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Show notes and Transcript Lois McLatchie Miller is the senior legal communications officer for Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) UK and is a regular media commentator.  She joins us to discuss the work of ADF who's tagline, “Protecting everyone's right to live & speak the Truth in the UK”, is needed more than ever.  Are Christian freedoms really under threat in the UK?  Lois discusses a number of issues which are off limits legally. Speaking up for the rights of the unborn. SIlent prayer on a public footpath. Common sense factual statements on gender and sexuality. Asking people if they want to talk about the sanctity of life. Criminalising thoughts that are the wrong emotion. So many views and actions have been attacked by this so called conservative government. And where is the church amidst this woke wave of censorship? Lois McLatchie serves as a senior legal communications officer for ADF UK . She works with journalists and press representatives to advocate for fundamental freedoms in the “court of public opinion”, both in written pieces and through public speaking. Before beginning her current role, Lois was a legal analyst on ADF International's UN Advocacy Team at the Human Rights Council in Geneva. There, she provided Member State representatives with key legal resources and amendatory language which promotes the inherent value of every person. She is an alumnus of ADF International's Veritas Scholarship, under which she she completed training on on international law, communications and argumentation. Lois also holds an LLM Human Rights Law with distinction from the University of Kent, and an MA (Hons) International Relations from the University of St Andrews. During her studies, she participated in Areté Academy and Blackstone Legal Fellowship, where she completed extensive research on bioethical issues, including surrogacy. Connect with Lois and ADF UK... X                      x.com/LoisMcLatch                          x.com/ADF_UK SUBSTACK      tradical.substack.com WEBSITE          adfinternational.org Interview recorded 5.4.24 Connect with Hearts of Oak... WEBSITE            heartsofoak.org/ PODCASTS        heartsofoak.podbean.com/ SOCIAL MEDIA  heartsofoak.org/connect/ SHOP                  heartsofoak.org/shop/ *Special thanks to Bosch Fawstin for recording our intro/outro on this podcast. Check out his art https://theboschfawstinstore.blogspot.com/ and follow him on X https://twitter.com/TheBoschFawstin?s=20  Transcript (Hearts of Oak) I'm delighted to be joined today by Lois McLatchie-Miller. Lois, thank you so much for your time today. Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. Great to have you on and followed you on Twitter, on your many, many different media outlets in the UK, GB News and Talk TV, Talk Radio. People can follow you. There is your Twitter handle and all the links are in the description. You're the Senior Legal Communications Officer for ADF, Alliance Defending Freedom. I followed ADF for many, many years. And it's ADF.UK, but everything is there. And I think the tagline on ADF on the Twitter is protecting everyone's right to live and speak the truth in the UK, which is under attack. And that's truth with a capital T. Maybe we'll touch on that as well. I said before, I've had the privilege of doing work with Paul Coleman, who's your executive director. Great to have you on and discuss this whole area, which I don't know if we've talked about for a long time on Christian freedoms. But maybe I'll ask you a simple question that the left trans say, of course it's not, and that is freedoms, specifically Christian freedoms. How are they actually under threat in the UK? Yeah, well, thanks for that question. Well, I think looking around us as Christians in the UK, we can sense that there is a changing culture, which is fine. Christians at the church have survived throughout thousands of generations of many different challenges. But the one that faces us today is one that's particularly sensorial. I say that because of a lot of the legislation that has been brought in recently in my home country in Scotland, most notably, but also across the UK, where the ability to speak truth. We're taught to speak in grace and truth is increasingly being reduced for the fear of offending somebody sometimes or because, more likely, different ideologies set to take precedence. I think, in Western countries, there has always been one belief or one ideolo​gy that is dominant. In and many years ago, that was the church. The church had in place blasphemy laws back in the 1600s. It was wrong to stop people from challenging or questioning the church or even having conversations about what different interpretations of the Bible might mean, of course. We should have allowed those conversations. It was wrong to always impose blasphemy laws with very harsh sentences. But what we're seeing today is in the West, in the UK and across different countries like Finland and across the European Union; we're seeing laws come in which actually just reverse that and we have situations where we can't speak out against what are considered to be the true dogmas or the the most popular narrative views of our day. Whenever we're in a situation like that uh that's a disadvantage to everyone because we don't get to have the conversations about important societal issues that we need and especially right now it is a disadvantage to Christians who are commanded and who love to be able to speak about their beliefs and share and exchange them with other people. And maybe you want to touch on the role of Alliance Defending Freedom. I know that you work here in the UK, but I initially saw it as as a U.S organization. I think it's expanded now to to many parts of the world. It's to my mind, it's probably the major Christian organization defending individuals' rights to speak truth in many areas in society. And the attacks are becoming wider and wider in every area. But maybe our viewers in the UK may not be so aware of ADF. Do you want to just let the viewers know what ADF is and what actually it does? Yeah, absolutely. Well, ADF stands for Alliance Defending Freedom. And the US reference that you mentioned, well, we as an organisation began in the US over 25 years ago. But, 10 years ago, we started up a new branch of ADF, called ADF International, which is headquartered in Vienna. We, as a new international organization, have an eye to keep the right to live and speak the truth free all over the world. So, we have an alliance of over 4,000 lawyers who we support. Whatever their challenges are in their own country, to the concept of being able to speak the truth. They can come to us and we can support them in being able to take these things through courts. And we also have in-house legal teams based in situations of political significance: at the European Union, at the European Court for Human Rights in Strasbourg, or we have a big office in Washington DC because of the Latin American jurisdictions there or the institutions there. Here in London, we have an office ADF UK, and we work in-house to be supporting these rights, to be serving serving those individuals who are dragged through courts unfairly because of their faith. Or to be promoting in the media and in politics, these foundational ideas that are core. For example, over here in the UK, freedom of speech has been a core value to the Brits for a long, long time, as well as supporting things like the right to life, again, which has been secured in our understanding of human rights law in the West for a long, long time. Although, we have an international presence in each location that we're based in, we work locally with a local team working on local issues with local laws. I think there's a big difference between stateside and over in Europe where in the States you wear your faith on your sleeve more. The conversations are, I think, more vocal and more public, where certainly in the UK, your faith is supposedly a private thing that you keep away from your public life. Is that one of the reasons why we've got to where we're going; Christians taking themselves out of the public sphere? I think probably these things are symbiotic aren't they. As laws and culture and this kind of concept of cancel culture increases it can put pressure on Christians and others of minority beliefs to stay quiet and then that can perpetuate the kind of myth that these views are outdated and don't really exist and therefore legislation comes in to make it even more difficult to express our faith and therefore this cycle kind of continues. And that's one of the reasons why it's so important for Christians to be standing up for their freedom of speech. Sometimes, this can be seen as kind of an icky thing to do to be engaging in our rights and we were supposed to, you know, we are called to be persecuted and some people feel awkward or difficult about speaking up for their rights but we're encouraged to do so, because Paul the apostle when he was under pressure for assessing his beliefs he called on the Roman Roman justice system and invoked his rights as a Roman citizen. And it wasn't because he was afraid of going to prison or afraid of suffering, but it was because, for many reasons, firstly, upholding justice in a country is important. Secondly, because this can be an opportunity to share our story with a wider group of people and to secure the right for them too, to be able to live and speak the truth, to share their faith. It's important to engage in the structures of society that we have around us. And of course, we know that the message of Christianity can have a phenomenal impact, not only in the lives of individuals and in us loving our neighbour to be able to share the truth like this, but also in societies. If you look to pre-Christian Rome, for example, the culture was more hedonistic and awful than today. They were engaging in child sacrifice in some instances. Women were treated as about the same worth as a loaf of bread. Babies were exposed on rubbish heaps if they weren't wanted simply because they were girls. Yet, Christianity came in with a transformative message and instituted this first concept that we ever had of having human rights, of having the equal dignity of each person just because they are human. That is a message that we still carry with us today, the equal dignity and worth of each person, no matter black, white, male, female, born, unborn, child, adult, all of these things. We believe that they have equal dignity and worth. We believe that no child has ever been born in the wrong body, for example. And these are values that can be positive and make a hugely positive impact on those around us. There are great reasons to be upholding this freedom, to be able to share our faith, to be able to share this perspective in society and help shape the laws around us to be the best that they can be for the flourishing of everybody. I've been surprised. I mean, I remember back when I was working at Christian Concern and engaging with churches. And you're kind of thinking, well, surely churches should be engaging in this fight. But it seems as though often, and maybe Americans may think, you've got to stay at church. You're in a wonderful position. Well, it's not necessarily so. And it seems that the church have retreated and left the fight to organizations like ADF. That's your job to speak truth and we'll quietly have a Bible study on a Wednesday evening and that's kind of our job ticked. I mean, how do you see that? Because, really it should be the church that are standing up for rights and freedoms and truth in the world. Yeah. So, the church has a commission, doesn't it, to be sharing the message and making disciples of those who believe. And I don't think that everybody in the church has the same necessarily frontline role in the politics that I do. I think that we all are called to have different parts of the body, but especially when we have state churches. But the church as an institution in society does have freedom to be able to speak into the societal issues of our day and to be sharing a perspective about how lives can be approved for everybody. And I think that church leaders have perhaps lost confidence in their ability to do that, that they do have a voice, that they can speak to politicians, they can speak to newspapers, to society and share their perspective and that it isn't wrong to do so. I wonder if there's been a little bit of a shyness over the last 50 years and speaking externally, but also internally about some issues that can be seen as controversial and maybe not having the language to articulate these things well. It is so important that we do so because we know, we believe the Bible as a church, not just because it's the Bible or because we're told to do so, but because we fundamentally do think it's true. We do think it holds valuable knowledge about how to best support everybody in society, best point them towards the way that they can be flourishing the most. If we truly believe that truth, then it is unfair, unjust and unkind of us to not be sharing that message, to not be speaking out. So, if we take our mission seriously, if we think that this is good for society, then we must be speaking about these issues in compassion and grace and holding out the wisdom that we've been taught. 100% Many of our viewers, not necessarily Christian viewers, may be non-Christian, but I think certainly the response we've got is many people looking for what truth is and looking for certainty in life, especially during the last four years of COVID chaos and trying to find that certainty. I want to talk to you about the the pro-life conversation and the Christian freedom conversation wider. I do need to ask you as a scoff of the the chaos that's north of the border. We've all read about uh it wasn't an April fool's joke it was actually the SNP going fully woke and restricting all conversation. As been reported on a lot, but maybe you want to just mention that, firstly, as an example of this wave against the right to speak what you believe. Sure. Well, like I mentioned earlier, it was 1697 that the last man in Scotland was condemned for blasphemy. He had, Thomas Aitkenhead, a 20-year-old Edinburgh student who had questioned the validity of the miracles of the Bible and made some jokes about Scripture. He was condemned for that, and that was absolutely wrong. That law went defunct for hundreds of years nobody used it in 2021 it was repealed finally, but on the same day that it was repealed a new blasphemy law was put into place. That came into action on the 1st of April this year. That law creates a new offense called stirring up of hate. I certainly don't like to be hated. I don't like anyone else to feel hated either and obviously we've talked about Christianity. Christians should never be called to be stirring up hate in any measure. The problem with this law is that we don't know exactly what kind of language can be seen to come under this. There's no definition of what it means to stir up hate and essentially it's been left wide open to abuse for the government to decide what speech they don't like and to ban that now JK Rowling very famously tested this law right in the morning that it came out. She tweeted, of course, some some fiery tweets about trans activists. She asked the police to come and arrest her if she had done anything wrong. The police investigated these tweets that had been reported as a hate crime. They found that they did not meet the threshold and that is good. It is really good that we've had that benchmark set for feminists that these particular tweets did not meet the threshold. However, we don't actually know, because there is no clear definition if different tweets were worded differently on a different day. And perhaps even might I add, coming from somebody who isn't as famous or on a big platform, or doesn't have the world's attention watching them. We don't know if the police will find a different reason as to prosecuting tweets as hate crimes and we don't know also about other topics that haven't been tested so JK Rowling talked about um trans activists and their link to criminality. We haven't tested this out when it comes to speaking about marriage we know one of the protected categories within law is obviously transgender identity and sexual orientation so we don't know about Christians who might speak out about marriage being between a man and a woman and if in different contexts. That could potentially meet the threshold. There's many Questions about this law that we have not been bottomed out. Police of Scotland had three years to clarify you know to a greater extent what this law was really going to mean for us and really all the best they came up with was a kind of campaign about a hate monster and watching out that the hate monster doesn't doesn't get you doesn't cause you to accidentally commit a hate crime I think it's very disappointing from our establishment that we're in this situation. I do see it as a new form of blasphemy law and that can essentially be used in the future to to criminalize people who are simply expressing their beliefs and it creates it's a culture I think of kind of you can't say that. You know, we'll chill conversations about important societal issues even in the home. This reaches into the family dinner table. Where it still applies, and if kids were to report their parents for their quote-unquote hateful beliefs if that's what they've been taught in school or hateful beliefs, then their parents could be ended up in trouble for what they've said there too. I think it's a very far-reaching law. It is something to be concerned about. And it's frightening that a government are trying to legislate feelings. Maybe the first government in the world to say a certain feeling or a certain emotion is wrong. I guess we'll be told what emotions are right and you must feel those emotions at certain times. And then it falls on the police and in some ways although it's the bobby on the beat that they will have to implement this. They're probably thinking this there are no guidelines this is not explained properly and it it's dangerous. We see it time and time again. Legislation coming in that's worded so badly, so widely, that actually it's up to any individual. And on a Monday someone could be arrested,  on a Tuesday they're not and that's frightening. I guess no safeguards and it's so subjective. Yeah, that's right. I mean we've seen this actually with hate speech laws across the world, so we kind of have a flavour of where this is going already. ADF International was supporting a case in Finland and still is a politician a parliamentarian of 20 years and a former Home Secretary, and a grandmother mother. Paivi Razanen, tweeted in 2019, she tweeted a Bible verse and she challenged her church leadership as to whether they should really have sponsored the Pride parade in Helsinki. She felt that that was perhaps an inappropriate thing for a church to be doing. She was charged for hate speech. She was dragged to the court. She's been acquitted twice at the district court and the court of appeal, and her case has been appealed a third time to the Supreme Court in Finland. The charge that she has been, or what she's been charged under carries a potential sentence of up to two years in prison. We don't think that she would get the full sentence, but the fact that that hangs in the air is quite phenomenal. We've seen where this lands of grandmothers being dragged through courts for years for tweeting their beliefs. Again, in Mexico we've seen this with politicians out there who we've supported, who were convicted actually of gender gender-based political violence for having expressed their beliefs on biological reality. Their are cases being appealed to the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights, but there are two politicians whose careers have been severely jeopardised because they simply tweeted their well-founded beliefs about reality. They spoke the truth. We know where this goes. We know how the story ends. For Scotland and Ireland are now looking at putting in place their own hate speech law as well. It is concerning, but we're going to have to wait and see how this shakes out. Of course, like you say, it comes down often to an individual police decision on the day, and Police Scotland are now a centralised unit. There's no kind of peer review between different forces in Scotland. It really is down to just one hive mind making the decision on what could count as offensive in the future. The police recently in Scotland said that they were no longer going to be investigating over 24,000 crimes including some examples of theft, because they simply don't have the resources, but we're told that they are going to be investigating every single report of hate speech that comes in. And we've had over 4,000 so far. Bear in mind that this law has been enacted for four days. If you can compare the before and after the effect this is going to have on our resources of policing in the country when it comes into looking about who said what on Twitter. It's a phenomenally interesting place for a country to be, but we're going to see how it shakes out in the next few weeks, I imagine. It really is weird whenever politicians are more concerned of hurdy words than rape, because the rape convictions are, what, one and a half percent, I think, is a conviction from an allegation to conviction. And yet, it's falling over themselves to find a word that may cause someone offence somewhere and to go after that. It is unbelievable the waste of finance and police resources of going after something while you've got these massive problems in society and simply turning a blind eye to it. Yeah, no, absolutely. And you're right. Hate isn't a human emotion. It's a motion of the human heart. It'd be as well trying to ban greed or envy or lust. Hamza Yusuf. Justin Trudeau. Simon Harris. All of these guys can try to ban hate, but that's not essentially what it's going to make the difference in society. Do we have societal issues, societal tensions, of course we do, but resolving those conflicts is going to take more conversation not less. Telling people that that their views or that they are bad people for expressing beliefs is not going to be helpful in engaging those societal conversations. If we let bad speech go underground and be hidden, then it festers into even worse speech for the issues that the government is concerned about. Having conversations out in the open is really the best place for a democracy to be. We need to have these types of conversations and the marketplace of ideas will sort itself out. The ideas that need to be fleshed out can be done so with debate and discussion. I think that's the direction the West needs to be headed. It was certainly historically where we seem to be headed for a long time when we've taken this U-turn back to a kind of more authoritarian, censorial approach, which I think is going to not have the desired consequences of our government. I want to move on to life. Lots of conversation, probably in the UK more on what they call assisted dying or assisted suicide, which is assisting someone to end their life, so to murder. We've seen that, especially probably during COVID, it's becoming even a bigger conversation. I see a number of MPs just get rid of the older members of society and that fixes us, the survival of the fittest. It's a frightening. I guess,  where the conversation goes when you don't have any Christian ethos or belief of the value of life. But the value of life at the beginning as well; I mentioned to you before we went on we've had uh some great individuals: Scott Klusendorf and Seth Gruber, and Janique Stewart. It's always great to drop this in the conversation, because when you look at the other alternative media, I think this is a topic that people are afraid to go on and choice seems to trump life and the right to the individual. Maybe you want to touch on what the situation is in the U.K for me for U.S audience who aren't sure. What is the life abortion situation in the U.K? Legally speaking our uh our laws in effect allow abortion for any reason up till 24 weeks. Then after 24 weeks there's three reasons why it could go all the way up to birth. One is in cases of disability. For the child, one is if the mother's life is at risk, and one is if there's a risk of serious risk of physical or mental injury to her as a result of the pregnancy. That's as things stand now. We are are a bit of an outlier in Europe. Average kind of benchmark for European abortion caps between 12 and 15 weeks. At 24, we're almost double. We are much, much more liberal in our abortion law than others. But an amendment has been put forward as part of the criminal justice bill in our parliament by a politician who would like to see abortion decriminalised all the way up till birth in the UK for any reason. Whether you count yourself as pro-life, or pro-choice, or pro-abortion or whatever label you hold, this iteration of an abortion law is extremely dangerous and should be opposed. The reason is that it puts women's lives in danger. We have a scheme in the UK called Pills by Post. Since the pandemic and now permanently, a woman can call up an abortion provider, say that she is less than 10 weeks pregnant, and the abortion provider will be able to administer her by the post Misoprostol pills for her to perform her own abortion at home. The danger with this, of course, without saying obvious, is also that a woman can essentially acquire these medicines very easily, even after the 10-week mark all the way up to the 40-week mark. And this has happened in various instances. There was a case over the summer of a lady called Carla Foster who performed an abortion by obtaining pills in this way on, I think it was, between a 33 and 35 week old baby I believe. She had a very traumatic experience performing her own abortion in her bathroom at home and she talked she later named her baby who she had to give birth to of course, after having performed the abortion she named her baby Lily. She talks about the traumatic experience that was. Now, if we we take away laws which prevent women from doing this, because a small number of women have got around the system to do it. If we take away laws that prevent many more women from doing it, we'll have so many more women like Carla who obtain a very dangerous style of abortion at home like this. It would be an absolutely traumatic result for women. So, no matter what your ideological stance on abortion is, this is something to write to your MP and oppose, because no woman should be going through an abortion alone at home. We're told it was meant to be safe, legal and rare. There seems to be none of those things. Now, there's also been another amendment proposed to the same bill that MPs will have to pick between. The second amendment looks at this 24-week mark and says, well, hang on. This means that now that babies are surviving from 22 weeks outside the womb. We now have situations where in the same hospital; there can be a woman having a 23, 24 week baby aborted whilst the same age of baby is fighting for their lives and we're supporting them to survive. How can we just be discriminating against these two children simply because one is wanted and one is not. That doesn't seem just at all. They're taking the very they made the very modest and moderate proposal of simply lowering that limit on abortion from 24 down to 22 in line of the current state of viability in the UK. Now, of course this still makes us very much out of sync with Europe which is 12 to 15 weeks, but it is a step towards a more humane view of life. I think it's something that should be definitely supported by all MPs. Again, it's not even a defining ideological stance. It's not the Only pro-life. People should think this... It is just a reasonable measure to take to ensure that babies of all, at least at the same age, are treated equally. That no baby's life is being ended in the womb that could be surviving on the outside. My hope is that plenty of people in the U.K will see the sense in this, see the justice in this, and write to their MP and encourage them to support the amendment for 22 weeks and opposed the amendment for 40 weeks. Sorry, that was a lot of information in one go, but I hope that it came across okay. No, it did. And the changes in legislation are often incremental that you don't go for it straight away. It is a conversation and slowly you have to move people with you. But it's interesting, the state, the conversation in the legislation, acouple of states on the heartbeat legislation, and that goes around actually what is life? Can we define what life is? And I've been perplexed with conversations with those who are are absolute desperate for abortion. It's actually something that people are really fired up with, certainly in the left. And I remember touching on different issues, and it's fine, you touch on the issue of abortion, how dare you stop a woman taking the life of her child. But that conversation of life, and I don't see that as much in the UK, because the Harvard legislation, what is life? You feel the pulse, actually the heart's beating, and that makes sense. I would go down to conception, but hey, let's have a conversation. But no one seems to understand what life is and that seems to be the crux of the problem, I think. Yeah, and I think ideologically we're always put into this debate mould where we're told that we have to pick between a woman or her baby, you know, it's like pro-woman or pro-baby. Some people say that, you know, we should protect the woman at all costs and therefore if she doesn't want to have a pregnancy in her body at at all, then like it's absolutely her choice and the child gets no rights. There's not many people who go to the full extreme of saying that at any point up to birth, she should be able to make that choice or even after birth. Very few people would go to that extreme. But there are some. And on the other side, we have this kind of polar opposite opinion of only the child's life matters. And the woman doesn't matter at all. And forget about her. We just have to protect this baby's life. I personally never met anyone who said that, but I'm sure that there have been instances where that's come across. And that's obviously not right either. We're kind of locked into this strange polarization where actually very few people think on these extremes. And I think what most of us want to see is an option where we can protect both. Can we find solutions where we can protect both mother and baby? And I think that's what needs to come through far more in this debate into the mainstream and stop feeding this idea that we can now just have to pick a tribe and in fact look to solutions where we can support mothers and support babies far better. I know the U.S have a great network of pregnancy help centres, which I think do a great service to women, because many, you know, in one in five women in the U.K who have had abortions say that they didn't want to, they felt pressured or pushed into it. So, if we had better options of support, and I think we can all work towards situations where we can be doing more to support and encourage women to take the empowered step to choose motherhood, to choose life. In a culture where so often they're told that the only option is abortion and that they have no future apart from that. So, I'd love to see further changes in our culture towards supporting women. And I guess the danger is the organisations that provide abortion make money from it. BPAS are not going to provide a conversation with a mother saying, actually, these are your options. The option for them is one thing because that's their business. We don't seem to have a, mothers don't seem to be able to have a conversation, actually, of the options. And it seems to be if a mother is thinking of ending the life of her child, then she's kind of funnelled into one direction, and that is abortion. I think that probably needs to change. I guess that partially is the role of the church to have that conversation. Yeah, there's a lot more we can be doing for sure. I think we can all agree that women deserve far better than abortion. When we think about it no little girl ever grows up saying I would love to have an abortion when I'm older. It's never an ideal choice so, the fact that we are in a culture where one in three or one in four women are ending up having abortion is a great failure on society. It's a great failure in the rhetoric that, you know, my body my choice is so empowering when in fact it's really allowed men and family members and people that were meant to be rallying around women in crisis pregnancies to say, well, your body, your choice, your problem, I'm out. And the kind of abandoned woman to a responsibility that was always meant to be shared. So, I do think there's a lot more churches and charities and things to be doing, but we also, we do have great charities in the U.K who do volunteer support. Outside abortion facilities and have made a real life difference in the lives of many women who have chosen help and decided that they would like to continue their pregnancies if only they could have support. But unfortunately, we're seeing a clampdown on their work at a governmental level, which I think is the most anti-woman policy that this government has ever proposed. Completely. And you've written to Rishi Sunak. Have you got a reply back to your letter? I did not. You know it's so funny I I wrote that letter it wasn't an ADF initiative I would just write to my MP, but my MP is standing down and I knew that she wouldn't agree with me anyway on this. At the last minute I said, oh I'll write to Rishi, and I put it on on Twitter. So thank you for saying and noticing that, I'm glad I'm glad somebody did. Yes, no. I wrote to Rishi because I think that we've had a quote-unquote conservative government for 14 years in this country. But in the course of those years, we have seen the destruction of the family. We've seen no support for mothers. Our maternity policy, in essence, has really amounted to just cheaper childcare, which, of course, cheaper childcare is fine and good. But many women feel that they would love to be able to invest more in their families, in their children by staying home, by having tax rewards for being able to put those years into early motherhood. Yet we have very little support for the idea of a family other than getting women back into work as soon as possible. We've had an abortion rate that's only growing under the Conservative government. We've had pills by post implemented by this government and now potentially abortion up to birth under the the criminal justice bill amendment. So I think it's an absolute blight on any party that calls themselves conservative, who should be standing up for family, for freedom of speech, for life and for cherishing these values that are so important to so many of us in society. I felt frustrated that that had not been done. And so I wrote a letter. If only in the manifesto, all lives matter and both lives matter were two policies, I think, actually would have a very different society. You know, it's funny, in the Conservative manifesto; I checked in the 2019 manifesto and family is mentioned dozens of times as support for the family as this campaign was promised to us. But I personally have not seen any measures taken to support and uphold families. I've only seen the opposite. So I think that's a real miss by a government who could have done much better. Yeah, if only we could listen to Hungary and have the most family friendly policies in Europe, it could be quite different. I saw you, I think, recently, back in March, you'd been with, I think, Right to Life had been outside Parliament, highlighting what was happening. Just mention that because it's important for the public to come around initiatives and to try and let MPs know that there is vocal support for policies like this. Yeah, absolutely. I really encourage everybody in the U.K to be writing to their MP about this. The group right to life. I think it's https://righttolife.org.uk, have a tool on their website where you can very easily write to your MP. Put in your postcode and they'll let you know who it is and provide you with information that you can send on to your MP. It's very easy, just takes a couple of clicks and, yeah, even if you want to do it in a different matter you just get in touch. I think there's so many, I wasn't really aware until recently about the number of methods we do have available to us to engage in really important decisions that are made in Parliament. Writing to your MP can make a difference if they're on the fence, or at least letting them know that people in their constituency do care about this issue. It's something important to them and they of course are elected to represent you. There's also things like public consultations that frequently come up, and it's always worth just filling out that consultation and making your voice heard and engaging with these tools that we have before us, because other people do. And so if we're not voicing our own opinion in these measures where the government is looking for opinions, we won't be heard. I really encourage everyone to engage with those tools. Completely. And one MP who I saw you retweeted, a former guest of ours,  Andrew Bridgen. His tweet was there should not be double standards when it comes to free speech, yet repeatedly we see evidence that Christian expression is harshly censored while the right to voice more fashionable views is protected. This was a sign, someone holding up a sign if you want to talk you can talk, and this I think fits in with the buffer, so do you want to fill the audience in on that? Yeah, of course he was referring to the case of Livia Tossici-Bolt Livia has been volunteering to help women outside an abortion facility for quite a few years now. She's a retired medical scientist, and so she frequently has has held a sign that says here to talk if you want, or she's provided information about a helpline and just giving women that chance to talk over their options to hear about resources available to them, if they want, to consider keeping their child if it's if they're at an abortion, but they're not sure about whether they want to go ahead. It's a chance just to look at other options. I think you know pro-life or pro-choice,  especially if you're pro-choice, you should be pro having having these conversations, looking at all the true choices. However, Livia was recently charged and now faces trial because she held this sign near an abortion facility in Bournemouth, where there is a buffer zone, or a censorship zone, as we sometimes like to call them. Placed around the clinic. These buffer zones have been rolled out in five places across England and Wales so far, and under new legislation coming in soon, they will be rolled out across the country, and it makes it a crime to engage in influencing within 150 metres of a clinic. The law, the regulation that Livia was charged under prevents her from agreeing or engaging in disapproval or approval of abortion. So again, it's very, in both instances, it's very vague, ambiguous language and the authorities have deemed in Bournemouth that just by offering to talk. They're here to talk, if you want; that Livia has committed a crime. We're thrilled to be defending or to be supporting Livia's legal defence, because we believe that everybody should have the right to be engaged in these conversations. Nobody should be on trial just for having a belief about abortion or for offering to talk in any circumstance. The UK has public streets. We've always been able to express our views. We have a culture of democracy here and we can't understand why some issues are banned in certain places just because the government might not like what we have to say. So, that's one to watch out for. We're grateful that five politicians last week, as you alluded to, have spoken out for Libya. They've seen what happened in Bournemouth and they're aware that the new legislation coming in will roll this out across the U.K and we could see many more cases like Libya's. We've already seen a few. There was a priest, Father Sean Gough, who was arrested and put on trial, unfortunately vindicated, for holding a sign saying, praying for free speech. There was Isabel von Spruce, of course, most famously, also supported by ADF UK, who was arrested, actually twice, for a viral video for praying silently inside her head. So, this law has a very far-reaching consequence, even into the minds of individuals who are poor life. So something that whatever you think about abortion, we should be concerned about any form of censorship in our country and be able to keep those conversations open. Well, that, I mean, no one would have five years ago have said actually praying silently would be illegal in the UK. But in effect, that buffer zone legislation forced through by my MP, sadly to say, actually is, it means that prayer is now criminalised 150 yards from every abortion centre. That's how it's been acted on by the police. Well, we do have an opportunity to engage here for the better. So, the legislation that has been passed by the government bans influencing, like we talked about, very vague or unclear exactly what this means. Now, because it's so unclear the government are going to provide or the home office are going to provide guidance within the next few weeks to explain to police and prosecutors exactly how they should act outside of buffer zones and we know of course that freedom of thought is protected absolutely in human rights law as incorporated into the U.K law as well. It is wrong that Isabel was arrested for praying inside her head and the government have a chance to clarify here what the line is for being able to at least hold thoughts and conversations in public. Now, let's be clear for a second. We all disagree with harassment or intimidation or violence or anything like that. Nobody should be engaging in harassment of women in any situation. Of course, not here either. So, we're all comfortable with laws, which have already existed for a while, that ban that. But the government must clarify that while this legislation applies to harassment, It must not apply to silent prayer or simply peaceful prayer on the street or conversations like the one that Livia was trying to hold. A consensual conversation between two adults. So, that kindness is going to drop fairly soon. You know, there's still opportunities to engage with that. Again, you write to MP and encourage them to contact the Home Office about this and encourage them to do the right thing and clarify that we need freedom of thought and freedom of conversation. I mean, why not write to the Home Office as well and give your opinion? There is a chance still that we'll be able to preserve this and we'll have something to watch out for in the next few weeks. And just to finish, Lois, let me reiterate your comment about engage with MPs. You mentioned there was five and one of them, the awesome Carla Lockhart, DUP from Northern Ireland. And you realize there are voices, there are MPs who actually do have a belief. They are conviction politicians and they may be fewer of them than there used to be, but actually they are still there. And I think it's vital for us, whether you're watching it as Christians or not, whether you just believe in these fundamental rights that actually do engage with your MP, because you will you will find there are good MPs and you may be blessed by actually having a good MP different to Lois or myself that maybe don't have. Yeah Lois, there is, just want to reiterate that because there are good MPs and they will be fearless on speaking up on these issues. Yeah, yeah, absolutely I mean the the buffer zones debate in parliament before it was passed It was a very fiery debate and we were encouraged, although unfortunately the vote did not go in our favour when it came to the amendment. We were encouraged about the number who did stand up and in fact mentioned Isabel von Spruce by name in their speeches. So, we can see that these stories do have an impact. And hopefully because of the attention that has been shown to Isabel and the unjustifiable arrest that was made for the thoughts that she had inside her head. We hope this information will trickle through to MPs and government officials in places of power and we will be able to protect that freedom to pray silently at least. Lois, thank you so much for your time. It's great to have you on. As I said at the beginning, I followed ADF closely and people can find all the links. If they just go to your Twitter handle, they can find the links for ADF and find the links for your Substack and everything is there and it is in the description. So thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you so much. Thank you for all that you do.

Link to bioRxiv paper: http://biorxiv.org/cgi/content/short/2023.07.28.550973v1?rss=1 Authors: Edwards, F., Fantozzi, G., Simon, A. Y., Morretton, J.-P., Herbette, A., Tijhuis, A. E., Wardenaar, R., Foulane, S., Gemble, S., Spierings, D. C. J., Foijer, F., Mariani, O., Vincent-Salomon, A., Roman-Roman, S., Sastre-Garau, X., Goundiam, O., Basto, R. Abstract: Centrosome amplification is a feature of cancer cells associated with chromosome instability and invasiveness. Enhancing chromosome instability and subsequent cancer cell death via centrosome unclustering and multipolar divisions is an aimed-for therapeutic approach. Here we show that centrosome amplification favors responses to conventional chemotherapy independently of multipolar divisions and chromosome instability. We perform single-cell live imaging of chemotherapy responses in epithelial ovarian cancer cell lines and observe increased cell death when centrosome amplification is induced. By correlating cell fate with mitotic behaviors, we show that enhanced cell death occurs independently of chromosome instability. We identify that cells with centrosome amplification are primed for apoptosis. We show they are dependent on the apoptotic inhibitor BCL-XL, and that this is not a consequence of mitotic stresses associated with centrosome amplification. Given the multiple mechanisms that promote chemotherapy responses in cells with centrosome amplification, we assess such a relationship in an epithelial ovarian cancer patient cohort. We show that high centrosome numbers associate with improved chemotherapy responses and longer overall survival. Our work identifies apoptotic priming as a clinically relevant consequence of centrosome amplification, expanding our understanding of this pleiotropic cancer cell feature. Copy rights belong to original authors. Visit the link for more info Podcast created by Paper Player, LLC

EPISODE 22 - Roman Prokopchuk is our guest in this episode! Roman is here to discuss Foster Parenting and what is really like to open your home and hearts to kids in need. More about Roman - Roman is a 1st generation immigrant from Lviv, Ukraine. He arrived in the US with 6 other family members to a 2 bedroom apartment. Roman interned with the Secret Service and held a top secret government clearance. He was forced to become a self taught digital marketer as a result of the 2008 recession, and fell in love with it. Roman has 14 years of experience leading digital teams in senior leadership roles on over 600 campaigns across many industries. He founded Nova Zora Digital in 2012. Roman is the host of the Digital Savage Experience Podcast, a Top 100 Podcast on Apple Podcasts for How To, and previously a Co-Host of Real Talk Podcasting a Top 50 Podcast on Apple Podcasts for Entertainment News. He is a foster parent, and has had 26 kids in his home since June 2018. He became a foster parent by going through 6 miscarriages with his wife in 3 years, 2 of which happened on Christmas Days. With death, loss, and hardships Roman pushes through no matter what. https://www.digitalsavageexperience.com/ ___ Check out our Dad Space Community on Facebook Visit DadSpace.ca for everything Dad! podcast produced by TrueMediaSolutions.ca --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/dad-space-podcast/message

We had a conversation with International Champion Pro-Basketball Player, and Actor; Roman Perez #MyCreatives we get to it, and went there in this EPISODE!!!! We Touched on: - His latest insight on being a Champion Pro-Athlete? - How he feels about his journey, and running his own league? - What impacted him to tap into his spirituality? - How does he feel like being an Actor? FOLLOW US: @cuts_podcast YOU TUBE CHANNEL: [[SUBSCRIBE]] - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbVNj5NtHbfenXkoxa3xAKg?view_as=subscriber GUEST: Roman Perez - https://www.instagram.com/romanperez4/ ***Go Check out Loopie Loon Feat. Sab Sinatra; "2 Headed GOAT" on all streaming platforms!!!! *****FOR SERIOUS INQUIRES & FUTURE GUEST(S) APPEARANCES - CutsPodcast1@gmail.com ******Please LEAVE COMMENTS, FEEDBACK, and [[SUBSCRIBE]] the PODCAST on ALL MAJOR STREAMING PLATFORMS!!!!! --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/cutspodcast/support

Tonia and Roman talk about unconditional love. Roman shares his relationship advice and tips on self love. He also shares how his relationship problems provided insight on how to best cultivate a more healthy relationship with himself and others. He's a relationship coach who believes awareness is vital. Links Roman mentions: Website: https://romanmironov.com/ More about Roman: Roman is a relationship coach trained by Robbins Madanes, the official training center of Tony Robbins. He helps his clients create those beautiful moments in a relationship that you wish you could relive over and over. He teaches you how to be grateful for your partner, respect them, and communicate effectively. Ways to Support and Grow with Us: Subscribe and Become a Financial SUPPORTOR: https://bit.ly/37qE8pO Coffee With T Clothing and Apparel Store: https://teespring.com/stores/coffee-with-t #ConfidentStrides #coffeewitht #toniatyler #strideflowcreate Our featured video podcast "Coffee with T" on Confident Strides is a 20-minute conversational interview on different topics ranging personal development to business strategy and entertainment to foster empowerment in others. We believe everyone has story to share. By creating this platform, people can share their wisdom and insight, gain exposure and allow their voices to be heard. At Confident Strides, we believe that if you strengthen the core of an individual, other domains to include relationships and vocation will flourish as a natural byproduct of that empowerment. Connect with COFFEE With T via Confident Strides: WEBSITE: https://confidentstrides.com/ Watch on YouTube: https://bit.ly/2Zv4jJJ Share with us: What was one of your favorite takeaways from today's show? Before we go, show some love by leaving us a review. Thanks for listening. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/confidentstrides/support

What is the biggest mistake people make after being in a car accident? What is the number one reason that people who have been in a car accident are forced into bankruptcy? How can you avoid being charged with a DUI, even if the accident was the other driver's fault? In today's episode of the Crushing Debt Podcast, my guests Tom Roman and Paula Roman, of Roman & Roman help answer these and other questions, like: What happens if the accident causes the injured party to be unable to work? What is uninsured or underinsured coverage? The first thing someone should do after being in a car accident. Whether handling the car accident claim without an attorney is a good idea. How to read and understand your car insurance policy. The risks of going to trial, and what juries can be told in a trial. Obtaining coverage for dog bite liability. And other topics. Roman & Roman has been a staple of the Tampa Bay and, specifically, the Dunedin area for many years (since at least the 80's). Tom & Paula are active in the community primarily through the Kiwanis Club of Dunedin. The firm sponsors the Kiwanis Club Annual Fourth of July Midnight Run, one of my favorite 5k, 10k races in Tampa Bay.  This year's run is LIVE (and virtual if that is your preference).  You can find more information, and register, at www.kiwanismidnightrun.com. To contact Tom or Paula, or to learn more about them and their firm, visit www.RomanRomanLaw.com, you can find them on Facebook at Roman & Roman, you can email them at info@RomanRomanLaw.com, or you call call them at 727-736-2515. Please also introduce our sponsor to an attorney or title company you know that is looking to renew or buy malpractice coverage - Sam@AttorneysFirst.com or www.AttorneysFirst.com.  Finally, if you've filed bankruptcy and you don't want to have to file a second time, please get a copy of my second book at www.ShawnMYesner.com/BecomeDebtFree. 

Roman Khrennikov will surely one day podium at the CrossFit Games, all he needs to do is get there. Although he has finished 5th in Dubai and won the Italian Showdown last year, he is yet to gain a Visa to enter the good old U S of A in time for the Games. Roman is a humble, honest guy. Enjoy his story.Роман Хренников наверняка однажды выйдет на подиум на CrossFit Games, все, что ему нужно, - это попасть туда. Хотя он финишировал 5-м в Дубае и выиграл Italian Showdown в прошлом году, ему еще предстоит получить визу, чтобы попасть в старый добрый US of A к Играм. Роман скромный, честный парень. Наслаждайтесь его историей.

Ramon Van Meer is the Founder and CEO of Alpha Paw, a pet-focused company that creates unique, honest products that contribute to the health and happiness of pets everywhere. Alpha Paw has been featured on FOX, NBC, Allure, and many other popular sources. As a serial entrepreneur who specializes in growing and selling businesses, Ramon is also the CEO of Growth Hacker TV, the Founder of Van Meer Capital, and the Co-founder of Toodledo. His life goals are to become the Marcus Lemonis for tech companies and to finally beat his son at chess. Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn: Ramon Van Meer discusses the driving forces behind his success The importance of checking your ego at the door when starting a business How Ramon found the courage to ask for help and advice despite his introverted personality Ramon talks about reverse engineering the process of selling his business for $100 million Why Ramon decided to bring his fulfillment in-house instead of outsourcing to a 3PL Growth through acquisition vs. growth through SKU expansion Why Ramon doesn’t use Amazon for his business Ramon shares his 10-year-old son’s goal to feed every shelter dog in the world How Ramon and his son, Victor, bought a business through Craigslist that later became Victor’s Doggy Cookies In this episode… Are you eager to take your business to new heights, but don’t know where to start? If so, you’re not alone—and today’s guest may just have the strategies you need to overcome your fears and turn your growth potential into growth prospects. Serial entrepreneur Ramon Van Meer knows the value of real growth opportunities, in business and in life. After experiencing homelessness as a teenager, Ramon moved to the United States as a single father without a college degree. Despite the odds, Ramon slowly began to build his now staggering entrepreneurial career by growing multiple businesses to exponential success. After following positive growth trends and investing in future opportunities, he was able to achieve a million-dollar exit—and now he wants to help other entrepreneurs do the same. In this episode of the Quiet Light Podcast, Joe Valley sits down with Ramon Van Meer, the Founder and CEO of Alpha Paw, to discuss his inspirational journey toward entrepreneurial growth and success. Listen in as Ramon talks about the importance of authenticity when networking, how to cultivate growth opportunities that result in million-dollar exits, and his son’s goal to feed every shelter dog in the world. Stay tuned! Resources Mentioned in this episode Ramon Van Meer on LinkedIn Alpha Paw Victor's Doggy Cookies Joe Valley Quiet Light Brokerage "Incredible Exits: Ramon Shares Story of his High 9-Figure Sale" on the Quiet Light Podcast “Blogging His Way To $9M in Cash - Ramon Van Meer†on the My First Million Podcast with Sam Parr Hustle Con Bill DAlessandro on LinkedIn Sponsor for this episode... This episode is brought to you by Quiet Light Brokerage, a brokerage firm that wants to help you successfully sell your online business. There is no wrong reason for selling your business. However, there is a right time and a right way. The team of leading entrepreneurs at Quiet Light Brokerage wants to help you discover the right time and strategy for selling your business. By providing trustworthy advice, effective strategies, and honest valuations, your Quiet Light advisor isn’t your every-day broker—they’re your partner and friend through every phase of the exit planning process. If you’re new to the prospect of buying and selling, Quiet Light Brokerage is here to support you. Their plethora of top-notch resources will provide everything you need to know about when and how to buy or sell an online business. Quiet Light offers high-quality videos, articles, podcasts, and guides to help you make the best decision for your online business. Not sure what your business is really worth? No worries. Quiet Light Brokerage offers a free valuation and marketplace-ready assessment on their website, quietlightbrokerage.com. That’s right—this quick, easy, and free valuation has no strings attached. Knowing the true value of your business has never been easier! What are you waiting for? Quiet Light Brokerage is offering the best experience, strategies, and advice to make your exit successful. To learn more, go to quietlightbrokerage.com, email inquiries@quietlightbrokerage.com, or call 800.746.5034 today. Episode Transcript Intro  0:07   Hi, folks, it's the Quiet Light Podcast where we share relentlessly honest insights, actionable tips, and entrepreneurial stories that will help founders identify and reach their goals. Joe Valley  0:24   Hey, folks, thanks again for joining the Quiet Light Podcast. Today's episode, as always, is brought to you by Quiet Light Brokerage, where each and every advisor on the team has built, bought or sold their own online business, I've sold close to 100 million now. And that used to sound like a big number. But you know, Walker and Brian got one closing in a couple of weeks for 20 million, Brad's working on it, believe it or not pocket deal for close to 25 million where he's got two offers on it. Don't be overwhelmed though, if you've got something for half a million or 2 million in value. That's kind of our sweet spot. And we're here to help. First and foremost, if you don't understand the value of your online business, you probably don't understand the value of your greatest asset. So I would advise you strongly to reach out go to who quietlightbrokerage.com click on evaluation form and let us help. That's what we're here to do. First and foremost, most of the people that we help we talked to for months or years at a time before they begin to before they list their business for sale. And one of those folks that I've helped is this guy on the line now his name is Ramon Van Meer. And let me tell you a little about him. He's actually a good friend of mine now. I was sitting outside a dojo my son was working out. And I get a call from a former advisor here in the team says hey, look, I sold this business for this guy. Ramon you remember him is great guy loved him. And he's looking to sell the next business. Let me just tell you how the numbers went in Ramon’s history and a little bit of background. And yes, I'm gonna maybe embarrass you a little bit here. Ramon. Ramon is from Holland, he was homeless at one point as a teenager, a serial entrepreneur, not college educated. A single father came to the United States first business he sold it I may not get these numbers exactly right. But somewhere around $7,000 second business he sold somewhere in the $20,000 range third business he sold somewhere in the $220,000 range. And the next this is the one that I got the call from and we achieve was in the just under $9 million range. And he's not done yet. For those watching on video, there's an image behind Ramon’s head that says Alpha Paw and there's a picture of a unicorn back there. And he just explained to me what a unicorn is and what his goal is a unicorn valuation for those that don't know, is a business that is valued at a billion dollars not sold for but valued. Is that right? valued at a billion dollars. Ramon Van Meer  3:07   Yeah, value. But of course my goal is to exit the you know, have that unicorn exit. Joe Valley  3:15   Yeah, one day. So all round guys here. Not only is the entrepreneurial journey, the personal journey, the triumphs, there's a few tragedies along the way as every entrepreneur and individual has in life. Are they not just all impressive, but on top of it all? He's actually just a humble nice guy. He had to clean up his office in the background before we started recording. Yes, he's actually just like the rest of us. It's usually a mess. My camera is zoomed in on only the clean things in my office. I had to ask my dog to leave before we got stuck in the carpet before we recorded I thought that would be an interesting part of recording. But I passed on it. Anyway, Ramon, welcome back to the podcast. One of the one of the reasons we're having you here again, and having you and thanking you for tolerating us taking more of your time is that we've produced a video a little mini film on your story called Quiet Giants. And you tolerated Chris Moore coming out and getting you up at the crack of dawn not that you're up at the crack of dawn anyway, not up to the crack of dawn anyway, but that's going to come out folks on October 8. In conjunction with this podcast. Thank you for listening if you're listening right now, after the recording, I'd suggest you go to Quiet Light Brokerage and do the search for Quiet Giants or go to our YouTube page and look for Quiet Giants you're going to see and hear and get to know remotes full story and it's just simply motivation is what it is. And that's the purpose of this episode anyway and he stopped flapping my jaw. Ramon, how are you today? Ramon Van Meer  4:55   Doing great. Thank you so much for having me. Again. Joe Valley  4:59   Again. Thanks for joining Joining us again. Look, what is it that drives you? What is it that motivates you in in Victor's what, 10 years old now your son in the, in the last 10 years, you've gone from a negative net worth to a pretty positive one are now shooting for a unicorn valuation? What is it? Is it simply money that drives you? Or is it the, you know, achieving that next hurdle and the learning and the knowledge? What is it? Help me out? Unknown Speaker  5:30   Yeah. Ramon Van Meer  5:32   It's definitely not just money. Of course, money is a part of motivation. But if it was just money, I would have retired probably after, you know, selling the soap opera blog, I put everything in boring as you know, index funds, and you know, live happily close, quiet. It's more of a journey, it is building cool things, helping you know, other people. And, and also see, like, see if you can pull it off, basically. So, I in my career as an intrapreneur, most were failures, but it's all across the board. It's not like I was passionate about, you know, one thing and I just, you know, dedicated 20 years of my life on, you know, becoming the best knitter or like writer or whatever it is, it's for me, it was always across the board from selling custom eight, pin Jada's online that I sold, you know, for $20,000 that website to a stock broker software that I, you know, helps build and then, you know, sold subscriptions to, to a soap opera blog that, you know, I never actually watched a soap opera episode in my life. So it's more also like the challenge and see if you can pull it off. And learning along the way I'd love to learn. Joe Valley  7:03   What's fascinating is that you you're not Hispanic with pinatas as part of your life growing up, you're not a stockbroker or trader, you don't know how to do that. It's not what your skill set is. You've never watched a soap opera. I'm assuming now because Alpha Paw is a pet related business that you have. I know you do. You've got it. You've got a dog, I assume you've got pets. But that doesn't mean that you then become an expert on the subject. How is it that first and foremost that you? What do you say to somebody that just has a fear of their lack of experience or knowledge, they say I don't know how to do that. You don't know how to do this either yet you're doing it you don't have experience in all those things that you've successfully built and sold in terms of the the niche itself. You I would want to say you don't know how to build a value a billion dollar valuation company because you didn't work for one and you don't come from the private equity world. You know, you're just a guy hustling and working hard. And you said something in there that was helping others mean meaning you're a good human. And I think that makes a difference. But how do you? How do you get beyond that? I don't know how to do that, too. I'm not afraid to ask kind of thing. Yeah. Which is a major challenge and roadblock for a lot of people. Ramon Van Meer  8:24   Um, yeah, I think it comes natural that I'm having like zero ego go into something and try to ask advice and help from people that have been doing it already, or have done it in the past. And then not, you know, my ego was busted 20 years ago, like when I had these big failures, like, you know, I was, I had a, I was promoting, like parties, like rave parties, like these EDM, like so I rented a big hall, got famous Dutch DJ, playing EDM, and, you know, was bragging to everybody that's going to be the party of the century, everybody should come. I was able to get on local TV and newspapers with interviews and boasting like, oh, man, if you're not going to be there, you know, you're gonna miss out. I need a 2000 people to break even. And it was a huge, huge square footage, like a huge Hall. And at the end in the middle of the night, basically, there were like 200 people there. hundred of them were friends, family, you know, people that I knew. So basically hundred sold tickets, and I still have to do a freaking TV interview within the background and empty hall. And like I was early 20s and I was so sick to my stomach of embarrassment like fog like Yo, what's wrong and like, what Like, I worked my ass off for months, and this and I really believed in it, and then I still have to stick around and do this freaking TV interview. So long story short, my ego has been, you know, humbled many, many years ago. So, not to be afraid or embarrassed to fail or to make mistakes, or, you know, I think that really helps me today to just, you know, fucking anything worse than that is not going to happen anymore. So like, yeah, Joe Valley  10:29   I think failure is part of the entrepreneurial journey, or, you know, athletic journey or political journey, whatever it might be. Failure is just part of it. And you've got to accept it and not take it personally. But personally, have you ever approached someone and said, Hey, can you help me with this? Can I pick your brain on this? And they were rude and said, Hell no, go away? Ramon Van Meer  10:57   Um, that's a good question, actually. Uh, well, definitely. Now, it's easier because I think, you know, the more, Joe Valley  11:07   you've had some success, they know who you are. Ramon Van Meer  11:08   Yes, exactly. Or I can ask, you know, I'm friends know, with people that have, you know, big network. Yeah, if they Google me my name, there's some stuff coming up. So now it's becoming easier. And then I always say the biggest asset is your network. And you have to really build that up. And it takes time. Let me Joe Valley  11:28   give you let me give you an example, though. The last time we saw each other was in St. Pete at the Blue Ribbon mastermind event. And I remember one of the presenters, there was a young woman, I can't remember the business that she was talking about. But she was Lord to come be the CEO of the company. And she could have talked about it. Later in an event I saw you down at the luncheon just picking her brain walked right up, started talking to her out of the blue. And I think 90% of the people in the room wouldn't feel comfortable with that, because she was such a great speaker and so impressive. And her pedigree you walked right up and had a long conversation with her and pick your brain about that. Is that a certain courage that comes with your success? Or have you always been that way? Ramon Van Meer  12:15   No, actually, as you know, like, I'm taking my personalities the opposite. I'm a very introverted person. I don't like public speaking. I don't like to be on stage. I don't like to be on camera to be honest. I will typically not just walk up to people, I don't know. Unknown Speaker  12:35   But Ramon Van Meer  12:38   again, those cases I think is, especially if you've come from a position like hey, I, you know, you're doing a great job. I want to learn from you. What I've learned myself is that 90% 90 plus percent, especially in the industry, we are in, people love to help other entrepreneurs. And especially if it comes across authentic, not just like, Hey, you know, I just want to use you for your information, but no, like if it's an authentic request. That's how I met Sam Parr and part at Ron he’s the founder of Hustle Con and the newsletter, the hustle. And I went to his first conference, many, many years ago, I was like, 300 people. This was before his big newsletter success. But I find them on Facebook. just messaged him, too. Hey, I just went, Oh, I bought a T shirts actually. Say the hospital or whatever. took a picture of myself. Send him to Facebook Messenger. Hey, I was yesterday. They're big fan. I got the T shirt. Check me out. I would love to invite you for coffee. And he said yes. And I ended up actually investing in his company. We became really good friends. He now advises me and all my companies. And I got a lot of really good relationships through that friendship. And it was just me messaging him Joe Valley  14:14   and just putting yourself out there. Yeah. And I love the part where you're not just trying to you know, make it one sided. You're helping Sam as well you guys. You know, you obviously become friends. Sam's a great guy for anybody that hasn't checked out the hustler trends or hustle con or any of that please do yourself a favor and check it out. Sam's one of the other folks that I would you know, you know be part of the good human club if if I was to create such a club hippie hippie right there at the top with with Ramon but putting yourself out there it's funny the sending the picture. Like the reason we do video like this is because it just breaks down barriers and you took a picture of yourself and you sent it to them. I had a Conversation with. I think it was Scott Volker a few months ago that he was trying to early on reach somebody. And instead of just reaching out cold, he actually shot a quick video of himself on the screen. He said, Hey, so and so I love your book. This is what I think I could help you with and, you know, not looking for anything in return. I don't even know if that's exactly what he said. But it was the breaking of the barriers and reaching out and being human and not necessarily being afraid of. What if they say no, we're not teenagers anymore, right? I've got two of those. And, you know, asking a girl on a date is horrifying. What if they say, Oh, yeah, yes. It's okay. rejection is part of life failure is part of being an entrepreneur. So put yourself out there, but help first is what you're saying. Right? Ramon Van Meer  15:43   Well, yeah, or be authentic, like so now, after our podcasts, and I did a podcast with Sean it's The Hustle as well. So I get some people asking, you know, questions to me to like, especially through LinkedIn. And if I don't answer to them all because I just don't have the time but if I noticed, it's just like, or you're just out there just like for yourself basically, I don't respond. But other messages that are more sincere and you know, authentic. Then I jumped on a call with as many people as Joe Valley  16:20   you can and help them so blanket candy emails, stopped doing it people get person Yeah, make it sincere, make it authentic. The other podcast that Ramon just mentioned is called My First Million with Sean Parr, I would definitely recommend listening to that. It's part of Sam's group as well. And it's it's fantastic. You'll get much deeper, fuller detail a remote store there. If you if you like listening to podcasts, I'd go to that one as well. Ramon Van Meer  16:45   Yeah, let's not very quick plug sent too much. But he has like, he taught me actually how to cold email really good. Like he's the master. But all his speakers, he doesn't pay actually for his conference. They all come for free. And I think he has an article there like he's just Google Ads, I think, or video where he breaks down like, Okay, this is if you want to reach somebody doesn't matter if it's a CEO of Pandora or the founder of you know, then he, you know, this is how I did it. And it's pretty, pretty simple. So Joe Valley  17:22   definitely check it out, folks in Sam, if you're listening, we're happy to plug in because you're a great guy, and you're helping so many people with what we do every day. Let's talk about your your unicorn. Back there in the background. One when you sold. Thank you. Yes, he's for those not on video. He's pointing to it. When you sold your last business require like you had never really done physical product e commerce businesses. You found this one. You took what was a business doing less than a million dollars in year a year in revenue, and doing some amazing, amazing things. A friend of ours in common. Matthew DeWalt, who's a former and I get this wrong. He wasn't the CFO of Priceline, but he was up there. He calls you one of the top five digital marketers he's ever met. And being a guy at Priceline, he could tell he's met a lot of people Ramon’s trying to be humble, shaking his head back there going. That's just you know, I, I give him too much beer. That's why he says that that's not the case at all. Um, you you you make the leap into e commerce. You're How is it that you go about saying, you take this business is doing less than a million in revenue, and you're trying to shoot for a billion dollar valuation? How long does it take? How do you figure out? How do you we talked about this in the interview for the book? How did you reverse engineer what it takes to sell your business for 100 million dollars, which I think is your goal, which may be changing and growing? How did you do that? Was it again more conversations? Do you read? How does it work? Ramon Van Meer  19:06   Yeah. Um, so yeah, this case, I bought this business. I'm a and so there was already an existing supply chain and existing product. And so then I can just focus on the growth, but because I never really done it. So I had to learn along the way is go look at other companies that you admire. And first, actually, Sam again. Again, I hate to be broken record, but he introduced me to another friend of his Roman Roman con. And he is also like a legend in e commerce. And I asked like, Hey, can I pick your brain? I like how do you do this? How do you do that? Then, after first meeting, I sent him an email, say, Hey, you know, I've never done this. I don't know how to ask this properly or like, for sure you get many of these emails requests. Do you want to be come my mentor? Like, is it okay to mentor? And? And, you know, he said yes. So he started mentoring me, Joe Valley  20:22   what's in it for him and the mentoring aspect. Ramon Van Meer  20:26   So we go back and forth. It's like, I want to give him equity. So typically, in mentorship or an advisory role, you give up equity or Phantom units. So but up to today, he has not accepted it yet. So we're gonna have to fight for it later that he's gonna accept my, my equity, but typically, an advisor, mentor, you give equity in your company? Joe Valley  21:00   Did you offer that right away? Or did you just go the humble, please? Would you consider being a mentor, can I pick your brain? Ramon Van Meer  21:06   No, I offered right away, because, and if you accept this or not, he's gonna get it, I'm just gonna deposit it into his, you know, son's bank accounts or wherever. But I think if I approach everything that if you help me become a better or, you know, learn or helping the business to get more revenue, I want to share that with you, I have to share it with you has to be a win win. Unknown Speaker  21:38   situation, Joe Valley  21:40   your situation with with gold planning and things of that nature, I'm thinking back to the sharing of, you know, wealth and goals. In last exit. I know you wrapped up some employees and you they benefited from it as well. But I remember the one of the one of the buyers visited you personally and said that your goals on the whiteboard behind the conference table that you guys were meeting at, were just incredible. And it was more about the number of people that you wanted to help. When it comes to I mean, I we get the the connection and asking for help and mentoring. And in this case, saying, hey, look, I'll give you some, you know, a small share in the business and, and of course, there's like, Come on, let me just buy you a beer. And we'll have some conversations, and it leads to a great friendship. And I love that you're going to just deposit money to his son's account, whether he likes it or not. That again, good human doing the right thing, thinking about others first. But goal setting, like how did you pick a number of the exit that you wanted? And how do you manage your day to day tasks to get not wrapped up in just responding to emails and always looking at that bigger picture? It's challenged, I would imagine. Ramon Van Meer  22:53   Yes, but I like for me personally, and everybody has different styles or opinions about it. But for me, personally, I like to have an exit strategy when I start something, because then it's for me easier to reverse engineer. So to give you an example, my initial target was to sell alpha pa $400 million. Unknown Speaker  23:21   Then Joe Valley  23:22   mind if you know, it's not too big of a goal, okay, Ramon Van Meer  23:25   yeah. But, uh, and to be honest, like, even if it, if I didn't hit it and still sell for 60 million, it's gonna be great exit. So it's not like, if I don't use it, like, oh, if I don't hit that target, then I'm a loser. It's a failure. I think it's just, if you reverse engineer from your ideal target, so hundred million, you kind of know, okay, selling on on, you know, a marketplace online is not going to the buyer is not going to be that like, you know what type of buyers you have to go after, then you can do research, okay. $400 million pet company, what type of company or who would be our ideal buyer or potential buyers, so you can make a hit list. I have one here too. And you can make a hit list of potential buyers, then you can look and do research. What other similar companies did they bought in the past? And what did they look at? Did they look at revenue? Did they look at profit? Did they look at just brand too delicate user growth, like the different metrics and every I think in every different level, like maybe you know, a website, up 2 million is more focused on EBIT our 10 million like there's specific ranges where for example, the metric is just ever like profit last 12 months profit, a you know, put a formula on it but you know hundred million dollar acquisitions, they also look at other things. So in the pet space, for example, and other spaces, they look more often at revenue. And you know, doesn't really matter if you have 12% profit or 18%, it's more revenue. So then you can reverse engineer, okay? In order to sell 400 million, I need to, we need to have our metrics at XYZ. So we need to do 30 million in revenue, 10 10 million, whatever those those numbers are. Now that creates, but you know, what's revenue, what profits what to focus on? Unknown Speaker  25:39   And then Ramon Van Meer  25:41   they start talking to like, I'm already talking even though I don't have an exit date in mind, I already start talking with bankers and private equity and try to talk, I reach out to people that work at my kill list companies, and just try to pick their brains and just to you know, like, how many acquisitions like what was what was the last acquisition, what was the valuation? You know? Why did they bought XYZ company and why not start a company like things like that. So you can already you know, basically, steer the universe basically, to that outcome. Joe Valley  26:27   If that makes sense, and, and you can do that while juggling the company that you're growing as well obviously. For those that are listening, instead of watching, I want you to understand that Ramon is sitting there in jeans and a T shirt I'm sorry, shorts and a T shirt. He lives in California. Fortunately, safe from the firefight. forest fires in the moment. regular guy you're not in a big corporate office with a team of 100 employees. All and let's let's talk about staffing and whatnot all in with employees and VA. How many do you have today? All Park I know, I get hard to keep track of them all. But sometimes I know. Ramon Van Meer  27:15   So we made a decision two months ago to bring fulfillment in house. So for people that are not in e commerce, when you sell a physical product, a big part of your you know, operations is like you need to store all your products in a warehouse. And you need a company or team to put it in shipping boxes and ship it you know, ship your product to the customer. So I decided to bring it in house. And so we have a warehouse in office in Las Vegas. And including the warehouse team we're now in VHS you know less than 20 people Joe Valley  27:58   less than 20 people including the warehouse folks, how many how many folks are at the warehouse? Ramon Van Meer  28:02   A nine Joe Valley  28:04   nine So prior to that you were like 10 people Yeah. Which is pretty amazing. And in regards to the warehouse you know it's you're not a warehouse operator, you know running the fulfillment center you're choosing to do that why did you make that choice? versus outsourcing to a 3PL Was it because of that big picture goal and growth that you needed in margins? Or is it just a need to control all of these touch points of your business? Unknown Speaker  28:39   Yeah. Ramon Van Meer  28:41   It's like the fulfillment in house versus using a 3PL and other company to do it for you is an ongoing debate basically, typically people don't advise you to bring it in house because and I've learned now as well like I still don't regret the decision but I am living it now that it is it took it's like basically running a separate totally different business with different challenges, issues, etc. But three reasons I think having control over the user experience of getting your packages on time and you know the correct products that's a huge benefit. Versus you know, going with a three PL doesn't mean there's no headache to like I had to have a full time person basically not full time but like, like every day to where issues of the wrong product sands or they they had delays and they were like four days behind like people ordered last week and still products were not shipped out or they suddenly found six pallets of my product. In warehouse like they Unknown Speaker  30:02   just like sounds like Amazon. Oh my goodness. Ramon Van Meer  30:04   Yeah, exactly. So having more control over when the products go out like now for example, we get emails, because sometimes we're often now you order in, you placed an order in the morning, you already get your tracking them in afternoon, and we get emails saying like, Oh my god, this is amazing, so fast, you know, appreciate it. And cost saving. Definitely, you know, three pills a day make money on a lot of things, you know, pick and pack fee really adds up. Unknown Speaker  30:45   So Joe Valley  30:46   for the person, when you decided to open up your own fulfillment center, you're nuts, by the way, but good for you. It's obviously gonna work out. Did you? Did you bring somebody on with a ton of, you know, fulfillment experience, obviously, to sort of run that ship for you? Ramon Van Meer  31:01   Yes. So when I made the decision, all my friends and advisors advised me not to do it. And but I'm a little stubborn, in that sense of like, I want to try it. Like, my mindset to I think this is also important is that 99% of your decisions, you can always go back from the only thing I won't be heard is your ego basic. And really, we don't carry ego, okay, we'll bring fulfillment in house, it's a shit show headache, fuck it, which is the back, I will just hire a couple trucks and ship all my products back to the same three people that I've worked with. Like, there's not really it's not the end of the world basically. And, you know, I like it, I learned a lot. I the big thing is, is to is when you do it yourself, and the whole team, everybody in my team, including my myself, it's like we're trying to find ways how can we ship this more efficient? How can we ship? How can I make this box? Smaller? How can we maybe put this package in this other package? So we don't have to pay double shipping? And we just do. So everybody's mindset is about like how can we make the user experience better? And how can we make this cost more cost efficient? Joe Valley  32:24   to necessarily get that from a 3PL? No, Ramon Van Meer  32:27   it doesn't matter. I have friends that are huge. econ brands work with a 3PL and they're still just a number, like four to 3PL like they don't have. Joe Valley  32:40   So it makes sense. You know, we I think you've met build elisandra we had him on the podcast, he's a friend of quiet lights down a Sharla elements brands, by the way, they have a pet related brand as well, a pet food related brand as well, and do the same thing they fulfill on their own because they can they can do it better than the people in the fulfillment center care. It's not for everyone. Obviously, we're not advocating everybody go develop a fulfillment center. I like to say be careful of promoting yourself to your own level of incompetence. Ramon has yet to determine what that level of incompetence is obviously because your your heights keep growing and it's pretty damn amazing. Let's talk about growth through acquisition versus growth through skew expansion. Mm. Which approach Are you taking? Because when you started this journey, you bought one brand, which had more or less one skew? If I recall that did the bulk of the revenue. Have you simply expanded skews for the most part? And that's accounting for most of your growth? Or have you continued to acquire other brands to put into the Alpha Paw portfolio and that's helping you grow more? Unknown Speaker  34:00   Yeah. Ramon Van Meer  34:02   In my case, I've done both. So I bought when I bought this business, it was just one product lines, whew. But the product has or has a ceiling. Basically, there's only X amount of potential customers that needs this product. You know, so it was not this is not a product for all dogs. It's for you know, specific breeds. So there's there was a ceiling. So, you know, I knew I cannot get to 200 million or a unicorn status or whatever, with just this one product. Right. So then I bought a couple other smaller brands that actually were only selling on Amazon Unknown Speaker  34:57   and Ramon Van Meer  35:00   Took them over and then brought them off Amazon and just added rebranded rebranded those products to Alpha Paw, and started selling them in our on your own Shopify. In our Shopify store, Joe Valley  35:15   hey, in that regard before I forget, Ramon Van Meer  35:18   yes, Joe Valley  35:19   Amazon versus Shopify or your own website, you're really not an Amazon guy here, you're driving most of this revenue through your own traffic, owning the customers creating repeat experiences and things of that nature. Is that is that an accurate statement? Ramon Van Meer  35:36   Yes. And I know, several people, and we are both friends with several people that are very successful on Amazon. Sure. Me personally, I think, if you want to build a brand, like a real big brands, eventually you're going to have to go off of Amazon, in my opinion, you know, Amazon owes your customers. And I think there's more value if you own your customer and customer data. No, you know, I know, Joe Valley has two dogs. One is called gotcha dogs named yafei. Joe Valley  36:24   Dasher and Willow, for those that want to know that Ramon Van Meer  36:26   show Willow, and they're excellent, you know, they're one is two years, one in six years, whatever, the and the breeds, then, you know, I think there's a huge asset, if you build a customer database of you know, that information, that's going to be value. This can be a high value for potential buyer, Joe Valley  36:48   when you have that customer database of information, does it help inform your decision on your next cue expansion or purchase in terms of brands? Ramon Van Meer  36:57   Yeah, so especially when you already have a customer base, or have a huge following on social media, instead of, you know, making an assumption, Oh, for sure, people will love, you know, XYZ, you know, let's just start this product and buy a cup of containers, what we typically do is, is following we first ask our current customer base, is this a product that you use? If so, how many? How often do you buy it? Where do you buy, like a survey about a product idea. And we share it across social media, our email list, etc, etc. Then, if that's a positive, positive signal, and I know, you know, surveys are not waterproof, you know. But if there's a positive signal, we try to drop ship first, that same product, so we can learn the economics behind how Oh, face running Facebook ads for days products, without buying, you know, hundred thousand dollars, a million dollar, whatever the is an inventory, run Facebook ads, email marketing, all kinds of stuff. And then we can see how much it costs to acquire customer and what's the return on adspend, etc. If those are also positive, then we start looking at to sourcing, you know, the product herself, and then that whole process starts of sourcing ourselves. Joe Valley  38:39   That's a great way to do it so that you're not investing a ton of money and inventory and have it be a bust each and every time. Yeah. Unknown Speaker  38:46   quick questions back to the Joe Valley  38:49   skew expansion versus buy and bolt on what what percentage of your and ballpark numbers current revenue is from businesses that you've bought versus maybe expanded skews from those businesses? And that's probably an impossible question to answer. Ramon Van Meer  39:09   Yeah, well, I could answer this is that in the beginning, I to increase revenue. I acquired several Unknown Speaker  39:19   brass. Ramon Van Meer  39:20   Yeah. Now I'm more on the other side where I just try to develop because a couple things like you never know. I'm still looking but like, I want to you know, we're working on healthy doggy dog cookies, right for my son is involved in that project. But there's no dog cookie business for sale at the moment, right. So as often we come up with ideas and you know, there's no company that you can buy, right? So we're not going to wait for an acquisition to get into Product skew, which is then start ourselves. But I'm a big believer in growth by acquisition because especially if it has other assets, besides, you know, sales data or sales history, if they have an email list, if they have a customer base database with addresses that you can send, you know, direct mail to, maybe they are also an Amazon and have a huge history and alar, large, you know, a lot, maybe many reviews, things like that. So we do the approach, basically both. But at this stage, because we need to add a lot more products, we were actually launching most of our products ourselves. Yeah, it's like, it's not a like acquisition. Joe Valley  40:51   Yeah. How important in your unicorn valuation your your personal exit goal is the recurring revenue aspect of the business model that you have, versus this is for folks, I'm talking about a one off sale of a growing apron versus you know, the propane that people have to get on a regular basis of course, get that luckily for the tank, but recurring revenue versus one off sales in this large valuation approaches. Is it critical that you serve shooting shooting for a certain percentage of total revenue being recurring? Or is it just case by case basis? Ramon Van Meer  41:30   Most of our decisions are basically have to answer yes to the question, will this eventually get us more recurring revenue basically. So it's very important, I think it's going to help lower your valuation. It's, it's good for your own revenue, because it compounds right your revenue growth, especially if you have a good product that people will keep buying. Unknown Speaker  42:02   So Ramon Van Meer  42:05   I Yeah, definitely. When we look at new products, the number one question is is a recurring product, this is a product that everybody needs, you know, because we need every day, every week, every month, whatever that answer is, okay. But it's not if it's not If the answer is no, this means that we right away scrap that idea, but then it really has to have some other things like a high margin or like super, you know, a big ARV or other questions. But yeah, recurring is Unknown Speaker  42:46   very important for us Joe Valley  42:48   at it. Got it. For again, for folks that are hearing this for the first time, I want you to definitely check out the quiet giants episode, where our cmo and filmmaker Chris Moore, dragged Ramon out of the bed at the crack of dawn bored him to death with preparations and questions and all that we get to see Ramon in his real world and his real story, and it's inspiring Simply put, I think, I think that the title one of the words is the fighter in there because a little bit of bit of your background but also because you're just focused on never giving up and fighting for success while being good human at the same time. Being a single father to Victor and doing what you're doing in terms of that you know, the organic cookie business their dog dog biscuit does this is by the by the way is that is that website live yet? Ramon Van Meer  43:52   His life. So yeah, you watch this. Here it is you have a dog. This is going to be my first plug I ever did. But this one my son so I don't feel that bad. But yeah, victorscookies.com. And he is going to donate for each bag of cookies that he sells. he donates one meal to a shelter dog. Wow. So his mission is actually pretty simple. It's like his mission is to feed every single Joe Valley  44:22   shelter dog in the world. There's victorscookies.com feed every shelter dog in the world pretty. Again, the van Meir ambition is so damn impressive. I mean, he's 10 he wants to feed every dog shelter in the world. The goals you don't set them lightly, that's for sure. Unknown Speaker  44:45   But he can Ramon Van Meer  44:47   you know a little bit very proud of that little bit. But yeah, he came up on a within itself. So one of my co workers shot a video. Like an like a commercial like An ad with him. And I didn't read the script. I didn't saw anything until it was a finished product. And then yeah, he came up with idea like, yeah, my mission is to feed every single shelter doc in the world Joe Valley  45:16   at an incredible rate. I told remote folks, I told them a month or so when I got when I heard about this that I wanted to have Victor on the podcast, and I'm going to make good on that. Victor is probably more of an introvert than Ramon. So it may be cute and shy and stumbling, and I'll pull as much information out of them as time comes. I think everybody here should go to victorscookies.com. And and buy some, buy some dog biscuits, organic dog biscuits for your pet, or your neighbors to do that today, please, I'm gonna guess Ramon Van Meer  45:52   we make it ourselves. So it's not like a like a white label. You know? You know, that's another company Vic Baker's making its own or whatever. It's like we actually it's our own recipe that we own. And we have a professional kitchen. And of course, he has a baker actually has an employee already. Helping. Unknown Speaker  46:15   Good employee. Ramon Van Meer  46:16   Yes. And she's amazing. Joe Valley  46:18   Let's, let's, if I recall the story, you Yeah, you didn't go out and buy equipment raw from a you know, manufacturer or anything like this. You put in you found a business that was established and but older and modified it and or is that still hold true? Where you found this through Craigslist originally? Yeah. This is this is I I just want you to just cover this real quickly. But this is what entrepreneurship is all about folks, is it you have to go out and and seek it and find it and attack it and climb that hill? And don't let the traditional ways get in your way and these obstacles that you know, you're like, I don't know how to do that, or I've never done that. Or, you know, they're gonna say no, just you got to go out and find a way to do it. And that's exactly what you did in this situation. Okay, I'll be quiet now tell us what you did to actually find this business. And Ramon Van Meer  47:15   yeah, so I don't know anything about baking, cooking, especially in a dark cookies. So I just put an ad out on Craigslist, looking for somebody that knows knows something about doc cookies that will pay for your time to pick your brain. I forgot like hundred dollars for an hour or something just or half hour just to jump on a call. And you know, sometimes you don't get anything at all. But in this case, in the same day, I got an email back from a very nice gentleman said saying that he used to have a doc cookie company very small but still was selling in some local supermarket chains and pet stores. And he was actually also an author turned out to be an author of a book about healthy dog foods like you know, what should you give your dog whatnot it was really important that you know the cookies Victor's going to sell or healthy and yeah, jumped on a call with him not actually with the mindset all I want to buy it is I just went very open minded to it just trying to learn as much as possible. And just in that conversation, I just asked him Hey, like, do you still own this company and recipes and he said yeah, so everything. Oh, are you open to selling it so and he was so we bought eight original recipes that we own now. And alongside with everything and very sweet man he even sent us his actual cookie cutters and his dough roller like he's he said this The package is all his his whole thing. In the same thing, okay, now we have the recipe and we know a little bit more about it like you know what to do what not to do with licensing permits. He taught us everything. Now we need to find somebody to make you I cannot make you know, hundred bags a day or victory neater you still have to go to school for a couple years at least and put an ad out looking for you know, this is idea. My son and I are working on a doc cookie company and turned out the first or second email we got was Jamie who is the head pastry chef at Caesars Entertainment So, not only knows she knows how to make anything pastry, like from cookies to whatever, she also knows the economics like calculating how much up to the sense, you know, of ingredient goes into each cookie. If we just do one cookie less then we can, you know, save X amount of dollars per bag. So also like the economics behind it. And yeah, amazing, amazing fight. Joe Valley  50:33   Brilliant. I love it. You just didn't know where that journey was going to take you when you put an ad in Craigslist. Or where the journey was going to take you when you bought your first business on Flippa which is I think where you started and eventually sold it at first one for twice what you bought it for, which was a big sale of $7,000 or so give or take. It's It's It's an amazing journey, Ramon you're you're you're good man, a good heelan a good great entrepreneur and a good friend. I appreciate you tolerating another 15 minutes of me poking you with questions. Oh, I'm sure I'm really excited to have the public. See the Quiet Giants episode with a fighter you Ramon Van Meer, because it's motivating and inspiring. And I think it'll get some people off the I wish, I wish I wish and on to the I'm doing it. I'm taking some action and moving forward. I expect to succeed even though I will fail along the way here and there. And that doesn't bother me at all. I'm still going to do it. If remote can do it. I'm going to do it to kind of attitude. So you're good man. I'm gonna as soon as this is over, I'm going to victorscookies.com and look for an order. So you tell him to look for an order to send a North Carolina here shortly. I beg everybody else to do so as well. And check out alpha pi is it alpha pod.com? Yeah, check out Alpha Paw all the products and sign up folks see how see how Ramon does the marketing become a customer pay attention if you want to learn something, become a customer and you're going to see how they treat you and how they reach you and how they inspire you and, and and help you first and foremost and and then you become a customer as well. And maybe someday you too will have a unicorn valuation a billion dollars. We're gonna have to have you back on as long as you promise when you and I, I yes, I just said, I'm sorry for taking up more of your time. And now I'm saying I'm gonna have to have you back on. But as long as you promised that when you hit that hundred million dollar exit, or whatever the number might be, that's going to have so many zeros, it's going to make most people's head spins, that you'll still be wearing. shorts and a T shirt and your high tops and you're not going to change it all. Promises, of course. Alright, last question. What's your favorite type of drink? Beer, whiskey and what's your what's your, what's your vice there? Ramon Van Meer  53:13   Well, you should know because we've been, you know, down that rabbit hole a couple times, but I typically if I don't drink often, but if I drink it's it's vodka. Joe Valley  53:27   Okay, random question. There's the answer, folks. Ramon, you're a good man. Appreciate it. Everybody. Look for the Quiet Giants episode coming out. Same day as this October 8. Extra. Outro  53:43   today's podcast was produced by Rise25 and the Quiet Light Content Team. If you have a suggestion for a future podcast subject or guests, email us at podcast@quietlightbrokerage.com. Be sure to follow us on YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram, and subscribe to this show wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next week.

HEALTHY LIFESTYLE with Host Lori Anne Casdia with Guest Thomas Roman from Roman Media. Thomas Roman is the founder and CEO of Roman Media Group LLC. He has a passion for learning new things and creating cool stuff. Tom loves spending time with his wife, daughter, family & friends. He enjoys his work, listening to audiobooks, motivational videos, technology, cars, music, boating, fun days in the sun, writing, watching movies, working out, and appreciating life. He is grateful to God, his family, friends, clients, and teachers for all they have taught and done for him throughout his life. He truly tries to keep it fun in all facets of life. QUOTES: "My vision is to show people the tools to think of a life they want to live, then to give them the business tools to become financially abundant to live that life.". "Helping our clients get new customers from their website and campaigns. There is no better feeling than when a customer tells me that they sent their children to college from the revenue from the work we did together.". "What makes us stand out are the results we offer. Our clients become wealthy by working with us. We change the paradigm of business being perceived as laborious, to it having the revenue for it to be enjoyable. When you are number one on all search engines and have an effective sales funnel and follow up campaigns, the additional revenue changes life so drastically, that it is like a metamorphosis occurred.". To contact Tom, please visit RomanMedia.com. Please email us at HealthyLifestylewithLA@gmail.com and follow us on social media @healthylifestylewithLA.

HEALTHY LIFESTYLE with Host Lori Anne Casdia with Guest Thomas Roman from Roman Media. Thomas Roman is the founder and CEO of Roman Media Group LLC. He has a passion for learning new things and creating cool stuff. Tom loves spending time with his wife, daughter, family & friends. He enjoys his work, listening to audiobooks, motivational videos, technology, cars, music, boating, fun days in the sun, writing, watching movies, working out, and appreciating life. He is grateful to God, his family, friends, clients, and teachers for all they have taught and done for him throughout his life. He truly tries to keep it fun in all facets of life.QUOTES:"My vision is to show people the tools to think of a life they want to live, then to give them the business tools to become financially abundant to live that life."."Helping our clients get new customers from their website and campaigns. There is no better feeling than when a customer tells me that they sent their children to college from the revenue from the work we did together."."What makes us stand out are the results we offer. Our clients become wealthy by working with us. We change the paradigm of business being perceived as laborious, to it having the revenue for it to be enjoyable. When you are number one on all search engines and have an effective sales funnel and follow up campaigns, the additional revenue changes life so drastically, that it is like a metamorphosis occurred.".To contact Tom, please visit RomanMedia.com.Please email us at HealthyLifestylewithLA@gmail.com and follow us on social media @healthylifestylewithLAOur Goal at Healthy Lifestyle is to inspire, educate and empower you to fulfilling a healthy, emotional, spiritual and physical life, so you can feel empowered to live the life you have always wanted and dreamed. We are here to lift each other up with encouragement and positivity. To serve one another.ABOUT Lori Anne De Iulio CasdiaBusiness & Marketing Strategist, Law of Attraction Practitioner & Master Mindset MentorFounder of LDC StrategiesFounder of Strategies By DesignFounder of Monarch LuminariesFounder of Soar to Success ProgramMotivational Speaker/Inspirational SpeakerEmcee/ModeratorMaster Mindset MentorLaw of Attraction PractitionerHost of HEALTHY LIFESTYLE (LI News Radio/I Heart Radio/InTune/Sound Cloud/YouTube)Publisher/Owner of Port Lifestyle MagazinePerformer/VocalistColumnist for LIBNCertified Herbalist & Aromatherapist & Kundalini YogaYoung Living ConsultantAwarded the 50 Top Most Influential Women in 2018Lori Anne’s personal philosophy is “We are all here to serve others and lift each other up. Be the best you because everybody else is taken.”Links www.LDCStrategies.com@LDCStrategies (FB/IG))@Healthylifestyle (FB/IG)You can also Listen to Healthy Lifestyle with Lori Anne on your favorite app: I Heart Media | iTunes (Apple Podcasts) | Google Podcasts | Spotify | Spreaker | Sound Cloud | TuneIn | YouTube

In this clip options trading legend Mark Monroe breaks down stock options and how to profit from them. #options #stocktrading Full Episode: https://youtu.be/1nxQfeOMLuc EYL University: https://www.eyluniversity.com EYL University 40% off Annual Tuition Code: EARNERS --- This episode is sponsored by · Roman: Roman is a digital health clinic for men.Which handles everything from online evaluation to delivery of treatment and free ongoing care for ED, PE & more. https://www.getroman.com · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/earnyourleisure/support

Episode 92 features one of the most prominent voices on social media today. 19 Keys is a leader in the black wealth movement. He’s an entrepreneur, voice of change, health advocate, thought leader, and a deeply disciplined man. Our conversation covered everything from his transition from being an employee to employer, to rewiring your brain to become more fearless. He told his full story of beating criminal charges as a minor, to teaching himself Mandarin and international business. Episode 92 is one of our most broad ranging and engaging conversations to date. #19keys #wealth #entrepreneur EYL University: https://www.eyluniversity.com EYL University 40% off Annual Tuition Code: EARNERS Guest IG: @19_keys Link to The Wealth Standard Course (Enter Code EYL for 10% off): https://crownz19.com/products/the-gold-standard-business-class --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app · Roman: Roman is a digital health clinic for men.Which handles everything from online evaluation to delivery of treatment and free ongoing care for ED, PE & more. https://www.getroman.com Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/earnyourleisure/support

During this conversation we spoke with one of the most important artist currently Tobe Nwigwe and the head of JPMorgan Chase’s Advancing Black Pathways Initiative Sekou Kaalund. This interview was part of United Masters SelectCon conference. #tobenwigwe #blackpathways #chase #untiedmasters EYL University: https://www.eyluniversity.com EYL University 40% off Annual Tuition Code: EARNERS Guest IG: @tobenwigwe & @sekoukaa --- This episode is sponsored by · Roman: Roman is a digital health clinic for men.Which handles everything from online evaluation to delivery of treatment and free ongoing care for ED, PE & more. https://www.getroman.com · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/earnyourleisure/support

In episode 91 of Earn Your Leisure, legendary entrepreneur and cultural icon Dame Dash talks about his content distribution, his past in the music business, the fashion industry, and much more. Never one to hold his tongue he held no punches and gave a raw in-depth view of his journey of over 25 years in the entertainment industry. #damedash #hiphop #entertainment EYL University 24 Hour Sale 50% off Annual Tuition Code: TMC EYL University: https://www.eyluniversity.com Guest IG: @duskopoppington --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app · Roman: Roman is a digital health clinic for men.Which handles everything from online evaluation to delivery of treatment and free ongoing care for ED, PE & more. https://www.getroman.com Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/earnyourleisure/support

Director X is not only one of the greatest directors of all time, he’s also a social activist and a voice for change. His catalog of music videos reads like a who’s who of Hall of Fame musicians. Some notable artists that he’s directed for are: Future, Drake, Rihanna, Kendrick Lamar, Busta Rhymes, T.I., 2 Chainz, Rick Ross, Nicki Minaj, The-Dream, and Usher. In addition to being a music director, he also is an established movie director. He directed the 2018 remake of Superfly along with several other films. Director X is focusing a large portion of his energy these days on social justice and stopping the rapid gun violence issue happening in Toronto. In episode 90, he went over his historic career with us and talked about his journey in the industry. He also gave us an inside look on what's going on in Toronto and the work being done to help young people deal with conflict resolution. #videodirector #directorx #littlex EYL University: https://www.eyluniversity.com EYL University 40% off Annual Tuition Code: EARNERS Guest IG: @directorx --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app · Roman: Roman is a digital health clinic for men.Which handles everything from online evaluation to delivery of treatment and free ongoing care for ED, PE & more. https://www.getroman.com Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/earnyourleisure/support

Lyn Allure has over 266,000 YouTube subscribers and has made a full-time business out of being a YouTuber and digital entrepreneur. Most people use YouTube daily. It is the second biggest search engine online (second to only Google, who owns YouTube). Even though it’s widely used, many still don’t understand how lucrative the platform can be. In episode 89, Lyn broke down her blueprint to monetizing YouTube, she explained the steps to build a channel in a short period of time, she explained how a niche audience can be more beneficial than a huge following, and more. #lynallure #youtuber #onlinemoney Link to Good Girls Gone Boss (Enter Code EYL for 10% off): https://www.goodgirlsgoneboss.com/a/30001/odLcBch5 EYL University: https://www.eyluniversity.com EYL University 40% off Annual Tuition Code: EARNERS Guest IG: @Lyn.Allure --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app · Roman: Roman is a digital health clinic for men.Which handles everything from online evaluation to delivery of treatment and free ongoing care for ED, PE & more. https://www.getroman.com Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/earnyourleisure/support

Speeding tickets, travel refunds, quarantine goals, and what's the deal with the Hamptons? Follow us: https://www.instagram.com/oopsthepodcast/ https://www.instagram.com/francisccellis/ https://www.instagram.com/notjulio/ Produced by Chris Caso https://www.instagram.com/chris.mp4/ --- This episode is sponsored by · Roman: Roman is a digital health clinic for men.Which handles everything from online evaluation to delivery of treatment and free ongoing care for ED, PE & more. https://www.getroman.com

Croatia, being bipolar and making coincidance. Follow us: https://www.instagram.com/oopsthepodcast/ https://www.instagram.com/francisccellis/ https://www.instagram.com/notjulio/ Produced by Chris Caso https://www.instagram.com/chris.mp4/ --- This episode is sponsored by · Roman: Roman is a digital health clinic for men.Which handles everything from online evaluation to delivery of treatment and free ongoing care for ED, PE & more. https://www.getroman.com

Small talk, parents on Facebook, Giulio finishes his road trip, and the Hamptons. Follow us: https://www.instagram.com/oopsthepodcast/ https://www.instagram.com/francisccellis/ https://www.instagram.com/notjulio/ Produced by Chris Caso https://www.instagram.com/chris.mp4/ --- This episode is sponsored by · Roman: Roman is a digital health clinic for men.Which handles everything from online evaluation to delivery of treatment and free ongoing care for ED, PE & more. https://www.getroman.com

Many only think about AirBNB hosts as owners of a property that rent it out occasionally, but there is an industry of entrepreneurs that make a living off a portfolio of AirBNB rentals. For episode 88, we talked with one of the top AirBNB hosts in Atlanta Alexia Wright. Alexia is a superstar in one of the most sought after AirBNB markets in the nation. She holds the title of Super Host and has over 20 AirBNB properties in her portfolio. On EYL 88, she broke down the ins and outs of making money on AirBNB. She revealed how anyone can get started in a few days, how to make it to the top listings, and how to protect yourself from losses. #AirBNB #AirBNBEntrepreneur Link to Alexia’s one on one AirBNB coaching (Enter Code EYL199 for $199 off): https://mastering-the-airbnb-game.myshopify.com/ EYL University: https://www.eyluniversity.com EYL University 40% off Annual Tuition Code: EARNERS Guest IG: @_alexiawright --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app · Roman: Roman is a digital health clinic for men.Which handles everything from online evaluation to delivery of treatment and free ongoing care for ED, PE & more. https://www.getroman.com Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/earnyourleisure/support

Weird high school teachers, getting pulled over, pet sitting, and summer jobs. Follow us: https://www.instagram.com/oopsthepodcast/ https://www.instagram.com/francisccellis/ https://www.instagram.com/notjulio/ Produced by Chris Caso https://www.instagram.com/chris.mp4/ --- This episode is sponsored by · Roman: Roman is a digital health clinic for men.Which handles everything from online evaluation to delivery of treatment and free ongoing care for ED, PE & more. https://www.getroman.com

July 4th, wild animals at Yellowstone, and house hunting. Follow us: https://www.instagram.com/oopsthepodcast/ https://www.instagram.com/francisccellis/ https://www.instagram.com/notjulio/ Produced by Chris Caso https://www.instagram.com/chris.mp4/ --- This episode is sponsored by · Roman: Roman is a digital health clinic for men.Which handles everything from online evaluation to delivery of treatment and free ongoing care for ED, PE & more. https://www.getroman.com

Bad edibles, getting an oil change, porn ads, and Uber driver tales. Follow us: https://www.instagram.com/oopsthepodcast/ https://www.instagram.com/francisccellis/ https://www.instagram.com/notjulio/ Produced by Chris Caso https://www.instagram.com/chris.mp4/ --- This episode is sponsored by · Roman: Roman is a digital health clinic for men.Which handles everything from online evaluation to delivery of treatment and free ongoing care for ED, PE & more. https://www.getroman.com

The spirits business is a $677 billion annual industry. Although liquor is an extremely lucrative business, it is extremely difficult to own a spirits company. In the search of an independently owned and operated brand, we found Myriam and Stevens Charles who are the owners of LS Cream Liqueur. LS Cream is an award-winning Haitian-inspired cream liquor known in the Caribbean as Kremas. Myriam and Stevens are a power couple from Montreal Canada. On EYL 87, they explained in detail the process of manufacturing liquor, the process of distribution, and the ins and outs of running an international business that covers America, Canada and the Caribbean. During the episode, they walked us through the complicated world of owning a liquor brand. We also discussed entrepreneurship in Canada, the connection to business opportunities that exist for entrepreneurs on both sides of the border, and how to do business in our neighboring countries. #entrepreneur #canada #Kremas --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app · Roman: Roman is a digital health clinic for men.Which handles everything from online evaluation to delivery of treatment and free ongoing care for ED, PE & more. https://www.getroman.com Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/earnyourleisure/support

Traveling alone, partying in Iceland, and splitting the bill. Follow us: https://www.instagram.com/oopsthepodcast/ https://www.instagram.com/francisccellis/ https://www.instagram.com/notjulio/ Produced by Chris Caso https://www.instagram.com/chris.mp4/ --- This episode is sponsored by · Roman: Roman is a digital health clinic for men.Which handles everything from online evaluation to delivery of treatment and free ongoing care for ED, PE & more. https://www.getroman.com

Sharing secrets, sliding in the DMs, rock concert religion, and knowing your cousins too well. Follow us: https://www.instagram.com/oopsthepodcast/ https://www.instagram.com/francisccellis/ https://www.instagram.com/notjulio/ Produced by Chris Caso https://www.instagram.com/chris.mp4/ --- This episode is sponsored by · Roman: Roman is a digital health clinic for men.Which handles everything from online evaluation to delivery of treatment and free ongoing care for ED, PE & more. https://www.getroman.com

Derrick Grace Two is an entrepreneurial superstar who has exploded online and has helped change the narrative of what a businessman looks like. He is a best-selling author, home school educator, board game inventor, video game inventor, real estate investor, owns a robotics company, owns a security firm with his father, and is a marketing genius. In episode 86, Derrick told us about his journey from working in the corporate world to running several multimillion dollar businesses. He explained his philosophy on “in-home banking,” we discussed group economics, he detailed his marketing tactics, we discussed estate planning strategies, and much more. #Derrickgrace #Investing #Artificialintelligence Link to In Home Banking Game (25% off Code: EYL): "In Home Banking" Board Game Holiday Special | derrickgracetwo.com Guest IG: @derrickgracetwo EYL University: https://www.eyluniversity.com Code for 40% annual discount: Earners EYL Website: https://www.earnyourleisure.com/ --- This episode is sponsored by · Roman: Roman is a digital health clinic for men.Which handles everything from online evaluation to delivery of treatment and free ongoing care for ED, PE & more. https://www.getroman.com · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/earnyourleisure/support

In this episode, you will meet the Leah Roman of Roman Public Health Consulting.  In a previous episode, I mentioned Leah as a great example of professional networking.  Those of you who know her are probably nodding your heads right now.  She is very genuine and networking seems to come naturally to her.  You may also remember Leah from the very first Public Health Consulting and Entrepreneurship Expo that I held, where she was one of my cohosts. She joins me on this episode to talk about her public health journey, from employee to consultant and business owner. She also has a few tips for anyone who may be interested in consulting.  She talks in depth about who she serves in her business, and the course that she created called “Contemplating Consulting: A readiness guide to help public health professionals decide to hit the breaks or take the leap.”  Listen carefully as Leah describes her online course, and if it is something that you’re interested in, then be sure to listen to the full episode, because I will come back after the interview to tell you about a special offer that she is providing just for my podcast audience

040: The Moves the Cowboys Must Make This Offseason | Cowboys Beat with Ari + Conn Ari Temkin: @arisports Patrick Conn: @DraftCowboys   The Cowboys Beat is Powered by Roman: Roman is a one-stop-shop where licensed US physicians can diagnose ED and ship medication right to your door. With Roman, there are no waiting rooms, awkward face-to-face conversations, or uncomfortable trips to the pharmacy. You can handle everything discreetly online. For a free online visit: getroman.com/cb    3:25 Building through the draft vs. free agency 8:13 Three Guys the Cowboys should sign in free agency  19:12 ROMAN 20:55 One position the Cowboys will not be able to fulfill in free agency.  Subscribe to the Cowboys Beat with Ari Temkin and Patrick Conn on iTunes, Stitcher, and the CLNS Media Network mobile app.      

039: Is It Possible the Cowboys Have Actually Fixed Their Fatal Flaw? | Cowboys Beat with Ari + Conn Ari Temkin: @arisports Patrick Conn: @DraftCowboys   The Cowboys Beat is Powered by Roman: Roman is a one-stop-shop where licensed US physicians can diagnose ED and ship medication right to your door. With Roman, there are no waiting rooms, awkward face-to-face conversations, or uncomfortable trips to the pharmacy. You can handle everything discreetly online. For a free online visit: getroman.com/cb     2:12 Kellen Moore is the OC and Kitna is the QB Coach...so how much will actually change? 5:55 The 2019 season will be monumental in terms of the future of the franchise.  10:21 Best case scenario with the offensive coaching changes...  14:02 ROMAN 16:19  Who the Cowboys need to target in the draft in the ultimate position of need. 20:08  The Cowboys need to do what they haven't done in a long time in terms of team building.  Subscribe to the Cowboys Beat with Ari Temkin and Patrick Conn on iTunes, Stitcher, and the CLNS Media Network mobile app.  

038: Ari + Conn | Jason Garrett Has Nowhere to Hide Ari Temkin: @arisports Patrick Conn: @DraftCowboys   The Cowboys Beat is Powered by Roman: Roman is a one-stop-shop where licensed US physicians can diagnose ED and ship medication right to your door. With Roman, there are no waiting rooms, awkward face-to-face conversations, or uncomfortable trips to the pharmacy. You can handle everything discreetly online. For a free online visit: getroman.com/cb      Subscribe to the Cowboys Beat with Ari Temkin and Patrick Conn on iTunes, Stitcher, and the CLNS Media Network mobile app.  

037: Ari + Conn | Are the Cowboys Heading in the Right Direction? Or Does it Just Seem that Way? Ari Temkin: @arisports Patrick Conn: @DraftCowboys   The Cowboys Beat is Powered by Roman: Roman is a one-stop-shop where licensed US physicians can diagnose ED and ship medication right to your door. With Roman, there are no waiting rooms, awkward face-to-face conversations, or uncomfortable trips to the pharmacy. You can handle everything discreetly online. For a free online visit: getroman.com/cb    2:12 Will firing Scott Linehan actually fix the Cowboys issues? 7:25 Are the Cowboys actually heading in the right direction? 14:02 Are the Cowboys built the right way?  19:38 ROMAN 21:25 Who could be the next offensive coordinator of the Dallas Cowboys? Subscribe to the Cowboys Beat with Ari Temkin and Patrick Conn on iTunes, Stitcher, and the CLNS Media Network mobile app.  

034: Ari + Conn | What Do the Stats Say About Cowboys Winning a Title in 2018? Ari Temkin: @arisports Patrick Conn: @DraftCowboys   The Cowboys Beat is Powered by Roman: Roman is a one-stop-shop where licensed US physicians can diagnose ED and ship medication right to your door. With Roman, there are no waiting rooms, awkward face-to-face conversations, or uncomfortable trips to the pharmacy. You can handle everything discreetly online. For a free online visit: getroman.com/cb    1:10  Where do the Cowboys rank in comparison to other division leaders and the NFC East? 5:47 Are the Cowboys play the right style for the modern NFL? 17:24 Most important move for the Dallas Cowboys in 2018.  26:08 Should the Cowboys rest their main guys against New York?  Subscribe to the Cowboys Beat with Ari Temkin and Patrick Conn on iTunes, Stitcher, and the CLNS Media Network mobile app.  

033: Ari + Conn | Was Loss to Colts a Blip Or Indicitive of Ceiling? Ari Temkin: @arisports Patrick Conn: @DraftCowboys   The Cowboys Beat is Powered by Roman: Roman is a one-stop-shop where licensed US physicians can diagnose ED and ship medication right to your door. With Roman, there are no waiting rooms, awkward face-to-face conversations, or uncomfortable trips to the pharmacy. You can handle everything discreetly online. For a free online visit: getroman.com/cb    1:20 What did the 23-0 loss to the Colts do to our expectations of the 2018 Dallas Cowboys? 6:07 Is Scott Linehan's offense regressing?  12:01 Can they fix their red zone issues? 20:17 Will Linehan be back in 2019? 25:59 Cowboys vs. Buccaneers Preview   Subscribe to the Cowboys Beat with Ari Temkin and Patrick Conn on iTunes, Stitcher, and the CLNS Media Network mobile app.  

Justin Boone of theScore joins the guys today and together we share our top waiver wire adds of the week for each position. Damien Williams (7:36) deserves your attention as the probable leader of the Chiefs backfield if Spencer Ware sits, but are Derrick Henry and Jalen Richard (20:11) even better RB options if they are still available in your league? Has Curtis Samuel (33:59) become Carolina's top wideout, is Josh Allen (35:23) a streamer-worthy option against the Lions, and can fantasy owners trust Vernon Davis (46:47) this week? We finish things off right with some fact or fiction (53:03). Sponsors: Audible – Audible has the largest selection of audiobooks and original audio performances anywhere on the web. Visit “audible.com/fantasypros” or text “FANTASYPROS” to 500500 for 3 months of Audible for just $6.95 a month. Roman – Roman is a one-stop shop where you can easily and discreetly get checked out and treated for erectile dysfunction online. For a free online visit, go to getroman.com/fantasypros.

Today we are joined by Jeff Ratcliffe from Pro Football Focus as we dish out our insight on which borderline players should get the nod or ride the pine. Who is the better QB play between Ryan Fitzpatrick and Mitch Trubisky (11:29), is Alex Collins (20:04) too underrated, and how do fantasy owners approach the Seattle backfield (27:26)? Also, is Corey Davis (34:53 and 37:03) beginning to cement himself as a dominant NFL WR and where might Le'Veon Bell (59:52) end up next year? Sponsors: FanDuel – There’s no better way to spend your weekend than to play in daily fantasy games and FanDuel is the best place to play. New players get a free NFL contest every week until they win cash. Pick a new team each and every week and take your fantasy skills to the next level. Roman – Roman is a one-stop shop where you can easily and discreetly get checked out and treated for erectile dysfunction online. For a free online visit, go to getroman.com/fantasypros.

Pat Fitzmaurice from TheFootballGirl.com is in with us as we share our top waiver additions this week. However, we first give our thoughts on the trade rumors surrounding Amari Cooper (5:13) and project whether Adam Theilen (9:16) will finish as a top-three WR. Is Duke Johnson (24:56) worth picking up despite his volatility, should Tre'Quan Smith (32:28 & 34:30) be viewed as the top WR to claim entering Week 7, and is it time actually consider dropping Russell Wilson (53:51)? Sponsors: Leesa Mattress - A quality night’s sleep helps you recover from distractions faster, prevents burnout, make better decisions, improve your memory, and overall make fewer mistakes. Leesa's mission is to provide a better night's sleep for everybody. Get $160 off a Leesa mattress at leesa.com/fantasypros. Roman – Roman is a one-stop shop where you can easily and discreetly get checked out and treated for erectile dysfunction online. For a free online visit, go to getroman.com/fantasypros.