesse Schwamb: And if we're using that in the right way, then it's possible that with the exception of some things like the Lord's Day, the other thing I just talked about, season of life. And your particular commitments or entanglements, they might be different from person to person. Therefore, allow for a direct call that God gives to a particular purpose at a particular time. [00:27:01] Jesse Schwamb: I think what I'm really kind of weighing out here is if we understand how the reformers viewed all of this. We have to come to this conclusion that God assigns us a life and then God calls us to that life. And that really is what vocation is all about. And notice in that there's nothing that's said about choosing a vocation or finding your true vocation or being fulfilled even in your vocation. [00:27:24] Jesse Schwamb: We may experience a struggle with all of that, but vocation is fundamentally God's doing. So what is. God doing in our society. And as you said, are there roles that he's, in a way not calling, let's say like the, the quintessential or the normative, I don't wanna say average 'cause that implies the weird thing, but Right. [00:27:44] Jesse Schwamb: Kind of Christian too. And I think. We've gotta, we've gotta wrestle with that because you're right. Like we too often just run to, we need Christians in all the places now let's get them everywhere. Doing all the things. Yeah. And that might be good from our perspective, because Christians should be the best workers as we said that we should. [00:28:01] Jesse Schwamb: The most kind. There is the salt in lights everywhere. However, it takes a Christian to do all those things. And can a Christian in certain roles have great fidelity to the threefold? [00:28:13] Exploring the Theology of Work and the Lord's Day [00:28:13] Jesse Schwamb: Calling and vocation of life while upholding certain jobs and responsibilities. [00:28:19] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. You know, I think, um, I think that may be like a little bit of progam is, is warranted here too. [00:28:26] Tony Arsenal: Like there, you know, there's the, the, the conversation at the top of like, some, some professions are just out of bounds. Yeah. Um, but there's also, you know, a pretty robust theology. And I think a lot of this is gonna center around. Uh, maybe just for simplicity's sake and for the fact that we have 30 minutes left of a conversation that probably could be multiple hours, um, there's a pretty robust apparatus in reform theology that is designed to help Christians understand whether or not, um. [00:28:57] Tony Arsenal: A particular activity is acceptable on the Lord's day. And we've, we've had conversations in the past about like, if, if all of your theology of the Lord's Day is about what you can and can't do, then you're missing the point entirely. [00:29:11] Jesse Schwamb: That's right. [00:29:11] Tony Arsenal: But there is an element of what you can and can't do in terms of understanding the Lord's day. [00:29:16] Tony Arsenal: Right. We're, we're not supposed to engage in worldly recreation or employment on the Lord's day. So we have to talk about what that means. And so I think. [00:29:24] Works of Necessity and Charity on the Lord's Day [00:29:24] Tony Arsenal: I think to start with, like there's categories, like works of necessity, works of charity, um, that, or, or like works of ministry, which would, would sort of be a third category that's not necessarily, um, not necessarily enumerated in many of the sources, but it's assumed that like pastors who are working on the Lord's day are not, they're not violating the Sabbath by doing the work on the Sabbath. [00:29:47] Tony Arsenal: Um, I think we have to have those categories. 'cause I think that helps us inform too, like. If you are the CEO of a major retailer, does that mean you have to work on Sunday, right? Well, probably it does. Like, it probably means that on a regular basis you're gonna be checking emails on your phone, you're gonna be taking phone calls. [00:30:05] Tony Arsenal: You've got, you might have partners in markets overseas where it, it's Sunday morning for you, but it's Monday afternoon or you know, Monday morning for them or something like that. Um. I think that the industry you're in largely is going to drive whether that's an acceptable or, or an appropriate role for you. [00:30:24] Tony Arsenal: So I could see a situation where you could make the argument that being the CEO of a of a major medical center, right. Where the work that's being done at the medical center falls easily within that sort of definition of, uh, works of necessity. A nurse who is working in the emergency room or a police officer or a firefighter or somebody who is fixing the power, like in our society, right? [00:30:47] Tony Arsenal: Electricity is, is not an option for most people. It's not a, it's not a luxury for most people. So those, those professions. It's acceptable to work on the Lord's Day when it's a work of necessity, and so the higher level leadership positions that make those possible and constrain them also, I think. Would fall under that same work of necessity. [00:31:06] Tony Arsenal: If the CEO of my hospital, I don't know if she's a Christian or not. I, I'm, I'm not speculating on that, but if, if the CEO of my hospital was a Christian or is a Christian and she has to take an important phone call on Sunday morning and miss the Lord's day because if she doesn't take care of that, the hospital's not gonna function correctly and people may not have emergency services. [00:31:26] Tony Arsenal: I don't think that's a violation of the south principle. If the same scenario is happening and it's the CEO of Best Buy and they need to take a phone call, otherwise people won't be able to buy widgets on Sunday afternoon, that's a different calculation. So I think like right off the bat, we have to start having those conversations about what's the nature of the work, what's the, what's the tell loss of the work or the end aim of the work. [00:31:46] Tony Arsenal: That's really important as well. [00:31:48] Balancing Professional Responsibilities and Christian Obligations [00:31:48] Jesse Schwamb: So it sounds like though what we're saying, both of us in a way, is that if you run that test, so to speak, like you go through that algorithm and you come out with this idea that you know, it's, you're saying your industry is more like Best Buy and less like your local hospital, then there might be significant and maybe insurmountable roadblocks to taking that position Should be as a c. [00:32:08] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, I mean, that's kinda what we're saying. [00:32:10] Tony Arsenal: Oh yeah, for sure. And you know, like this is a real world application I think for a lot of people. I remember when I was in college, um, I had the opportunity to take a promotion. I worked at Best Buy. I, I'm not using Best Buy as an example for any specific reason, but I worked at Best Buy. [00:32:23] Tony Arsenal: I worked in the Geek Squad area and I had the opportunity to take a promotion. Um, and the sort of the strings that came with the promotion is that I was expected to be available to work on Sundays. I didn't have a super robust doctrine of the Lord's Day at the time. Like I wasn't super theologically versed on Sabbath theology and stuff. [00:32:39] Tony Arsenal: Um, but it just didn't sit right with me. And so initially I didn't take the, I didn't take the, um, promotion because I didn't feel comfortable saying at the time, it was mostly about like, I'm not gonna miss the church service. I didn't feel comfortable saying I need to be available. And that might mean I Ms. [00:32:57] Tony Arsenal: Church to, to be able to take this shift. Um, eventually the management adapted and said, well, we'll just figure out something else. We really want you to take the position, but that's the kind of question we have to ask. And then that same question, as you move up in an organization, it expands and you're more likely to need to be drawn away from Lord State worship or just general. [00:33:19] Tony Arsenal: Obligations on the Lord's Day. [00:33:20] Personal Experiences and Real-World Applications [00:33:20] Tony Arsenal: And I don't wanna make this entirely about the Lord's Day 'cause there are other obligations that Christians have and it probably will be interesting to get to those. But I think, um, the, the other thing maybe that I wanna push back on a little bit too is I. I, I've never been a CEO. [00:33:34] Tony Arsenal: I probably never will be a CEO. You're far closer to a CEO than I ever will be. But I think a lot of times we assume those positions have no flexibility. Right. But in reality, some of those people are absolutely able to say, I'm gonna take, I'm gonna take Sunday, and just not. Yes, I'm not gonna do work on Sunday. [00:33:52] Tony Arsenal: I'm gonna delegate that. You know? And then this is a whole other question. I'm gonna delegate that to someone else. Well, there's a whole different question that comes with that, but saying like, I'm just not going to do work on Sunday is actually within the options for a lot of positions. So that's the other question is when we take a position, do we have the option to set aside the Lord's Day? [00:34:11] Tony Arsenal: Even if we might acknowledge that occasionally, that's not gonna work out. There are oftentimes in all of our lives that we're drawn away from being able to fulfill our ordinary obligation of the Lord's Day, and I don't think that that's intrinsically sinful. If on a rare occasion you're not able to attend the Lord's Day worship or something like that. [00:34:29] Tony Arsenal: So I think those are questions we have to ask. Then what? What kind of other Christian obligations do we have? And this is hypothetical, but you're welcome to answer if you've got one in mind. Like what other kinds of Christian obligations do we have that any particular vocation or particular job might make difficult or impossible to fulfill? [00:34:47] Tony Arsenal: I think those are questions we have to ask. [00:34:49] Jesse Schwamb: I'm with you. And that's actually more where my mind goes because again, we've talked before and for some Christians it's easier to identify the stuff that certainly explicitly contravenes the Lord's Day. And I think it's more difficult to say like we, again, I think we talked before about that threefold responsibility and the vocation that is to like work that is like our industry, so to speak, and then to our household, then to our church. [00:35:10] Jesse Schwamb: So the church often does. Again, in a very finely pointed way, connect very tightly with the Lord. Say what about that household stuff? Yeah. So what about these jobs that would just make you too busy? And I think like what's interesting to your point is I agree. Like I think part of this conversation is just a thoughtful assessment of what the job entails, and then even as like maybe you're taking a job or considering a job. [00:35:33] Jesse Schwamb: Having a conversation with your potential employer about what opportunity is there for flexibility given like certain convictions that you have? All of that could fall into place neatly and I think would still be within the bounds of yes, but I think part of this is if it's truly a calling that we, we have to be praying through it and assessing whether God is calling us through that. [00:35:50] Jesse Schwamb: Part of that is passing it through the sin of what the scriptures require in each of those threefold vocational responsibilities. So sometimes I hear there is like a pushback or counter, this argument says, but wouldn't it be better? [00:36:01] The Role of Christians in Leadership Positions [00:36:01] Jesse Schwamb: Wouldn't it be fantastic if you get a Christian as an opportunity to be a CEO? [00:36:05] Jesse Schwamb: Isn't it better for them to be a CEO and to be in that role, even if they're crazy busy, even if they're sacrificing so much for their family, for their household or for the church because they simply, they're gonna be a Christian and think of the role model and the emphasis and the impact they can have. [00:36:19] Jesse Schwamb: And to that, I would say we gotta be really careful with that loved ones because God, I don't think God's calling us to necessarily have outside impact. What he's calling us to is, is faithfulness. Invocation, invocation pulls us back into those three responsibilities, and we know the way in which God prefers to work His jam is these ordinary means, these natural ways of in the normative work of our lives and faithfulness showing that his power is demonstrated in this weakness. [00:36:44] Jesse Schwamb: Somehow we're back to the theology of. Glory and theology of cross. But you know, it's interesting to me that there are no calls like in the entire scriptures, of course, to withdraw into like a private ghetto or to take back the realms of cultural and political activity. And so I think we have to be really careful about even how we kind of pull that into then how. [00:37:03] Jesse Schwamb: Our jobs that like, shouldn't it be my goal as a Christian to get as most influence as possible? And I think I wanna push back on that and say like, you know, the, the church, the Christian exists within the world as a community of word and sacrament. But it doesn't always have to seek influence in larger society. [00:37:19] Jesse Schwamb: It can. It can. And when God provides the opportunity by way of clear calling, I think internal and external that is appropriate. However, often that calling is gonna come at a much more normative level, I think. And, and I do not believe that we are somehow compromising or sub-optimizing the work that God does in the world merely because we might have a Christian that says, I don't know if it's right for me to be in this leadership role, and therefore a unbeliever is going to vault above that person's speaker or take that role on that somehow. [00:37:51] Jesse Schwamb: Again, God's superintendent will, or his strong arm is, is somehow pulled aback from what he wants to do that we need like more Christian plumbing in the world. I do kind of bristle that idea a little bit. Specifically because I wonder if sometimes we go outside of that calling. [00:38:08] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, I, I'm picking up what you're putting down and I think, I think there's, um, it, it does all come back to theology, the cross theology of glory. [00:38:17] Tony Arsenal: And I'm glad that, that, that conversation happened before this. 'cause I think there's good framework there. I, I think, um, we, we as Christians can often confuse. The transformative power of the gospel with other ways of transforming culture. Yeah, that's good. Right. So, um, it is totally, um, I wanna be careful how I phrase this. [00:38:42] Tony Arsenal: I'm not post mill, I'm probably never gonna be post mill, but I'm okay with a kind of post mill theology that says that the gospel of Jesus Christ, as people become Christians, the culture will. Change along with that. And the gospel has a transformative power in that it changes individuals and individuals make up, make up the broader society. [00:39:05] Tony Arsenal: And so the society itself changes. Where I struggle with some flavors of postal theology, and this is where I think the theology of glory comes in, is there are some kinds of postal theology I'm thinking, I'm thinking, um, like Doug Wilson, they just, uh, opened A-C-R-A-C church in Washington, DC specifically with the goal of gaining influence with politicians. [00:39:26] Tony Arsenal: Right. I might be misconstruing that a little bit 'cause I haven't read all of it, but that's, that's the impression that I'm getting from some of their promotional material. I, I think we can, we can look at it and say the gospel can change culture as the gospel. And so where that. [00:39:43] Sacrifices and Priorities in Christian Vocation [00:39:43] Tony Arsenal: Levels of playing field is that whether you are, and this is where I think a genuine Protestant reform theology of vocation comes in, whether you're the janitor of the hospital or whether you're the CEO of the hospital, the gospel is the same and your role in proclaiming the gospel is the same. [00:39:58] Tony Arsenal: And you might have more people's ear as the CEO than you do as the janitor. Although I would maybe question that knowing how many people janitors interact with at the hospital, um, you may have more people's ears in a higher level position, but the message that you're proclaiming, the influence that you're wielding or you're using, I don't know what you wanna say. [00:40:18] Tony Arsenal: It's not different because it's still just the gospel. [00:40:21] Jesse Schwamb: That's good. [00:40:21] Tony Arsenal: Um. Where I think we can get confused is when we look at it and say, but we have these other opportunities to transfer, transform the culture by, um, for example, I, I'm the supervisor in my patient relations department. I'm making changes to the, to the policy and the way that we as a sort of service recovery resolution group, the way that we interact with patients, I'm making changes to that. [00:40:46] Tony Arsenal: I think those changes are consistent with the law of God as revealed in the light of nature, and I'm. I'm informed of those things and my whole outlook and ethos is shaped by the scriptures, but. I don't see the transformation of the way we interact with patients as somehow propagating the gospel, right? [00:41:05] Tony Arsenal: So we can, we can make transformation and make society better, right? If you're a politician, you can, you can legislate things that make society more outwardly in conformity with the law of God or more pleasant and more prosperous, and more flourishing, and those are all fine and well, but that's not. [00:41:21] Tony Arsenal: Building the kingdom of God in, in a strict sense. Right? And so I think what we're getting at is our, would it be great if, if, you know, the CEO of a major Fortune 500 company could be a Christian? Yeah. That would be kind of cool. Sure of That'd be nice, of course. And yeah, they could probably do a lot of good things and they could probably shape the way that that business runs and they could probably, um, have more opportunities to share the gospel. [00:41:42] Tony Arsenal: They could probably shape their business into a vehicle that, that moves forward. Missions, all those things are great, but. If the trade off is that that person has to sacrifice their genuine Christian convictions, right? That's not worth it. And I think we, we look at this and we might be able to identify certain. [00:42:00] Tony Arsenal: Obvious ways that we would say, no, it's not worth it. Right? If a CEO, uh, the CEO of a major retailer has to give way to all of the, um, transgender LGBT sexual, you know, identity politics has to give way to that in order to survive as CEO, I think we would all look at that and go, yeah, it's probably a hard sacrifice, but that's a sacrifice we would expect a genuine Christian to make at that level. [00:42:25] Tony Arsenal: Where we might not look at it is saying, well, I don't know. The Bible says that if you don't properly care for your family, then you're worse than an unbeliever. That's right. And so that CEO that is at the office for 70 hours a week and is never home, um, and their kids don't, you know, their kids don't have an opportunity to know their father or their mother because their. [00:42:44] Tony Arsenal: Constantly jet setting around the world. I don't know that we would as readily identify that as a sacrifice. I would actually argue that, that the Bible is probably clearer about that being a problem than it is about identity politics or other sort of, of social issues that, that, uh, a business person might have to. [00:43:04] Tony Arsenal: Hold their nose a little bit and, and, you know, sign off on a commercial or something that they don't necessarily want to, I'm not advocating that they should do that, but I think the Bible is clearer about a person who is taken away from their home more than is reasonable and more than is healthy for their family. [00:43:20] Tony Arsenal: Or a Christian who never is able to worship on the Lord's day, um, or, or something like that. I think the Bible is clearer about that than it is on. Something like identity politics and some of the tangential ways that, that might, might cause a person to need to compromise a little bit at a high level. [00:43:35] Tony Arsenal: So I, I think this is a, it's an interesting question that we probably don't think about it from the right angle most of the time. [00:43:41] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, it's just too easy to consider this in light of if we can get more responsibility, that should always be a good thing. And I think that proclivity is, is fine and maybe even noble, but sometimes I think we do get it twisted where we get this sense that we are trying to make the world into something moral like the church. [00:43:57] Jesse Schwamb: And if we could do that in our jobs and get the most influence in that greatest sphere of impact. We should always take on those additional responsibilities. And I do think we have to sit back and ask and say, is that the calling? So that we're pursuing what is our vocation, not just our potential. [00:44:13] Jesse Schwamb: There's a lot of brilliant, God has made all kinds of brilliant people. Many of them are his children, and as a result of that, we might say like we should always again be trying to move up. And this is not to say that we shouldn't take great initiative, that we shouldn't want to try to do more and be more productive. [00:44:27] Jesse Schwamb: You and I have always been outspoken about that kind of thing, but I think there is a real temptation. To somehow say like, what we need to do is like to infiltrate in all the places. And I think what we mean by that is that things will, like, whether we wanna admit it or not, that things here will be better. [00:44:41] Jesse Schwamb: And I, I don't know all the time that what we're saying is what you just said, which was that what we're really concerned with is that the gospel get proclaimed more forthrightly. More loudly, more specifically, more cogently in all places. But that if we just had good examples of moral behavior and good character, yes, those things are profitable in and of their own ways, but there's also a lot of common grace we see God bring about good leaders who are not a Christian at high level to do that kind of thing. [00:45:05] Jesse Schwamb: And sometimes I do wonder, just depending on the job, quite honestly, whether it's really possible for Christian to be successful in that job. [00:45:14] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. [00:45:14] Jesse Schwamb: As like the world or the industry or the company has defined it. I'm not sure that's the case, so I don't wanna put like too high a line on this. I think we're trying to just drop a bomb in some ways and say, I'm not gonna make it overly prescriptive and say like, as a Christian, you can't be a CEO. [00:45:29] Jesse Schwamb: Move on. That's not true at all. Of course, again, here are hopefully what we said about the particulars of that wrestling through it and again. Really sensing where there's an actual call on your life that God has given for that role in a particular time. But I do think we ought to question where there's always and everywhere appropriate for any Christian to take on, quite frankly, any job. [00:45:51] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. And so I'm with you. Sometimes it's super easy when I first start out in banking, when I was looking for my second banking job. I had a great interview. It was a very nice company. The bank actually doesn't exist anymore, but, uh, one of the things, one of their big, like, kind of gimmicks was they were open seven days a week. [00:46:09] Jesse Schwamb: And so I said to them, well. I attend church on Sundays. That's my day of rest and my high conviction on that. And I said, is there any flexibility with that? And they said, Nope. You would still have to be on the schedule. And though they very graciously offered me the job, I was thankfully in a place where I, I turned that down. [00:46:26] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. Actually I didn't have a job at the time, but I turned it down trusting. That God would provide. And this wasn't my great act of faith on my part. It was more of just, I think what you were saying, Tony, growing in our conviction that those things really do matter. Yes. And that it's sometimes just too easy to kind of push them aside and say, I, I know it's gonna be really stressful. [00:46:43] Jesse Schwamb: I know it might take much more of my time than I want to give. I know I might be at home a lot less. I know I might have less like attentional fortitude and space to think about my spouse or my children, but it's gonna be worth it because. I'll be able to like have this big influence. I do think sometimes madness lies that way. [00:47:02] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. Certainly a great deal of foolishness. This is just hopefully a call for all of us as God's children to, to think through that. I don't wanna discourage anybody from taking on bigger and bolder things for the kingdom of God. I think we all have to think about what it is that we're. Promulgating or proclaiming when we talk about the Kingdom of God coming and whether or not we're just trying to make the world a better place, so to speak. [00:47:26] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. By bringing our like quote unquote Christian influence into a setting where really that influence is now particularly strong and what it's actually compromising is the vocation that we're meant to undertake. [00:47:37] Concluding Thoughts and Future Discussions [00:47:37] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Are you ready to, for me to drop two bombs? Just, just straight up. You got, [00:47:41] Jesse Schwamb: you got two of them. [00:47:42] Jesse Schwamb: Let's do it. I, I've [00:47:43] Tony Arsenal: got 13 minutes or less left on this episode. There go. So I actually got into a pretty big, uh, like a pretty big dust up with someone way back in the day when I was in the reform hub over actually this topic. And I'm surprised I didn't think of it earlier in the evening. Um, we are using like CEOs as like kind of the proxy for this, but there's all sorts of jobs where, um, your, your job may be admirable and it may be. [00:48:06] Tony Arsenal: Right. Even something that's sort of quote unquote necessary for society. But I got into a big dust up with someone who was an overroad trucker, right? And they were constantly, um, posting in the pub at, at back in the day. They were constantly posting how discouraged they were and, and how difficult their faith was and how much of a challenge it was to just remain faithful as a Christian. [00:48:27] Tony Arsenal: And I. Originally, I kind of naively and, and I think innocently said like, well, you know, like, have you talked to your pastor about this? And the person said like, well, I don't have a regular church because I'm always on the road. And I said like, well, there's your problem. Like there's the first step is like, figure out your local church thing. [00:48:43] Tony Arsenal: He said, well, I can't do that

What does it take to move from disconnection to true wholeness?

Singapore shares dipped today amid a mixed session in Asia. The Straits Times Index was down 0.05% at 4,241.38 points at 2.28pm Singapore time, with a value turnover of S$789.47M seen in the broader market. In terms of counters to watch for today, we have Prudential, after the firm’s new business profit rose to US$1.26 billion for its first half ended Jun 30, from US$1.12 billion in the year-ago period. Elsewhere, from how US President Donald Trump’s 50% tariffs on Indian goods came into effect today, to a lookahead to Nvidia’s earnings due overnight, more international and corporate headlines remained in focus. On Market View, Money Matters’ finance presenter Chua Tian Tian unpacked the developments with Jeremy Tan, CEO, Tiger Fund Management.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the fourth episode of our new mini-series covering UK cryptoasset regulation Jonathan Herbst, Hannah Meakin and Charlotte Carnegie discuss the FCA's proposed prudential requirements.

Dziwny ten Marek Bardoński. Nie lubi drogich samochodów, nie przepada za rozgłosem, starannie i z rozmysłem dobiera sobie klientów. Wydawać by się mogło, że jego sposób działania idzie pod prąd wszystkim trendom współczesnego świata.A mimo to nasz rozmówca osiągnął niezaprzeczalny sukces. Jego AI REV wykorzystuje tzw. subtelne sygnały sprzedażowe, by oferować swoim klientom jeszcze lepsze dotarcie do klientów i możliwość skuteczniejszego dopięcia kontaktu. W rozwoju swojej spółki oraz oferty Marek wykorzystuje wcześniejsze 15-letnie doświadczenie w obszarze zastosowań przetwarzania języka naturalnego i analizy predykcyjnej dla działów marketingu i sprzedaży międzynarodowych korporacji.NASA, Microsoft, Nvidia, Prudential czy Novartis – to kilka firm, z którymi współpracował nasz gość.Właśnie o tym, w jaki sposób Marek osiągnął taki sukces jest nasz podcast. Ale rozmowa na tym się nie kończy. Dotykamy też tematów filantropii - wątku bardzo rzadko poruszanego w startupowym ekosystemie. Założyciel AI REV opracował autorski program edukacji dla młodzieży z krajów rozwijających się. I z powodzeniem ów program wdraża.

From our CRE As A Strategy Leader Thought Leader Partner, Cushman and Wakefield. This conversation with Despina Katsikakis, Carol Wong, and Prudential External Link's Sheela Parakkal explores how corporate real estate and HR can join forces to create people-centric workplaces that drive engagement, well-being and performance. They dive into strategies for aligning real estate with employee needs and embedding culture into workplace design to boost productivity and deliver long-term business value. Their conversation offers fresh insights to help you reimagine your workplace strategy and create spaces that empower both your people and your business.

Today as part of the Tales of a Nuffield Scholar podcast which aims to share the stories of Nuffield UK Alumni, we welcome Rob Ward — entrepreneur, innovator, and agri-tech visionary.Rob's story begins on a tenanted family farm in Shropshire where early lessons in strawberries and supermarket selling taught him resilience and strategy. From handing out pick-your-own baskets to selling tech globally, Rob's journey is a masterclass in reinvention.

China's insurance market has emerged as the second-largest in the world and is on pace to become the largest worldwide by the 2030s. In the seventh episode of Skadden's yearlong podcast series on global prudential solvency requirements, host Robert Chaplin and Skadden colleague Feargal Ryan explore China's regulatory transformation from a centralized state monopoly to a sophisticated risk-based system. They highlight the establishment of the National Financial Regulatory Administration, the implementation of the China Risk-Oriented Solvency System (C-ROSS) and Shanghai's recent growth as an international reinsurance hub.

This podcast explores the legal concept of standing, which dictates who is eligible to bring a lawsuit before a court. They highlight that standing typically requires a concrete, particularized injury that is traceable to the defendant's actions and redressable by a court, as emphasized in U.S. federal law. However, the articles also discuss challenges and criticisms of this doctrine, including concerns about limiting access to justice for public interest issues, inconsistent applications in various legal contexts like reproductive rights or anti-corruption efforts, and the debate around third-party or public interest standing in different jurisdictions. Potential solutions are also considered, such as using institutional plaintiffs or expanding standing through legislative action.The fundamental purpose of the standing doctrine is to limit federal courts to adjudicating "cases or controversies" involving actual injuries. It upholds the separation of powers by preventing courts from issuing advisory opinions or overstepping into political or hypothetical grievances."Injury-in-fact" requires a plaintiff to show they have suffered a concrete and particularized harm that is actual or imminent. "Concrete" means the injury is real, even if intangible (like reputational harm), while "particularized" means it affects the plaintiff individually, not merely as part of the general public.The "causation" element ensures the alleged injury is directly attributable to the defendant's conduct, and not to actions by independent third parties not involved in the case. This establishes a clear and logical link, preventing speculative claims where the defendant's role in the harm is unclear."Redressability" means it must be likely that a favorable court decision will remedy the plaintiff's injury. It does not require that the court's judgment completely eliminate the harm; incremental redress is sufficient to satisfy this requirement.Prudential standing requirements are judicially created limits on federal court jurisdiction, such as prohibitions on third-party standing or generalized grievances. Unlike the constitutional elements, Congress can modify or override these prudential doctrines through legislation.The general rule is that federal taxpayers do not have standing to challenge government expenditures based solely on their taxpayer status because the injury is too speculative and widely shared. A narrow exception exists for challenges under the Establishment Clause to specific congressional taxing and spending measures.Associational standing allows an organization to sue on behalf of its members if its members would individually have standing, the interests are relevant to the organization's purpose, and the claim or relief does not require individual member participation. This enables collective representation for shared harms within a group.TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez clarified that for intangible harms to be "concrete," they must have a "close historical or common-law analogue." This limits Congress's ability to define new intangible harms for standing purposes, leading to continued ambiguity and circuit splits on how to apply this historical analogy test.State standing is often easier to establish due to the "special solicitude" afforded to states as sovereigns and their broad array of proprietary and quasi-sovereign interests. States can sue parens patriae to protect the health and well-being of their residents, unlike private citizens who must show a particularized injury.Qui tam actions allow private individuals (relators) to sue on behalf of the federal government for injuries suffered by the government, often in exchange for a financial reward. This expands standing by effectively assigning the government's injury-in-fact to the relator, rooted in a long historical practice.

When you're heading up brand and creative for a global financial services powerhouse, complexity is part of the job. But what happens when you choose to meet that complexity with clarity and a human-first mindset? In this episode of The CMO Show, Bridget Esposito, VP and Head of Creative & Brand at Prudential, shares how she's helping a 150-year-old company stay relevant in a fast-moving, tech-driven world.   Her approach is grounded in storytelling and simplicity. But it's not just about the message, it's about the mechanics. Bridget's leadership style is all about thinking like a conductor, bringing together people, platforms and processes to create harmony across the business. Whether it's aligning cross-functional teams, engaging senior stakeholders or integrating new technologies, her focus is on unifying everyone around a shared goal.  Tune in to hear how Bridget navigates the challenges of scale, legacy and transformation and why embracing risk and building strong relationships are essential to modern marketing.    The CMO Show is produced by ImpactInstitute, in partnership with Adobe. www.impactinstitute.com.au | https://business.adobe.com/au

In this episode of The Team Around the Table, we explore how corporate real estate and HR can join forces to create people-centric workplaces that drive engagement, well-being and performance. Cushman & Wakefield's Despina Katsikakis, Global Lead, Total Workplace, Global Occupier Services, and Carol Wong, APAC Lead, Total Workplace, Global Occupier Services, team up with Prudential's Sheela Parakkal, Group Head of Talent, Leadership, Learning and Culture and Regional CHRO, Prudential plc., to discuss how the power of intentional leadership, wellbeing ecosystems, and purpose-driven design to create spaces where employees thrive. Sheela introduces Prudential's innovative "well-being ecosystem," which integrates safety, belonging and self-leadership into workplace strategy. Building on this, Carol shares data-driven insights from Cushman & Wakefield's Experience per Square FootTM (XSF) survey, highlighting the critical role of choice in employee satisfaction. The conversation also delves into intentional leadership, the evolving purpose of the office, and how thoughtful design can reflect and reinforce company values.  This episode is a must-listen for anyone looking to bridge the gap between people and place to drive long-term business value.

Fundi Tshazibana – CEO, Prudential Authority SAfm Market Update - Podcasts and live stream

This evening we dive into market movements with Rand Swiss, we speak to the Prudential Authority about its role in managing SA's financial system, PwC discusses SA exports to the US taking a dive ahead of Trump's tariff deadline, we speak to Bowmans about whether employers can hold former employees to a ‘restraint of trade' clause, and we speak to PPS about insurance risks you should know about before buying a second-hand car. SAfm Market Update - Podcasts and live stream

In the latest episode of Skadden's yearlong podcast series on global prudential solvency requirements, host Rob Chaplin and colleague Chiara Iorizzo explore regulatory capital in the United States, one of the largest insurance markets in the world. They discuss how the insurance industry is regulated across the country, as well as how the National Association of Insurance Commissioners operates and interacts with state-level regulators. They also review how solvency capital is calculated in the U.S. and how companies licensed in multiple states must adhere to relevant laws in each jurisdiction, among other topics.

Steven Cress, Seeking Alpha's VP of Quantitative Strategy, on this very volatile year (1:15). Strategies employed in quant; top 10 picks' track record (14:00). Why Barclays is a Strong Buy (31:15). Pick #2, Prudential out of Asia (34:00). FinVolution, pick #3 (36:55). Power Solutions, pick #4 (38:40). Picks 5&6: New Gold and Gold Fields (42:10). Picks #7-10 (45:20). This is an excerpt from Top Stocks For H2 2025.Get 20% off Alpha Picks and PRO Quant Portfolio!Show Notes:Steven Cress' Top 2025 StocksMacro Outlook For H2 2025 With Dr. David KellySix Barbell Picks For A Turbulent MarketEpisode transcriptFor full access to analyst ratings, stock quant scores and dividend grades, subscribe to Seeking Alpha Premium at seekingalpha.com/subscriptions

In this episode, I sit down with Eric Forte—owner and operator of Prudential Borrowing out in Long Island. We chop it up about the current state of the lending business, where interest rates are headed, and how Eric has navigated the industry over the years. From the early days to big plans for expansion (and yes, even boat clubs), Eric's got a lot in motion and plenty of gems to share. Tune in for real talk on real estate, lending, and leveling up.

This episode is sponsored by ‘Deel: Your Forever People Platform'.Managing a global team is complex. Deel makes it simpler with payroll, HR, IT, and compliance—all in one place. That's why over 35,000 businesses trust Deel to hire, pay, and manage teams worldwide.See how Deel works: https://www.deel.com/nickday/?utm_medium=podcast&utm_source=nickday&utm_campaign=emea-t1a-gb_aware_branding_nickday_podcast_hr-nickday-h125_all_all&utm_content=aware_all_podcast_hr-preroll-h125script_enHow LinkedIn Built a Culture That Scaled to 4,000 Employees | Steve Cadigan on HR, AI & the Future of WorkWhat happens when your product is recruiting… but your biggest challenge is hiring?In this powerful episode of the HR L&D Podcast, Nick Day sits down with Steve Cadigan, LinkedIn's first Chief HR Officer, to unpack how he helped scale the company from 400 to 4,000 people by building culture as a competitive advantage.Steve shares never-before-heard strategies from his time at LinkedIn, including:Why employee loyalty now depends on learning, not tenureHow job fluidity is reshaping leadership modelsWhy high turnover might actually be your secret weaponHow companies like Tesla and Prudential are using AI in creative, people-first waysWhat the future of HR really looks like in an AI-accelerated worldWhether you're a CHRO, people leader, or just curious about the shifting world of work, this is a masterclass in modern HR.Website: http://stevecadigan.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cadigan/Connect with Nick Day: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nickday/Find your ideal candidate with our job vacancy system: https://jgarecruitment.ck.page/919cf6b9eaSign up to the HR L&D Newsletter - https://jgarecruitment.ck.page/23e7b153e7(00:00) Traditional Retention Strategies Are Broken (03:09) Rethinking HR(03:49) LinkedIn's Culture as a Strategic Advantage (08:21) Talent Hacking & Building Career Mobility (12:59) Rethinking Recruitment(18:46) The New Workforce Psychology (24:15) Why Learning Is the Future of Loyalty (28:32) The Remote Work Reckoning(34:12) AI's Potential in HR(39:05) Using AI to Empower Career Growth (41:15) Value of Human Skills in an AI World

Strap in—because this episode is an absolute ENERGY EXPLOSION. In this week's episode, I sit down with one of my closest friends and legendary coach and speaker, and now fiction author Martin Rooney, as we talk about personal reinvention, mindset, creativity, and his newest bold adventure: writing a thriller novel. Yep—you read that right. Martin's latest project, Blood Feud: Raising Cain, is his first-ever fiction thriller—and it's already making waves. Think Reacher… but better. (My family binge-watched the series AND read Martin's book. The verdict? The book wins!   But this episode is about more than a book. It's about: What it means to REINVENT yourself at any age Why you must keep saying “yes” to new challenges How to take bold creative risks—even if you fail The power of persistence, red pens, and the ONE connection that changes everything How to discover the “one-person” who could potentially open up doors to you fulfilling your dreams Lessons in leadership, family, and living a life of constant evolution Martin and I go back over 30 years, and in this conversation, we bring the fire, the stories, and the wisdom. Whether you're in fitness, business, writing—or just feeling the nudge to pivot—this episode is for YOU. If this episode fired you up please be sure to share it with your friends and family.  You can tag us on IG at: @ToddDurkin @theMartinRooney #ToddDurkin #MartinRooney #IMPACTShow #Podcast #BloodFeud #Reacher #PerformBetter Grab Martin's book: Blood Feud: Raising Cain → [Get Yours Here] Want to write your own book? Reach out to Scriptor Publishing Group as they can help you go from dream to self-published to #1 Best-Selling Author. Check them out and set up a discovery call today at www.scriptorpublushinggroup.com Martin Rooney is no stranger to the fight. An internationally renowned fitness expert and combat sports specialist, Martin has spent over three decades in the trenches of physical and mental warfare. With a Master of Health Science and a Bachelor of Physical Therapy from the Medical University of South Carolina, alongside a BA in Exercise Science from Furman University, Martin's journey has been anything but ordinary. A former D-1 javelin thrower, U.S. bobsledder and two-time Guinness World Record holder, Martin is also the creator of the Training for Warriors system, which has transformed lives around the globe. His expertise doesn't stop there—he's a Kodokan judo black belt and a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu brown belt who has trained UFC champions, Olympic medalists, and world champions in a number of different disciplines. He has also shared his hand fighting programming with the NY Giants, NY Jets and the University of Notre Dame football. As a professional speaker, Martin has presented for Fortune 500 giants like Nike and Prudential and visited with elite military organizations like the Navy SEALs and Army Rangers. Now serving as Chancellor of Lionel University, Martin has penned 12 previous books, but BloodFeud: Raising Cain is his first foray into thriller fiction. He lives in North Carolina with his wife and four daughters. And as you might imagine, they put him through his paces every day.

A conversation onsite at The Council's Employee Benefits Leadership Forum with Prudential's John Trevisan, Head of Distribution for Group Insurance, and Mark Devine, Vice President, Head of Life, Absence & Disability Product. Having recently surveyed employers and employees about modern benefits, Prudential gathered data on the disconnects between the two groups. In addition to discussing the survey results, the conversation covers benefits-related technology, opportunities for growth, new product development, better client service, and the 150-year history that provides the foundation for Prudential today.

Join executives from Prudential, Global Atlantic, Conning and Zinnia as they dive deep into how artificial intelligence is reshaping the life and annuity industry. Recorded at Hartford AI Day, this candid panel explores the real ROI of AI investments, the dramatic potential for call center cost reduction, and the critical 90% challenge that isn't technology—it's changing human behavior. Learn more at  and more on Hartford AI Day at

Tipeee : https://fr.tipeee.com/tatami-connexion/Import Fight : https://import-fight.com/?srsltid=AfmBOoqPN3UydBVIMqHTFoIIQkDXhXCJOBqSmLEfqo4E82LCEKHTDB_2Code promo : TATAMI10L'UFC 316 a eu lieu au Prudential center de New Wark dans la nuit du 7 au 8 juin. Cet UFC a tenu toutes ses promesses avec de belles oppositions et des réponses attendu sur certains combattants ! Nous allons débriefer la main card de cet événement avec un attention toute particulière pour les combats de Pena contre Harrison et de O'Malley contre Dvalishvili.Alors n'hésitez pas à venir passer un bon moment avec nous et à nous dire ce que vous avez pensez de cet UFC en commentaire !Bonne écoute !! Votre podcast préféré après les autres !

In this enlightening episode of Black Girls Eating, hosts Candace and Tanorria dive deep into the often-avoided topic of money with their special guest, Jon, a financial advisor at Prudential and beloved family member. Together, they explore the significance of financial education, particularly within the Black community, and how understanding money can empower individuals to break the cycle of economic disadvantage. Jon shares his journey from being a young man with dreams of entrepreneurship to becoming a trusted financial advisor, emphasizing the importance of education and awareness in managing finances. He discusses the challenges many face in building wealth and the necessity of having a financial plan that includes saving, investing, and preparing for the future. The conversation highlights how societal perceptions can affect financial decisions, particularly for Black individuals navigating a consumer-driven world. Listeners will appreciate Jon's candid insights on the balance between enjoying life and being financially responsible. He encourages everyone to prioritize their financial health while also recognizing the importance of self-care and mental well-being. With practical advice on creating emergency funds, leveraging high-yield savings accounts, and the significance of generational wealth, this episode is packed with valuable information for anyone looking to improve their financial literacy. As the episode unfolds, Candace and Tanorria foster a warm and engaging environment, making money talk feel approachable and relatable. Tune in for a conversation that not only demystifies financial planning but also inspires listeners to take control of their financial futures with confidence and clarity.

A new mural on the north side of the Prudential Building in the Loop by a Dutch artist aims to raise awareness for environmental and social justice.

A new mural on the north side of the Prudential Building in the Loop by a Dutch artist aims to raise awareness for environmental and social justice.

A new mural on the north side of the Prudential Building in the Loop by a Dutch artist aims to raise awareness for environmental and social justice.

Generative AI has changed everything - from how we build to how we design. In this episode, we're joined by Alex Shin, Senior Product Designer at Prudential Financial, to talk about how UX is evolving in the age of LLMs.Alex shares his journey from studying Social Policy to UX and conversation design, including how he helped launch Prudential's first customer-facing chatbot in 2022.We talk about how Prudential's NLU-based chatbot is consistently getting customer satisfaction scores above industry standards and how the company is exploring generative AI solutions for both internal and customer-facing services.We also dive into the collaboration between design and tech teams at Prudential, and how this partnership ensures solutions are technically feasible while prioritising user needs. This episode is for designers navigating the transition to generative AI, tech leaders trying to balance innovation with user experience and anyone interested in how big financial institutions are using AI to improve customer service.This episode is brought to you by NLX.NLX is a conversational AI platform enabling brands to build and manage chat, voice and multimodal applications. NLX's patented Voice+ technology synchronizes voice with digital channels, making it possible to automate complex use cases typically handled by a human agent. When a customer calls, the voice AI guides them to resolve their inquiry through self-service using the brand's digital asset, resulting in automation and CSAT scores well above industry average. Just ask United Airlines.Shownotes: Subscribe to VUX World: https://vuxworld.typeform.com/to/Qlo5aaeWSubscribe to The AI Ultimatum Substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/kanesimmsGet in touch with Kane on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kanesimms/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Middle East insurance market is expected to grow significantly as a hub over the next several years, with predicted growth of almost 29% by 2028. In the fifth episode of Skadden's yearlong podcast series on global prudential solvency requirements, host Robert Chaplin and colleague Caroline Jaffer explore the regulatory landscape in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman. During the discussion, Mr. Chaplin and Ms. Jaffer explore the state of the Middle East insurance sector, including “financial free zones,” capital requirements, solvency margins and the growing influence of international standards in the region's evolving insurance markets.

How does a 150-year-old company continue to lead in customer experience? At Prudential Financial, it starts with culture. With 11 consecutive years of CX recognition, Prudential has built a foundation of accountability, innovation, and trust—while actively scaling AI and automation across the enterprise. On this week's episode of The Modern Customer Podcast, Abhii Parakh, Head of Customer Experience, shares how Prudential:✔️ Empowers 100+ internal CX champions ✔️ Operationalizes voice-of-the-customer company-wide ✔️ Pilots agentic AI to streamline service at scale ✔️ Maintains trust in a highly regulated industry

How can leaders turn perceived limitations into strengths?   On Women of Color Rise, I speak with Alia Abbas, Chief of Staff at New Jersey Higher Education Student Assistance Authority. With a career spanning Estee Lauder, Warner Bros. Discovery, Prudential, and Citi, Alia has led in strategy, operations, and innovation—proving that disability and faith are not barriers but strengths.   Alia didn't realize she was blind until she was diagnosed in college, thanks to parents who instilled confidence and adaptability. She also made a pivotal choice in her career—to wear a hijab, deepening her connection to her Muslim faith. Though both blindness and belief come with stereotypes, Alia sees them as value-adds in leadership and teams.   Her insights: We are capable – People with disabilities develop adaptability, resilience, and unique problem-solving skills. Diversity strengthens teams – Multi-generational, multi-background, and multi-ability teams drive stronger ideas and outcomes. No ceilings on possibility – Instead of limiting others, empower them to pursue their goals.   Alia's journey is a powerful reminder: Own your identity, use your voice, and lead with confidence.   Thank you, Alia, for sharing your inspiring stories!   Get full show notes and more information here: https://analizawolf.com/episode-102-strength-in-blindness-and-faith-with-alia-abbas  

“Brand is the promise, the experience is the reality.” This week, Lacey Peace sits down with Abhii Parakh, Head of Customer Experience at Prudential Financial, to unpack exactly how the 150 year old legacy brand created a scalable culture of empathy, innovation, and action. From defining what CX really means to implementing belief-driven rituals and artifacts, Abhii shares a behind-the-scenes look at Prudential's remarkable shift.You'll hear how Prudential turned feedback from a single paper-fatigued customer into a multi-year digital transformation, why they built a champion network of 100+ internal customer advocates, and how they're blending human insight with emerging AI technologies to drive predictive customer experiences. This isn't about generic platitudes — it's about measurable change, internal momentum, and leadership buy-in.If you're leading CX at scale, battling organizational silos, or just wondering how to make customer experience more than a department, this is the episode you've been waiting for. Subscribe for more insider conversations with the most customer-obsessed minds in business. Key Moments:  00:00 Who is Abhii Parakh, CSM at Prudential?04:56 Building a Customer-Centric Culture10:19 Scaling Customer Experience Globally13:58 Three Elements of Culture: Artifacts, Rituals & Beliefs28:05 Impact of Predictive Analytics & Debunking NPS35:22 Adopting AI at Prudential: Challenges, Success & Predictions45:23 The Difference Between Generative AI & Agentic AI 50:27 Future of AI and Ethical Considerations –Are your teams facing growing demands? Join CX leaders transforming their AI strategy with Agentforce. Start achieving your ambitious goals. Visit salesforce.com/agentforce Mission.org is a media studio producing content alongside world-class clients. Learn more at mission.org

In Ep. 104, Jerry sits down with Tim Schwarzenberger, CFA, of Inspire Investing. The next installment of our miniseries on a Catholic response to ESG explores how Christian investors can apply faith and prudential judgment to today’s complex investment landscape. They dive into the levels of Church teaching authority, discuss why reclaiming shareholder voice through proxy voting is so important, and examine how DEI and ESG frameworks often conflict with authentic Christian moral principles. Whether Catholic or broadly Christian, this conversation offers practical insights for investing faithfully and intentionally in a world of competing values. Inspire: www.inspireinvesting.com Follow Tim: https://www.linkedin.com/in/timschwarzenbergercfa/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On This week's episode of "The Marketing Stir" Vincent is joined by Eugene Santos to discuss the nuances of reaching the Hispanic consumer, and the successes of Prudential's "Protect Your Life's Work" campaign.

In the fourth episode of Skadden's yearlong podcast series on global prudential solvency requirements, host Robert Chaplin and associate James Pickstock explore the Cayman Islands' insurance regulatory landscape. As the second-largest jurisdiction for captives and a significant player in reinsurance markets, the Cayman Islands provides insurers with the ability to design a bespoke capital, investment and resourcing model that is right for individual companies' needs, making it an attractive market for insurers. Rob and James discuss the Cayman Islands' insurance history, regulatory classifications, solvency capital requirements and investment rules. They also examine how the jurisdiction aligns closer to the U.S. solvency regime as opposed to Solvency II standards.

In this episode, we explore the shifting landscape of DEI with Nikki Davies, a globally recognised DEI strategist, coach, and entrepreneur based in Hong Kong. Drawing from our recent UK HR Trends Report, which revealed a shift in DEI's priority amongst organisations, Stuart Elliott asks: why is this happening—and what does it mean for the future?Nikki shares insights from her 30-year career in coaching and consulting, and how organisations are facing a "day of reckoning"—separating those truly committed to DEI from those who have simply followed trends. We dive into the global trends, the importance of psychological safety, and why sustainable, authentic inclusion efforts—not reactionary ones—will define successful businesses moving forward.We also explore how factors like the US election, demographic shifts, and the rise of AI are impacting DEI conversations, and why resilience and leadership authenticity are more crucial than ever. Nikki offers advice for HR leaders on how to keep DEI embedded within business strategy and how small, consistent actions can lead to real, lasting progress.Who is our guest? Nikki Davies is a former HR executive with MNCs including Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse, and Prudential plc. She is now the founder of coNEXTion, her consulting and ICF ACC accredited coaching business, serving clients from start-ups to global organisations and is also the Senior Consultant for Pixel Alchemy Collective. A recognised global DEIB strategist, Nikki has over 20 years' experience crafting strategies to drive inclusion, equity, and belonging. She supports executives as a coach and advises organisations on adapting global initiatives to local markets, always aligning DEIB outcomes with strategic business goals.Nikki's approach uses human-centred design to identify systemic challenges and create action-based plans with measurable results, helping leaders build thriving, inclusive organisations. Her impactful initiatives include Diverse Talent Sponsorship Programmes, Inclusive Recruiting, Global DEIB e-learning, Employee Resource Group frameworks, and Inclusive Marketing strategies.Key Timestamps:04:00 - Intro into Nikki Davies 06:20 - Results from our survey11:00 - The shift in the prioritisation of DEI17:39 - Is the shift being seen globally? 22:56 - The emergence of other aspects of DEI30:40 - Impactful DEI initiatives 37:17 - The importance of keeping DEI on the agenda and advice for HR leadersYou can listen to and download HR Insights from Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify and other popular podcast apps. Please subscribe so the latest episodes are directly available! You can also join our HR Community by following us on LinkedIn.Thank you for listening and please do review and rate us wherever you listen!

 What if you could look into a crystal ball and see exactly what your family's long-term care needs will be in the future?   In this episode, I had the pleasure of speaking with Lily Vittayarukskul, the brilliant CEO and co-founder of Waterlily, an AI-powered platform that uses over 500 million data points to help families plan for the financial and emotional realities of aging. Lily is a World Economic Forum Top Innovator, a patented inventor, and someone who turned a heartbreaking personal experience into a mission-driven company that is disrupting the way we think about long-term care.   As someone with two parents in their 80s, this topic hits close to home for me—and I know it will for many of you too. We talked about everything from how she built Waterlily and earned the trust of major investors to the importance of planning so families aren't torn apart in times of crisis.   These are the highlights of our conversation:   - Waterlily Predicts Long-Term Care Needs with AI: Waterlily uses over 500 million data points to help families predict their future long-term care needs based on lookalike families. It's like looking into a data-driven future mirror.   -A Personal Family Crisis Sparked the Mission: Lily was only 16 when a long-term care event involving her aunt devastated her family emotionally and financially. That experience inspired her to shift from a career in aerospace to founding a company focused on preventing that same pain for others.   - Bold Pivot from B2C: Originally aimed at consumers, Waterlily pivoted to serve the financial services industry, empowering advisors to have better long-term care conversations with clients. This B2B strategy became the core of their scalable, subscription-based model.   - Built for Impact, Not Just Speed: Instead of rushing a product to market, Lily spent two years building a strong technical and data foundation before launching. That decision paid off with major partnerships, including Prudential and several Fortune 100 companies.   - Culture of Trust and Smart Scaling: Despite impressive growth, Lily keeps her team intentionally lean, leveraging large language models and automation to scale efficiently. She emphasizes trust and alignment with all at her company as the foundation for sustainable success.   About the guest: Lily Vittayarukskul, Waterlily's CEO and Co-Founder, started college at 14, and by 16, she was venturing into a career in aerospace engineering as an intern at NASA. However, that same year, her life took a dramatic turn when her Aunt, who raised her and was a cornerstone in her first-generation immigrant family, was diagnosed with terminal stage colon cancer. The ensuing financial and emotional devastation, exacerbated by their family's lack of preparedness, tore permanent rifts in her family, and compelled her to pivot her career from aerospace to a lifelong dedication to building solutions in healthcare.   Fueled by personal tragedy and a resolve to forge change, Lily graduated from UC Berkeley with a bachelor's degree in Genetics and Data Science and led product and engineering at multiple startups before founding Waterlily.   Connect with Lily: Website: https://www.waterlily.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lily-vittayarukskul/   Connect with Allison: Feedspot has named Disruptive CEO Nation as one of the Top 25 CEO Podcasts on the web, and it is ranked the number 6 CEO podcast to listen to in 2025! https://podcasts.feedspot.com/ceo_podcasts/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/allisonsummerschicago/ Website: https://www.disruptiveceonation.com/    #CEO #leadership #startup #founder #business #businesspodcast  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Chatter with BNC, Business North Carolina's weekly podcast, serving up interviews with some of the Tar Heel State's most interesting people. Today's episode features an interview with Carla Barnard, the CEO of Likewise Commercial Real Estate. After graduating from the University of Oxford, Carla worked as a commercial real estate attorney for Hogan Lovells LLP in London, specializing in real estate finance, investment and complex development work for institutional clients including Prudential, Ford Motor Company, Barclays Bank, HSBC and a number of REITs.  She has advised extensively on solar farm and renewable energy producing property transactions and hotel and care home M & A. Carla currently serves as Broker In Charge at Likewise Commercial Real Estate,  playing an integral role in elevating Commercial Real Estate in Western North Carolina.

Learn how Prudential Financial continues to serve all stakeholders through clarity of purpose.     Prudential Financial has served its local community of Newark, New Jersey, for 150 years, and that's one reason it is a recipient of The Conference Board 2025 Corporate Responsibility Awards. How does the company choose when and where to invest, and how does it scale those efforts globally?      Join Steve Odland and guest Lata Reddy, senior vice president, inclusive solutions, at Prudential Financial and chair of the Prudential Foundation, to find out about Prudential's commitment to Newark, why partnerships are essential, and why the company chose "inclusive solutions” as the best title to describe their corporate responsibility mission.    The 2025 Corporate Responsibility Awards, taking place on April 23, celebrates organizations that have moved beyond public commitments to fully integrate responsible business practices into their core strategies, driving measurable, positive impacts on their organizations, stakeholders, and society.    (01:25) Prudential's Legacy in Newark (02:36) Newark's Evolution and Prudential's Role (06:38) Global Impact and Local Prioritization (10:51) Employee Engagement and Volunteerism (16:29) Inclusive Solutions and Corporate Strategy (20:49) Looking Ahead: Future Strategies     For more from The Conference Board:  2025 Corporate Responsibility Summit  2025 Corporate Responsibility Awards Dinner  Infusing Community Needs into Products and Services: Lessons from Prudential   

Bio As the founder of Real Estate Financial Modeling (REFM), Bruce Kirsch has trained thousands of students and professionals around the world in Excel-based projection analysis. In addition, REFM's self-study products, Excel-based templates and its Valuate® property valuation and investment analysis software are used by more than 100,000 professionals. Mr. Kirsch's firm has assisted with modeling for the raising of billions of dollars of equity and debt for individual property acquisitions and developments, as well as for major mixed-use projects and private equity funds. Mr. Kirsch has also maintained a blog on real estate financial modeling, Model for Success, authoring more than 500 posts, and he is the co-author of Real Estate Finance and Investments: Risks and Opportunities, along with Dr. Peter Linneman. Mr. Kirsch began his real estate career at CB Richard Ellis, where he marketed highrise New York City office buildings for re-development in the Midtown Manhattan Investment Properties Institutional Group. After CBRE, Mr. Kirsch was recruited to lead acquisitions at Metropolis Development Company, and later joined The Clarett Group, a programmatic development partner of Prudential. While at The Clarett Group, Mr. Kirsch was responsible for making development site recommendations for office, condominium and multi-family properties in the greater Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. In addition, Mr. Kirsch had significant day-to-day project management responsibilities for the entitlement, financing and marketing of the company's existing D.C.-area development portfolio. Mr. Kirsch holds an MBA in Real Estate from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, where he was awarded the Benjamin Franklin Kahn/Washington Real Estate Investment Trust Award for academic excellence. Prior to Wharton, Mr. Kirsch performed quantitative equity research on the technology sector at The Capital Group Companies. Mr. Kirsch served as an Adjunct Faculty member in real estate finance at Georgetown University School of Continuing Studies. Mr. Kirsch graduated with a BA in Communication from Stanford University. Show Notes Introduction and Podcast Format Introduction of Bruce Kirsch and the podcast format, including a traditional interview followed by a case study and discussion of AI tools. (2:40) Bruce Kirsch and REFM Bruce Kirsch's current role as the founder of REFM (Real Estate Financial Modeling), his 17-year career helping others with financial modeling in Excel, and his various activities including consulting, training, coaching, and creating tools (5:45) Early Life and Career Path Bruce Kirsch's upbringing on Long Island and early influences from his father (a civil engineer) and mother (an interior designer), as well as his childhood fascination with the Manhattan skyline (8:30) Bruce Kirsch's pursuit of a BA in Communication from Stanford University, his interest in visual arts and filmmaking, and his experience in the photography darkroom (12:50) The unexpected connection between his Stanford communication background and his current work in financial modeling, particularly in storytelling and visual communication (13:30) His experience taking a gap year between high school and college (14:45) His reasons for choosing Stanford, including the campus and the network (15:15) His career trajectory after Stanford: working in Hollywood and then in the mutual fund business (21:00) His experience during the tech bust while working in equity research (25:45) His decision to pursue an MBA at Wharton to gain a business education and his eventual focus on real estate after walks through Philadelphia (27:30) His relationship with Peter Linneman at Wharton and taking his real estate finance and investments course (29:05) His experience working for a developer in Washington DC during the red-hot condominium market of 2003 at Metropolis Development Company (30:50) Experiencing the downturn in the real estate market around 2007-2009 and being laid off (33:00) The role of desperation as a motivator in starting his business (35:00) Financial Modeling Principles Discussion on the role of projections in real estate investment decisions despite their inherent uncertainty, using the analogy of a flight plan (39:20) Acknowledging that financial analyses rarely align perfectly with actual outcomes and questioning if Bruce has ever had a proforma come true (40:30) Addressing the impact of externalities like inflation, the S&L crisis, 9/11, the Global Financial Crisis, and COVID-19 on real estate projections (41:30) Strategies for compensating for unpredictable events and the importance of stress testing models and having a cushion (45:00) The difficulty of modeling black swan events (48:00) Advice for individuals aspiring to enter the field of real estate financial modeling (50:40) What excites Bruce Kirsch about financial analysis and the importance of understanding the real estate business and transaction mechanics (52:00) His collaboration with Peter Linneman on the textbook "Real Estate Finance and Investments", which began through his teaching at Georgetown (53:00) "Valuate" software derivation (56:00) Bruce Kirsch's observations over the past 17 years, emphasizing the balance between precision and practicality in financial modeling (58:40) Growth is painful (59:00) Company as small as it has been...just him now (1:01:00) Advice is to learn from mistakes and maintain humility (1:03:30) Spreadsheet starts out blank and is a tool. Always increase knowledge of real estate business and ask why conventions like "waterfalls" are there. (1:07:45) AI in Real Estate Demonstration of Bruce Kirsch's analytical model and discussion of AI tools he has experimented with, highlighting challenges with trustworthiness and current limitations (he shares a multifamily acquisition model online) (1:10:00) Discussion on prompting AI and its effectiveness in refining assumptions. AI is "oversold" as a reliable tool currently. (1:12:15) Bruce Kirsch's dream scenario for AI's application in his work, such as auditing spreadsheets and automating grunt work (1:14:30) Discussion about the potential for custom AI models tailored to specific expertise (1:20:00) The importance of data quality and internal data troves for effective AI implementation (1:27:30) Dream scenario for Bruce is AI doing an audit on spreadsheets and reporting back the errors from inspection (1:29:00) Insights from Bruce's former interns on the most painful day-to-day tasks they'd like to offload to AI, such as pulling comps and market data (1:33:00) Exploring the potential of AI in collaborating on deal analysis and generating different scenarios for complex situations like restructurings and adaptive reuse (1:36:00) Analogy of AI tools to the Bloomberg terminal (1:38:50) Comparison of the current state of AI to the early days of the internet (1:39:30) Discussion about Khan Academy's AI tool, Khanmigo, and its domain-specific training for education. Salman Khan's book is "Brave New Words" (1:40:30) Experiences of an Iconic Journey in CRE member (Chris Caylor) with ChatGPT and Otter.ai for automation and note-taking (1:43:00) Hypothetical case study on how AI could assist in multifamily deal analysis (1:47:20) Concerns about the potential for AI to homogenize deal underwriting (1:48:45) The role of AI in standardizing data formats and creating more digestible reports (1:49:45) Bruce Kirsch's agreement on the potential of AI to improve clarity and liquidity in the real estate market (1:51:15) REFM Opportunities Bruce discusses the services (REFI) format (see below for course information and a discount) (1:53:00) He built the model for The Wharf DC, a 2+ million s.f. mixed use project (110 tabs) (1:56:00) Questionnaire about mixed use properties (1:58:00) Personal Reflections and Industry Perspective Bruce Kirsch's overall perspective on the real estate industry, highlighting it as a tremendous and multidisciplinary opportunity and the paramount importance of reputation and trust (2:00:30) Bruce Kirsch's message if he could put a sign on the Capitol Beltway: "Don't take yourself too seriously" (2:04:30) Courses Bruce is offering his courses at a discount to podcast listeners. First, take a free assessment at this link: https://courses.getrefm.com/shop/free-tools/free-assessment-tests/. When you've determined your level, go to this website: https://courses.getrefm.com/ and use the discount code "Iconic" at the checkout to get a 15% discount for the course. Similar Episodes Michael Broder David Kessler Brad Olsen Mike Bush

“We love because He first loved us.” – 1 John 4:19Those six words beautifully capture the foundation of our relationship with God—we can only love and give because He first gave to us. Today, Sharon Epps joins us for a fascinating discussion on the generosity of women in the Bible.Sharon Epps is the President of Kingdom Advisors, FaithFi's parent organization. Kingdom Advisors serves the broad Christian financial industry by educating and equipping professionals to integrate biblical wisdom and financial expertise.The Women Who Provided for JesusLuke 8:1-3 records an often-overlooked detail:“Soon afterward, He went through cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the Good News of the Kingdom of God. And the twelve were with Him, and also some women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, and Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herod's household manager, and Susanna, and many others, who provided for them out of their means.”This passage tells us three key things:These women had been healed by Jesus—physically, spiritually, or both.They supported Jesus' ministry financially out of their own wealth.Their generosity was a response of gratitude for what Christ had done for them.One of these women, Joanna, stands out in particular.Joanna: A Woman Transformed by JesusJoanna was the wife of Chuza, King Herod's household manager. Thus, she likely had significant wealth and lived a royal lifestyle. Yet, despite her status, she was weakened when she met Jesus. She needed healing, and her first act of generosity was actually receiving—not giving.This is a powerful reminder: Before we can give, we must first receive.What Does This Teach Us?Money alone doesn't solve all problems—Joanna had wealth but still needed Christ.Generosity starts with receiving—not just financially, but in all aspects of life.God uses people from all walks of life—even a woman in Herod's court—to fund Jesus' ministry.Receiving Before We GiveJoanna's story reminds us of an important biblical truth: we can only give what we have first received.1 Corinthians 4:7 asks:“What do you have that you did not receive?”The answer? Nothing.Everything—our breath, skills, love, wisdom, and financial resources—is a gift from God. We receive, then we give, creating a virtuous cycle of generosity that mirrors God's own generosity toward us.Three Key Questions to Consider:What have I received from Christ that enables me to give?Is my giving safe or sacrificial?What does my giving reveal about how well I've received from God?These questions challenge us to shift our perspective—to see giving not as an obligation but as an overflow of what we have already been given.The Motivation Behind Joanna's GenerosityWhy did Joanna give so generously? Gratitude.Later, in Luke 24, we find Joanna at Jesus' empty tomb. She was among the women who encountered the angels, remembered Jesus' words, and ran to tell the apostles.Her journey shows a progression:She received healing from Jesus.She financially supported His ministry.She proclaimed His resurrection.Her generosity wasn't just about money—it was about devotion. She gave because she loved Jesus deeply.Lessons in GenerosityAs we reflect on Joanna's story, here are some key takeaways we can walk away with: 1. Generosity is a JourneyOur relationship with Christ fuels our generosity. The deeper our love for Him, the more naturally we want to give.2. We Must Receive Before We Can GiveWe often think about generosity in terms of money, but we also receive:Life itself—the breath in our lungs.Skills and abilities—talents that allow us to work and earn.Love from God and others—which shapes our generosity.3. Giving is an Act of WorshipJoanna's giving wasn't transactional—it was an expression of extravagant love for Jesus. She gave freely because she had freely received.As we reflect on Joanna's story, let's ask ourselves:Do I truly recognize that all I have is from God?Am I giving out of safety or sacrificial love?Does my giving reflect how well I've received from Christ?These questions can reshape our perspective on generosity, helping us move from obligation to joyful, faith-driven giving.Joanna's story reminds us that generosity is not about wealth—it's about the heart. As we receive from Christ, we are called to pass it on—whether through finances, service, or sharing the gospel.May we, like Joanna, be conduits of Christ's love, reflecting gratitude, devotion, and generosity in all we do.On Today's Program, Rob Answers Listener Questions:I have a term life insurance policy that I got when we renovated our house a few years ago. The premiums keep increasing, and we're now retired with no debt. Do I still need this policy?I have a 401(k) invested in high-risk options through Empower (formerly Prudential). The account performs well when the market is good but loses a lot when it's down. What are your thoughts on investing through Empower, and are there any other options I should consider for my 401(k)?I inherited a property that was deeded to me and the 'heirs of my body.' Do I need to create a will or a trust to transfer this property when I pass away properly?Resources Mentioned:Faithful Steward: FaithFi's New Quarterly MagazineWisdom Over Wealth: 12 Lessons from Ecclesiastes on Money (Pre-Order)Look At The Sparrows: A 21-Day Devotional on Financial Fear and AnxietyRich Toward God: A Study on the Parable of the Rich FoolFind a Certified Kingdom Advisor (CKA) or Certified Christian Financial Counselor (CertCFC)FaithFi App Remember, you can call in to ask your questions most days at (800) 525-7000. Faith & Finance is also available on the Moody Radio Network and American Family Radio. Visit our website at FaithFi.com where you can join the FaithFi Community and give as we expand our outreach.

Meet Sarah Noel Block, your Marketing Strategist friend. Sarah has rocked the content world for 16 years. She's supported big shots like apartments.com and Prudential, but her heart lies with small teams. As the creator of the StrategicSpark Workshop, the StrategicStory, and Tiny Marketing Framework, she's a master at helping tiny teams achieve big results. With an award-winning content platform under her belt and featured in Entrepreneur, Forbes, and Thrive, Sarah knows her stuff. Catch her speaking at conferences and dazzling audiences with her wisdom. She's like that favorite teacher who makes learning fun and impactful. Let Sarah guide your marketing journey and unlock the secrets to success.00:00 - 00:27 "The basis of the framework is streamline, systematize, automate, and outsource. So what we're talking about today is the streamline part of it, which is the lean marketing engine. So we'll get into that later, but systematize is, can you build templates around this? Can you create automations around this? Can you use AI for pieces of it? What can we use as an anchor that we can repurpose?” — Sarah Noel Block00:28 - 00:46 Welcome to Peppershock Media's Marketing Expedition Podcast00:47 - 01:34 Sarah's Background01:35 - 08:10 Marketing Essentials Moment: Developing Effective Creative Ads08:11 - 10:57 Welcome to the show, Sarah!10:58 - 12:18 The Lean Marketing System12:19 - 18:52 Implementing AI in Marketing18:53 - 22:31 Success Stories from the Lean Marketing Engine22:32 - 25:09 Understanding Gateway Offers25:10 - 28:16 The Importance of Client Fit28:17 - 29:16 Hello Audio is the best format for creating a connection between you and your audience and allows them to access your zone of genius at the click of a button.29:17 - 31:49 Building Trust with Clients31:50 - 33:12 Setting Expectations for Marketing33:13 - 38:53 The Role of Collaboration in Marketing38:54 - 39:33 Listen to the Tiny Marketing Podcast and Reach out to Sarah (https://www.sarahnoelblock.com/)39:34 - 40:58 Thank you so much, Sarah! Share this podcast, give us a review, and enjoy your marketing journey!40:59 - 41:45 Join the Marketing Expedition Community today! Like what you hear, but need more information?Meet with Rhea Allen#TinyMarketing #TinyMarketingPodcast #LeanMarketingSystem #AI #AIMarketingTools #MarketingEssentialsMoment #CreativeAds #GatewayOffers #BuildingTrust #Collaboration #FreshMarketingStrategy #MarketingTips Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Two-time Emmy and Three-time NAACP Image Award-winning, television Executive Producer Rushion McDonald interviewed Stephanie Chung. Author of Ally Leadership, How To Lead People Who Are Not Like You, is the first African-American president of a private aviation company with 30+ years of experience- which she began as a baggage handler and led to top executive roles like President of JetSuite and Chief Growth Officer at Wheels Up. Company Description *Launched and led this successful coaching and training firm, establishing the business plan and strategic vision, as well as providing the business development, sales, and operations oversight needed to grow quickly. Engage with clients to provide sales training, executive mentorship, and business coaching, focusing on leadership communications and high-ticket selling.

Two-time Emmy and Three-time NAACP Image Award-winning, television Executive Producer Rushion McDonald interviewed Stephanie Chung. Author of Ally Leadership, How To Lead People Who Are Not Like You, is the first African-American president of a private aviation company with 30+ years of experience- which she began as a baggage handler and led to top executive roles like President of JetSuite and Chief Growth Officer at Wheels Up. Company Description *Launched and led this successful coaching and training firm, establishing the business plan and strategic vision, as well as providing the business development, sales, and operations oversight needed to grow quickly. Engage with clients to provide sales training, executive mentorship, and business coaching, focusing on leadership communications and high-ticket selling.

Two-time Emmy and Three-time NAACP Image Award-winning, television Executive Producer Rushion McDonald interviewed Stephanie Chung. Author of Ally Leadership, How To Lead People Who Are Not Like You, is the first African-American president of a private aviation company with 30+ years of experience- which she began as a baggage handler and led to top executive roles like President of JetSuite and Chief Growth Officer at Wheels Up. Company Description *Launched and led this successful coaching and training firm, establishing the business plan and strategic vision, as well as providing the business development, sales, and operations oversight needed to grow quickly. Engage with clients to provide sales training, executive mentorship, and business coaching, focusing on leadership communications and high-ticket selling.

Is the LGBTQ+ community improving financially?Good news, fam! The LGBTQ+ community is stepping up its financial game, and we've got the receipts.

If you've ever worked with a large client, for example, a Fortune 500 prospect, you might be familiar with a question they often ask, which is, “What size is your team? How many people do you have?” As a solo consultant, your heart might sink. You know you have the expertise, but you're wondering, how do I respond? How do I deal with my smaller size when a larger company is asking? Well, that was the situation that Ken Ramaley was in until he engineered a counterintuitive approach that transformed his consulting practice. By challenging the conventional wisdom about hiring, team building, and digital transformation, he architected a path to a successful seven figure plus consulting business. Now, Ken has also been a client in our Clarity Coaching Program, and I've had the pleasure of watching firsthand how he's grown his business. In this episode, you will uncover the mindset shift that helps you land major clients before building your team, a proven framework for commanding premium fees without perfect infrastructure, and the exact process for scaling your practice while reducing your operational hours. That's right. I'm sure you want that as well. Being more effective, making more money while spending fewer hours working in the business. You'll learn all that in this episode. Dig in and enjoy.Welcome to the Consulting Success podcast. I'm your host Michael Zipursky, and in this podcast, we're going to dive deep into the world of elite consultants where you're going to learn the strategies, tactics and mindset to grow a highly profitable and successful consulting business.Before we dive into today's episode. Are you ready to grow and take your consulting business to the next level? Many of the clients that we work with started as podcast listeners just like you, and a consistent theme they have shared with us is that they wished they had reached out sooner about our Clarity Coaching Program rather than waiting for that perfect time. If you're interested in learning more about how we help consultants just like you, we're offering a free, no pressure growth session call. On this call, we're going to dive deep into your goals, challenges and situation and outline a plan that is tailor made just for you. We will also help you identify where you may be making costly and time consuming mistakes to ensure you're benefiting from the proven methods and strategies to grow your consulting business. So don't wait years to find clarity. If you're committed and serious about reaching a new level of success in your consulting business, go ahead and schedule your free growth session. Get in touch today. Just visit Consulting Success - Grow to book your free call today.Ken Ramaley, founder of Ramaley Group, has 20+ years in process engineering, auditing, and business consulting. Passionate about cultivating process excellence through projects, training and coaching, Ken leverages Lean Six Sigma experience from GE, Prudential, and Bank of America. He's also a certified internal auditor with a risk management assurance certificate. A Brown BA in Mathematics and a UChicago MBA in Finance/Management underpin his expertise. Ken holds a patent for statistical sampling and is a published author in trade and academic journals.Connect with Ken RamaleyDiscover more about Ramaley GroupMentioned in this episode:Check...

HR3 - Drake Maye seems eager to work under Mike Vrabel, but hearing him defend his young receivers isn't a good sign for Arcand. Also, he takes issue with Steve Smith Sr. blaming the Patriots' receivers coach for last year's issues. Then, the New England Nightly News features falling debris in the Prudential tunnel and a man using the bathroom on a Beverly bar. And, is trading Joe Milton really the only bold move the Pats could make this offseason?

Advances in medicine and healthy living mean that more and more people will live to be 100. But just because their bodies can last doesn't mean their bank accounts will keep up. Retirement, and especially a long retirement, takes careful planning and sophisticated financial literacy. It's impossible to know what the future economic world will look like, but accounting for the unexpected and finding good guidance is essential. In this talk sponsored by Aspen Institute supporter Prudential Financial, two financial planning experts lay out the options for saving later in life and spread the word on the importance of preparation. Penny Pennington is the managing partner of Edward Jones and Rob Falzon is the vice chair of Prudential. Barron's economic reporter Megan Leonhardt moderates the conversation. aspenideas.org

Sarah Noel Block has been thriving inside the Mastery community, implementing our model in her marketing business — showing everyone that even though the model was designed with one to two person branding agencies in mind, the principles can apply to any creative services business.In this episode, Sarah shares one strategy in particular that anyone could use to support their business: Online Events. Sarah is a master at using online events to bring people into her world, make connections, and generate quality leads. And she tells us how she does it.Sarah Noel Block has rocked the content world for 16 years. She's supported big shots like apartments.com and Prudential, but her heart lies with small teams. As the creator of the StrategicSpark Workshop, the StrategicStory, and Tiny Marketing Framework, she's a master at helping tiny teams achieve big results. With an award-winning content platform under her belt and features in Entrepreneur, Forbes, and Thrive, Sarah knows her stuff. She's like that favorite teacher who makes learning fun and impactful. Tune into this episode to hear:What builds authentic relationshipsThe tools Sarah uses to bring participants to her eventsHow to borrow audiences through collaboration to build your networkHow Sarah finds the spaces where her dream clients areHow to move from event participant, to prospect, to saleLearn more about Sarah Noel Block:Tiny MarketingThe Tiny Marketing ShowConnect on LinkedInUpcoming EventsResources:No BS Agencies MasteryThe Price to Freedom Calculator™No BS LaunchpadNo BS Agency Owners Free Facebook GroupStart reading the first chapter of my bookPiasilva.com

Make the New Year Your Best Year Free 2-part Workshop to build 3 new habits January 3 and 10th  – 12 Noon Eastern – 1 hour via Zoom Sign Up here _______________________ As the year winds down, it's time to reflect - and look ahead. Carol Orsborn, author of the new book Spiritual Aging: Weekly Reflections for Embracing Life, explains why it's a wise move to continue that practice  with weekly reflections to tune into the spiritual side of aging. Carol Orsborn joins us from Tennessee. _______________________ Bio Dr. Carol Orsborn is the best-selling author of over 35 books including her forthcoming Spiritual Aging: Weekly Reflections for Embracing Life. Her body of work includes The Making of an Old Soul: Aging as the Fulfillment of Life's Promise.  Older, Wiser, Fiercer: The Wisdom Collection  and 2015 Gold Nautilus Book Award winner in the category of Consciously Aging: The Spirituality of Age: A Seeker's Guide to Growing Older (with Robert L. Weber, Ph.D.) She has recently launched the Spiritual Aging Study and Support Group (SASS) at Spiritual Aging@ Substack.com.  She founded the Conscious Aging Book Club in conjunction with Parnassus Books and now housed at CarolOrsborn.com, and the Sage-ing Book Club run in conjunction with the leading organization in the field Sage-ing International Carol is curator of Fierce with Age:  The Archives of Boomer Wisdom, Inspiration, and Spirituality, housed at CarolOrsborn.com and a leading voice of the conscious aging and spirituality and aging movements.  For the past decade, she has also blogged about the Boomer Generation for Huffington Post, BeliefNet.com and PBS's Next Avenue, among others. Dr. Orsborn received her Masters of Theological Studies and Doctorate in History and Critical Theory of Religion from Vanderbilt University with post-graduate work in Spiritual Counseling at the New Seminary in Manhattan. She is an internationally-recognized thought leader on the fulfillment of the human potential through all life stages. For the past forty years, Dr. Orsborn has been a leading voice of her generation, appearing on Oprah, NBC Nightly News and on The Today Show among many others. Her blogs have appeared regularly in Huffington Post, Beliefnet, NPR's Next Avenue and McKnights, among others.  She has been  a frequent speaker at conferences and events such as the American Society of Aging, Sage-ing International Conference, Boomerstock, the Positive Aging Conference, Omega Institute and the American Academy of Religion. Dr. Orsborn established her reputation as a generational expert as co-founder of the first global initiative by a top ten PR company dedicated to helping brands such as Ford, AARP, Prudential and Humana communicate with Boomers. She has brought her talks and retreats on resilience, spirituality and aging to such venues as Omega Institute, American Society of Aging, Positive Aging Conference, Vanderbilt University Hospital and many other aging, healthcare, spiritual and religious groups. Dr. Orsborn received her Doctorate in History and Critical Theory of Religion from Vanderbilt University, specializing in adult development and ritual studies, including intergenerational values formation and transmission. She has served on the faculties of Pepperdine, Loyola Marymount and Georgetown Universities.  Dr. Orsborn lives in Nashville, Tennessee and Toronto, Canada. ________________________ For More on Carol Orsborn Spiritual Aging: Weekly Reflections for Embracing Life Website Substack ________________________ Podcast Episodes You May Like The Vintage Years – Dr. Francine Toder Slow Living - Stephanie O'Dea From Role to Soul – Connie Zweig Getting Good at Getting Older – Rabbi Laura Geller ________________________ Thinking of retiring? Start here with our Best Books on Retirement summaries _______________________ About The Retirement Wisdom Podcast

Episode 241: When is mastering the basics a differentiator? In an industry where complexity is the norm, Prudential Group Insurance has made a counterintuitive strategic choice. While many companies chase innovation through digital transformation and enhanced features, Prudential has discovered that operational excellence—the "absence of noise"—can be a more powerful differentiator. Abhii Parakh and Mike Estep reveal why group insurance demands a fundamentally different approach to customer experience than high-touch industries like hospitality or travel. For Prudential, success depends not on bells and whistles, but on excelling at the foundational elements: reliable execution, friction-free processes, and consistent delivery. "The absence of noise is a tremendous win," Mike emphasizes. "That's not the long-term goal for us. But if you don't get those things right, you won't get the chance to get to the nirvana state where you are separating yourself from the competition because of the experiences you created.” Learn how Prudential delivers seamless experiences across its ecosystem of brokers, employers, and employees by prioritizing simplicity and operational excellence. Discover why, in complex B2B2C environments, flawless execution of core processes can be a more powerful differentiator than feature innovation. Guests: Abhii Parakh, Head of Customer Experience, Prudential Financial, and Mike Estep, President, Group Insurance, Prudential Financial Host: Rob Markey, Partner, Bain & Company Give Us Feedback: We'd love to hear from you. Help us enhance your podcast experience by providing feedback here in our listener survey: https://bit.ly/CCPodcastFeedback Want to get in touch? Send a note to host Rob Markey: https://www.robmarkey.com/contact-rob Time-stamped List of Topics Covered: [00:01:16] Overview of group insurance products [00:03:21] The broker, employer, and employee experience [00:06:46] Employees' challenges with insurance products [00:10:21] Eliminating friction to enable differentiation [00:19:02] Customer experience as a growth driver [00:35:48] Overcoming challenges in survey feedback Time-stamped Notable Quotes: [00:05:24] “Modern life is exhausting. The last thing you want to deal with is friction with your group insurance carrier—about reports, getting your commission check, or that we're screwing up the bill and you're getting heat from that client. It doesn't need to be rocket science. There's beauty in simplicity and intuitive experiences that are void of friction.” [00:08:31] “The absence of noise is a tremendous win. That's not the long-term goal for us. But if you don't get those things right, you won't get the chance to get to the nirvana state where you are separating yourself from the competition because of the experiences you created.” [14:01] “Feedback—while painful to hear—is something you can use as a tool to help get other people in the organization to respond and make improvements that will help you, personally, be successful because they're resolving problems of your customers.”