Podcasts about so jesse

CPI Capital has developed a reliable system for investing in multi-family properties in strategic markets across the United States. Our offer to our valued Investment Partners is an opportunity to invest in income generating properties with considerable value-add prospects. With decades of real estate experience and over $100M in real estate transactions, our team understands the time and effort required to create generational wealth through real estate. Transcript: Jesse (0s): Welcome to the working capital real estate podcast. My name is Jesper galley. And on this show, we discuss all things real estate with investors and experts in a variety of industries that impact real estate. Whether you're looking at your first investment or raising your first fund, join me and let's build that portfolio one square foot at a time. Alrighty. Hope everybody is doing well. My name's Jess for galley. And this week I thought we would do something a little bit different. I was a guest on a show called CPI capital a little bit about my background in real estate from student rentals to assignments, condos multi-family and brokerage.    If you find that at all. Interesting, I think you're going to like this episode, I think we touched on a number of things and they had some great questions. Some of them admittedly completely caught me off guard, but anyways, I hope you enjoyed this episode and we'll see, on the other side,    Ava (59s): Everyone, welcome to the Canadian passive investing show. I'm your host, Ava bene Saki, and I'm joined by my cohost August. Muniez we have another great show for you today, please, please like, and subscribe as it helps us build our channel and allows us to keep bringing you great content and expert guest speakers. Our mission here at CPI is to empower investors, to create financial and time freedom through passive real estate investing. And today we are joined by Jesse for galley.    Got it. Welcome Jesse. Welcome Jesse.    Jesse (1m 34s): Hey everybody. How's it going    Ava (1m 37s): Now? Jesse, Jesse is a commercial real estate broker and investor that started with student rental properties at the age of 19 as his passion for investing grew. He started investing in single family homes and condos. Then he transitioned into multi-family apartments. So today he focuses on operating and raising capital for commercial real estate. So we believe Jesse is going to bring immense value to our audience to make strategic investments in real estate. So Jesse, let's just jump right into things.  If you could start off by telling our viewers a little bit about your background and your involvement with real estate investments, please.  Jesse (2m 13s): Yeah, no problem. And I'll, I'll try to hit that high bar there for you guys. I got started in real estate in college or university bought my first rental property, went to a university in Waterloo. It's about an hour and a half west of Toronto. You know, if there are us listeners, it's kind of Canada's Silicon valley. So a lot of good entrepreneurial spirit out there. And yeah, my first investment property was, was wa wa was Walla, was in school. I saw that I was living with a friend that his father and him went in together on the property that I was actually living with.  So w I saw myself and friends of mine paying rent to another friend and started to realize that it was a great area to invest. And I kind of had a, somewhat of a background in that. My father who's also extremely entrepreneurial and my mom was well, they had a family friend that had a number of single family investment properties. So at a really young age, I'd always ask, you know, what does Mikey do? He doesn't have a job. What is, what exactly does he do? And that kind of got ingrained to me really young, so long story short.  That's how I got into it. This is probably now I was 19, 20 years old. So we're talking about oh 8 0 9. So you don't think of oh 8 0 9 as when you're going through it as a significant time. But looking back, obviously we know now it was a, it was a pretty historic time for the economy and yeah, I mean, going back that far, what I was doing was reading Canadian real estate magazine. If you guys remember that magazine, you know, bigger pockets I think was in its infancy, there wasn't resources, there weren't resources everywhere.  And yeah, that, that was my first, first property was a $250,000 student rental property with five female tenants that I pretended were a lot younger than me, but I really was, was young and trying to try to figure it out.  August(4m 8s): Great. Yeah. I guess timing, timing is always important rate too. You know, they say luck, isn't it. Mathematical equation is when timing meets opportunity. So you jumped on it. That's great. And also, also another item is here in Canada. I mean, a lot of information and content comes over from the, from the U S where you could buy a home in Texas or Arizona or Florida for 300,000 or 250,000. And you can rent it for around $2,000 a month. So you're, you're already cash flowing from the day one, but in, in here in Canada, especially in the larger cities, Vancouver and Toronto, their rent to value ratios are very low.  So that, and the kind of also the entry level to, to get into a single family home is very difficult as well. So talk to us about, you know, early on in your career as a, you know, as you were starting in real estate investing, how did you overcome that particular hurdle to, you know, with the, with the high mark of, you know, the high bar of entry with the low rent to value ratios and also the rigid mortgage laws, our mortgage laws are much more difficult than the U S so  Jesse (5m 8s): Go over there. Yeah, it's funny. I just jumped off my podcast with a, a mortgage commercial and residential mortgage broker. And we were talking about some of the differences with Canada and the U S and, you know, we have the portability of mortgages talk to an American foreign concept for them a 30 year fixed rate. They have that foreign concept to us. So a hundred percent to your point about Toronto Vancouver, I think, you know, I say those things together in every sentence on my podcasts that we're talking about expensive markets at that time, the property, I know what just offhand, because you always remember your first property, the gross rent was approximately 2,400, so $250,000, 2,400 in gross rent.  So, you know, if you go use a 50% rule as your expense ratio, pretty decent property, if you found those types of numbers today, especially our markets you'd jump on them. So it was still relatively affordable in certain markets outside of the, like the, the downtown cores, but yeah, a hundred percent, it was something where you really had to go look for value, adds student rentals still to this day. You know, the valuations are a little bit different. Cap rates are a little bit higher.  You can, you can find those deals, but they're becoming harder and harder to find. So, you know, whether you're in New York, you're in San Francisco, you're in Vancouver, Toronto, you really need to think outside the box. You start, you need to start looking at, you know, the 18 hour cities or the cities towns hour or two hours may be more outside of your general area. But I was lucky at the time. Well, you know, nine, there were still a bunch of deals that were still in our Canadian market. And to your second point about the mortgages, I think at the time I was in the five and a half fixed percent range.  And back then, if you guys remember 5% down was still pretty doable, five, 10% down. Now, when it came to student rentals, there was only a few banks that would lend on those. So that's where you had to start, you know, getting more creative with the financing. But at the time I think it was five or 10% down. I went to my dad and asked, so I had a little bit of cash because I worked summers. I said, listen, this is an awesome investment. Do you want to, do you want to sign on this line of credit so that I can, I could purchase it, gave him the numbers.  He said, absolutely not. You know, my, my parents were divorced. So what is, what does a kid do? He goes to his mom and says, dad's not signing this. So for me, that's, that's kind of how I got my first start. And I always tell this story because I feel like people, you know, when they talk about how they got started, you, you it's always fuzzy. How did the money happen? And I just like to say that everybody you go to the resources you have. I, you know, I didn't, don't come from a very wealthy family, but they gave me every opportunity, you know, family, predominantly immigrants, very entrepreneurial.  But what that allowed me to do was she signed on the guarantee for the, for the line of credit, which added to my down payment, which allowed me to get the space. And then when the second one came around, because I continued to invest in student rentals, then I had, you know, I had a case that the next one, when I partnered on one of them with my father, or I could say, Hey, this is, this is how the business has been doing for the last year and a half or two years. So yeah, that's, that's kind of the background and  August (8m 32s): You build that track record and you were lucky enough to have parents who helped one of your parents. And he was like, finished school, finished school, then we'll dock. There you go. And you were, you were 19 years old. So yeah, I was,  Jesse(8m 48s): Yeah, just turning, just turning 20. Like I, when I put the co the offer in, I was 19, when it finally closed, I was 20.  August (8m 57s): Great, great. And if you could expand on, when you talk about student housing, is that the building or the unit or the home is zone for student housing that you can rent it on for two regular tenants kind of idea.  Jesse (9m 9s): Yeah. So it's a good question because it used to be anything that a student occupies and then what started happening in a lot of cities in the states, and in Canada, you would have either municipalities or cities mandate that you have a student license, you know, we're all big fans of the government. And it was basically, you know, a, a tax that you had to pay to have it licensed. Now, I'm not saying that there isn't good logic for it. There would be, you know, fire code, additional things you would have to do to meet that standard.  But it was also kind of like a, you know, a, a taxi medallion system where, you know, they only would, in, in this particular case, they would only give so many of the moats. So yeah, that, that's how they were kind of categorized in Waterloo. And I know another areas in Ottawa, we have, I still have a couple student rental properties where we're towns are, are kind of talking about implementing that type of thing, but not all towns do. And yeah, so that, that's how it, you know, they'd be categorized as student rentals, some were above board and some people were doing just, you know, without the license.  August (10m 13s): Got it. That makes sense. Just getting back to your point, as far as making strategic investments, and you have to find the kind of diamonds in the rough for it to make sense here in Canada, in Vancouver and Toronto, there are deals, but they're, they're, you know, hard to come by. It's not a scalable business model. It's not somebody, you know, in the U S somebody living in Texas making a hundred thousand dollars a year and they can buy a home for 300,000 and they'd be cash flowing from day one. And, you know, if they do some small renovation and even keep the property, they can, they can, then in a few years, just repeat the same process, buy another property and continue to grow their portfolio.  It's very difficult business model to, to do here. And especially doing a part time, having a, you know, a, a, you know, a job or a profession, and then doing real estate on the, on the, on, on a part-time basis to then find those deals, to be able to be an active investor. So that's an great conversation here.  Ava (11m 6s): So we've, we've we, we learned about what started you in single family. Now, I'm, I'm curious what made you fall in love with multifamily? And when did you kind of start getting into multiple  August (11m 16s): Fell in love with it? Maybe he just likes we're  Jesse (11m 19s): We're we're madly in love. Well,  Jesse (11m 22s): What happened was w so I finished university over that time period. I, I purchased, I believe it was for single family. So these, but these were kind of spread out there. One was in Oshawa. So if you know, Ontario Schwann, Waterloo, they're complete opposite ends of Toronto. And what happened started happening is, and I'm sure you guys were aware of Vancouver was similar where pre-construction condos became a big thing, and this was 20 10, 20 11. I started to purchase those. And what, you know, a lot of people call wholesaling now, or just assigning the contracts.  I did a few times. So w what I did was I kind of kept going down the student rental path. I appreciated a decent amount on a lot of these properties, and then sold them pretty much, not all at the same time, but pretty strategically that I wanted to sell these and have a nest egg to move into the commercial space. It coincided with my job, actually moving from working with the job that I got right out of school to actually a friend of mine kept saying, listen, you'd love this real estate stuff.  You know, what are you doing in your current job? You should be in, in commercial real estate. And I finally got a job in commercial real estate for Avison young as a commercial broker. I happen to work in office leasing and investment sales, but it was kind of through that, where you start really opening your eyes to see what people are doing in different areas. You know, my partner, he also works for the company, but he also is an investor in the multi-family space. Multi-family I think the reason I gravitated towards that is it's just more accessible for the smaller investors that when they get their start, if you're going down retail office, industrial, you know, one, one or two tenants, you could really have large vacancy.  You need a lot of cash for 10 and allowances, tenant inducements. And then the other thing is in Canada. And I believe it's, it's similar in the states, whether it's Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac in the us, or it's CMHC in Canada, there, there are financing products that are more geared to apartments because it's still considered residential, even though it's five units and larger, which lender looks at that as commercial. So yeah. Accessibility for, for lending and yeah, that's, that's how I made the transition.  And we've, yeah, we've kind of focused now, just exclusively on building up the multi-family portfolio,  August(13m 44s): Right? So not only your focus as, as investing changed to multi-family commercial real estate, you, you actually switched your profession to also be involved in the commercial space as a broker. Funny enough, Ava and I were looking at a private equity firm and their principles, and just reading about their bio is, I mean, notice every one of the principals had commercial broker on the bottom of their title, even though some of them, one of them had a PhD, but he still had a commercial broker at the bottom  Jesse (14m 10s): Of their bio. It's funny, it's funny. They there's a lot of people in our industry and NAIOP is a great organization. If you're interested, especially in Canada, in commercial real estate or north America, that's, it covers all areas. But so many of the people that have started their own firms that are CEOs of brokerages or workflow, you know, workplace strategy, it's funny how further back in their career. A lot of times they were brokers or, you know, leasing specialists and really seeing real estate from the ground up.  And I think it's a good foundation as investors, or if you want to have a career in real estate. Yeah,  Ava (14m 48s): Definitely. Great. You got your license. I had my license.  Speaker 3 (14m 52s): Yeah. I couldn't wait to get rid of mine for 10 years.  August(14m 59s): So now I want to talk to you about, let me see, I had a question here for you. Oh yeah. I want to talk to you about, you know, we, we w w w in our research, we are in the space we're in, in Canada and in the real estate of real estate, private equity and, and especially thought leaders in this space who put out content, obviously you came up or you came on on our list. I mean, notice that you are a thought leader in this space. Talk to us about your connection with a bigger pockets and how that came about. Especially one of my biggest complaints with bigger pockets is that most of their content and information is, is a director is for Americans.  And a lot of people do read that information. And now have I have wrong information or information that doesn't make sense. They, they believe that 10 31 exchange exists here in Canada, or that they could, you know, part-time be real estate investors and have 20 single family homes or, or, or other also other compliance verbiage that's that's used in the us, which that doesn't mean the same thing on this at our border, and means something totally different. Something like an offering memorandum is a document provided by a broker to someone looking to purchase a commercial real estate, or an offering memorandum here in Canada is a, is a legal document as security emerges exemption that's used.  And it's a legal document. So talk to us about your connection with bigger pockets and how they came about, and what do you currently do with that group?  Jesse (16m 24s): Yeah, for sure. I think it started from, well, I was on the podcast, the BiggerPockets podcast as a guest years ago. I think that was what started the relationship. I, I really, I don't remember exactly how that relationship started, but it did then. And what it ended up happening is we, we continued communication. Obviously I used a bigger pockets as a resource. And just as a side note for Canadians that are on bigger pockets, even if you have a free account, you can go and put a keyword alerts.  And almost always, I have one keyword alert that is Canada Canadian, us Canada. So like you do get chats that are started specifically about CA Canadian investments. You're going to be pulled into those, into those strings, which, or forums, which is great the way I started doing videos for them. I think Brandon and I, we were talking, or I, I had reached out to him a little while after the podcast. And I had said, you don't, you guys don't seem to have a lot of commercial content, whether that's, you know, industrial retail office, larger apartment buildings, it seems to be focused primarily on single family and, and apartments.    And I said, what if would you guys be open to me doing videos? And he's like, I guess at the time, they're like, yeah, absolutely. It's, we're, we're missing that piece. So yeah, for a couple of years, I was doing videos on a commercial commercial real estate. That's commercial loans, private equity. You're absolutely right though. When you say that, you know, there's that us Canadian gap and a hundred percent it's, you know, you have American her Canadians thinking that they should buy us real estate and put it in an LLC. Okay.  Canada, that doesn't recognize an LLC. You know, you have a certain things, like you're saying what the offering memorandum, you keep hearing, they're raising money for 5 0 6 C offerings that doesn't exist here. So there's all these little intricacies that we need to focus on that when we, when we hear about this type of investment in the states, really need to figure out what that equivalent is up here. And that's what I think we were trying to do to a certain extent there. But like I said, ultimately, as a Canadian, there's definitely Canadians on the, on the forums there, you just kind of have to have to search for it.  But yeah, it's a, it's a really good point.  August (18m 40s): Great, awesome. Talk to us a bit also about your, your own platform. So aside from working with bigger pockets, I believe you have your own YouTube show and podcasts. Talk to us about that in the process and how you came about, you know, starting your show and how it was, how is it going? Yeah,  Jesse(18m 58s): No, it's going great. It's, it's a lot more work as you guys know, then, then, you know, you really realize when you go in, I was just a friend of mine just sent me a stat or a couple stats about podcasts. And it was, I can't remember exactly, but, you know, you know, something like 3% of people go pass episode three, you know, 50%, you know, whatever it is, it's just the consistency. I'm definitely more active on working capital. That's my podcasts. It's working capital, the real estate podcasts. You can get that anywhere, iTunes, Spotify, and the YouTube channel.    I just started putting out like a lot of people, the questions you get asked again, and again, and again, a lot of times it's just easier to make a video, send it out and say, you know, this, this answers it. I think that being on the bigger pockets, realizing that, you know, like when you go on their channel, it's like all of a sudden you have, you know, 70,000 views on something and you can't manage comments like that. So I think for me, it was just like, I didn't realize there was that many people out there that wanted this content. So I try to put stuff up on YouTube as, as much as I can, but really the focus for, for myself is more on the podcast side.    And then through there, you know, people can reach out to me, you know, hear me on the show. And if it's about investing in the future, investing in other investments that we're doing that we're raising capital for. That's where I would say the platform is, but it hasn't been formalized in, in a way where, you know, it's, it's my day job and that's, what's challenging about it. Right. You're, I'm still in brokerage and I don't think I'll ever leave brokerage completely, but yeah, that's, that's kind of where I'm at right now.    August (20m 35s): Yeah. Being a broker is like, you know, the bat, the bat sign put up in the sky when they call it comes in. You've got to go. So yeah, it's definitely a full-time    Speaker 3 (20m 44s): Gig. Yeah. Great.    August (20m 46s): Just to touch on podcast a bit more, what is the podcast mission statement? So what, what problem are you solving? What message are you getting across and what is the kind of the, the final call to action or, you know, the, the, the benefits it has not only for obviously your, your listeners, but also for yourself.    Jesse (21m 4s): Yeah. What I wanted to do is have an educational, real estate investing podcast that where we have guests on, we have them from a range of backgrounds all centered around real estate. So, you know, whether that's a cross border lawyer, whether that's a mortgage broker, whether that's talking to people that are investing in self storage, I wanted to get kind of a round picture of what real estate is and the different niches, or as my podcast guests say, if they're American niches, that drives me crazy, but the different niches in our industry. And through that, I'm what I hope to do too, is when I have people on the show and you touched on it earlier as a Canadian, even though half of the listeners are American, I try every time I can, where somebody is like, well, an FHA loan, and then, okay, well, let's just clarify from the Canadian point of view, it's this.    Or, you know, if they say something like a 30 year fixed mortgage at 3%, and I say, well, in Canada, you can do a CMHC mortgage at 1.6. They're like, that's crazy you at 1.6, because a lot of times you hear, they don't believe that our cap rates are 2.9, 3% in some areas like you're in Vancouver and guarantee some of those office buildings are sub three and they're like, well, our loans are three. It's like, no, no, no, no. Your loans are three. Are our loans are not even though it's still crazy low. So there's only all these little like variation.    So just a long, long winded way to say. What I try to do with the podcast is try to be a north American podcast where I can have Canadians and, and Americans listen to the show and, and feel that they're both getting talked to.    August(22m 36s): Great. Great. So now let's switch the conversation here. Emma has a few questions for you, but let's switch the conversation back to being a real estate investor. As we all know, eventually your real estate investors run out of their own money because they've already deployed it. Or they're looking for bigger projects and a time comes to raise private equity. Where are you at in your, in, in your business currently, are you at that stage that you're, you're raising capital and, and talk to us how that all came about and we can go from there.    Jesse (23m 6s): Yeah. So this year, or I guess the end of last year starting of this year is when I first started to raise capital for real estate. It's, it's kind of a scary thing, which I think is a good thing. If, if you are a fiduciary to somebody else and you're managing somebody else's money, I think you should party. You should be a little scared. I think that's natural that you should have a fear of making sure that you're, you're doing the right thing for your investors. So that coincided with a lot of the podcasts I listened to.    And again, the guests that I've had on my show where, you know, you get connected to masterminds where they are teaching, raising capital or fund to fund model, stuff like that. And again, it kind of goes back to your point of the offering memorandum where like, you know, we sometimes call it an information memorandum. That's more of a brokerage thing than I think a us thing. But yeah, the offering memorandum in Canada, you're, you're talking about legal documents. And the reason I bring that up is the mastermind that I was in was a us centric mastermind for raising capital.    So even there it's like, unless you're investing in the U S it's really challenging to justify what you're spending on that, a mastermind, depending on the cost. But anyways, that got me into the mindset of it, like buying your first property, once you do it once you're like, oh, that I can, I can do that. And that's really what it, what it was for us. Once we started raising capital. So this was the first investment raised a million and a half of equity.    So it's not a huge amount, but it was the first time we ever raised capital it, me and my partner. And, you know, the thing is, there's just, you go through these different cycles while you're raising up. Are we going to have enough? Okay, we're good. No, I don't think we're good. And then it got to the point where we're like, you know what, after it's all said and done, you have subscription agreement signed. You're like, I think if, if I was forced to, I think I could do three, I think it could do five. And I think that's the natural progression when you get used to something and you see that it's, it's achievable.    That's    Ava (25m 10s): Fantastic. And Jesse, I'm curious, what structure do you use to raise private capital?    Jesse (25m 15s): So we do a pretty standard limited partnership agreement. So general partner, limited partner with the caveat of having a asset management company, as part of basically the administration that kind of handles everything. So for those that don't know the, you know, the limited partners are all your investors. They have limited liability. This is not legal advice, but they have limited liability in these investments. The general partner in Canada partnership can not own a real asset that they can't own a property.    So you need to have sometimes a numbered company or a GP. The general partner as a corporation oftentimes owns the property has title, but the limited partner has a beneficial ownership of the property. And then from there, Ava, we do a very simple split where, you know, you have a certain threshold of preferred return that goes to your limited partners. So return of capital first, a preference turn of a certain percentage. Then after that a profit split between the general partners and the, and the limited partners, okay.    August (26m 22s): Maybe you can kind of talk to us more about the deal that you had. So for example, here at CPI, our business model is the multifamily value add and because of their, their higher rental value value ratios that exist in the us on a 70, 30 LTV, you know, we're, we're able to, from the rents we collect, we're able to pay our mortgage payment, pay taxes and fees, third-party property manager, and still have a surplus to pay our investors. Those preferred returns you talk of from day one, because the deals we look at are usually 90% occupied.    So they're, they're well above the mark. So now, how do you go about your deals? Are, are, are your deals ground up development? Is it a value add project? Is it kind of A-class talk to us or what kind of deals you guys work on and how are you able to, is there a return given to investors from day one or is there a kind of a capital event where the project has to go through a certain steps before there is any kind of cashflow coming back to the investor?    Jesse (27m 21s): Yeah. So for us, I'm constantly looking for off market deals, you know, as a broker, you know, first thing we think is we're not bidding on deals. So for me, I was actually land registry looking for properties off market calling, Hey, Jesse, for galley. Listen, I want to put an offer in, on your property when you consider one. So what D constantly outreaching for off market deals happen to find an off market deal? A gentleman owned the property for a number of years. I think it was kind of retirement time for them there. They were, you know, ready to sell.    So for me, this just happened to be a class deal. I wasn't searching for an A-class deal, but it was in probably one of the most expensive areas in Canada, in forest hill and Toronto. It just so happened that when we took a look at these rents, we were, we just saw that it was probably at 60% of what market is. So initially when we went into it, we, what we were going to do. And a lot of our clients do this, where they do what they call condo finishes two older apartments.    So you're putting a dishwasher in the apartment in suite laundry and what our initial thoughts were, were to go in, do $75,000 per unit, really higher end upgrades to achieve higher end rents. Now COVID happens. And all of a sudden, Y you know, you have to be careful about trying to just do a class when the market, you know, might not be able to sustain it. So, for us, what we did was we kind of pivoted and decided to do, you know, instead of a $75,000 upgrade, maybe a 40, 45 more conservative rents, and then kind of, you know, turn over three, four suites within a shorter time period.    So the structure of the deal ultimately was it wasn't, it wasn't a vanilla deal. It was a bridge loan for two years, stabilize the asset, do the renovations, renovate the L renovate a lease at these higher rates, then switch to a conventional, or, you know, CMHC loan switch to the L to that loan once you've achieved that rent. So that, that basically the mortgage takeout takes out your bridge loan. And now you have a stabilized income.    And to answer your last question, in terms of the capital event, this, this deal would be like a development deal. And if anybody has seen, you know, limited partnership agreements, when it comes to the development deals, you get your preferred return. And just as an aside, the preferred is not a guaranteed return. It's a preferred return. And absolutely you try to achieve that, but in a development deal, you know, there's no income. So what happens is that say 7% preferred return a cruise. So your one seven year, two 14, you know, some people compound it.    We don't, it's just simple accrual. And then when there is a capital event, say the refinance, then we decide then do we pay investors all back their initial cash, keep them in the deal, or do we sell a property? Has it gained enough that, you know, it looks appealing to sell and pivot or, or buy another asset so that, yeah, we, we, looking back, I would have had a lot, a lot less stress if we picked a more vanilla investment, but that's, that's what we, what we got our hands on.    August (30m 33s): Great. Oh, how many units was this project?    Jesse(30m 35s): So this one was, this one was seven units, but for anybody that's not in a major market, we're talking about 500,000 plus a unit th the, some that have sold on the street or 700,000 a unit. So this is not, you know, you're not in Boise, Idaho, the first investment, sorry, apartment building we bought was actually west of Toronto and Hamilton 11 unit. And it was a third of the price. So it's just a matter of, you can find expense, more expensive assets, but there definitely has to be a value play there because they're just too expensive to buy.    If they're, if they're already stabilized and at full rent.    Ava (31m 17s): Awesome. And the whole time, Jesse, what's the whole time that you guys were predicting    Jesse(31m 21s): For the, for this one that we're purchasing. So this one, what we have is that to your kind of timeframe, to do the renovations. And then for us, really, we talked to investors, the fund, the sort of the partnership is open for you no longer than that. But I personally, if, if things are where we think they will be in two years in terms of where we want to get the rents, I would love to refinance it, get everybody their capital back and stay in the deal together. And then down the road, because of where it's positioned with a lot of over a billion dollar of Provigil funds in transit.    I think we could add another story to it longer, you know, in the long run. So yeah, we have a few options, but I, the reason I bring that up is I hate seeing these investments where somebody says, like paying out their LPs and then buying them out. It's like, you're the reason they got this asset. You can pay them out and then they're not in the deal. Yeah.    Ava (32m 17s): Options are key. That's fantastic. Now maybe we can discuss your nurturing process for your investors as it's obviously a very important component of, of syndicated investments. So maybe you can please tell us how you nurture your investors and get that know like, and trust and keep that know like, and trust going.    Jesse (32m 36s): Yeah, for sure. I, I can't remember. It was actually a guy in the west end. I think Saskatoon, I had on my podcast and he said, this is very simple. He was, he's like, listen, go on your phone. If you scroll all the way down, if you have an iPhone and you're a contact scroll all the way down to the bottom, you'll see how many contacts you have. It's actually crazy when you're like, how did I accumulate, you know, whatever thousand 700, whatever contacts you can upload those to your computer as a spreadsheet. And you could run through those and really look at who's somebody that haven't had contact with that I could reach out to not to sell them anything.    But as a touch point saying, listen, you know, how are you doing? It's been a while, just a general email. So he had like a three-step, you know, general email, a discussion and just not being salesy. And eventually basically telling people, listen, like, you know what I do in real estate, these are the type of investments that I buy. If this is something that you'd be interested at all, when we have one of these under contract or we're purchasing one, let me know if you'd want, want me to share it? And if you don't just let me know as well.    And nine times out of 10 people don't say, no, they don't say like, no, no, don't tell me. And you know, you be somewhat strategic about the people that you're, you're reaching out to. And then I think what people really need to do, you're in so many more networks than you think you are for me. I did my masters at university of Toronto and just reaching out, literally getting the class list for my year and go and reaching out to all of them. Because, you know, if they, if they did that in school, they're probably, you know, doing something that, you know, might be a little bit different.    They they've made a career change maybe later in life. So you have access where I had access to a lot of people that were like, yeah, a hundred percent sign me up. And some of the people that are in the subscription that, that are LPs were from that. So, you know, I've had people on my podcast that were in law enforcement and they left the force and then they, you know, they had their first indication with 20 cops. So I think you got to look at the networks that you're in and, and don't be afraid to tell people what, they're, what you're doing. Like you, you, you two are doing here, you know, people know when they talked to you August and Ava, like yeah, they're, they're in real estate.    So I think being seen as is important, and I know it's not easy for everybody. We're not all extroverts, but it really is an important part. If you want to attract capital and, you know, that's the path you want to take.    August (34m 58s): Great. Awesome. And I'm sure your shows and your connection to a bigger pot pockets is also a great cultivation process for, for bringing awareness to you and, and investors to, to your services, but maybe briefly touch on your nurturing process when the investors do connect with you, if it's from your own list or from, from your marketing campaigns or from your thought leadership platform, as they come into your database, how do you keep in touch with them? Do you know if it's through newsletters or other content that you send to them? So eventually when you do have a deal, because as, as us being in the syndication business, we're not a fund, we're not continuously buying assets and continuously raising capital, we look for a great deals and then we present it to our investors, to, to us very briefly about your nurturing process when for your leads or your contacts.    Yeah,    Jesse (35m 43s): Absolutely. I think for me, part of it is, you know, when you go to working capital podcasts.com and people will subscribe to the podcast, that'll be part of, you know, me reaching out to people and connecting and nurturing through there when it comes to people that I've, I've reached out to that say, didn't sign up for the last syndication, just touch points with them, whether, you know, constant contact or MailChimp keeping kind of abreast of keeping them abreast of what you're doing. And really, I haven't, I haven't formalized it in like to a T for me, it's just been, you know, the list of people that I have that are in my database, on, you know, through my website where we capture all the emails through the, the list that I have when I reach out to people.    And yeah, it's, it's really, it's really like that right now. If we move to something more formalized as we, as we continue, you know, maybe that, that will be the path. Ideally, I'd like to get to a point where we're going to have committed capital rather than syndication where you're chasing the deal, chasing the clock, whereas where you can call capital and you have the fun there. Yes,    Ava (36m 47s): It's cool. Cause you probably have a long list of people who are watching you on the sideline watching you kind of do your first deal and then your next one. And eventually a lot of syndicators say five years down the road, they've been watching us and boom, they just gave me $2 million. Well, I had a buddy    Jesse (37m 0s): Of mine and like really good buddy that I did, that it was in my MBA and he's like, he opted out of the deal and he was just, you know, you know, you get a guy constantly asking you questions like, and then he's like, ah, so, so did that happen? I'm like, yeah, it happened. And he's like, oh, okay. I'll like, I'll, I'll go on the next one. I'm like I told you, man. So yeah. I mean, you just keep in touch and you know yeah, yeah. And it seems    August (37m 20s): Your process is much more up close and personal and hands-on, that's always the best way to go about when companies get bigger. You never even get the CEO on a call with your cases is very kind of up close and personal and that's great. That's great. Awesome. All right.    Ava (37m 33s): Now, Jesse, let's time to have some fun. We're going to start the next segment of our show. So we like to call this the 10 championship rounds to financial freedom. So please just tell us the first thing that comes to your mind and I'm going to get started.    Speaker 3 (37m 51s): All right. I am. I'm set. All    Ava (37m 53s): Right. So who was the most influential person in your life?    August (37m 59s): Cool.    Jesse (38m 1s): Oh, I'm going to get one of the mad probably my father.    August (38m 4s): He didn't give you that money, man. He's, you're attracted to the hard to get.    Ava (38m 11s): What is the number one book you recommend?    Jesse (38m 14s): Oh man. So many, but all I just say, start with no gym camp. Okay.    Ava (38m 20s): If you had the opportunity to travel back in time, what advice would you give your younger self start    Jesse (38m 29s): Early start, start right away. You    August (38m 31s): Started in 19.    Jesse (38m 33s): I think just in general with other things like anything in life that you go, I'll do this. Oftentimes you don't do so. Just, just jump in. If, if you know you, you will, you will regret not doing it. You know, that'll    August (38m 45s): Be the heavier regret when totally    Ava (38m 49s): All right. What, what's the best investment you've ever made    Jesse (38m 55s): In my education.    Ava (38m 57s): What's the worst investment you've ever made. Let me think your    Jesse (39m 5s): Worst investment I've ever made. One, one student rental property. It's tough to call them the worst because you learn from those. But very, a lot of, a lot of mistakes made on that, that, you know, took, took a while to, to, you know, fix and yeah.    Ava (39m 21s): All right. How much would you need in the bank to retire today? What's your number?    Jesse (39m 28s): Nothing. I, I love being active and working and I don't, I don't find what I do, you know, a job job. So    Ava (39m 38s): If you could have dinner with someone dead or alive, who would it be?    Jesse (39m 43s): Well, dad's more fun and morbid. Probably Milton Friedman. I've the economist. I've, I've always found his, his writing's really good capitalism, freed and freedom free to choose. Yeah.    Ava (39m 56s): Awesome. If you weren't doing what you're doing today, what would you be doing now?    Jesse (40m 1s): That's a good question. Probably law. Okay.    Ava (40m 6s): Book smarts or street smarts.    Jesse (40m 12s): After all my education, I always still say street smarts.    Ava (40m 17s): Okay. If you had a million dollars cash and you had to make one investment today, what would it be? I would put it    Jesse (40m 27s): In a fund as the GPS Capitol to show our skin in the game and you know, whatever we can multiply off that with, with investors. Awesome.    Ava (40m 38s): That's a great answer. Awesome. That's great. Those    Jesse (40m 41s): Are so yeah, you don't get asked those every day. Yeah. There    Ava (40m 44s): You go. Kind of puts you on the spot and it's fun footings, you know, first thing that comes to mind occasional    August (40m 50s): As well, right? It helps others kind of think about these questions and kind of helps them with the process. Hey Jay, Jesse, we really appreciate your time. Thank you for thinking. We know you're super busy. We really appreciate taking the time coming and speaking to us, definitely add a lot of value to our viewers and eventually our listeners listeners when we change this show to a podcast and,    Ava (41m 9s): And yeah, Jesse, if you just want to take a quick moment to tell everybody what, the best way that they can reach you, please.    Jesse (41m 15s): Yeah, for sure. I mean, aside from a Google search, Jesse, for galley working, working capital podcast.com, you can go there if you want to subscribe to, to get the show or Spotify, iTunes and yeah. Reach out to me there I'm as a broker, I'm not hard to find. So that's yeah.    Ava (41m 35s): Johnson, Jesse. Thanks a lot for coming today. Thanks so much.    Jesse (41m 47s): Thank you so much for listening to working capital the real estate podcast. I'm your host, Jesse, for galley. If you liked the episode, head on to iTunes and leave us a five star review and share on social media, it really helps us out. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me on Instagram, Jesse for galley, F R a G a L E, have a good one. Take care. 

Terry Olivier 10 In the same way all seven of Jesse's sons were presented to Samuel. But Samuel said to Jesse, “The Lord has not chosen any of these.” 11 Then Samuel asked, “Are these all the sons you have?” “There is still the youngest,” Jesse replied. “But he's out in the fields watching the sheep and goats.” “Send for him at once,” Samuel said. “We will not sit down to eat until he arrives.” 12 So Jesse sent for him. He was dark and handsome, with beautiful eyes. And the Lord said, “This is the one; anoint him.” 13 So as David stood there among his brothers, Samuel took the flask of olive oil he had brought and anointed David with the oil. And the Spirit of the Lord came powerfully upon David from that day on. Then Samuel returned to Ramah.

[ By Pastor Ty Austin ] [ This message was recorded on June 20th, 2021, episode 3 for our 2021 Summer Camp, One Body. One Family. One Mission ] Scriptures (All NKJV): - 1 Samuel 3:19-21 - So Samuel grew, and the Lord was with him and let none of his words fall to the ground. 20 And all Israel from Dan to Beersheba knew that Samuel had been established as a prophet of the Lord. 21 Then the Lord appeared again in Shiloh. For the Lord revealed Himself to Samuel in Shiloh by the word of the Lord. - 1 Samuel 4:1 - And the word of Samuel came to all Israel. - 1 Samuel 15:26-29 -  But Samuel said to Saul, “I will not return with you, for you have rejected the word of the Lord, and the Lord has rejected you from being king over Israel.” 27 And as Samuel turned around to go away, Saul seized the edge of his robe, and it tore. 28 So Samuel said to him, “The Lord has torn the kingdom of Israel from you today, and has given it to a neighbor of yours, who is better than you. 29 And also the Strength of Israel will not lie nor relent. For He is not a man, that He should relent.” - 1 Samuel 16:7-13 - But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look at his appearance or at his physical stature, because I have refused him. For the Lord does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” 8 So Jesse called Abinadab, and made him pass before Samuel. And he said, “Neither has the Lord chosen this one.” 9 Then Jesse made Shammah pass by. And he said, “Neither has the Lord chosen this one.” 10 Thus Jesse made seven of his sons pass before Samuel. And Samuel said to Jesse, “The Lord has not chosen these.” 11 And Samuel said to Jesse, “Are all the young men here?” Then he said, “There remains yet the youngest, and there he is, keeping the sheep.” And Samuel said to Jesse, “Send and bring him. For we will not sit down till he comes here.” 12 So he sent and brought him in. Now he was ruddy, with bright eyes, and good-looking. And the Lord said, “Arise, anoint him; for this is the one!” 13 Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brothers; and the Spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward. So Samuel arose and went to Ramah.   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Rom 12:6-8 NIV  We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your[https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans%2012&version=NIV#fen-NIV-28252a (a)] faith; 7 if it is serving, then serve; if it is teaching, then teach; 8 if it is to encourage, then give encouragement; if it is giving, then give generously; if it is to lead,[https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans%2012&version=NIV#fen-NIV-28254b (b)] do it diligently; if it is to show mercy, do it cheerfully. #1.The Prophetic Gift  +ve sees early, sees well - trends, patterns, designs. Loves seeing early, discovery, worship, music, rhythm, patterns, -ve  Need to check against the Word of God, and timing. Needs to be in a team who can bring checks and balances. Isa 43:18 NIV “Forget the former things;  do not dwell on the past. 19.See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland. 1 Cor 14:1-4 NIV - NT prophets gift). Follow the way of love and eagerly desire gifts of the Spirit, especially prophecy. 2 For anyone who speaks in a tongue[https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+cor+14&version=NIV#fen-NIV-28681a (a)] does not speak to people but to God. Indeed, no one understands them; they utter mysteries by the Spirit. 3 But the one who prophesies speaks to people for their 1.strengthening, 2.encouraging and 3.comfort. 4 Anyone who speaks in a tongue edifies themselves, but the one who prophesies edifies the church.  -People with the prophetic gift have a desire to see equity and justice applied to all parts of life. They are motivated by a cause, and will go to great lengths to help others see the need for action, even if they appear insensitive.   -They need to know the ‘why' early.  even before the ‘what' or the ‘how'. -They often feel or see things early. They are sometimes called seers (seers - see-ers) in the OT. -They see patterns and are often rhythmic or athletic (kinetic). -They can 'see' notes, charts, patterns quickly. -They need to check everything from the Word of God. -They don't see timing as clearly. -They need to settle all their feelings into the truth of God's Word and ways for safe boundaries. -In the context of the church, this gift is the divine strength and ability to speak life, future, hope -  and bring clarity to Bible truth, in some cases foreseeing God's plan. -They are often musical, singers, designers, creative, environments/ambience setters, Romans 12:6; Acts 2:37-40, 7:51-53, 26:24-29; 1 Corinthians 14:1-4; 1Thessalonians 1:5 (All Teams) 1.OT examples -David's music and the sheep. David impact in the presence of a depressed king.  1 Sam 16:19-23 NIV Then Saul sent messengers to Jesse and said, “Send me your son David, who is with the sheep.” 20 So Jesse took a donkey loaded with bread, a skin of wine and a young goat and sent them with his son David to Saul.21 David came to Saul and entered his service. Saul liked him very much, and David became one of his armor-bearers. 22 Then Saul sent word to Jesse, saying, “Allow David to remain in my service, for I am pleased with him.”23 Whenever the spirit from God came on Saul, David would take up his lyre and play. Then relief would come to Saul; he would feel better, and the evil spirit would leave him. -Solomon and Proverbs: (Pr 1:1)  Here are kingdom revelations, words to live by, and words of wisdom given to empower you to reign in life, written as proverbs by Israel's King Solomon, David's son. (TPT) -Future sense  - Joseph and the coming drought. Gen 41:15–16 NIV Pharaoh said to Joseph, “I had a dream, and no one can interpret it. But I have heard it said of you that when you hear a dream you can interpret it.”16 “I cannot do it,” Joseph replied to Pharaoh, “but God will give... Support this podcast

https://vimeo.com/548053415 Welcome to the CXR channel, our premier podcast for talent acquisition and talent management. Listening as the CXR community discusses a wide range of topics focused on attracting, engaging and retaining the best talent. We're glad you're here. Chris Hoyt, CXR 0:21Hello, everybody. Welcome back to another edition of CareerXroads podcast. In this episode, we're doing a recap of our second branding and marketing meeting for 2021. So we're pretty excited about that the time just flew by. And it went really, really fast. So in the spirit of just jumping right in and kind of talking about what we learned and what we shared about, I want to just kick off with our two guests, and have them introduce themselves. So Jesse, if you want to tell us a little bit about who you are, and what you do over at Advocate Aurora. Jessica Summerfield, Advocate Aurora Health 0:54Yes, so my name is Jesse Summerfield, and I am recruitment marketing specialist at Advocate Aurora Health. So we're a 26 hospital system based in Wisconsin, and Illinois. And I oversee all things kind of employment brand recruitment, marketing, mostly for our staff level recruiting, but that also do support leadership, recruiting, and a little bit of clinician recruiting as needed. Chris Hoyt, CXR 1:20Nice. Thanks for being on. Welcome to the show. And Thaya you're at Lockheed Martin, but tell us a little bit about what you do. Over at LMC. Thaya Lupo, Lockheed Martin 1:28Yes. So they are and I work at Lockheed Martin, specifically in the business area of missiles and fire control. MSC for short. Which I know Chris, you're always excited about because it's like everybody's childhood dream to, you know, watch things blow up. Chris Hoyt, CXR 1:28Or just have the word missile in your job title, just like I might change mine to missile and fire control at career crossroads. Thaya Lupo, Lockheed Martin 1:57So I am the recruitment marketing strategist for this empire control. And I primarily am focused on our ex-pro attraction strategies. We have another another teammate who focuses on early career. And, you know, our big focus, of course, like everybody has has been on on diversity hiring and you know, even just specifically just trying to attract during this crazy time of COVID. Chris Hoyt, CXR 2:27Yeah, well, thanks. And welcome to the show. Glad to have you on the podcast first time for you. So we had an interesting session today, it was two hours we did two show and tell some two very large organizations that have done some really great stuff from a branding and delivery standpoint. And then we did a little bit of an exercise and each of those focused on internal attraction, and marketing and external attraction and marketing with some undertones of focus being around DE&I and this big wave of attrition and challenge of attraction that we see so swelling in front of us. So let me ask with with all of the stuff that we covered in a very rapid two hours. Jesse, was, was there a big takeaway, or an aha moment for you that you that you'd want to share with the industry people should be aware of? Jessica Summerfield, Advocate Aurora Health 3:18Well, one thing that I've been thinking about that answers your question, but also it doesn't, but I just wanted to put this plug in is, we talked a lot about burnout, I was part of the retention group and the attrition group. And because we work in health care, like it's been especially bad, I think, just we've just been so busy, even from a recruiting perspective, and you're trying to hire for all these different areas, and I myself have been feeling burned out and coming to this session, even just for two hours, like helps to refresh a little bit, you know, getting away from the doldrums of like creating flyers and Facebook posts and talking with other industry professionals and kind of feeling recognized in that it's helpful. So thank you for that. But I think you know,

Links: Unconventional Guide to AWS Cost Management: https://www.duckbillgroup.com/resources/unconventional-guide-to-aws-cost-management/ Migrate from Oracle to Amazon Aurora: https://aws.amazon.com/getting-started/hands-on/migrate-oracle-to-amazon-aurora/ TranscriptCorey: This episode is sponsored in part by LaunchDarkly. Take a look at what it takes to get your code into production. I’m going to just guess that it’s awful because it’s always awful. No one loves their deployment process. What if launching new features didn’t require you to do a full-on code and possibly infrastructure deploy? What if you could test on a small subset of users and then roll it back immediately if results aren’t what you expect? LaunchDarkly does exactly this. To learn more, visit launchdarkly.com and tell them Corey sent you, and watch for the wince.Pete: Hello, and welcome to the AWS Morning Brief: Fridays From the Field. I am Pete Cheslock.Jesse: I’m Jesse DeRose.Pete: We’re coming at you again with some more listener questions from the Unconventional Guide to AWS Cost Management. I’m excited. People are listening to us, Jesse.Jesse: This is fantastic. I’m really excited that we have one fan. I’ve always wanted one fan.Pete: Well, two fans now. Maybe even more because we keep getting questions. And you can also be one of our Friends of the Pod by going to lastweekinaws.com/QA. And you can give us some feedback, you can give us a question and, like, will totally answer it because we like Friends of the Pod.Jesse: We may or may not enter you into a raffle to get a Members Only jacket that’s branded with ‘Friends with the Pod.’Pete: We should get some pins made, maybe.Jesse: Ohh…Pete: I think that's a good idea.Jesse: Yeah.Pete: So, what are we answering today, or attempting to answer for our listener, Jesse?Jesse: So today, we’ve got a really great question from [Godwin 00:01:20]. Thank you, Godwin, Godwin writes, “I truly believe that the system that I support is, like, a data hoarder. We do a lot of data ingestion, we recently did a lift-and-shift of the system to AWS, we use an Oracle database. The question is, how do I segregate the data and start thinking about moving it out of traditional relational databases and into other types of databases? Presently, our method is all types of data goes into a quote-unquote, ‘all-purpose database,’ and the database is growing quite fast. Where should I get started?”Pete: Well, I just want to commend you for a lift-and-shift into Amazon. That’s a Herculean feat, no matter what you’re lifting and shifting over. Hopefully, you have maybe started to decommission those original data centers and you don’t just have more data in twice as many locations.Jesse: [laugh]. But I also want to call out well done for thinking about not just the lift-and-shift, but the next step. I feel like that’s the thing that a lot of people forget about. They think about the lift-and-shift, and then they go, “Awesome. We’re hybrid. We’re in AWS, now. We’re in our data center. We’re good. Case closed.” And they forget that there’s a lot more work to do to modernize all those workloads in AWS, once you’ve lifted and shifted. And this is part of that conversation.Pete: Yeah, that’s a really good point because I know we’ve talked about this in the past, the lift-and-shift shot clock: when you don’t start migrating, start modernizing those applications to take advantage of things that are more cloud-native, the technical debt is really going to start piling up, and the folks that are going to manage that are going to get more burnt out, and it really is going to end poorly. So, the fact you’re starting to think about this now is a great thing. Also, what is available to you now that you’re on AWS is huge compared to a traditional data center.Jesse: Yeah.Pete: And that’s not just talking about the—I don’t even know if I’ve ever counted how many different databases exist on Amazon. I mean, they have a database for, at this point, every type of data. I mean, is there a type of data that they’re going to create, just so that they can create a database to put it into?Jesse: Wouldn’t surprise me at this point.Pete: They’ll find a way [laugh] to come up with that charge on your bill. But when it comes to Oracle, specifically Oracle databases, there’s obviously a big problem in not only the cost of the engine, running the database on a RDS or something to that effect, but you have licensing costs that are added into it as well. Maybe you have a bring-your-own-license or maybe you’re just using the off-the-shelf, but the off-the-shelf, kind of, ‘retail on-demand pricing’ RDS—I’m using air quotes for all these things, but you can’t see that—they will just have the licensing costs baked in as well. So, you’re paying for it—kind of—either way.Jesse: And I think this is something also to think about that we’ll dive into in a minute, but one of the things that a lot of people forget about when they move into AWS says that you’re not just paying for data sitting on a piece of hardware in a data center that’s depreciating, now. You’re paying for storage, you’re paying for I/O costs, you’re paying for data transfer, to Pete’s point, you’re also paying for some of the license as well, potentially. So, there’s lots of different costs associated with keeping an Oracle Database running in AWS. So, that’s actually probably the best place to start thinking about this next step about where to get started. Think about the usage patterns of your data.And this may be something that you need to involve engineering, maybe involve product for if they’re part of these conversations for storage of your product or your feature sets. Think about what are the usage patterns of your data?Pete: Yeah, exactly. Now, you may say to yourself, “Well, we’re on Oracle”—and I’m sure people listening are like, “Well, that’s your problem. You should just move off of Oracle.” And since you can’t go back in time and undo that decision—and the reality is, it probably was a good decision at the time. There’s a lot of businesses, including Amazon, who ran all of their systems on Oracle.And then migrated off of them. Understanding the usage patterns, what type of data is going into Oracle, I think is a big one. Because if you can understand the access patterns of the types of data that are going in, that can help you start peeling off where that data should go. Now, let’s say you’re just pushing all new data created. And we don’t even know what your data is, so we’re going to take some wild assumptions here on what you could possibly do—but more so just giving you homework, really—thinking about the type of data going in, right?If you’re just—“I’m pushing all of my data into this database because someday we might need to query it.” That’s actually a situation where you really want to start thinking of leveraging more of a data warehouse-style approach to it, where you have a large amount of data being created, you don’t know if you’re going to need to query it in the future, but you might want to glean some value out of that. Using S3, which is now available to you outside of your data center world, is going to be super valuable to just very cheaply shove data into S3, to be able to go back in later time. And then you can use things like Athena to ad hoc query that data, or leverage a lot of the ingestion services that exist to suck that data into other databases. But thinking about what’s being created, when it is going into places is a big first step to start understanding, well, how quickly does this data need to come back?Can the query be measured in many seconds? Can it be done ad hoc, like in Athena? Does it need to be measured in milliseconds? What’s the replication that needs to happen? Is this very valuable data that we need to have multiple backups on?Is it queried more than it’s created? Maybe you need to have multiple replica reader databases that are there. So, all these types of things of really understanding just what’s there to begin with, and it’s probably going to be in talking to a lot of engineering teams.Jesse: Yeah, you can think about this project in the same way that you might move from a monolith to a microservice architecture. So, if you’re moving from a monolith to a microservice architecture, you might start peeling away pieces of the monolith, one at a time. Pieces that can easily be turned into microservices that stand on their own within the cloud, even if they’re running on the same underlying infrastructure as the monolith itself within AWS. And then, as you can pull those pieces away, then start thinking about does this need to be in a relational database? Does this need to have the same amount of uptime and availability as the resources that are sitting in my Oracle Database right now?All those things that Pete just mentioned, start thinking about all of those components to figure out where best to pull off the individual components of data, and ultimately put them in different places within AWS. And to be clear, there’s lots of great guides on the internet that talk about moving from your Oracle database into, gosh, just about any database of choice. AWS even has specific instructions for this, and we’ll throw a link in the [show notes 00:09:02].They really, really want you to move this data to RDS Aurora. They go through painstaking detail to talk about using the AWS schema conversion tool to convert your schema over; they talk about the AWS database migration service to migrate the data over, and then they talk about performing post-migration activities such as running SQL queries for validating the object types, object count, things like that. I think that a lot of folks actually don’t know that the database migration service exists, and it’s something worth calling out as a really powerful tool.Pete: Yeah, the Amazon DMS service is honestly I think, a super-underrated service that people just don’t know about. It has the ability to replicate data from both on-premises databases to Amazon databases but also databases already running on Amazon. You could replicate from a database running on EC2 into Aurora. You could replicate that into S3—you know, replicate data into S3 that way, bringing things into sync—replicate that data into S3, and then maybe use it for other purposes. It can replicate data from DocumentDB into other sources.So, they’re clearly doing a big investment in there. And to Jesse’s point, yeah, Amazon really wants this data. So, talk to your account manager as you’re testing out some of these services. Do a small proof of concept, maybe, to see how well it works, if you can understand the queries, or you can point your application over at an Aurora database with some of this data migrated in; that’s a great way to understand how well this could work for your organization. But as Jesse mentioned, they do want that data in Aurora.So, if it turns out that you’re looking at your—you know, migrate some data in there, and it’s starting to work, and you’re kind of getting a feel for the engineering effort to migrate there, stop. Talk to your account manager before you spend any more money on Aurora because it’s very likely that they can put together a program—if a program doesn’t already exist—to incentivize you to move that data over; they can give you subject matter expertise; they can provide you credits to help you migrate that data over. Don’t feel like you have to do this on your own. You have an account team; you should definitely reach out to them, and they will provide you a lot of help to get that data in there. They’ve done it for many of their other clients, and they’re happy to do it for you because they know that, long term, when you move that data to Aurora, it’s going to be very sticky in Aurora.You’re probably not going to move off of there. It’s a long game for them; that’s how they play it. So, check out those services; that could be a really great way to help you get rid of your Oracle addiction.Jesse: Yeah, and if you’re able to, as we talked about earlier, if you’re able to identify workloads that don’t need to run in a relational database, or don’t need to run in, maybe, a database at all, for that matter, stick that data in S3. Call it a day. Put them on lifecycle management policies or different storage tiers, and use Athena for ad hoc queries, or maybe Redshift if you’re doing more data warehouse-style tasks. But if that data doesn’t need to live in a relational database, there are many cheaper options for that data.Pete: Exactly. But one last point I will make is don’t shove it into MongoDB just because you want to have schema-less, or—Jesse: Please.Pete: —think about what you’re going to use it for, think about what the data access patterns because there is a right place for your data. Don’t just jump into no-SQL just ‘cause because you’ll probably end up with a bigger problem. In the long run.Corey: If your mean time to WTF for a security alert is more than a minute, it's time to look at Lacework. Lacework will help you get your security act together for everything from compliance service configurations to container app relationships, all without the need for PhDs in AWS to write the rules. If you're building a secure business on AWS with compliance requirements, you don't really have time to choose between antivirus or firewall companies to help you secure your stack. That's why Lacework is built from the ground up for the Cloud: low effort, high visibility and detection. To learn more, visit lacework.com.Pete: So Jesse, I’m looking at our list of questions. And it turns out, we have another question.Jesse: Ohh.Pete: Two questions came in.Jesse: You like me, you really like me!Pete: It’s so great. Again, you can also send us a question, lastweekinaws.com/QA. You can go there, drop in a question and feel free to put your name. Or not; you can be anonymous, it’s totally fine. We’ll happily answer your question either way. So Jesse, who is our next question from? What is this one about?Jesse: This one’s from [Joseph 00:13:19]. They write in, “Hey, folks. Love the show. Longtime listener, first-time caller.” Thank you. “I would love to know how people manage their costs in AWS Batch. Jobs themselves can’t be tagged for cost allocation, which makes things a bit complicated.” Lord Almighty, yes, it does. “How best should I see if the jobs are right-sized? Are they over-provisioned in terms of memory or compute? What’s the best way to see if EC2 is my better choice, versus Fargate, versus other options? How can I tell if the batch-managed cluster itself is under-utilized?”Pete: Oof. This is a loaded question with a lot of variables.Jesse: Yeah. And so we’re going to break it down because there’s definitely a couple questions here. But I want to start off with what AWS Batch is, just really quick to make sure everybody’s on the same page here. AWS Batch, effectively, is a managed service in AWS that schedules it and runs your batch computing jobs on top of AWS compute resources. Effectively, it does a lot of the heavy lifting configuration for you so you can just focus on analyzing the results of those queries.Pete: Yeah, exactly. And Batch supports a really wide variety of tooling that can operate this, and that’s why it’s hard for us to give, specifically, how you might optimize this, but I think some of the optimizations actually mirror a lot of the optimizations we’ve done with optimizing EMR clusters and things of that nature, where you’re running these distributed jobs. And you want to make sure that if you’re running straight off of EC2 instances, then you want to make sure that they are essentially maxed out. If the CPU is anything less than 100% for an on-demand instance, then there’s wasted, or there’s opportunity for improvement. And so making sure that your jobs are sized appropriately and balancing out memory and CPU so that, effectively, you’re using all of the memory and all of the CPU, that’s a real basic first step.But honestly, a lot of folks kind of miss out on that. They just kind of run a job and go off and do their own thing. They never really go back and look at those graphs. You can go to CloudWatch, they’re all going to be there for you.Jesse: Yeah. And to this point, there’s always an opportunity to make these workloads more ephemeral. If you have the opportunity to make it more ephemeral, please, please, please, please, absolutely do so. Unless your batch job needs to run 24/7. We’ve seen that in a few cases where they have, essentially, clusters that are running 24/7, but they’re not actually utilized regularly; the workloads are only scheduled for a short amount of time.So, if you don’t need those batch jobs running 24/7, please, by all means, move to more ephemeral resources, like Fargate. Fargate on Spot, Spot Instances in general, or even Lambda, which AWS Batch now supports as well.Pete: Yeah, it has some step function support, which is pretty interesting. Yeah, this is a great opportunity to aggressively—aggressively—leverage Spots, if you’re not currently today. The reality is that check out Fargate on Spot if you don’t need, like, a custom operating system, you don’t need a custom EBS volume size. If you do, then EC2 on Spot is probably the best option that you really have. But really do not want to be running anything on on-demand instances. Even on-demand instances with a really good savings plan, you’re still leaving money on the table because Spot Instances are going to be a lot cheaper than even the best savings plan that’s out there.Jesse: And I think that’s a good point, too, Pete, which is if you do need to run these workloads on-demand, 24/7, think about if you can get away with using Spot Instances. If you can’t get away with using Spot Instances, at least purchase a savings plan if you don’t do anything else. If you take nothing else away from this, at least make sure that you have some kind of savings plan in place for these resources so that you’re not paying on-demand costs 24/7. But in most cases, you can likely make them more ephemeral, which is going to save you a lot more money in the long run.Pete: Yeah, exactly. That’s the name of the game. I mean, when we talk to folks on Amazon, the more ephemeral you can make your application—the more you can have it handle interruption—the less expensive it will be to operate. And that goes from everywhere from Spot Instances and how they’re priced, right? If you just get a normal Spot Instance, it will have a really aggressive discount on it if you need zero time in advance before interruption.So, if that instance can just go in at any second, then you’ll get the best discount on that Spot Instance. But if your app needs a little time, or runs for a defined period of time—let’s say your app runs for one hour—you can get a defined duration Spot of one hour, you’ll get a great discount still and you’ll only pay for however long you use it, but you will get that resource for one whole hour, and then you’ll lose it. If that’s still too aggressive, there’s configurable options up to six hours. Again, less discount, but more stability in that resource. So, that’s the trade-off you make when you move over to Spot Instances.Jesse: So, I also want to make sure that we get to the second part of this question, which is about attributing cost to your AWS Batch workloads. According to the AWS Batch documentation, you can tag AWS Batch compute environments, jobs, job definitions, and job queues, but you can’t propagate those tags to the underlying resources that actually run those jobs. Which to me, kind of just defeats the point.Pete: Yeah. [sigh]. Hashtag AWS wishlist here. You know, again, continuing to expand out tagging support for things that don’t support it. I know we’ve seen kind of weird inconsistencies, and just even, like, tagging ECS jobs and where you have to tag them for they’re to apply.So, I know it’s a hard problem, but obviously, it’s something that should be continually worked out on because, yeah, if you’re trying to attribute these costs, you’re left with the only option to run them in separate Amazon accounts, which solves this problem, but again, depending on your organization, could increase just the management overhead of those. But that is the ultimate way. I mean, that is the one way to ensure 100% of costs are encapsulated to a service is to have them run in a dedicated account. The downside being is that if you have a series of different jobs running across a different, maybe, business units, then obviously that’s going to break down super quick.Jesse: Yeah, and it’s also worth calling out that if there’s any batch jobs that need to send data to different places—maybe the batch job belongs to product A, but it needs to send data to product B—there’s going to be some amount of data transfer either across regionally or across accounts in order to share that data, depending on how your organization, how your products are set up. So, keep in mind that there are potentially some minor charges that may appear with this, but ultimately, if you’re talking about the best ways to really attribute costs for your AWS Batch workloads, linked accounts is the way to go.Pete: Yeah. If you need attribution down to the penny—some of our clients absolutely do. For invoicing purposes, they need attribution for business unit down to the penny. And if you’re an organization that needs that, then the only way to get that, effectively, is segmented accounts. So, keep that in mind.Again, until Amazon comes out with the ability to get a little bit more flexible tagging, but also, too, feel free to yell at your account manager—I mean, ask them nicely. They are people, too. But, you know, let them know that you want this. Amazon builds what the customers want, and if you don’t tell them that you want it, they’re not going to prioritize it. I’m not saying if you tell them, you’re going to get it in a couple of months, but you’re never going to get it if you don’t say anything. So, definitely let people know when there’s something that doesn’t work the way you expect it to.Jesse: Absolutely.Pete: Awesome. Wow. Two questions. I feel it’s like Christmas. Except—Jesse: [laugh].Pete: —it’s Christmas in almost springtime. It’s great. Well, again, you, too, can join us by being a Friend of the Pod, which Jesse really loves that one for some reason. [laugh].Jesse: Yeah. Don’t know why, but it’s going to be stuck in my brain.Pete: Exactly. You too can be a Friend of the Pod by going to lastweekinaws.com/QA and you can send us a question. We would love to spend some time in a future episode, answering them for you.If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, please go to lastweekinaws.com/review. Give it a five-star review on your podcast platform of choice, whereas if you hated this podcast, please go to lastweekinaws.com/review and give it a five-star rating on your podcast platform of choice and tell us why you want to be a Friend of the Pod. Thank you.Announcer: This has been a HumblePod production. Stay humble. 

When we first interviewed Jason, we were lucky enough to have him in the studio. After our interview with him, we starting talking and came across a topic all of us were interested in, Louis Cyr. So Jesse and Jason researched "The World's Strongest Man" and have an amazing episode for you. The facts about him may or may not be true but his legacy is a great one. We hope you'll enjoy this episode, it's a little different but we hope you love it. Follow Jason on Twitter - https://twitter.com/Jason_L_Newton Learn more about Jason - https://uncc.academia.edu/JasonNewton Louis Cyr Movie - https://youtu.be/R6JOn_fKurQ Don’t forget to check out our Patreon for extra bonus content and a way to support the show - https://www.patreon.com/fclpodcast​​​ You can get your own FCL Face Mask, check out our merch on Teespring – https://www.teespring.com/fclpodcast

EP 11 Salty Taste in Your Mouth? Enough with the Gossip, Girl! How to Become the Best Friend, Mom, Wife, Sister, Co-Worker You've always Wanted to Be Accountability Series Part 5 Hey girl, what's up. Welcome back to Wholly Made life. So I want to ask you, do you have a salty taste in your mouth? Have you ever heard that saying, Oh, she's just salty or that let this salty taste in my mouth. So physiologically, that means that your taste buds are becoming more sensitive to salt. So you have a higher salt taste in your mouth, or you have a higher concentration of salt in your saliva that can happen when you get dehydrated. So the first suggestion is to drink more water, water hydrates you okay. It's healthy for your body. It, it, um, flushes out toxins. So we're going to talk about this, not necessarily an actual salt, but I want you to think about this analogy as salt being gossip. Are you ready for today's episode? Let's do it. Take the quick "Wholly Made Life Assessment" here: Wholly Made Life Short Assessment Have a question or comment? Email Angie here: angietoninirogers@gmail.com Connect with Angie on FB: Angie Tonini-Rogers FB page Connect with Angie in her Facebook Community: Wholly Made Life Facebook Community Interested in learning how to start your own podcast? Take a look at this course to learn everything you need to know! ppu.atrogers.com In this episode is going to be short, but sweet. Well, maybe it won't feel that sweet. Maybe it'll feel a little spicy. It might make you even feel a little salty about what we're going to talk about. But I want to challenge you to think about gossip as the salt that makes you feel salty, or like you have too much salt on board. I think it's important to think about this in this analogy, because that's what happens. The more gossip you participate in, the more salty you start to feel about situations and people and the water, the stuff that's going to flush out. Those toxins are the actions we're going to talk about that we can take to take back our lives so that we don't have to feel so salty and so dehydrated. All right. And I apologize ahead of time because I am doing this for my laptop without my microphone and headset, because I'm sitting here watching my youngest Bryson outside, doing an episode of naked and afraid, except that he's closed, uh, he's into this whole camping thing where he's building a Fort and shelter and little places to build fires and all of these things. Uh, I love that kid. He's so creative…anyway. So I'm out here at the kitchen table with my laptop and just getting this episode recorded for you guys short and spicy. Okay. Uh, we're going to talk about the final episode and the accountability series. And that is on gossip. I alluded to this a little bit in the episode related to taking offense, uh, and choosing how that's a choice, uh, to take offense or not to take offense. And even though it's hard, it brings up the feelings and things within us that, you know, when we hear something or a part of an interaction, or maybe we are listening to our pastor preach and we get that feeling of emotion that comes up. Now, some of us have worked a lot on this and we may be a little further along where we don't really get that feeling of offense, but others may not be so far along or haven't practiced that skill of recognizing when those feelings come up for you, that feel convicting. For example, when somebody at work says something to me as a leader, if I've done or said something and somebody at work says something to me that I have, uh, upset them, hurt them. They didn't like the way I did something. And I feel a little bit emotional about that. I started to have some feelings, rise up, maybe I feel a little convicted or defensive. Those are all feelings that come up for us that we just need to stop and identify, what is this feeling? Where's it coming from? Why am I feeling it? And what can I do about it? And being intentional about identifying what those feelings are, so that then we can control our thought around those feelings. So that's what we talked about in the last episode. If you, haven't not in the last one in, um, episode nine, we talked about the taking offense or not taking offense. So if you haven't listened to that, you can go back and listen to that just for some ideas on how you can take back that whole premise of choosing to take offense or not to take offense, being mindful of when you are feeling offended. Okay. So on to gossip. So we talked about when you are offended or you're feeling offended, and you have that conversation with someone else about the way you're feeling or about that interaction, that, that then involves someone else in that trap. Uh, we talked about becoming offended and then acting in that offense because right, as a trap, not only for you and that other person in that relationship, but once you share that information with someone else, you are luring them into the same trap that you are now in. And that other person in the relationship is in. And we talked about how, if I don't like something Susie said to me, and then I go and share that with Emily. Now I've involved Emily in something that arose from an emotion that I had, some stuff that needs to be worked on within me, but because Emily is loyal to me or because we're better friends or because maybe she's had a bad interaction with Susie. Now, she is taking on that spirit of offense about Suzy. That damages not only my relationship was with Susie, but now I've entered information. Given information to Emily that has, has caused her to now hold something, hold a grudge against, or feel offended by something Susie did. And what Susie did her said had nothing to do with Emily. So you see how that creates that circle or that web of, um, this place where we're all trapped within this spirit of offense that leads into what gossip is. The Bible is very good, clear about our actions engagement in gossip in that we should not engage in it. There are so many scriptures that point to the power of our tongue, the words that we say, the accountability and responsibility we'll have about the words that we say. So I just wanted to talk a little bit about how we've got to be intentional about what we're saying and who we're saying it to. It is so often that something is happened between two people. And then you come, you hear from one of those parties, let's call it this one, Jacob and Jesse. So Jesse comes to you and he is upset with something that Jacob has done or said, you're the friend in this situation, you're the person they're coming to. Oftentimes that turns into a, he said, she said, or in this case, Jacob and Jesse, and he said, he said, and so the person that's receiving this information has to make a choice at that point on how they're going to respond. Are they going to play into what Jessie's saying without knowing all of the facts? Because a lot of times what gossip is, is just pieces of information that we, or may not, we may or may not have all the information about. So we're making judgment on something without having all the facts. This goes back into the episode, uh, assuming positive intent that we talked about, where we assume that we know all of the information about the situation and we make judgment against that situation. Or we come to a conclusion about a situation when the reality is, is we're really playing Mad-libs with our life. We are just inserting what we think happened based on what we know about Jesse and Jacob based about our own feelings based about our own past experiences. We're making something up without having all the facts. So that's what gossip turns into is just pieces of information that then we attach definition to emotion too. And it spreads like a cancer. It is something that is damaging on all levels to all parties, to the receiver, to the sidelines, to the, up to the, down, to the all-around it is damaging to anybody that it impacts. So let me talk a little bit about some of the Bible verses that, talk about this, uh, Ephesians four 29 says, let no corrupting talk, come out of your mouths, but only such as good is good for building up as it fits the occasion that it may give grace to those who hear. So what I try to do, and none of us are perfect. You guys. So when we're talking about this being accountable, this is a daily walk. Sometimes it's a minute by minute walk. Okay? Every second we're faced with choices faced with information that we have to make decisions about. So it's an act of being intentional with the information that we have and the information we share. So it's a daily walk, it's a daily practice. So I don't want anybody to feel like so that they can't do something different because every second, every step, every breath, every word is an opportunity to do something different and do something better. We're all striving to be better tomorrow than we are today. I want to be a better parent today than I was yesterday. Heck I want to be a better parent today right now in the moment. Then I was this morning, okay. We all do insane things that we wish we could have done differently. The point is we're being intentional and trying to pause and stop and think about the information that we've received and think about our own reactions and responses to those things. Before we respond and think about if I do or say this thing, what's the intention behind that? What is the outcome going to be? What is, what could the outcome be? Especially when you're thinking about sharing information that you've heard from someone else or participating in a conversation that's about someone that's not there and present to be able to defend themselves or add in their facts about the situation. Proverbs six, 16, 19 says there are six things that the Lord hates seven that are an abomination to him, haughty eyes, aligned, tongue hands, that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run evil, a false witness who breathes out lies. And one who sows discord among brothers. Now let me ask you, in most cases, if you think about the last time you participated in a conversation that had to do with someone or something that wasn't there. Okay. Let's say you were sitting in a group in the person that was being talked about, was not present. Think about that situation. Was that a situation that was sewing a blessing and favor towards the person that wasn't present? Or was it a situation or conversation that could have been sowing discord against that person that wasn't there? Was it a conversation that you would have had in the presence of that person? I tell that to my kids all the time, first of all, lead your life, be a man of character, um, or be, uh, be a man who has a character of integrity is what I meant. Integrity is doing the right thing when nobody's looking, doing the right thing, because it's the right thing, not the easy thing or not, because you're going to get in trouble. If you don't do it doing the right thing when nobody's looking, because it's the right thing with social media. And I just had this conversation with one of my kiddos recently with, okay, that post, when you look at that post, think about if your Mimi sees that, think about if your pastor see that, think about it. I see that. Think about if your teacher saw that, is that posts something you are comfortable with that person seeing when you think about these people that are close to you, people that matter to you, if that's a post that you wouldn't, if that's a conversation that you wouldn't have in front of your Mimi or me or whoever, or if that's a picture that you would feel uncomfortable with your Mimi, seeing Mimi like grandma, then you shouldn't post it. So it's about being intentional about what it is we're putting out into the world. Not because we want to put on a show or present something that's not true, but because we want to try to be obedient with who it is we're called to be, and we're not called to destroy other people or present ourselves in a way which is not in alignment with who it is we are. And we're called to be, when you think about conversations that you're part of or are having, and that the object of that conversation is not there. That the, the person with whom it's about is not there, then think about why are you having it? And number two, would you have that same conversation in the same tone, in the same context, if that person was present? And if you can say yes, then it's probably a conversation that's okay to have. Okay. Unless you're saying to me, Oh yeah, I haven't. Cause I don't care what she thinks about it. Well, that's not really in alignment with who it is we're called to be and how it is we're supposed to, supposed to love our brothers and sisters. Okay. Let's see. I want to just bring up a couple of other scriptures and you guys there's, there's like hundreds of scriptures. I wish I knew how many times gossip was referenced in the Bible. Somebody listening probably knows that if you do send me a message and let me know that is Matthew 12, 26, I'm sorry, Matthew 1236. As I tell you, on the day of judgment, people will give an account for every careless word they speak. So that's it carelessness the lack of deliberate being deliberate, the lack of intention. So that's really it as simple as it gets being intentional about what we're talking about, about what we're reading, about, what we're, um, listening to about what we are watching about or what we're posting on social media, being intentional and trying to think about is this, what's the goal of that conversation? Is it to build somebody up? Because if it's not to build somebody up, then what's it for? Is it to destroy? Is it to get somebody on your side? Is it because you are trying to make somebody look less than or worse than you, which that comes out of jealousy or envy? Is it simply because we don't know what else to talk about with someone maybe we're uncomfortable about making small talks. So we start talking about other people, is it to try to get the attention off of us because we're not comfortable or we don't want anyone to ask questions about us, maybe we're insisting. Sure. So what's the intention of what is you're talking about and you guys right now, I have, I always try to, Hey, very close attention to what I listen to, what I watch, what I see. Like I do not watch the news. I do not the only way I know, and this is, I want to be mindful of what's going on in the world around me. And so I do hear about those things, but I do not watch it and hear it myself. I am intentional about when I hear about something, I am intentional about the sources that I go to, to look up what has happened. Okay. So it's not that I don't know what's going on in the world, but I am very intentional about just sitting and watching the news or reading the newspaper because guys that comes from people and it comes from perspectives of the people, writing it and producing it. So you just have to be mindful of that music. I could not tell you what the most popular song is out right now. I could not tell you because I don't listen to music. Like in my car, I listened to positive podcasts. Mostly of most of them are Christian based, or I listen to worship music. You guys want really good worship music, go check out Lisa. Brunson's a couple of songs she just released. Uh, she's absolutely amazing. And I'm waiting on the violent worship EAP to release, but that's just the plug for some music that I love listening to comes out of my church. I mean, I'm telling y'all we have probably one of the most talented worship teams in the world. I'm just saying, and it's not, because I think there's something wrong with listening to secular music or anything like that. It's just that I try to make the best of the time that I have in the day. And while I'm driving, that's the only time that I'm not preoccupied with anything else other than driving. And it's a great time for me to listen to stuff that I am intentionally listened to, to something from. So it's not that listening and secular music is bad in of itself. And this episode, I'm not going to go into that anyway, but I just wanted to point that out. It's not that I, some getting to choose that never listens to secular music. It's just that I try to use the time that I have. I try to bend time. Honestly, is something else that I do is that every time I'm in the bathroom while I'm by myself, I always pray out loud because I'm trying to bend the time that I have in my day to add stuff into my day. Okay. But anyway, the point is, is that I'm very intentional about what I listen to. I mean, my kids know when they're in my cart, like my kids sometimes choose not to ride with me and they'll ride with my husband and said, or Clayton because they know, um, they're about to hear a podcast. I mean, honestly, is it, am I a bad mom? If I'm okay with them riding with somebody else so that I can have that 15, 20, 30 minutes by myself, you guys, what I, one of the things I miss most about my commute to work is that 45 minute commute is that time I had by myself for 45 minutes just to be by myself. Okay. No, that doesn't make me a bad mom just makes me real. Okay. So the other thing is that I can tell a difference with who they've been riding with. Uh, when I hear Bryson walking around singing, uh, worship music, it's because that's what he's been listening to. So there's something very real about what it is. We fill our time and space and mind with that impacts what it is we do and say, it's, there's something very real about that. This is why reading scripture every day, doing daily devotional, spending time with God being in your church, community, being surrounded with people with like-mindedness though. That's why that's so important. My pastor always says what you touch, touches you back. And that's a hundred percent true. It's not that anything's wrong with listening to music. Like I love the nineties. And if you asked me what my favorite music is, it's going to be something from the nineties. But I am intentional about what I listen to because I, I want to make sure that what feels up my mind in the times where I'm not really being intentional about what it is I'm doing. I want the positive stuff to come up first. Okay. The worship music to come up first in my head versus California love from back in the nineties, uh, with Tupac and Dr. Dre y'all know what I'm talking about. Okay. Um, that's really kinda what I wanted to talk about related to gossip. It's just the best thing that you can do is number one, not participate. Number two, just be intentional. And if you're bold and courageous enough, speak up when you're in a car that doesn't have to do with someone that's not present, or that has to deal with someone that's not present. Okay. Back to my quick, uh, analogy at work. When somebody comes to me with an issue, when Jessica comes to me with an issue with Josh, I equip Jesse to be able to understand, first of all, I point him in, on himself on what he can do differently, how he can go back and address the situation in a way that would hopefully encourage a positive outcome repair in a relationship. If that's been damaged, maybe help him see that there could be other perspectives or pieces of information that he may not have been privy to and help him think about the situation a little bit differently. And then if, if Jesse can't do that or is not comfortable doing that, then I pulled, uh, Jacob in and the three of us have a conversation where I allow them to have the conversation because one hun, well, 99.99% of the time there's been a miscommunication or a misunderstanding between the two of them. And they, they thought one mint, something else. When they said a certain thing, they filled in the gaps. They mad-libbed that conversation between the two of them. They thought, you know, Jacob thought Jesse meant this. And Jesse thought, Jacob meant that. And the reality is, was it was just a miscommunication to begin with because, you know, they didn't fill in the gaps with truth. They didn't give each other enough grace or forgiveness, or they just didn't ask the other person what they meant by that. They didn't, they weren't honest with the way the interaction made them feel with each other. So that three way then helps each of them see, Oh, wow, there's a different perspective. Or, Oh, wow. I didn't mean that at all. That's not at all. What was happening? What was happening was this, this, and this had just happened. I was upset about this. And so I was short with you when you asked me that question, it wasn't about you. So, so much can be resolved when you actually try to fill in the gaps with real factual information. And you actually go to that person and find out how they feel about it, or what happened with them back to your bull courageous action. When you're in a conversation where you hear people talking about someone who's not present, why not just say, Hey, has anybody talked to this person about this? You know, were you present? Did you actually see this interaction happen? Or is this hearsay? Do you have all the facts to the situation? You know, I think it would only be quote unquote fair to have her be present for a conversation or for you to go to her and ask her what she thinks about what happened. Okay. It takes more time to do this, but it, so it's so much more beneficial to your relationships when you can do it. And when you're intentional about the reasons that you are having conversations, it's so much more beneficial to your relationship. And it's freeing to not have to be burdened by gossip because gossip is a burden on the person that speaks it on the person that it's about and on the ears that hear it, it's a burden. So let's be bold enough to not create more burdens for ourselves and for others. All right, sisters, all right, that's it for the accountability series for now, this was a hard series for me to talk about because as I stated, we're all walking this out every day and nobody has it all right, yet. Nobody is perfect with this yet. And nobody will ever be. It's always a day to day decision. It's always with, you know, one step at a time, one day at a time, one word at a time, one thought at a time, one action at a time, just break it down to bite size pieces, break it down to one conversation and practice the skill of stopping and thinking about the outcome that could occur with whatever it is you're going to say next or with however it is, you're going to respond in this situation. Well, ladies, we are on to the next, the next few episodes are going to be about how to create your balanced, Holy made life. Okay. We're going to go back to talking about the pieces of our pipe. I'm really excited about it. And just as a reminder, I am taking clients right now. Uh, I have one hour sessions available right now. I have a couple of half-hour sessions available as well, but I can help you walk through this thing. We can come up with actionable steps for you to either be more accountable in certain areas of your life, or just start to balance out those places that feel a little bit out of whack. Okay. So if you're interested in that or have questions about that or have any feedback at all, or maybe it's a testimony or a story about what we've talked about, then go ahead and drop that into the email. It's always in the show notes. You just click that email and send me a message. And I'm here for, I love hearing from you guys because I want to know what you want to talk. You want to hear me talk about, and I want you guys to be part of the conversation. All right. All right, sisters, I'll see you On the next episode. Hey, before you go, I'd love for you to hop over to my podcast and Give me a review. And you know, I'd love five stars. That's how we can share this thing with other women, just like us, your five stars and written review really helps me get the word out. You can also take a screenshot of this episode and tag me in your Insta and Facebook stories. And I'll give you a shout out right back, leaving a review and sharing this episode is the best way you can show me some luck. Thanks so much. And I'll see you in the next episode. And remember your smile is like a boomerang, throw one at somebody and it'll come right back. If you enjoyed this episode of the Wholly Made Life Podcast, then make sure to subscribe to the podcast, and don't forget to leave me a 5-star review. You can also take a screenshot of the episode and tag me in your Insta and Facebook stories.   *some of the above links may be affiliate links, meaning I make a small commission on the sale at no extra cost to you*

It’s been a while since we’ve answered your burning questions and this is one of your favorite types of episodes! So Jesse and I had fun answering another batch of questions you all have submitted recently. In this episode, we talk about how old we are, how long Champ will be with us, what to do if you want to have kids and your spouse doesn't, when we start talking about the birds and the bees with our kids and how we approach it, how school is going for our kids, plans for international travel, saving for our kids' college tuition, how we got involved in youth group ministry at our church, and our favorite part of having big kids. In This Episode:  [00:36] Welcome back and welcome Autumn. I recently read a holiday-themed novel -- A Very Bavarian Christmas! [02:01] Oatmeal and milk (turned into no-bake cookies) are saving my life these days.  [04:37] We are answering some burning questions today! [06:06] Jesse is now the big 4-0. SO much older that Crystal. ;)  [06:47] We’re sharing how much longer we think may have Champ.  [09:38] How do you proceed when you’re ready for kids but your spouse isn’t? [14:56] What age is appropriate for the birds and the bees talk with your kids?  [19:59] Any plans to travel internationally?  [21:56] Are we saving for the kid’s college tuition?  [25:44] What is our favorite part of having “big” kids?  [26:47] How is school going this year?  [28:27] How we got involved in the youth group ministry at our church. Links and Resources: A Very Bavarian Christmas by Katie M. Reid No-Bake Cookies Sign up for the Hot Deals Email List MoneySavingMom.com My Instagram account (I’d love for you to follow me there! I usually hop on at least a few times per day and share behind-the-scenes photos and videos, my grocery store hauls, funny stories, or just anything I’m pondering or would like your advice or feedback on!) Have feedback on the show or suggestions for future episodes or topics? Send me an email: crystal@moneysavingmom.com

Recently Jesse received an email from a woman who claimed YNAB was really a program about mindfulness... just using money and budgeting as the entry point. So Jesse invited this woman onto the podcast to talk about the connection between mindfulness, meditation, and money. Welcome to Kathleen Slattery-Moschkau, a mindfulness expert, yoga instructor, and filmmaker currently residing in Madison, WI where she runs The Studio.   The Studio: https://www.thestudiomadison.com/about-us-2/   Sign up for a free 34-day trial of YNAB at www.youneedabudget.com

BOND Sunday Service from August 16, 2009: Jesse Lee Peterson tells the story of a mother (Theresa Knorr) who wounded her daughter, and eventually burned her alive! And she manipulated her sons helped her do this! Then she locked her second daughter in a closet until she no longer lived! A third daughter ran away and told on the woman. This is an extreme example of what can happen to you when you are not of sound mind, in which your life is hell. God wants us to have a sound mind, to be born again and have peace. So Jesse talks with the people about how to be still and know God. Runtime: 1-hour Playlist: BOND Sunday Services (Archives) https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVqjzIOc_QoNYs7rgye3uaXkmziRdj8mU SILENT PRAYER: http://silentprayer.video | AUDIO https://soundcloud.com/rebuildingtheman/silent-prayer CHURCH Sunday 11am PT (1pm CT / 2pm ET) http://rebuildingtheman.com/church PLAYLIST: Church with Jesse Lee Peterson (FULL VIDEO, Sunday Service) https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVqjzIOc_QoP6przIhg6O1Iti9hzK9n1Q

Did you ever wonder why IT diagrams always use a cloud to show an element where stuff goes in and comes out, but we're not 100% sure what happens inside? That was originally called a "TAMO Cloud" - which stood for "Then A Miracle Occurred". It indicated an area of tech that was inscruitable, but nevertheless something we saw as reliable and consistent in it's output. For IT pros who hold a strong religious, ethical, or moral point of view, our journey has had its own sort of TAMO Cloud - where grounded technology and lofty philosophical ideals blend in ways that can be anything from challenging to uplifting to humbling. In this series, we sit down with members of the IT community to explore their journeys - both technical and theological - and see what lessons we can glean from where they've been, where they are today, and where they see themselves in the future. This episode features my talk with the founder of TABGeeks, Jesse Nowlin. Listen or read the transcript below. Leon (00:32): Welcome to our podcast where we talk about the interesting, frustrating, and inspiring experiences we have as people with strongly held religious views working in corporate IT. We're not here to preach or teach you our religion. We're here to explore ways we make our careers as IT professionals mesh or at least not conflict with our religious life. This is Technically Religious. Leon (00:53): Did you ever wonder why IT diagrams always use a cloud to show an element where stuff goes in and comes out, but we're not 100% sure what happens inside. That was originally called a TAMO cloud, which stood for "then a miracle occurred." It indicated an area of tech that was inscrutable, but nevertheless something we saw as reliable and consistent in its output. For IT pros who hold a strong religious, ethical, or moral point of view. Our journey has had its own sort of TAMO cloud, where grounded technology and lofty philosophical ideals blend in ways that can be anything from challenging, to uplifting, to humbling. In this series, we sit down with members of the IT community to explore their journeys, both technical and theological and see what lessons we can glean from where they've been, where they are today, and where they see themselves in the future. Leon (01:39): My name is Leon Adato, and the other voice you're going to hear on this episode is Jesse Nowlin. Jesse (01:45): Hi everyone. Leon (01:45): As is there a want on Technically Religious. We don't make the uh, audience wait to hear all the good stuff the juice news about our guests. So Jesse, you've got a moment here for shameless self promotion. Tell us who you are, where you work, what's going on in your life, and just remember to tell us, uh, what your religious or ethical and moral point of view is somewhere in there. Jesse (02:06): Yes. So first off, I'd like to say start by saying, thank you for having me. It's an honor to be on your podcast and on the other side of the mic so to speak, I've got my own podcast as well. Just finished recording an episode. So it's fun to be on the other end now, or on the receiving end of this, I am the founder and head geek at a company called Tab Geeks, which is a conference for a small to mid-size IT support professionals. We focus on a sponsor free show that is focused on the content and not a pitch session, which many of the largest shows are, or only on a particular type of product line. Whereas most people in small to midsize companies, you've got everything from working on the printer to the coffee machine is under your purview. And there really isn't very much in the way of other conferences out there that are addressing all of those in a show. Jesse (02:59): So we've built a community in the conference, uh, focused on training on those particular topics. Again, it's sponsor free. Our stage is kind of like, uh, the Holy ground. You can't go up there if you're a sponsor. We don't even have sponsors on, uh, on our, uh, we don't even have sponsors at the conference at all or in our Slack channel, which is a, another safe space for IT to be able to just come ask for for help and uh, and even vent sometimes and my day job because that's not enough to keep me busy on top of being a father of two kids under three, I also am, I am also the CTO of a 500 employee real estate company that has about 75 offices across three States and I manage all of that with a team of five IT professionals. And I as you go into this, in the beginning of the podcast you asked me to mention the religious affiliation. Obviously that's the point of this podcast. I am an Orthodox Jew and I have found that for me, being able to take that break every week is one of the things that has helped me to avoid burnout and has helped keep me sane in this industry. Leon (04:07): Awesome. Okay. We're going to get, definitely get into that more. Um, any, how can people find you on social media if they wanted to find you someplace, where would they go? Jesse (04:16): Yeah, so I'm on all the major platforms. I am @MrJNowlin on Twitter or @TabGeeks. If you want to check out the uh, the tech community that we've got on LinkedIn, I'm just Jesse Nowlin, Facebook, I'm just Jesse Nowlin and uh, I'm active on all of them posting all kinds of content. We've also got our Tab Geeks website is tabgeeks.com. And our Slack is tabgeeks.com/slack. Leon (04:46): Fantastic. All right, so I'm going to round this out. Uh, I am Leon Adato. I am my actual title, my official title is head geek. Uh, I took the job sight unseen when they told me that was going to be able to be on my business card. I work for a company called SolarWinds, which is another solar nor wind. It's a monitoring software vendor because naming things is hard. You can find me on the Twitters @leonadato. I pontificate about things both technical and religious at www.adatosystems.com and I also identify as an Orthodox Jew. And if you are frantically scribbling that stuff down, trying to figure out whether it was two W's or three or whatever, uh, stop. There's going to be show notes with all the links to everything that we're talking about today. Uh, so you don't have to do that. Leon (05:31): Just sit back, relax and let the awesome wash over you. Um, okay. So I want to dive into the structure of this now. This is the tales from the TAMO cloud. You know, where we talk about our journeys both through the world of tech and religion. And I want to start off with the technical stuff. So tell me a little bit more, you sort of gave us a sketch, but tell me more about what your work is on a day-to-day basis, whether that's with Tab Geeks or as part of the real estate firm, you know, what is, what is your daily job look like today? Jesse (06:01): So day to day, uh, during the day I'm at the real estate gig as I mentioned before, and that is managing a team of five people, uh, which is a challenge of handling the amount of employees that we have to support with that amount of people. That's not the greatest of ratios from what I've been able to see in my research. Um, I've recently been doing a lot of research into this area because we, over the last couple of years, the real estate company grew, uh, pretty much tripled in size in the last three years. And I came on about four and a half years ago and when I started, it was just me and one other guy and he had been shipping computers in from Vegas to California when they would break. And it was literally like a 10 day turnaround time for a computer that had, that had gone down. But if you're not, not counting, of course the costs that it would take to ship it, the downtime costs and the fact that the people didn't have anything to work on in the meantime. Leon (06:55): I'm sure the end users were delighted with that. I'm sure they loved every part of that. Jesse (06:59): To be honest. They didn't really know anything better. They were using Pentium 4 computers on a, um, Exchange 2003 mail server. And this was four years ago. This is, we're now in 2020 is, you know, in terms of, uh, the, the forever evergreen content of podcast world. We're now in 2020. And this was only a couple of years ago. I've only just, uh, recently managed to get rid of the Windows 2000 domain that's been running for a long time because there was just so much other stuff that needed to be done. Uh, the first thing I did when I came on was up the internet from a 80 meg shared cable coax internet line to a 200 meg synchronous, you know, proper internet connection and get everybody off that exchange server and onto G suite. So I'm a, I'm a big G suite fan and um, you know, so that's, that's pretty much what's going on in the day job. We um, have been working, in why I mentioned that I do a lot of that research or have been doing a lot of that research is because, we scaled so much, we haven't really had time to catch up. We were just duct taping things almost literally just to get them working. And so now we've been taking time to pull back and reorganize and create policies and procedures and actually get this stuff standardized. And uh, I hope to actually write a book on this one day. Managing a small to mid size IT department. Leon (08:19): That's fantastic. Okay. So that's where, where you are today, Jesse (08:22): right. So that's the day job and that I come home, eat dinner, well come home and put my kids to bed, eat dinner and then work for two or three hours a night on Tab Geeks doing podcasts and content and stuff like that. And you asked, um, you know how I got into it and you know, where, where all this came from. I've been into tech, uh, since I was a kid. I've told the story before on my podcast that I was, uh, my earliest memory is as a three year old, I had a toy truck that I absolutely loved that broke down and what else was I to do other than to take it apart and try and fix it and sure enough, and I don't know how I did it, but I took it apart and mess around with some wires, put it back together and it turned on and it worked. Jesse (09:03): And that was, you know, that set my brain on fire. I was like, Hey, there's really something here. And then throughout my formative years, so to speak, I was one of the kids that would just pick up computers off to the side of the road when people would throw them away. Of course, back then people didn't really have in mind data privacy. So there was all kinds of stuff on their computers, which made it very entertaining to look through as a teenager or pre teenager. Um, and I would basically just take these home and build my own home lab and then, uh, build environments that would get viruses on the computers and I'd work on destroying them and then try and figure out ways to figure my way out of the holes I was putting myself in. And then in high school I started my own company fixing computers and the rest is history, self-taught all the way. Leon (09:49): Wow. Okay. So that, uh, that explains both where you started and how you pretty much how you got from here to there. So, cause I know that a lot of people who listen especially to the TAMO series, uh, are interested to map their own career, whether they're at the beginning or the middle or, or even, you know, near the end where they're just passing along knowledge themselves, um, to hear how other people got through it. So let's turn, let's turn things around a little bit and let's talk about the religious side. You mentioned the top of the show that you are an Orthodox Jew. And I would like to clarify that labels are really challenging that when you ask somebody, so, so what are you, more often than not, you're going to get an answer of something like, well I, it's a little complicated, I'm sort of this or sort of that. So understanding that any, you know, two or three word label is not going to be able to capture the full complexity and nuance of your religious life. Um, how do you define your expression of Orthodox Judaism today? Jesse (10:48): Well, it's kind of the same way that I describe my title as IT manager. Despite being CTO and highest ranking a it professional in the business is that, you know, it depends what you're doing. Titles are, especially in this industry, in the tech world, titles are all over the map. It depends the size of the company you're at. It depends what you are tasked with or what you've picked up over the years. And you know, religion is the same way. At least for me, it's, there's a lot of things that we're told to do. Some of it it makes sense. Some of it doesn't make sense. Some would, some people would say none of it makes sense. And uh, you know, it's, it's kinda just figuring out really what works for you. And what works for me is having that time every week where I have the Sabbath and from sundown Friday night to sundown on Saturday night, I'm totally disconnected and I will read, you know, uh, secular books. Jesse (11:39): I've been an avid fiction reader my whole life, but a couple of years ago when I realized that IT management was really a direction I wanted to go in, uh, and coinciding with a book reading challenge that my sister-in-law and some family members and I set upon to do a book a week because we're all crazy. Leon (11:57): cause you have nothing else to do. Right. You needed a hobby. Jesse (11:58): Nothing better to do. Yeah, exactly. So it turns out when I read a nonfiction, I don't read it nearly as fast as I read fiction. So I did not succeed at that challenge. But I, I challenged myself further by saying, Hey, I want to see if I can actually learn something this year instead of just reading, you know, 52 books, which is easy. I could do that. And um, it really broadened my knowledge and accelerated a lot of the things that I was working on in my career because I was taking the time to do that. Jesse (12:24): And a lot of that time where I was able to do that was because of the Sabbath. Because I'm not using electronics. I'm not on Facebook, I'm not on Twitter, I'm not, you know, reading some article that that is sitting in my queue of things to read or one of the 8,500 tabs that are open on my browser at all times. And you know, things like that have really been both a strength for me. And also sometimes frustrating because we've got a lot of holidays where you're also not allowed to do the whole technology thing. No work, no driving, no computers, no internet. And uh, there's one story that comes to mind since we are talking about being religious and tech, is a couple of years ago it was one of the high holidays I believe. And there was something going on at the office and they just, they couldn't crack it and they couldn't figure it out. Jesse (13:14): And they were working with the service provider trying to get an internet back and going and something and like they refuse to talk to anybody because they weren't the authority on the account. And they actually ended up saying to the tech who was on site, let's go for a ride. And they drove to my house and said, can you tell this guy that he can talk to us please and what he's supposed to do. And I was like, all right, fine. No problem. Because it didn't break the rules. Technically I wasn't, you know, getting on my computer and doing it. I was just saying, okay, here's how this and this is connected and yes, you are authorized to do whatever they need you to do. Leon (13:45): Wow. Okay. So we'll, yeah, we'll, we'll, we'll dive into some of that in a little bit, but okay. So that's, that's where you are now. That gives us a good sense of where you are now. The question is, is that the environment that you grow up in? Because when we start out, we were sort of, you know, we, we are in the environment that we're born into usually. And for most of us, we don't start to question it until, you know, our teens or maybe a little bit earlier, maybe a little bit later, maybe never. So the question is, where did you start out religiously? Does it, you know, uh, did it look like what it looks like today? Jesse (14:20): So until age seven or eight, I was a practicing religious Christian going to church every week. And that's because my father's not Jewish. My mother left the faith when she went off to college. And, um, you know, that's just, that's where we were at that point in life. And I remember being a five year old when my mother told me that we're Jewish. And I was like, okay, whatever. You know what that means? Cool. And then, um, a couple of years later, uh, she was looking for some more meaning and with some of her family and kind of getting back to her roots and realized that she had a lot of questions that were really related back to her roots in Judaism. And the questions that she was asking was based on the stuff that she had learned when she was a kid in Jewish school. And, uh, we were paired up with a rabbi in, in, uh, somewhat near to our house at the time. Jesse (15:11): And they started, you know, the process of, not necessarily the process, but just kind of talking and, and learning, learning together. And, um, at some point it became clear that we were learning a whole lot about being Jewish and what that meant. And then we started doing those things. And a couple of years later we moved to a more religious area, which was back where my mom had grown up in the New Jersey, New York area. And then I, that was when I was 10, we entered into a major Jewish community and a, a proper Jewish school, which had like, I don't know, 600 kids in it, which for me coming from rural New England at the time with a school that had, I dunno, a hundred kids in it total was quite a culture shock. And I knew none of the language. I knew no Hebrew and not that everything was taught in Hebrew, but it's still the, you know, they teach the texts and stuff like that that you're, you're trying to translate. Jesse (16:02): And I had a serious handicap in that. And what ended up happening to me is interesting and it's probably something that that helped me a little bit later on is that the school I had entered into, uh, for the grade I was in at that time for Judaic studies, they actually held me back two grades. And then because I'd moved around so much getting there, I had to repeat fifth grade on the secular side, but advanced on the Judaic side. So now I had three years of friends and people that I knew in those grades, which then translated into a very wide network as we grew older and went off to school or when it's college, went off to study and you know, abroad we do a gap year in Israel. So I knew just a ton of people and you know, networking is really everything or almost everything in this business. And that really gave me a great foundation. Leon (16:53): So that definitely, uh, tells us your whole progression from, from there to here. So that's interesting. So now being in the world of tech and having the strong religious point of view, um, a lot of times we find that we're, those two things are brought into conflict that are IT life. And, and you were mentioned one case already where our IT life sort of encroaches on a religious life and sometimes vice versa, sometimes our religious life encroaches our IT life and it makes it challenging. So I'm curious if you have any other stories. Cause you did tell the one about having to drive the technician. Somebody had to drive the technician to your house, just so you could give approval, but, uh, were there any other situations you can think of that, uh, where the two things were brought into conflict and how you resolve them? Jesse (17:34): Well, as I was saying before about the high holidays, um, for anybody who knows anything about Judaism and the high holidays, the entire month of October or September, wherever they fall is basically nonexistent for me. I'm like, nothing can happen during October is dead during the month of October. Don't try anything new, don't want, don't look for any new projects. We're going to make zero progress. And that is okay. Um, I recently had several, uh, religious Jewish people on my team and, um, for various circumstances they were reassigned or left to, uh, to move or, um, to look for a new position. And I diversified my team a little bit because, um, you know, not that I was trying not to hire Jewish people, we actually didn't have really any of them, um, apply, which isn't surprising we're at a small Jewish community in long beach, California. But it was helpful that I actually did not hire Jewish people for my entire team because now I have some of that coverage where they are there and I don't feel uncomfortable telling or asking somebody on my team who is Jewish but isn't religious. Jesse (18:43): Hey, can you do this thing over the weekend that I can't do because somebody has to do it when I really shouldn't be telling you to do that. Right? So now I don't have that conflict internally. Um, you know, it's, it's things like that that crop up over time that you really wouldn't think is an issue and then all of a sudden you're on vacation for Passover in a different country and there's nobody to do tech except the one older IT guy who's been there from the beginning who is just completely overwhelmed now and has do everything himself. Leon (19:15): Right. And, and that was a point that we covered. Um, in our very first episode we called religious synergy where you realize that having that mix of people from different, um, you know, faith experiences allows you to see the world from multiple perspectives but also lets you get things done in a way that you couldn't if it was all homogenous. So, yeah, that's, that's definitely, that's interesting. I like it. Jesse (19:36): Yeah. I like to joke around that the time between Christmas and New Years is my most productive time of the year. Yes. Everybody goes on vacation and I get some work done. Leon (19:45): Right. It gets real quiet for everyone, but you and you can finally get that flow time, that mythical flow time that people talk about all the time. Jesse (19:52): Yeah. Well that's when I catch up from October. Leon (19:54): Yes. Well, there, yeah, there you go. Yeah. And you start the year sort of on an, on an even playing field, um, at least until it gets to Passover and then, you know, everything goes out the window again. Um, which is what we're facing now. We're actually recording this just the beginning of March. And, uh, I think for a lot of us Orthodox Jews, we see Purim is just a week away. Passover is just peeking over the horizon and we're like, Oh, I don't know that I'm ready for all of this yet. Um, in any case. So the flip side of those challenges is that sometimes unexpected benefits pop up that, that either our perspective or our training or something about our religious or ethical or moral point of view offers us an insight or a capability in our tech work that we wouldn't have otherwise had and certainly wouldn't expect it. I was wondering if you had any situations that were like that. Jesse (20:46): As I was talking about in my intro, uh, I've been, I have moved around a lot as a kid. I've been in different cultures and I, as many Orthodox Jewish people do, at least from the Tristate area, they go and study abroad in a Yeshiva or a religious school in Israel for a year. And that can give you some wonderful experiences. For me, it was a particularly difficult experience because I'm not the scholastic type. I actually didn't go to college. I've just been in it in my whole life and I'm, you know, community taught, self-taught and have managed to, to make a career out of it. And um, going and traveling around different parts of the world gave me an appreciation for what is now our reality in cloud computing and always on, always available access to different, um, solutions because I was in Israel where, and it's funny to think about it, but because they don't have work on Fridays because you know, Saturday, Friday night to Saturday night as the Sabbath. Jesse (21:47): Thursday night is the party night. And so if you're trying to work, which I used to do remote work for an American company, if you're trying to work on Thursday night, the entire country goes on the internet. And then again, Saturday night the entire country goes online and now Israel, I mean over the years they've increased their, their bandwidth, but they have one pipe that goes over the ocean that comes over to all of the wonderful servers providing these services in the US or in the other direction to Europe. And it gets abysmally slow and things are not necessarily available over there as readily as they are over here in the States. And so having to come up with creative solutions, even five, six years ago, have given me insights to kind of how to build out a distributed team here because I was forced to think about, okay, well if I connect this service to that one, my Google voice calls my Skype number and Skype will work in Israel, then I'm able to combine these services and I can have an American phone number or if I want to stream the Superbowl or if I want to, you know, be able to use a different services over there, whatever. Jesse (22:54): I'm able to do that by stringing these things together. And it's that kind of mentality that, and we're sort of raised with this, you know, when we're learning some of the Judaic stuff that the discussions that they have is kind of the logical mindset. A little bit of a Spock thing going on there to borrow from Star Trek a bit because we are a bunch of geeks, you know, is, is thinking things through and kinda, you know, massaging the system to get what you want out of it. And it's those experiences and you know, I'm sure that other people from other religions have similar stories or different things that have given them those inspirations. But because I've dealt with so many people from all over the planet and so many different types of systems, and I even did a stint doing a networking for the Israeli Defense Forces for the Israeli army, uh, working on some archaic systems in some state of the art systems. It's all given me the opportunity to have a lot of experience with a lot of different things, um, in my relatively short career. Leon (23:52): Fantastic. All right, so any final thoughts? Anything you want to share with the audience? Anything you want them to remember about you? How can they find you? You can remind them of that, you know, any, anything you want to leave us with, words of wisdom? Jesse (24:03): Yeah. So you know, religion is community and um, you know, community in IT is difficult especially because a lot of IT people are introverted and are not necessarily able to relate with a lot of other people. And oftentimes just being able to have that time with your family where you get together or as I like to joke, we have Thanksgiving every Friday night. Gives you the opportunity and the ability to unplug and unwind. And you know, one of the big topics that is tearing through the industry right now, and we actually have a session on it at our Tab Geeks conference coming up is burnout. Burnout is an enormous issue for IT professionals because if it weren't for things like the Sabbath where I am forced to disconnect, I would literally be on my phone, on my computer seven days a week. And you know, there's some something pulling at my, my brain. Jesse (24:57): It's a puzzle. I'm trying to figure it out. That is our nature as IT professionals, that's how we work. We want to solve these things and oftentimes won't be able to sleep until we do. And having that time, whether it's time with family time, where you set those boundaries or in our case where you know, God, so to speak, said that we're not allowed to do things. Or at least, you know, we extrapolate from what God actually said, that we're not allowed to do those things. Gives us the opportunity to, you know, have that back to earth connection and to, and to really take that break that is necessary. I think that for me as I'm becoming more of a manager that focus on family and the focus on the importance of taking time off to be with family and the fact that we're forced to, and it gives me the insight, not just in tech but also in management, that those are the things that are important and help keep me sane. Jesse (25:50): And so as I'm managing my team, it's important to remember those things and that other people need those things as well. And you will have people that will try to just work all the time. And um, there was a company, uh, Buffer actually, which is a very transparent company. They're a social media scheduling tool. They've been very famous about having total transparency and everything that they do and they talk about all of their internal operations, which would be nerve wracking as hell for me, but Hey, why not? Um, they, they said that they give everybody unlimited vacation and nobody took it. They had to turn around and tell people, here's $1,000, I think it was even per family member, you must take a week or two weeks, whatever it was off per year and we're going to pay you $1,000 per family member to go and get away because that's important, and I think that's what's really been able to help me stay so focused and still and so engaged in IT over the years. Jesse (26:48): If you want to hit me up on social media, I am always very active and always happy to to meet new people, talk to people. I think that networking is very important. We have a, in Judaism for Jewish people out there, we've got that game, Jewish geography, which is basically our version of how many degrees of separation. And in the Jewish world, especially because everybody's related to everybody else who has lived all over the world or went to school in Israel with, you know, somebody else, it's been a huge benefit to be able to reach in and tap into some of that network. And, uh, you know, networking is, is really something that helps everybody, uh, get ahead and just learn together, which I think in today's day and age where it's so hard to keep up with cybersecurity and all of the vastness that is the, the tech industry. Jesse (27:33): The only way we can do it as if we work together. And so, you know, networking is important. And the reason why I'm saying that is because I want you to come and say hi. And on Twitter. I'm @MrJNowlin once again, and Tab Geeks is @TabGeeks. That's T. A. B. G. E. E. K. S, which, I'll let you in on a little secret actually stands for tech and business geeks, because we exist at the intersection of both. Speaker 7 (28:10): Thanks for making time for us this week to hear more of technically religious visit our website, technicallyreligious.com where you can find our other episodes, leave us ideas for future discussions and connect us on social media.

Who is on God's team?Welcome to The Light of Christ weekly podcast. Light of Christ Anglican churches located in Georgetown, Texas at MLK and University Avenue. We are a modern expression of the ancient faith. You can learn more about us at lightofchristgeorgetown.orgThe homily that you are about to hear was preached on Sunday, March 22nd, during our evening prayer service at 6:00 PM. You can join online at lightofchristgeorgetown.org/visit.Our Old Testament lesson is a favorite of mine, 1 Samuel, Chapter 16. Have you ever asked the question, who's on God's team? Who is on God's team? I remember as a youth, we would play pickup basketball games and so we would pick two team captains and then we would be in just this mass, undifferentiated mass, and the two team captains would take turns picking who they wanted on their team.Of course, who do they start with? Well, they start with the guys that have a lot of skill who can shoot threes or have a good jump shot or lay up. A lot of times, I don't like to admit this, I was chosen last. It never feels good to be chosen last. Everyone gets chosen. You're like, "Oh, can I just be second to last? Second to last."So how does God choose his team? Does he do it based upon how good we are? The sort of talents that we bring to the table? Our stature, how good we are at layups, how much money we have, how much power?In our Old Testament lesson Samuel is on an undercover mission. You see the first king that Samuel, the prophet of God, anointed to be King over Israel, Saul, has been a absolute failure and so God is calling Samuel to anoint a new king. So you can imagine a new king in town would be what? Treason. And so Samuel is told by God to go down to Bethlehem where Jesse lives and has a bunch of boys there, men, and he's told to go down there and meet with Jesse because in Jesse's house is going to be the new king. Samuel says, "Hey, how am I going to do that? Because if Saul finds out, he'll kill me."So God gives him a cover story, if you will, for this undercover operation. The cover story is you go down there and you go like you're going to sacrifice in Bethlehem and then just invite Jesse over. “Okay, sounds good. Sounds like a good cover story.” So he goes down there, gets ready to do the sacrifice. Notice when he comes to Bethlehem, the elders of the city are terrified. They meet him trembling and they said, "Do you come peaceably?"So Samuel, the prophet of God had a lot of power, spiritual power, and so the people were terrified of what might happen. They thought he might be coming in judgment. He says, "No, it's okay. I've come to do the sacrifice."So Jesse comes and as Jesse comes with his sons, he sees the firstborn Eliab and he's the one you want on your team. He's tall, he's handsome, he looks like just the guy to be king. That's what Samuel thinks. It's like surely the Lord's anointed is before him.Verse six, but notice the Lord says to Samuel, "Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature because I have rejected him, for the Lord sees not as man sees. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart."So Eliab isn't chosen. So Jesse brings his next son and then his next son and each one is rejected, rejected, rejected, until there are no sons left. He says, "Are these all the sons you have?" Jesse says, "No. Actually my youngest, I didn't even bother to bring him. He's with the sheep." He was like, “Bring him right away. He's the one!” And so David is chosen.Why was David chosen? Who is on God's team? Is it the ones that are talented? Is it the ones that are really good? The ones that have lots of power or lots of money? That only the beautiful people? Sometimes I wonder, I've asked this question and maybe you have to. I've asked him, "Lord, how can you use me? I know my imperfections and my inability. How can you use me? There's so many more talented people out there; people that seem more right for this than me."But how does God choose someone to be on his team? He looks at the heart. What he's looking for is not how talented you are; how good you are. He's looking at your heart. He's looking for a heart that trusts him. No, David wasn't a perfect guy. We see that in his life, right? He had lots of failures in his life but the one thing that was always there, on the mountain top and in the valley, when he was doing well and then when he messed up so bad that you can barely believe it when you read it in scripture, he just face plants. God still had him on his team. Why? Because he had a heart of trust. He had a heart of faith in the Lord. He had a soft heart so that when he was confronted with sin, he turned to the Lord in repentance.Paul quoting Habakkuk says, "The righteous, (the ones that are right with God, the ones that are on God's team) shall live by faith; by trust."So do you want to be on God's team? You want to be with God? Of course you do, right? He's the one that's on the winning team. We go back to that analogy of God picking his team. You know what he's looking for? He's not looking for you to be uber-talented or the best person out there or beautiful or rich or any of those things. All he's looking for is the heart can trust. In the name of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. AmenThank you for listening to The Light of Christ weekly podcast. Let us end our time together with a prayer from The Book of Common Prayer. You can find this prayer for submission to God's will on page 673.Oh Holy spirit, beloved of my soul, I adore you. Enlightened me, guide me, strengthen me, console me. Tell me what I should do. Give me your orders. I promise to submit myself to all that you desire of me and to accept all that you permit to happen to me. Let me only know your will. Amen.

But the JLP shutdown is all love! It's not a putdown... it's a put UP. God is with you! So Jesse advises this mother with the pure intention of making sure that family succeeds and avoids all the MESS. so Kelly! RELAX

https://www.americansaa.org/ Dov Hikind isn't your typical Democrat! So Jesse asks him straight up ... why even be a Democrat? Tune in and listen to this engaging conversation about the world today. SUPERCHATS https://streamlabs.com/bondactioninc/v2 SILENT PRAYER http://silentprayer.video AUDIO https://soundcloud.com/rebuildingtheman/silent-prayer JESSE HAS 3 SHOWS: The Jesse Lee Peterson Show (M-F 6-9am PT) http://jlptalk.com The Fallen State (in-person interviews) http://thefallenstate.tv Church (Sunday 11am PT) http://rebuildingtheman.com/church Do you want a personal shoutout or advice from Jesse? Check out his CAMEO page and book Jesse: https://www.cameo.com/jesseleepeterson Support: 800-411-BOND (or 800-411-2663) https://rebuildingtheman.com/donate/ https://streamlabs.com/bondactioninc/v2 https://www.patreon.com/jesseleepeterson https://www.subscribestar.com/jesseleepeterson https://www.paypal.me/jesseleepeterson OTHER CHANNELS: BOND https://youtube.com/bondrebuildingtheman TFS https://youtube.com/thefallenstatetv Hake https://youtube.com/thehakereport ARTICLES: https://www.wnd.com/author/jlpeterson/ BOOKS: http://www.bondinfostore.org T-SHIRTS: JLP https://teespring.com/stores/jesseleepeterson BOND https://teespring.com/stores/rebuildingtheman TFS https://teespring.com/stores/shopthefallenstate TWITTER/FB: https://twitter.com/jlptalk https://www.facebook.com/jlptalk https://www.facebook.com/OfficialJesseLeePeterson ALT MEDIA: https://dlive.tv/jesseleepeterson https://www.bitchute.com/jesseleepeterson/ https://www.minds.com/jesseleepeterson https://gab.ai/jesseleepeterson https://www.twitch.tv/jlptalk DISCORD (new link) https://discord.gg/6d3ahn3

Brown-Forman and the Kentucky Distillers' Association are two organizations focused on growing bourbon both domestically and internationally. Taylor Amerman and Ali Mize represent these brands to balance the scales by focusing on ways to promote a better drinking culture. This means awareness of moderation, being inclusive of those who don’t drink, and how more ID checking systems are being installed at distilleries across the state. As we go into the holiday season, please remember to be safe and drink responsibly. Show Partners: In 2013, Joe Beatrice launched Barrell Craft Spirits without a distillery or defied conventional wisdom. To this day, his team sources and blends exceptional barrels from established producers and bottles at cask strength. Learn more at BarrellBourbon.com. Receive $25 off your first order at RackHouse Whiskey Club with code "Pursuit". Visit RackhouseWhiskeyClub.com. Show Notes: Worst Old Fashioned: https://www.esquire.com/food-drink/drinks/a30172952/viral-old-fashioned-cocktail-video-jim-beam-redo/ The Craft Beverage Modernization and Tax Reform Act: SpirtsUnited.org, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/16/business/economy/craft-distilling-liquor-tax.html This week’s Above the Char with Fred Minnick talks about control states. How did you get into bourbon? How did you end up in this position? Tell us about your background. Talk about bourbon and the environment. What are the responsibilities of your position? What's Intellicheck? Does it track which distilleries you visit? Any concern about upsetting consumers? Tell us about what you all are doing with mocktails. What did you do with mocktails at Derby? What is on the event checklist? How do you promote social responsibility in marketing? What's next to lobby for? Tell us about ride sharing. What do you want the listeners to takeaway? For more information on responsibility efforts, visit brown-forman.com/responsibility and kybourbontrail.com/responsibility. 0:00 We encourage you when you get home to check with your local DMV to make sure that this idea is real. We'd love to have you on the tour today but you will not be participating in the tasting. 0:09 Well, at least they can go and see everything. Absolutely. Just like Jimmy John's the smells are free. 0:13 Yeah, exactly. Just like Jimmy John's. 0:28 What's going on everybody? It is Episode 232 of bourbon pursuit. I'm Kenny and we've got just a little bit of news to go through. And I think by now everyone has seen the viral sensation of the girl who made probably the worst old fashion of all time. It was originally shot in 2010 by mahalo calm, it had muddled cherries and oranges, a whole pint of Jim Beam bourbon. I mean, it was bad. But now Janae Nyberg, the actress on that video has made a reappearance. The folks over at Jim Beam tracked her down and gave her a shot at redemption. In an esquire.com article they talked about how the video started and what she's up to now, beam gave her a second shot and she nailed this time making the perfect old fashioned. You can watch the original and the new video with the link to esquire.com. In our show notes, the craft beverage modernization and Tax Reform Act is a tax cut for thousands of small distilleries, breweries and wineries across America. And they take that tax cut to reinvest it back into the distillery to continue to grow it. And it was a steep cut in the federal excise tax on alcoholic beverages. And Congress passed this at the end of 2017 as a part of the tax cuts and JOBS Act, and it is now set to expire on December 31. And legislators have until Friday to extend it if they don't distilleries will face a 400% tax increase with the first payment for money due on January 15. This as the craft beverage producers scrambling with Thought of potential employee layoffs or even worse, maybe even closing their doors. You can read the article posted by clay rising on the New York Times with a link in our show notes. And you can also go to spirits united.com to sign a petition and help make a difference today. Once again spirits united.com heaven Hill is coming out strong with two new releases soon. We talked about larceny barrel proof before and that will start hitting the shelves in January of 2020 with a price point of $50 SRP and then you have old Fitzgerald fall 2019 released that will be the highest age release of this particular expression at 15 years old. And the suggested retail price on that one is $150. And you've heard it from rackhouse whiskey club in the middle of the podcast, but Bardstown bourbon company will be releasing their prisoner collaboration in 13 states starting in 2020. The prison or wine collaboration begins with a nine year old Tennessee bourbon that the Bardstown bourbon company Finished for 18 months in the prisoner French oak red wine barrels, the resulting whiskey is bottled at 100 proof and the collaboration will be available in January 2020 with a suggested retail price of around $125. Now, we've never done a podcast like this before, but we want to highlight everything that's happening in our world of bourbon. Taylor, a member in an ali Mize come from two different organizations, both focused on growing bourbon both domestically and internationally. Brown Forman and the Kentucky distillers Association are balancing the scales by focusing on ways to promote a better drinking culture. That means teaching moderation being inclusive of those who don't drink and how more ID checking systems are being put in place at distilleries across the state. It's really some things that I even found out that were new that were happening as well. So you end up finding some some pretty unique things here. And as we go into this holiday season, please remember, be safe and drink responsibly. All right, let's kick off the podcast. Here's Joe from barrel craft spirits. And then you've got Fred Minnick with above the char it's Joe from barrell bourbon. 4:08 In 2013. I launched barrel craft spirits without a distillery and defied conventional wisdom. To this day My team and I source and blend exceptional barrels from established producers and bottle strength. Use the store locator on barrell bourbon com. 4:22 I'm Fred Minnick. And this is above the char. This week's idea comes from Twitter from it's just Raleigh. It's just Raleigh asked state run systems, North Carolina versus private Kentucky, Florida, etc. He's basically getting to the question of what is the difference between the state run systems like where you have state run Liquor Control boards or monopolies, if you will, and the private states that allow liquor stores to come in and be privatized and you know, individuals or corporations can 5:01 can sell alcohol in a in respective package store. And I'll tell you I'm kind of mixed on this because you get really good data about sales and, and who's getting what in the control state. So like every year, Pennsylvania, while it is mired with its own problems, they released the number of bottles of Pappy and Buffalo Trace antique collection that they get. And that's something that I would love to see broken out from the liquor store side. Now with that said, they all have these very unique laws, a lot of them have price control, and that they will not mark up whiskey above the SRP. That's something you certainly don't see in the private states, which is why you see something like, Well, our 12 year old or Elmer t leiby, five $600 when that's far, far above the the SRP. Now one thing that I'm starting to hear about control states is that they are cracking Down on private barrels. So this is something I'm still looking into. And if you're having some problems with this, you know, please feel free to reach out to me as I, you know, further investigate it. But what's happening is some of these control states are looking at bourbon clubs as competition to their own single barrel programs. And so they're starting to put restrictions and, and rules on clubs that you don't see in private states. And I don't think I like that very much. But at the end of the day, the entire system of selling alcohol is beyond broken. I mean, we're still dealing with laws that were established for the most part in the 1930s. You're only just now peeling away. You know, a lot of these blue laws in some states. So for the past decade, the lawmakers and a lot in places like Alabama, Texas and Kentucky have done a very good job of getting Getting rid of a lot of stupid laws, but the fact is, many of them are still there. And it probably won't be in my lifetime, but at some point, we will have a more cohesive alcohol system. But again, it won't be in my lifetime. And that's this week's above the char Hey, if you want to be like, it's just Raleigh, hit me up on Twitter or Instagram at Fred minich that's at Fred MiniK Until next week, cheers Welcome back to the episode of bourbon pursuit the official podcast of bourbon. Can you here today riding solo but talking about a topic that we typically would never have thought of, you know, we're all about brands, Master distillers distilling techniques, social, the culture of of of bourbon and stuff like that. But there is there is one aspect of it I think that gets overlooked and that is, knowing your limits knowing when not to drive you get to know these these types of things of me. Making sure that you are being a good citizen, a good consumer of the brown water at the end of the day. And this was really kind of a topic that really kind of came out of out of the blue for me, I actually had an opportunity to meet one of our guests today at a dinner that was actually sponsored by the University of Kentucky. And then from there, we just started talking, I had no idea that this department these positions even existed inside of these, these corporations, and that even the Kentucky distillers Association had people that were dedicated to this as well. So it's going to be something that I found super interesting. And I think you're going to find it interesting as well, because there's just there's a lot of things that happen with inside the bourbon world. And a lot of times that we want to make sure that we're promoting the right things. We talk about what we're drinking all the time. And what we have we have like nine pours is something as we're sitting down and trying a bunch of stuff in a lineup, but we need to make sure that we actually have the capability and wherewithal to kind of know exactly what we're doing after that. So today on the show, I want to be introduce two of our guests. So we have Taylor. Taylor is the global alcohol responsibility manager for brown Forman Corporation. And Alamein, the director of social responsibility for the Kentucky distillers Association. So ladies, welcome to the show. Thank you. Absolutely. So before we kind of dive into this, we kind of want to get understand your backgrounds, kind of like where did you kind of start coming? I usually start the show, talking to people like where did they where did they start really get introduced to bourbon? Do you all have a story where you got introduced to bourbon or something where you got this kind of role like got you into bourbon? 9:35 I would say my experience at Brown Forman got me into bourbon. So I interned for brown Forman while I was attending the University of Kentucky, my junior and senior year and that's where I really got to understand old forester and Woodford Reserve. 9:50 But you Allie 9:51 Taylor Taylor, bourbon I mean bourbon has always been a part of my life as a little million and a Kentucky and but I had spent some time working in Belgium after college. and came back to the oval and really had never been legal drinking age adult in this in this city. And so I met Taylor through some networking and she introduced me to her work at Brown Forman. And when I went to go get my MBA, she really helped me understand what this field of corporate responsibility was all about. I wrote my capstone with the company and on the production of bourbon barrel beer and Western Europe, actually, and then came back worked at yum brands for a little bit on their sustainability team. And when this role opened up, Taylor and her old boss Rob really helped champion me into the role so I have a lot of my bourbon history to think, or that Taylor to think that 10:36 Yeah, I've got to say we've pushed we all set the stage as well as you two are also very, very good friends outside of work. Yes, that here like bridesmaids and everything like that. That's going on around here to full disclosure, full disclosure. Yeah. So there might be some collusion involved at the same exact time, right? It's true. So I guess, since Taylor, you kind of had the the kind of started the path to here. So, what kind of got you into this and you know, you mentioned like interning here, what was that intern position and then what led that into this sort of full time position as as that internship ended. 11:13 So in full disclosure, I have an accounting degree for my undergrad, but then moved abroad and got my first masters in corporate social responsibility from the University of Nottingham and England, where companies are really focused on broader societal needs, whether it be around the environment or social issues. So after I graduated, I came back to brown Forman, leading some of our environmental sustainability work, but over the last four years leading alcohol responsibility and what that means here at Brown Forman, we'll kind of talk 11:44 a little about the environmental thing because I think that's also like a unique aspect of what happens in regards of bourbon production. Everybody kind of wants to understand like, Is there a carbon footprint with bourbon? Is there a way we have to worry about sustainability with wood and barrel And Cooper, James and all that kind of stuff kind of talk a little about that background. 12:03 Absolutely. So that is all housed in our production operations right to reduce water energy, efficiencies, how, where our grains and come from the wood that we saw, right? But then also how can we tell those stories to consumers and key buyers and retailers that are also interested in environmental sustainability. So corporate responsibility as a whole is environment diversity and inclusion, community relations and alcohol responsibility. So it's like who we are as a company, and it's not new. We've been doing this since day one at Brown Forman right we were the first company to have a sealed bottle of whiskey for safety and concern of the consumer and everybody listens to the backstory with with Jackie as I can. On our past episodes, we talked about the old forester brand and really how that really pioneered a lot of the exactly what you're talking about there. So Ali, I kind of want to get a little bit of your Background because you were doing some of this at Yama as well, in regards of social responsibility yamas bulleit. Understand it's it's KFC and Taco Bell. So kind of talk about how you're making tacos a better place in the world. 13:12 Yeah, well, we were really hoping to transition yums shareholder base into longer term shareholders that really understood the value of social responsibility and environmental sustainability. Because at the time when I was there, they had an activist investor on board, and their ratings in the social and environmental spaces were kind of low. And so how could we kind of educate investors about what the company was doing proactively and to reduce waste in their supply chain to improve human rights concerns and those kinds of things and ultimately increase their share price. But what I do for the Kentucky distillers association is a little bit different and that my main focus is really around Governmental Affairs and making sure that our distillers are proactive in their responsible retailing efforts so that we can continue to go to To the Kentucky legislature and make asks like for the ability for people to ship their bourbon home when they visit a distilleries, Visitor Center, the ability to enjoy a cocktail. When you go to a distillery, I think a lot of people forget that wasn't a privilege before 2016 in the state of Kentucky. So we really proactively use our responsibility efforts on the lobbying and advocacy side as well. 14:21 Yeah, I mean, we will definitely get into that because I know that I've seen it on the bourbon trail. Now you go in somewhere. And there's there's a lot of license scanners that are placed everywhere. So we'll talk until a check. Oh, gosh, all right. Now we're, let's let's not give away all the secrets, people figure out how to hack it right. Now, we won't find about that, but we'll hit on that here in a little bit. So, you know, I guess, Taylor, I kind of want to kind of come back to you here a little bit, you know, coming to this into this particular role. What were what were some of the really the guidelines or what were the some of the things that were really in the job description about what you're supposed to be promoting at Brown Forman? 14:58 Absolutely. So this job was given to And so I was like, What in the world is 15:02 that they like they made the position for you when you came in kind of thing. 15:05 So it we've had this position probably about 15 years, and I'm the third person to have this type of for all. Specifically, again, the work has been happening for a longer time, but to have a dedicated resource to this. But we also need to define what that means. And it's more than Please drink responsibly, right. Okay, that's a legal compliance line. So we had to define that. It's in within Corporate affairs. So I support all of our brands, all of our markets and all of our employees around the world. 15:34 And that's a lot because brown Forman is not a small company. It's 15:37 not a small company, almost 5000 employees globally, and we believe it has to start with us, right if our vision is to create a responsible drinking culture, it has to start with our internal culture here at Brown Forman so our employees understand what those behaviors and expectations that if they do choose to drink, it is in moderation, but we also respect the choice not to drink here as well. 30 30% of Americans don't drink alcohol. And that is adults doesn't include the kids. So it's 30% of adults don't drink alcohol. But again, it's within Corporate affairs. So for us alcohol responsibility is across a variety of topics. So not surprising is preventing under age access and consumption, just like we mentioned with ID scanners, preventing drunk driving. So our partnerships with lift and Uber and taxi companies, but a few that make us bit different are supporting addiction recovery. We do a lot that addresses sexual assault and harassment in respecting the choice not to drink. Wow. 16:38 Okay, we're going to touch on each one of those a little bit, because I'm a big fan of Uber. So we kind of want to start here talking with Allie first because you know, as you were kind of saying that when we before we started recording here that Ali's role is sort of like an umbrella across a lot of Kentucky and bourbon and stuff like that. So Allie, kind of kind of give us an idea of like, what the job description is and Sort of what you all are doing, and putting measures in place to make sure that people are trying to do a lot more socially responsible actions. 17:08 Sure. Well, I've learned a lot from Taylor and brown Forman. And so a lot of my job at the Kentucky distillers association is taking best practices from companies like brown Forman and beam, Sentry and biagio that are kind of leading in this space, and raise up the next generation of micro distillers to have the same practices. And so we're all about collective responsibility. And I think that that comes through in a few different ways. One is establishing best practices so that distillers know practically what it means to embed alcohol responsibility into their day to day operations, whether that be manufacturing, marketing, tourism, any event. And so we have a series of very simple checklists about what things you can do in your ticketing in your gift shop in your tour, talking points to incorporate those aspects. And then we build data driven partnerships to kind of bring those best practices to Life. So partnering with Intel attracts age ID solution to make sure that tour operators have a chance to scan IDs authenticate that they are real and prevent under age access to alcohol. And we've caught over 500 fake IDs at distilleries since that program was implemented. So it's super practical, or we work a lot with the mocktail project to increase non alcoholic drink menus across the state. And so helping get our distilleries involved in that program, particularly through a campaign we run each October called mock October. And that's really used as a period after bourbon Heritage Month whenever anyone is kind of worn out. Say, let's take it take the weekend. Relax, we need a break. Oh, yeah, and learn what options exist in terms of zero proof cocktails. And we work with better drinking culture on an auditing program that holds our distilleries accountable to the best practices. So they have if they want an outside consultant, kind of figure to come in and really check and say, here are the ones you're upholding. Here's some areas where you're struggling. We have some resources to help you with that, that partnerships in place. And then we work a lot with lift and other transportation providers, like mint julep tours are in our limo to really make sure that people don't make the choice to drink and drive. So partnerships. And then I would say the last aspect is really raising awareness of the industry's commitment and actual programming amongst legislators, tourism partners, and the consumers and making sure that we get that story across. So best practices, partnerships, awareness, raising media campaigns. 19:33 So let's let's dive into some of these a little bit a little bit deeper here, because you talked about some good points. And I actually, this is a very recent memory, your mind going to four roses and actually doing a barrel pick. They said, Hey, we need everybody's IDs. And we're like, we didn't do this six months ago with we talking about and yeah, so Mandy was there, she scanned all of our IDs and make sure everybody's, you know, over 21 I guess. So first off, it's really cool to see that intelligence is working. I think it's very ballsy if somebody that's under 21 to go into this Hillary and try buy a bottle. I mean, you would think that that would be something that we are all under 21 at some point, but you do you think they'd be like, yeah, I'll just go like the corner store the corner mark, I'm not going to go to a gift shop to go do something like 20:11 this. They just want the experience with their friends, though, if you think about it, they're not always trying to buy the bottle. Sometimes they're trying to get on the tour and have the tasting and have that experience with their friends. So I think that's where we see it more so than in the gift shops with bottle purchases. But you're right, it is surprising that there have been over 500 fake IDs caught on the bourbon trail. I think it's really educated, the distilleries and the industry to that, hey, this is such a necessary tool. You know, it started with just a few distilleries adopting it and bringing it to the attention of the group. This was an option and something that we should pursue as an industry. And what we did was really work with three different ID authentication providers to test the state's best fake ID so we partnered with Alcohol Beverage Control, got their best fakes and really check them on all the different systems and intelligent every time hands down came up with The best system. And so, over time, we've had more and more distilleries come on board to the point where there are 28 distilleries across the state using this technology. And it's great because it sends a consistent message, right? It's not one distillery, doing it over here, and then the next place doesn't do it. And all of a sudden, someone gets angry that they were asked for it at the other location. It's really about providing a consistent consumer experience along the Kentucky bourbon trail and craft tour. And so a lot of other cool things to note are that we have global ABC enforcement officers using the same ID checking technology, when they're going to do their spot checks at Louisville retailers, when they're going to your corner liquor store to make sure they're not serving minors. And they know that store has an issue. They're showing them the technology that Kentucky distilleries use and recommending that that person adopted so that's a really cool case study of where industry has actually influenced government and regulation. And, and I think we're really excited about it. If you were at forecastle, about two weeks ago, you'd also notice that all of their We're serving stations using teletrac, as well. So it's definitely a resource that we promote to our partners across the state. 22:06 Oh, it's good. I'm glad to see the technologies working in the favor for for this as well. I'm assuming that if somebody does scan a fake ID, they're not like here go tracking at the next place. They're actually they're probably, they're probably taking it right. So 22:17 it's actually illegal to be in possession of a fake ID in the state of Kentucky, even if you are a distillery, confiscating it from a gas. So generally, the protocol that we train the distillery employees to say is, we've been alerted to a problem with your ID based on our intelligence system. We encourage you when you get home to check with your local DMV to make sure that this ID is real. We'd love to have you on the tour today, but you will not be participating in the tasting. 22:43 Well, at least they can go and see everything. Absolutely. Just like Jimmy Johns the smells are free. 22:47 Yeah, exactly. Just like Jimmy Johns. 22:50 So I kind of want to talk about the intelligence thing a little more because this is something that is is becoming pretty ubiquitous as you are going down the bourbon trail and I think this is also So something that maybe our listeners want to know is, is it tracking you, as you are going to every single distillery? Like is it say like top? Sorry, you've done three today. We're capping you there, like, is there? Is there some sort of tracking mechanism that's involved with it, too? 23:14 Yeah. So that's a really interesting question. And I think that we have the capability to add that functionality in the future. Right now. We're just focused on making sure IDs get scanned, and that no one under age has access to how call 23:27 Ali's your next big brother here. 23:29 Okay. Yeah, that technology does have the ability to store some demographic information, no personal identifying information. So it's not going to store your name, for instance, but it could store that a male who is your age, and from this state visited the distillery on this day and time and so what that does, especially our craft distilleries, it helps them understand the demographic of their consumers better and if they know that they had a ton of visitors from the state of Michigan, come in in the past. Few months, and they don't have distribution. And then in that state, that's something that they can talk to their distributor about and really pursue. And so it's, again, not storing that personal identifying information. But it is storing demographic things that can really help our guys on the business side as well. And so all of a sudden, you have this responsibility tool that has become a great marketing tool as well. The last thing I'll say about the storing of information, besides the fact that this is really an encrypted technology that has passed through the legal teams of brown Forman, and all the other big companies within our membership is that it does have the capability to do exclusive groups that can be controlled by the managers at the visitor centers. So an example of a group that we have set up that is not currently in use, but could be in the future is banned and intoxicated. So let's talk about the difference between those intoxicated means that you would be flagged here it would be flagged for 24 hours in the system, and then banned means that you wouldn't you be marked forever along the trail. And so while by 25:03 the KDA that's 25:04 Yeah, that's basically that's what it could become. But it is really intended if you're intoxicated and all these distilleries are sharing the same technology. If you go to Evan Williams, and you show up and you're highly intoxicated already, they can flag that idea that when you go down the road to Victor's and your idea scans using the same technology, it's going to pop up with a note and say, Hey, this person was flagged as being intoxicated, maybe think twice before serving them. So again, the technology is never giving a mandate around how to treat that person and their identification. It is helping guide the distillery employee and making smart choices and protecting the consumer which is what the technology is all about. And I think the last thing I want to add because I remembered it coming back to your point about four roses scanning every ID is that's been the most interesting trend for me to watch is I think the perception in Kentucky. A I'm clearly above 21. And how dare you ask for my ID. But we really in the alcohol industry view drinking is a privilege, right? I mean, it is an honor to be able to go into these distilleries and obtain their product and it can cause impairment. And you go out to a state like Oregon, Portland, Oregon, you go out to distilleries or wineries out there, and they do check your ID every time. And so how do we create this mentality shift that says, alcohol is a privilege, not a right and when you consume you need to consume responsibly, otherwise, that privilege can be taken away? 26:34 Because that's how society views it. Right? Absolutely. 26:36 Absolutely. And I think you also brought up another point right there, you know, if somebody is flagged and they are going from one place to another Are you are you ever worried that it could create some bad juju that could possibly happen, right? I mean, this somebody that that is under the influence they do and they're like, I got a driver like I'm fine, like let me through like blah blah, blah, like In God forbid, you know, security gets caught like Does that ever kind of like run through your mind of like, what could the potential happen if we do sit there and pick a bunch of drunk people off? If they're trying to do this? 27:10 I think I'm more afraid of the potential of what happens if we don't do anything. Right. And so, I think that as we grow in our responsibility efforts as an industry, and I would say, brown Forman is the most leading at this but I think more and more distillery employees feel comfortable making that gametime decision knowing that their boss has their back that intoxication isn't acceptable. And just because you have a safe ride, doesn't mean you're a responsible drinker, like there are limits and you shouldn't show up to a tour and disrupt other people's experiences just because you made the choice to over consume. And so I feel really confident that intelligence is a tool that empowers our tour guides to make the right choice but they of course are also trained to provide a hospitable experience and they are never going to publicly admonish someone Or make them feel embarrassed. It's all about having the wherewithal on how to deal and intervene in those situations. Hey, can I get you a glass of water? Before you go on your tour? You look like you've had a long day. Come Tell me about your experiences along the trail, you know, how do we equip them with the right tools and skill sets to be able to handle this awkward situation? 28:20 Hopefully didn't get too awkward, not a hand in so I guess you also brought up something about mocktails. And I think that's something we've we've touched on the podcast before of looking at New York Times articles saying like mocktails, or the new craze, like the, you know, alcohol free bars, you know, so kind of talk about what the the distilleries and what KDA is trying to do of getting into this sort of mocktail category as well. 28:46 Yeah, I can talk about it overall, but I'm really excited for you to talk to Taylor because brown Forman has definitely taken the lead on this including serving the first official mocktail at Derby. So, um, you will definitely Oh yeah, we're gonna go there, but I'm the monitor. Nothing really happened kind of organically to be totally honest. I mean, we have always held a tremendous respect for the choice not to drink in Kentucky and along the bourbon trail that's really important that no one feels that pressure when they come to a very bourbon saturated economy and state right. And but the way that that happened was we were at a local art festival and met a gentleman by the name of Jesse Hawkins, who himself has made the choice not to drink has been sober for a few years now. And he had started a movement back in 2016, called the mocktail project. And when Taylor and I encountered counter Jesse for the first time, he was still very, very grassroots. And which was exciting because we were still figuring out what it looked like to tangibly communicate about this respect. And for the choice not to drink too. And so Jesse really started sharing his story with our distilleries, we gave him a grant to really grow the mocktail project and take these kids to bars and restaurants and say, Are you willing to add a mocktail to Your menu, put a sticker on your front door that indicates that you have that option available so that people who choose not to drink whether they are in recovery, or maybe you're just an expecting mom, or maybe you plan to stay out for five hours this Friday night, and you just know that you'll be on the floor. If you drink bourbon the whole time, and you want something to help you pace. There are so many reasons. But that sticker and that emblem would help people identify the establishments that cared about protecting their health. And so he's really grown that. And over time, we've seen more distilleries get involved and take it their own direction like brown Forman. And I think the one month, like I said earlier that we all get involved is October, and that is generally the second or third week in October, where all the distilleries come together serve these amazing zero proof mocktails. We hold a lot of cool events. This year, we're going to have a sons alcohol pop up bar at butcher town groceries Lola at ostra. some really cool restaurants and mythology involved and we're also taking it a step further on this. Addiction Recovery side too. So this year the official mocktails one will be named after Jesse. But one will be named after a woman at Volunteers of America mid states Freedom House program. And so every one Wednesday a month every month, Volunteers of America brings in local chefs for a chop and chat at their Freedom House Recovery Center for Women who may be expecting children during the recovery process, and they teach them healthy cooking healthy living skills. Well, what about how the drinking skills after you get out of recovery, you're still going to be in social settings like parties where alcohol may be present. And so this year, we thought it was really important to teach them how to mix their own mocktails for those party situations. So ostra is going to be going in with a mocktail project teaching these women how to make cocktails, and they're going to make their own and the winning recipe will be named after the woman and it will be the one we promote during the October campaign so that there's a more human element to why we serve mocktails at the distillery And in bars and restaurants because I think that's what we miss. I mean, everyone knows what a mocktail is. But I think the more impactful thing is, why it's important to include it and why we need to be thoughtful about how we make people feel included, right? We talked about diversity and inclusion and all sorts of industries all the time. What does diversity and inclusion look like in the bourbon industry? From all aspects not just black, white, male, female, but our drinking habits too? 32:24 I gotcha. Yeah, that's good. And by the way, I love OSHA. It's one of my favorite restaurants here in town. Go to I love the churros for dessert. We'll talk about that afterwards. But so Taylor I know we we an alley wouldn't go alleys alleys hog a lot of the air. She's killing it. So So kind of talk about really what brown Forman is doing in this this mocktail category. 32:43 Absolutely. So you know we are deeply committed to it. We have employees who choose not to drink we have board members. We have consumers and business partners that choose not to drink for a variety of reasons. In addition, health and wellness trends right now. And it is invisible. You may not be able to Tell that so we talked about little things. Don't ask why someone's choosing not to drink, right? It should be an invitation I can offer you. But it shouldn't be an expectation to be part of the social setting it. If you are choosing not to drink, you still want to go learn about the history of bourbon, you still want to enjoy our amazing restaurants that we have here in town. So everyone should be welcome. for that. We started an employee resource group. So just like other dimensions of diversity, and ours is called spirit. And it is to respect the choice not to drink. So raise awareness. You know, we have a cafe here on campus, and before spirit, they would cook with alcohol in the food in the desert, but it may not be clearly labeled. And if I accidentally have some cake with bourbon, okay, that's a you know, not a big deal. But if someone in recovery does, that is a really big deal when they weren't expecting that and that can be harmful to them. So just raising awareness, what are those issues that we can change and make a difference? And again, welcome them to brown Forman as employees and guests 34:02 to talk about what you were doing during Derby 34:08 with the careers of master distiller spanning almost 50 years, as well as Kentucky bourbon Hall of Famer and having over 100 million people taste his products. Steve nalli is a legend of bourbon who for years made Maker's Mark with expertise and precision. His latest project is with Bardstown bourbon company, a state of the art distillery in the heart of the bourbon capital of the world. They're known for the popular fusion series, however, they're adding something new in 2020 with a release named the prisoner. It starts as a nine year old Tennessee bourbon that is in finished in the prisoner wine companies French oak barrels for 18 months. The good news is, you don't have to wait till next year to try it. Steve and the team at Bardstown bourbon company have teamed up with rack house whiskey club rack house whiskey club is a whiskey the Month Club on a mission to uncover the best flavors and stories that craft distilleries across the US have to offer. Their December box features a full size bottle of Bardstown suffusion series and A 200 milliliter bottle of the prisoner. There's also some cool merchant side. And as always with this membership, shipping is free. Get your hands on some early release Bardstown bourbon by signing up at rack house whiskey club.com. Use code pursuit for $25 off your first box. Talk about what you were doing during Derby. Yeah, because I think I think that's something that's interesting because it's, I think, as Elliott said, this is the the first year that you all had actually done a mocktail project for Derby, which anybody? I don't think it goes without saying like Derby is exactly that. It's it's the mint juleps. It's the lilies. It's, it's the whole experience and most the time Yes, it does involve liquor, right, but kind of talk about what you all are doing. 35:45 Yeah, so we are proud to be the official bourbon of the Kentucky Derby with Woodford Reserve and old Forester, and that's wonderful to have those products they are and it's a Kentucky moment for all Kentuckians. But if you are one of those 30% who choose not to drink, you also want something in your hand, that is more than a Diet Coke or a bottle of water. Right? So how can we provide an elevated experience that everyone can shares during my old Kentucky home? So this year we worked with churchill downs and Jesse that alley mentioned with the mocktail project to serve the first official Kentucky Derby mocktail. So Jesse was on site serving 36:20 that what did it consist of? Do you remember? 36:22 Yeah, I think it was lemonade and cranberry. 36:25 Yeah. That's great. That's that's a pretty easy ratio. I mean, because I've seen you know, when they talk about these cocktail bars, you're talking like drinks of upwards of like 810 $12 for stuff and there's there's no spirit in it. So it's like, they must help they're like fresh pressing carrots back there something to make this really like go into it. 36:42 Well, we do talk about it's high margin for accounts. And that should be another reason that they have them on their menu. So not only for being inclusive, and show their values but it's good for business as well. 36:53 I'll see There you go. We know that 36:55 and Taylor's being modest and that 36:58 I know you need to talk untalked Very good. They send Jesse all over the place to all these different industry events like whiskey fast and all these things that where he's really influencing trends because he's in involved in industry conversations with the brown Forman backing and so you should feel, I mean, not a big deal that you have whiskey fest with the mocktail project. I mean, let's talk about that. 37:21 Totally. So the four that were around the country, Jesse went and served mocktails so many people came up to him just to take a break, they might have been pregnant. And it was such a relief because frankly, we find that a lot of non drinkers won't show up. Right? I don't even want to go there. I'm not going to be there. I don't want to deal with it. I don't want to get asked why 100 times I'm not going so he provides a safe alternative that looks beautiful. It's in the same glassware that everyone else does. It just helps them fit in. We also had him at forecastle with old forester I should have mentioned Of course with Derby. That drink was in partnership with Jackie's I can't have old forester and so they promoted it together. We've had him at taste of Derby. My goodness, we are doing a big partnership with him in New Hampshire this year as well with the New Hampshire liquor commission, so he is great. He helps put a real authentic voice behind this to explain why but it's that mocktails and cocktails can coexist. It shouldn't be either or, or you're cool or you're not cool. We're all enjoying it. We're all spending time together and connecting. 38:26 Yeah, I think the one thing that I'm really kind of taking away from this and anally kind of said it best is that this isn't supposed to be like, a line in the sand, right? It's not supposed to divide people and say, like, hey, like, you're over there, we're over here. We don't need to talk to each other. Right? And that it's it's more of a why thing. If If you want to try to party all day and nine, you you know, you're not going to be able to write it's just it's impossible sometimes, especially when you're trying to do bourbon for that time. It's just impossible. And so you can look at some of these as an alternative to like, you know, you don't have to sit there and and be miserable if you don't want to try to do that. Right, you've got to learn to be able to know your limits. And this is something that, you know, it's could be a refresher at the end of it too, right? I mean, I love smoothies, right? I'm sure. I'm sure it's it's got some kind of similarity to the tastes and fruit notes and everything like that along with it as well. 39:16 Yeah, I have a few thoughts on that. I mean, one is that we hear industry and place say that all the time, like I've had for work events every night this week, you know, I'm so excited that there's an option where I can still look like I'm participating and engaging and slow down. But one of the nuances that I've learned from Taylor is that recovery is something to be celebrated. And it's hard to feel celebrate. It's not, it's not something to be like, Oh, I'm so sorry. You're going through that or, oh, gosh, how hard it's no congratulations on your sobriety. And I think that's something that we forget. And it's hard to celebrate. If you don't have awesome drink options, right? Like, congratulations, we're so glad you're here. Here's your soda water. Like that's not a good way to help celebrate. And so I think that's another Important nuance to discuss to. There was one other thing I was gonna say. But you all just have in common I forget my last thought was, 40:07 well, events are so important, right? So always we have a responsible event checklist that we promote for brown Forman events you do for KDA events. 40:14 What's on the checklist? Let's go Let's go some let's start checking these off 40:18 check IDs, right, we'll go with that one providing free water and hopefully it's infused and something nice 40:25 mocktails numbers are like lemons or something. I gotcha. It's like I feel like I'm in like a hotel lobby. I swear. 40:32 Sometimes it goes so so fast. That's what you have to continue to refill throughout the night. non alcoholic beverages, having a point person that you know who to go to, should there be an issue that arises 40:43 like an accountability buddy, is it like, or is it like, 40:47 like, like, Who's the manager? 40:47 Like, there's, there's Gary in the corner. I'm gonna go talk to him like what is what's the point person? 40:52 So should there be an issue or an incident of overconsumption? Who do you go to Who's that the manager is that the bouncer? Who's the person in charge? You don't have to try to figure that out in the middle of a situation you already have a game plan. And then so offering some kind of safe right option. And we can certainly talk about partnerships with lift and Uber. But just to add to, at the end of the day, we want everyone who encounters one of our brands to have a positive experience. We never want them to have so much that they never want to drink it, smell it or buy it again. You know, we found that one of the top three reasons people do not drink whiskey is because they've had that negative experience. Just 41:31 that sounds like it's a most of the time of what we do we talk. Remember what I talked about, again, the show, like, tell me about your first piece of bourbon. I would say 50% of the time when we interview guests, that's the first experience it was a bottle of jack or it was whatever was and they were on the air on the floor for hours. Right and and i think that what you're bringing here is is is a relatively good perception of it of what you actually should be doing right and that you don't want to sit there and say, Oh yeah, I'm not gonna I don't always want to bring this back in. Emory back, right do let's let's try to make a positive engagement out of it. 42:04 Yeah, we don't want any harms to ever happen from alcohol. Right? And so how can what can we do to prevent, to educate to provide those options, but we still need consumers to make those right choices as well. But we're not anti sales, right? We're in the industry. We want to promote these products as being well crafted and something to sip to enjoy to savor it, not to just 42:27 escape. And I think you also bring up a pretty good point of being able to give our listeners this sort of background where they might have significant others that don't share their same passion, right. If they're listening to this. They are the the one percenters of bourbon right there. They're the bourbon nerds that are Yeah, we appreciate it. Yeah. And so and they're in now that if their significant other, they don't have to feel so bad, right, that you all are actually trying to create a different kind of culture. That's just not all whiskey. Right? That it's beyond that. 42:58 Yeah, since you're talking about kids for a second. Sure, the number one factor of kids drinking behavior is parents, right? They're seeing how you talk about it, how you enjoy it, they are watching, right? So that's the number one. In addition, the earlier someone tries, the more likely they are to become addicted. So having that conversation early and often with your kids is so important. So of course in middle school in high school, it is talking about alcohol directly. But even younger you want to build those resiliency factors in your kids, getting them to focus on protective factors, not risk factors that might be within their family. But acknowledging it and talking about it is so critically important. 43:41 I think that brings up kind of almost hits home a little bit for me, most of our listeners, of course are they a lot of them probably have kids and they see the the teen hundreds of bottles that we all have, and and my daughter plays a joke with me. You know people will say like, oh look behind you. There's Elvis in turn around. My little girl goes, Oh, look behind you. There's bourbon. And she does that as like a joke with me, right? And now that you're saying this, I'm kind of like, yeah, I should probably start having that conversation with her. She's five, but to make sure that she understands that like, this is this is not for you, yet, right? One day, but and also make sure you stay away from all the expensive bottles. The other part but, but I mean, in a more serious note, it is something that you do need to be conscious of as a parent, and making sure that you are setting the right example to 44:31 correct even if it comes to cookies, okay, you have one or two cookies. You don't need five or six cookies, right? Well, just thinking that way, talking about moderation and health and wellness, explaining why it's important that she stay away from it. Not just that this isn't for you, this kind of harming your brain. If you consume it before the age of 21 You're still developing this is really important that you know that or when is the appropriate time when your child does become of age. To engage, you'll notice this isn't something mommy and daddy do to cope with problems. This is something that we enjoy, we respect as a craft, and we use it in our celebratory moments. So even having that conversation when they are getting toward drinking age of when, when to engage with alcohol in the appropriate way, because I think a lot of people in our society use alcohol as a coping mechanism. And that is definitely not the best way to see it enjoyed. 45:25 And so while we're on the kids category, as well, I know that at least being in the industry myself, and knowing when you're doing marketing and doing all these things and buying promotional products, like it can't be anything that's related to anything that would be Child's Play whatsoever. So kind of talk about more about really what that is and like how do you promote social responsibility when it comes to marketing and that aspect? 45:49 So first, our industry standards right there discuss now we are all compliant of and then exceed in many ways, and in fact, it's important to know that that doesn't just apply to discuss members. Even nondescript members can have complaints filed against them, should they not abide by one of those rules? So we can probably just give a few examples but one is over 70% of the audience in where we are marketing needs to be over legal drinking age. at Brown Forman we regularly exceed that 80 90% of markets. So whether or not that's on podcasts or digital, Facebook, social media commercials, that's important to us. But I know we alley deals a lot with point of sale. 46:30 Yeah, I mean, making sure that you aren't using models that are above or under 25 years old to just ensure that there is no mistake that any models in your marketing activities look like miners, affluent stars or influencers. Yeah, making sure that you have appropriate age gates on all of your digital materials, including Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, all of that. This is an interesting one to making sure that you are not doing things And that are attractive to minors. And that's where these marketing codes start to get really interesting. So I'm thinking like, cartoons, right, right. How many times have we seen like the little oval mashers on the little bats, right? These cartoon kind of figures that depict bourbon and are intended for legal drinking age adults, but may appeal to minors or the thing I'm seeing on all the influencers accounts now are at the Capri Sun bags where you drink your cocktail out of the Capri Sun bag, right? And who's to say whether that's right or wrong, but it is a fine line. And so the great part about trade associations and approaching alcohol responsibility collectively, is that we provide a forum for our members to come together and discuss these things openly or not openly. Sometimes we have had members come to us in the past and be like, I have a real problem with the add that our colleague x put out. Can you go have a conversation with them and kind of get some background? I don't think it's appropriate for me as an industry competitor to have that conversation, but I do really like it made known to them that we didn't really love that ad and think it could be noticed negatively by a legislator or industry official. 48:09 It reminds me of, I think it was over a year to now, there used to be an Instagram account called scotch trooper. And what he would do is he would actually utilize Stormtrooper figurines in pictures with scotch and I mean, he had it was crazy. He had like almost 100,000 followers on Instagram. It was huge. In then, yep, lawsuits and everything kind of came crashing down on him. It wasn't from you know, George Lucas or anything it was actually from the spirits industry, right. So he lost all the sponsorships. He lost everything from that that point. So it was it was something that it's tough. That's a tough realization, right? Because I mean, it is toy figurines. However, how was it actually presented as like, Oh, this is like child's play. Here there, right. However, this is you also had mentioned something so anybody that's out There that doesn't know. So discuss is an organization. You can google it di SC us. They've got all the rules and regulations on what it is to actually be. I guess marketing responsibly and stuff like that. I remember, we had to go through it just for the podcast to be able to make sure that we were complying with a lot of the regulations of, as you said, adding the age gay to the website, making sure that we do a basically a survey of our audience and making sure that what is it like we have to be like 79.8% positive that everybody listening is over 49:34 know where that number comes from? a tailor said it currently it's 70.6, but it's 3.6. Okay, that's the percentage of the US population, statistically, that's considered to be a legal drinking age adult, according to the US Census. So that number isn't arbitrary. It's designed to reflect the adult population in the US, which is cool to know. 49:54 So it's larger the sample size, right? That's it is the population of the US. So yeah, see, that was one thing I remember. Going through and doing that to make sure that we had all of our ducks in a row and we are trying to find the right people and stuff like that to make sure that we comply with all the guidelines that are that are set out there. So it is good to see that we've actually Thank you. I mean, we've actually encouraged other bloggers and stuff that follow along with us they started adding h gates they started doing that because they're like, why do you have that? I'm like, here go read the PDF. It's long start start now. Yeah, 50:24 hi bourbon lovers should care about that because it protects the industry that they love from over regulation. So if you want good access to bourbon, you should be the biggest responsibility advocate out there because the minute the industry starts to misbehave is the minute that regulators start to take away some of the privileges that bourbon lovers so much enjoy when they come to Kentucky 50:44 Yeah, I was about to think of because you do start to jog my memory again about the the four roses the barrel pick and stuff like that in and really if if, if that system is not in place and something bad does happen, it could potentially change Exactly what bourbon lovers what we enjoy, we get, we get to go do and barrel pics that like, yeah, it's not gonna be the same experience anymore like some like some things will change, right and so everything that's being implemented is being done with a very specific purpose to actually help the broader community. Maybe at first it might seem like the man's coming down on us but it's not supposed to be like that 51:21 responsibility as a part of all our conversations with legislators and we're seeking new privileges and they've given us a ton in recent years. So back in 2014, they passed their bourbon barrel reinvestment credit, which essentially eliminated the bourbon barrel tax and gave it back to distillers as a credit to reinvest and their tourism experiences in their communities to alcohol responsibility in 2015, a past Senate Bill 11, which allowed the by the drink sales at the distilleries, because they knew we could be responsible retailers, that was a huge shift, you're allowing a manufacturer of a product to all of a sudden become a retailer of a product and that blurs those lines, and so they felt confident that distilleries could operate as responsible retailers to allow us to enjoy those cocktails. The next year they gave us the privilege to start serving spirits at fairs and festivals, which was a big one. They also strengthen the definition of Kentucky bourbon whiskey to include liquid that was fermented distilled an aged in Kentucky, not just age changed the game for contract distilling. In Kentucky, which is where we saw Bardstown bourbon company come in the next year. Gosh, we saw spirits shipping, which is something we're working on still, which is a huge concern when it comes to allowing alcohol to get in the hands of miners shipping is a big part of the discussion. And then last year, we actually took our lobbying efforts and use them for social good by helping work on Senate Bill 85, which strengthen Kentucky's DUI laws for the first time in decades, including its ignition interlock program, which helps connect DUI offenders to monitoring and treatment resources that they need so that they won't just be punished legally. But they'll also connect with resources if they do have a drinking problem. 53:04 So what's next on like the the lobbying table for for you all like what are you trying to? I mean, I know shipping is a big one, right? We talked about 53:10 shipping e commerce. 53:11 Yeah, we talked about that all the time, because we see that as kind of like the next generation of where this is all going to go. 53:17 Ecommerce is definitely where we're going. And that's a huge responsibility that our distillers do not take lightly. We're very excited about the opportunity, but there is a lot of details to work out and to be totally transparent and teletrac has it been a big part of that conversation in our conversations with ups and IMS databases and all these things of how do we embed ID checking into those shipping conversations to make sure that not just the person ordering it as of age, the person receiving it as a age because there's all these nuances that we don't think about if you send alcohol to an apartment building where someone's at the front desk receiving packages, but maybe the person who would get it upstairs is You know, not of age or an office building, and all these things that you don't necessarily think about, but are really important to address before you ask for that privilege. 54:08 A lot of variables there a lot of variables there, 54:11 but we want to do it the right way. Right? Everyone does GPS wants to do it correctly. I says the retailer wants to do it. And so how can we work together and collaborate? And I hope you've seen today that it's not just an old forester Woodford issue. It is an industry. And so how can we as an industry come together for collective impact to address some of these big topics? 54:33 We talked about Uber and lift? We're going to talk about that, too. So let's talk about ride sharing, because that was, we see it all the time, it'll come up in the app. There's promotional things that come out when it's bourbon fest time or anything like that, and they'll say, Hey, $50 off your signup or whatever it is. So kind of talk about what kind of relationships you are building there. 54:51 So first, it starts with us so we have a policy that employees can have a safe ride at anytime personal or from a work event. They need it. But that is never a green light to over consume. So it's always that moderation is expected if they choose to drink, but we want them to have access and they can use Uber lift taxis, whatever's most convenient and economical for them. But then we also provide discount codes at our events. So you all can do this too. It's uber.com slash events. And you can create it whether or not you're hosting a holiday party, a New Year's Eve party. St. Patrick's Day, whatever it might be, you can create safe rides for your guests. 55:32 I didn't know that. Yeah, there you go. 55:34 And the alley has a great huge partnership with left. 55:36 Yeah, we've really loved working with lift specifically, we have found them to be a very engaging partner, our values aligned with them and they've invested a lot in the state of Kentucky. So it started along the rural communities in Kentucky bourbon trail. So when we were first looking at preventing impaired driving, we looked at the resources that were available to people who are going to Bardstown. Let's say or For sales out in Woodford, and we realized that we were telling people not to drink and drive, but there wasn't great access to ride alternatives. And those are it sounds like there's like two taxis. So yeah. And the reality is that 70% of people who come to visit the Kentucky bourbon trail are coming from out of state, meaning that they're not familiar with local resources. they're familiar with national resources like Uber and lift. And so we knew we had to partner with one of them. And so we approached both we ended up working with left and we basically convinced them to unlock their technology across the entire state of Kentucky because of the economic development presence of distilleries, because they don't want to unlock their technology and communities where there may not be enough drivers or demand because they don't want people to have that negative experience of not being able to get a ride or signing up to be a driver and never getting any requests. And so we said, Look, we draw a lot of people to these rural communities, and we think that there could be a cause to have your service and So we made an agreement, they unlock the technology and we started hosting breakfasts at some other rural distilleries, including Woodford Reserve and heaven Hill Ozi. Tyler Jeff to kraid basically put invitations to these distillery breakfasts and the local papers on indeed.com. All these really grassroots things and invited the community to come learn what lift was because a lot of them had no clue and understand how you could sign up to drive and earn extra money outside of your other day job. So how can be economic development tool, and most importantly, what impaired driving statistics look like in your specific community and how having that resource in your community would help? And so we really tried to shine a lot of light on it. We did recruit about 25 to 50 drivers and each place it's still a growing and organic effort. However, I will tell you, we've seen success, particularly in owensboro and it's really picked up in owensboro. And you can now get an on demand really ride really easily there and was in large part thanks to Ozi Tyler's leadership in that community coming on board, and we did see it work at Kentucky bourbon festival. The first year after we held those breakfast, we actually brought in some Highway Safety partners from lift and the National Sheriffs Association, and they took a lift out to Bardstown. And we were so nervous because we were like, Oh, no, they got they got there, but are they going to get a ride home when they order it and they had scheduled in advance, and the woman that picked them up was one of the women that had attended one of the distillery breakfasts heaven Hill, and it was just such a cool story to see that that it did make a difference that someone was able to get a safe ride home back to livab

Jesse Williams knows running. He has an extensive background in sports marketing and is the founder of Sound Running. During Jesse's long career in running, he has rubbed elbows with the top coaches and athletes in the world and notices there is a disconnect from the everyday runner and the elites. So Jesse set out to close this gap and to help runners of all level learn how they can improve their running ability with the same principles of the fastest people on earth. Sound Running takes these principles and delivers training programs from a holistic approach that any runner can add to their routine. Jesse is also on a mission to grow the sport of professional track and field through high-end events. This week Jesse joins John and Rich to talk about Sound Running and his plans to grow the sport. During the episode we cover:How Jesse started a sports marketing department for one of the biggest running shoe companies in the gameWhat he's learned from the top coaches in the world.What the new runner can learn from how elites train and live. Why you are missing out on results if you are not strength training.Follow Jesse and Sounds running on IG @Soundrunning, Twitter @sound_running and at Soundrunning.runHit Subscribe to get the latest episodes of Reinforced Running PodcastFollow along Reinforced Running IG @reinforced_running_richTwitter @ReinforcedRunJoin our private training group on facebook here.Get your free Guide to faster running @ reinforcedrunning.com/runfaster

BOND Sunday Service, September 7, 2008: Different people at Church discuss the lies their thoughts tell them. One guy asks about "inertia," having difficulty reading a book or starting something you're not used to doing. One lady was tripping because she was going out to meet a guy, and she faced doubts and insecurities. The Devil feeds your mind all kinds of mess. Stay with prayer: Seek God first, and He adds unto you. BLOG POST: https://rebuildingtheman.com/judgment-keeps-your-old-nature-alive-sunday-service-sept-7-2008/ Let yourself feel and go through whatever your ego goes through, by the spirit inside you — it's not the real you. Let it die. The real you, created in God's image, is not caught up in all of the madness. Get to know yourself, and don't identify with the not-you, your old nature. When you pray, you rarely have to ask for anything. We have the Holy Spirit, the Teacher. Some people tell stories about looking for the truth. A man was in seminary for a year in order to become a priest. One woman asks about her husband telling her he cannot help the way he is — he cannot change himself. Another lady talks about overreacting versus being calm. One young man doubts he'll ever really get it. Most people don't know that they do not truly believe in God; they have a shallow intellectual belief that does not set them free. He has to give it to us. Jesse has people read John 8: 15-16 about judging with human limitations and not judging. Jesus talked about having the Father who sent him. So Jesse makes the point that you're constantly judging, giving the thing inside you food to live by, every time you get angry, condemn yourself or others. Jesus did not judge. The Father was in him. The Father allowed Jesus to see the reality around him. Then he could judge in the right way. Without Him, you're blind. VIDEO OF THIS SERVICE: https://youtu.be/pwZaXftVPLQ SILENT PRAYER: http://silentprayer.video | AUDIO https://soundcloud.com/rebuildingtheman/silent-prayer CHURCH Sunday 11am PT (1pm CT / 2pm ET) http://rebuildingtheman.com/church Call BOND office 800-411-BOND (800-411-2663)

April 28, 2019 "Darkness is Losing" 1 Samuel 16 2 Samuel 2:4 2 Samuel 5:3 Anna Eggler 16 The Lord said to Samuel, “How long will you mourn for Saul, since I have rejected him as king over Israel? Fill your horn with oil and be on your way; I am sending you to Jesse of Bethlehem. I have chosen one of his sons to be king.” 2 But Samuel said, “How can I go? If Saul hears about it, he will kill me.” The Lord said, “Take a heifer with you and say, ‘I have come to sacrifice to the Lord.’ 3 Invite Jesse to the sacrifice, and I will show you what to do. You are to anoint for me the one I indicate.” 4 Samuel did what the Lord said. When he arrived at Bethlehem, the elders of the town trembled when they met him. They asked, “Do you come in peace?” 5 Samuel replied, “Yes, in peace; I have come to sacrifice to the Lord. Consecrate yourselves and come to the sacrifice with me.” Then he consecrated Jesse and his sons and invited them to the sacrifice. 6 When they arrived, Samuel saw Eliab and thought, “Surely the Lord’s anointed stands here before the Lord.” 7 But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” 8 Then Jesse called Abinadab and had him pass in front of Samuel. But Samuel said, “The Lord has not chosen this one either.” 9 Jesse then had Shammah pass by, but Samuel said, “Nor has the Lord chosen this one.” 10 Jesse had seven of his sons pass before Samuel, but Samuel said to him, “The Lord has not chosen these.” 11 So he asked Jesse, “Are these all the sons you have?” “There is still the youngest,” Jesse answered. “He is tending the sheep.” Samuel said, “Send for him; we will not sit down until he arrives.” 12 So he sent for him and had him brought in. He was glowing with health and had a fine appearance and handsome features. Then the Lord said, “Rise and anoint him; this is the one.” 13 So Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the presence of his brothers, and from that day on the Spirit of the Lord came powerfully upon David. Samuel then went to Ramah. David in Saul’s Service 14 Now the Spirit of the Lord had departed from Saul, and an evil[a] spirit from the Lord tormented him. 15 Saul’s attendants said to him, “See, an evil spirit from God is tormenting you. 16 Let our lord command his servants here to search for someone who can play the lyre. He will play when the evil spirit from God comes on you, and you will feel better.” 17 So Saul said to his attendants, “Find someone who plays well and bring him to me.” 18 One of the servants answered, “I have seen a son of Jesse of Bethlehem who knows how to play the lyre. He is a brave man and a warrior. He speaks well and is a fine-looking man. And the Lord is with him.” 19 Then Saul sent messengers to Jesse and said, “Send me your son David, who is with the sheep.” 20 So Jesse took a donkey loaded with bread, a skin of wine and a young goat and sent them with his son David to Saul. 21 David came to Saul and entered his service. Saul liked him very much, and David became one of his armor-bearers. 22 Then Saul sent word to Jesse, saying, “Allow David to remain in my service, for I am pleased with him.” 23 Whenever the spirit from God came on Saul, David would take up his lyre and play. Then relief would come to Saul; he would feel better, and the evil spirit would leave him. 4 Then the men of Judah came to Hebron, and there they anointed David king over the tribe of Judah. When David was told that it was the men from Jabesh Gilead who had buried Saul, 3 When all the elders of Israel had come to King David at Hebron, the king made a covenant with them at Hebron before the Lord, and they anointed David king over Israel.

3 Books is a completely insane and totally epic 15-year-long quest to uncover the 1000 most formative books in the world. Each chapter is hosted live and in-person at the guest's preferred location by Neil Pasricha, New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Awesome and The Happiness Equation. Each chapter of 3 Books uncovers and discusses the three most formative books from one of the world's most inspiring people. Sample guests include: Judy Blume, David Sedaris, Chris Anderson of TED, and the world's greatest Uber driver. Each of the 333 chapters is dropped on the exact minute of every new moon and full moon until September 1, 2031. 3 Books is an Apple "Best Of" award-winning show as well as the world's only podcast by and for book lovers, writers, makers, sellers... and librarians. For more info check out: www.3books.co Jesse Finkelstein is the co-founder and principal of Page Two Publishing, a premium author-centric publishing house. Prior to founding Page Two, Jesse was Chief Operating Officer at D&M Publishing leading the company’s digital and international sales strategies, and Associate Publisher at Raincoast Books. Jesse holds a Master of Publishing from Simon Fraser University and a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature from McGill University. Chapter Description:  Have you ever found something you love doing but one tiny part of it you hate? You love the company, the job, the values, the people … but hate your boss. You love the school you teach at, the kids, the classroom … but can’t stand the commute. We encounter these decisions all the time. You love something but you just can’t deal with this little part of it. Enter Jesse Finkelstein, co-founder and principal of Page Two Publishing, a premium author-centric publishing house. Why did I bring up the deal-breaker conundrum? Because Jesse always felt this way about the publishing industry. She went up through the ranks at the big publishing companies, all the way to COO at D&M Publishing. But she kept asking herself: What if there was a publishing company that put the author’s goals first? So Jesse created Page Two, which sits somewhere in between self-publishing and traditional publishing. Page 2 takes an author’s idea, looks at whether it has market potential, and then supplies the author with all the tools a big publishing house would: editors, copy-editors, graphic designers, distribution channels, everything. In Chapter 23 of 3 Books, Jesse and I go deep into how the publishing landscape is evolving … and then we dive into her three most formative books. We discuss how acclaimed political writers can actually not be political enough, how books can get over-edited, the Harlem Renaissance, and how reading acts as therapy, and much, much more… I absolutely loved listening to Jesse and think you will, too. Welcome to Chapter 23. WHAT YOU'LL LEARN: When is it okay to be a quitter? How can authors retain creative control in the strict world of publishing? What are the most important steps to take when publishing a book? How have self-published books radically changed over the past decade? How did the Harlem Renaissance affect book publishing, particularly for black authors? How has poetry transformed over the past century and why is it resurfacing again? What makes a book accessible to readers and how do writers tap into that? What book can help us learn from trauma and look past it with a fresh perspective? Leave us a voicemail! Your message may be included in a future episode: 1-833-READ-A-LOT. You can find show notes and more information by clicking here: https://www.3books.co/chapters/23 Sign up to receive podcast updates here: https://www.3books.co/email-list/

VIDEO: https://youtu.be/slWTs_YqQTs Jesse starts off service talking about the controversy of a man who said on a debate on TV, "Are you out of your cotton-pickin' mind?" This was a white man, who apparently inadvertently said it to a black man who was saying crazy things and not making sense. The white man used the expression, but did not know the man he was debating was blacks. Somehow they took it as a racially-tinged remark, called it offensive, and suspended the white man! So Jesse got opinions from people in the congregation whether he should have said it or not. It's a shame that people have decided to protect "groups" like blacks, homosexuals, and radical feminist women from "words." (Jesse mentions his producer James's show The Hake Report, and its theme song in the midst of this conversation.) We also talked with a grandmother who has attended BOND services for years. She admitted she still gets angry at times with her grandchildren whom she takes care of — Jesse asks her if she ever curses at the kids. It seems tough for her to be direct about it, but she eventually admits that she has cursed at them. Her granddaughter also joined us today, and said that her grandmother called her a "b—" sometimes, or that she's "acting like a b—." But the girl's attitude changed and she defended her grandmother's anger, claiming that everybody has anger, and accusing Jesse of having anger. The girl then alleged that people "follow" Jesse, while she follows God — but her "own way." Jesse pointed out that no one with anger follows God — anger is evil, and he's known this girl since she was small, and she never liked dealing with the anger from adults when she was growing up. Now she's embraced what she hated and become like them. Jesse said that this is why she has a boyfriend and cusses at 15 — the children become like the mothers and grandmothers. A teenage man spoke up in defense of anger but became too upset to speak as well. We talked with more people about sin, and the reality that you should no longer sin if you truly are born again of God. A number of new people joined us for the first time. One young couple talked about their marriage. A brother-in-law of the woman said his children love watching Jesse's YouTube videos. Another young man is interested in the Entrepreneur Academy. A fourth man had gotten counseling from Jesse, and he followed Jesse's advice to go and forgive his mother. One man joined us along with his friends, a father and son who had visited us a couple of weeks ago from San Diego. He pointed out that Jesse's saying truth from Scriptures just while speaking naturally, without citing chapter and verse — he liked this. Jesse urged him not to get too hung up on the Bible, as many get intellectually involved in their minds, and Satan speaks to them, interpreting what they read for them. Rather, read it, but also put it down. Let the Holy Spirit reveal to you what it means. Make sure to do the silent prayer, and also donate to help us help others: SILENT PRAYER http://silentprayer.video Church Sunday 11am PT http://rebuildingtheman.com/church Donate (also PayPal) http://rebuildingtheman.com/donate/ or call 323-782-1980 Patreon https://www.patreon.com/rebuildingtheman

A daily devotional walking through God's word together using The Bible Reading Plan at http://www.bible-reading.com/bible-plan.html. Our website http://alittlewalkwithgod.com. Today we want to talk about another obstacle in the way of overcoming those giants in our lives. Last week we discovered you should never try to tackle Goliath alone, but go into the valley with God by your side. It's also good to have a mentor, a friend, and a church along with you to conquer those giants that come your way. There is an old saying that goes something like this, “People are more comfortable with the devil they know than with the angel they don't know.” What does it mean? People will stay in a bad situation, stick with bad habits, continue down the same destructive path because they are comfortable with it. Even though they see what might be a better way, they still hold on to what they know instead of taking a chance with something they don't know. It's pretty amazing just how hard we push against change in our lives. That was true of those warriors in the Valley of Elah who listen to the Philistine, Goliath, challenge them each day. For forty days, Goliath marched down the hillside and stood in the valley with his armor bearers. He dared anyone to come fight him. The Israeli warrior cowered in their tents. They knew Goliath's reputation and feared what would happen to them if they went into that valley. It was called “Death Valley” for a reason. They all just knew that if you went into that place, you wouldn't come out again. Fear of the unknown or fear trapped in their imagination captured them and froze their feet to the ground. They listened to that giant of a man roar his blasphemies against God and did nothing. They were afraid. They pictured themselves looking up into the eyes of that nine foot monster and couldn't see their blood turned to ice. Who could possibly fight this guy? But something happened after 40 days of the same old pattern. Goliath comes out, shouts his challenge, the Israelite warriors hide behind anything they can find, Goliath finally gets tired of waiting, and he climbs back up the hillside to wait until the next morning to do it all over again. The soldiers got used to the ritual and probably got to the point that when they saw the first glimmer of sunlight reflecting off Goliath's helmet from the top of the hill, they hightailed it to the back forty to wait until he left. Fear. In some ways you can't blame them, I guess. I know I wouldn't want to take on a nine foot monster in a fighting match. He was trained as a warrior. He had the reach, the weapons, every advantage you could think of except one. God was on David's side. So Jesse's youngest son sees what's going on. He's too young to join the army. He's only there to deliver some lunch to his brothers. Get a little news to take back home so his mom and dad will know their kids are still alive and doing well against their lifelong enemies, the Philistines. David went with no intention of joining the fight. He was just a shepherd. All he had was a sling. Coming from Bethlehem, he was pretty good with it, but still… A sling against a spear doesn't sound like very good odds. Was David afraid? You know, I want to think he had a few butterflies in his stomach as he reached into that stream and pulled out five stones. David knew God was with him, though. David knew how to use that sling. Elsewhere in God's word, it tells us that the Benjamites could hit a hair with one of those slings. That's pretty good. And considering that David could attack Goliath from the length of a football field with his sling and he had to be closer to the 20 yard line for Goliath's spear to be as effective a weapon, David had a little bit of an edge from a distance. He had to hit Goliath in the space around his eyes, though. Everything else would be covered and the stone would bruise, but not kill on impact. David marches out onto the field after refusing to take Saul's armor. We sometimes think David was a puny little kid since the Bible tells us Saul's armor didn't fit. That's not the picture I get of David, though. He killed a lion and a bear with his bare hands. I think the armor didn't fit because Saul was head and shoulders taller than any of the other men present at his coronation. Saul stood out in a crowd. His armor was too big for everyone there. The most important part of this story in relation to Goliath and fear, though, is that whatever fear David might have had as he looked at this monster of a man, he set it aside and trusted God. David believed God would help him vindicate his name against the blasphemous outpouring that came from this heathen. David believed God could take his fear and turn it into enough adrenaline to help him conquer this undefeated champion of his enemies. He pushed past the fear of what he knew and dared to launch into the unknown. That's exactly what we have to do with the Goliaths we face in our life. I don't know what your Goliath is, but I expect you are like 99% of everyone else who faces Goliath. I expect there is that little bit of fear that asks what happens when I let go of this and let God have it? What will God ask of me? What will happen? How will my life change? What will other people think? What if God can't break through the problem? (Yeah, right! Let me tell you, it's not God that can't fix it. He's God! We are the problem, not him!) The best way to attack those giants in our life is to act just like David. Don't let those giants taunt you with their blasphemy. You will undoubtedly hear some voice in your head tell you that you can't win the battle. It's too hard. You can't possibly overcome. You will hear the same tired excuses Goliath yelled at the Israelites across that Death Valley. But David refused to listen to Goliath. He refused to give in to his fear. He refused to let the giant dictate his moves, but instead listened to the voice of God. I think it was God that prompted him to pick up five stones instead of one. He only needed one to defeat Goliath. David knew that and God knew it. So why five? Finish reading the stories of David's battles and you'll find Goliath had four brothers. David was ready to take on all of them if necessary. Fear. Sure. Enough to stop him from doing what God told him to do? No way. David knew God was bigger than any problem or any giant he came against. He was ready. Are there times you will be afraid? You are not human if you don't experience that emotion every so often. But we don't have to let it cripple us. We can remember that God is for us, so who can be against us. Nothing can defeat us, because nothing can defeat him. He proved it a couple of millennium ago when he decided he didn't want to stay dead. We can borrow his strength and his power to push through the fear the world tries to stir up and we can win against our Goliaths. Be like David today.

It's Midnight in the Garden of Game 5! So Jesse and Stefan met up on an NYC rooftop to talk about the Celtics' strong Game 5 victory and the impressive Game 4 performance by the Rockets. Can the Rockets withstand another old-school Warriors haymaker? Can the young Celtics really oust LeBron James? Does making it to the Finals another time without winning the chip actually hurt LeBron's legacy? So many questions, not enough rooftops. It's time for...Midnight in the Garden of Game 5 a.k.a. It's Not Me, It's Them!

Jesse Itzler is a rapper turned entrepreneur. It might seem like an odd transition, music to private aviation (and beyond), but Jesse wasn’t exactly following a plan – he was following his love for doing something new and different. After some success with his first entrepreneurial ventures, Jesse found himself a guest on a private jet. He enjoyed the experience, predictably, and figured other people would like that experience too. So Jesse transitioned out of music and co-founded Marquis Jets, one of the largest private jet companies in the world, which has since been acquired by Berkshire Hathaway. Jesse has been hustling on quite a few projects since then – including writing the New York Times bestseller Living With a SEAL: 31 Days Training With the Toughest Man on the Planet – and he has learned that there are some constants, in every industry: Things take time. Creating anything worth having takes a large investment of time and energy. Focus on the product, and differentiate yourself by being the best; make yourself irreplaceable. Be authentic. What makes you different? Through trial and error, build a winning formula for yourself. Try a lot of things, especially while you’re young! After you learn what you like, you can perfect it and then cash in on it (with time, of course). Don’t take the easy route, and don’t be afraid to take risks while you’re young. Resources: Learn more at (http://jesseitzler.com/) Connect with Jesse: Instagram | Twitter | Facebook Living With a SEAL: 31 Days Training With the Toughest Man on the Planet Living with the Monks: What Turning Off My Phone Taught Me about Happiness, Gratitude, and Focus

Jesse addressed the destruction of the Boy Scouts, the attack on masculinity. Then he asked: What do you want in life? He talked about gossip and silent prayer as well. For the first few minutes, we discussed that the 100-year-old organization Boy Scouts now allows girls. Why don't men stand up and speak out? Jesse also shared the example of the filthy "comedian" at the White House Correspondents' Dinner — nobody stopped her vulgar performance!  We then heard from a young lady who joined us last week — Jesse thought about her statements that she didn't know what to do in life. So Jesse asked everyone, "What do you want in life?" A man joining us for the first time along with his daughter said that he wanted her to grow up to be a woman of good character. Some expressed that they aspire to please God and do good work. One man did not know what he wanted — he only wished not to suffer a poor quality of life in old age before he died. But many people do not know what they want — it is okay not to know! Do not fall into depression over it!  Jesse also talked about gossip — do not gossip, and do not worry when others gossip about you. He told the story of a woman who began praying, and her life started to change. At one point she heard of horrible things other women said about her, talking behind her back. Jesse said that she "tripped out," upset at the betrayal. Jesse told her that evil people will do that to you — just pray for them. Love and pray for your enemies. Do not resent them or hold it against them. She felt much better after this.  At a couple of points, Jesse laughed and joked with people about whether all Hispanics are Mexicans (they're not!), and whether you'd want to live in a house in which a person has died (not Jesse's preference! — but nothing necessarily wrong with it).  Some watching online asked about the Silent Prayer https://soundcloud.com/rebuildingtheman/silent-prayer which Jesse urges people do every day, morning and night (you can also find it on our Church page on the BOND website – http://rebuildingtheman.com/church). One man asked if he was doing it right if his mind is blank in prayer, then racing when he goes to bed. Jesse urged people not to judge their experiences but go through what they have to go through.  Please donate to help us help others. Thank you!

VIDEO: https://youtu.be/lPnIOBWg7tg We dealt with a suicidal young man, fear of God, reaction to President Trump's bombing of Syria, the concepts of trust and freedom lacking today. Read below or here: http://rebuildingtheman.com/church-jesse-lee-peterson-apr-15/ A man watching online gave us a Super Chat donation on YouTube, and asked whether we should fear God. So Jesse asked people what they thought. We dealt with this in a prior service, but fearing God simply means reflecting on what God brought you through in life, and appreciating Him for it. Some say they fear God, but it’s an emotional feeling — not what Jesse means, and not a real godly fear. Then Jesse brought up one thing prominent in the news: President Trump bombed Syria after a reported chemical attack there. Many who usually support the president do not support this action by the U.S. — some feel betrayed, including good friends of Jesse’s. Some participated in anti-war rallies. But the people elected him because they trust him. Jesse’s point in bringing this up: People abandon trust of another person just because that person does one thing they oppose. Jesse was neither for nor against this action, but he trusts this president. Similarly, there are instances in your life in which you do not agree with another person’s actions. Yet you should still trust and work with them, and give them the freedom to do what they will. In churches, men grow divided due to an offense, and don’t wish to work it out! This is wrong — that’s not love! Another example — the Civil Rights Movement: We should not allow the idea and accusation of “racism” to take hold. If you are a black person of love, why would you impose on a white private business owner who does not wish to serve you? In the Jim Crow days, Jesse never felt angry about being separated from whites or disallowed from certain stores. He and his friends went to black businesses where they were allowed and still had fun. Today, homosexual couples impose on Christian businesses, forcing Christians to service them for so-called same-sex marriages. Jesse urged Christians to take the sinners’ money and donate it to organizations fighting against the radical homosexual cause. Getting back to the young man who attempted suicide a number of times, Jesse urged him to get to know himself, and get over anger. Stop listening to the voice of your father the devil — do not believe the thoughts of worthlessness. Practice the Silent Prayer findable on the BOND Church page. When anger leaves, your mind renews itself, and you see things clearly, as they are. http://rebuildingtheman.com/church

So Jesse took the day off to lounge about a drink, then Crendor wanted to do a podcast. This is the result. Also Owls rise up against their human masters, and Crendor and Jesse reveal what they'd do with 80 million dollars.

The King in the Cave – 1 Samuel 22 - [LIFE] - Brent Phillips - Encounter Houston 1 Samuel 16:12-13 "So Jesse sent for him. He was dark and handsome, with beautiful eyes. And the Lord said, “This is the one; anoint him. ”So as David stood there among his brothers, Samuel took the flask of olive oil he had brought and anointed David with the oil. And the Spirit of the Lord came powerfully upon David from that day on. Then Samuel returned to Ramah." Sometimes we look at the lives of those in The Bible and we immediately remember where God took them. But, we often forget that there has to be a beginning and a middle before there can be the end. And we think that our stories and our situations are to hard for God to step in and make anything extraordinary happen from our past and current situations, when the real reason for their testimonies is so that we can take courage and we can take faith and face anything that comes our way and God can and will do something extraordinary! God sometimes gives us a glimpse of what He going to do in our lives and we get so excited and then the next day or a couple of months later that picture that was once so clear begins to seem like it is falling apart. 1 Samuel 22:1-3 "So David left Gath and escaped to the cave of Adullam. Soon his brothers and all his other relatives joined him there. Then others began coming—men who were in trouble or in debt or who were just discontented—until David was the captain of about 400 men. One moment we see David being anointed as king and then a little while later we see David the king in the cave. And it looking like everything is scattered and falling apart. Have you had a word from God? Found a promise from Him and you’re standing on that word or promise? One day it seemed so clear and then the next day came and nothing happen the next month still nothing happen and eventually it felt like all the pieces to make that promise come together has fallen apart. We must know that God shows us the picture of what He wants to build and then He begins to position us in a way that all the pieces begin to come together. He sets us up for the greatest comeback ever! For more videos: www.brentgphillips.com

We went, with some friends, into the woods. A few days later we left the woods. Our memory of the time we spent in the woods is a bit fuzzy; fortunately, someone thought to make an audio recording of it. This episode is about friendship. (And some other stuff. Well, mostly other stuff.) We never would have had the chance to make this if it weren’t for our friend Jesse Thorn—the brains, gumption, and do-juice behind MaxFunCon. So Jesse, this episode is for you. Throughout the month of May, whenever we make number three, we’ll be thinking only of you. (Please note: this is the show that Jad Abumrad was at, and he totally laughed.) One last note: print this out & show us your Winston face for 15% off your first Maraschino Isopropyl at Mommy Needs a Minute. Look for a franchise opening soon, in your kitchen, as soon as I find that corkscrew… Black and white photos by Jon Deal. Photo #2 by Noe Montes. Photo #3 by Katie Spence. Photo #4 by Merlin.

In this issue: The Fastest Man Alive gets a producer! The Martians are due on Maple Street, and they’ve brought your daddy’s ass-watch! The future is upon us, but for some reason everybody sounds different! Plus: Creatures what are beautiful! Powers which are super! Heroes what are knocking boots! Sure and I’ve come to drain your wee blood, then! And finally, an internet troll who’s not a racist assclown. All this and more, as we say goodbye to 2009 and say hello to… the rest of 2009! The Major Spoilers podcast is on the air! NEWS This week the Major Spoilers Crew give their quick shot thoughts on the San Diego Comic Con, Green Lantern: First Flight, the voiceless Futurama, Geoff Johns and the Flash movie, and Willem Defoe as Tars Tarkas. REVIEWS Rodrigo Beautiful Creatures #1
Written: Kurtis Wiebe
Pencils: Ash Jackson
Publication Date: 2009-09-23 They say we all have a monster lurking inside of us. Four beautiful college girls uncover their secret passengers - mythic creatures of a long dead age. The surfacing of their true nature hurls them into a hidden world of awakening magic, wonder and monsters. Torq THE BOYS: HEROGASM #3 (OF 6)
Covers: DARICK ROBERTSON
Writer: GARTH ENNIS
Penciller/Inker: JOHN McCREA The Occasional Death At Herogasm Isn't That Unusual, But How One Member Of Fantastico Checks Out Is Nothing Short Of Spectacular. In The Resultant Chaos The Boys Make Their Move- On A Target That May Not Be All He Seems. Hughie, Meanwhile, Runs Smack Into Black Noir In The Worst Possible Way, While Jack From Jupiter Spills A Few More Secrets To A-Train. And Speaking Of Secrets, What Does The Man From Vought-American Want With Vic The Veep...? Stephen PROJECT SUPERPOWERS: CHAPTER TWO #1 Writer: JIM KRUEGER Penciller/Inker: EDGAR SALAZAR (Main Story), DOUG KLAUBA (Special Origin Story) The Next Exciting Chapter Of Dynamite Entertainment's PROJECT SUPERPOWERS Is Here! Overseen Again By Ross, Who Plots And Art Directs The Entire PROJECT SUPERPOWERS Universe, Writer Jim Krueger Returns For Chapter Two, As The Pair Of All-Star Creators Are Joined For The Series By Edgar (DEATH DEFYING 'DEVIL) Salazar! The New Series Is Faster, More Intense, And The WORLD IS AT STAKE! MAJOR SPOILERS POLL OF THE WEEK We’re fortunate enough to have access to a plethora of comics at the Stately Spoiler Manor, but that doesn’t mean we’re loaded.  Sometimes one comic is needed more than others, and a tight budget might dictate what we take home, and what stays behind.  Which brings us to the Major Spoilers Poll of the Week!
What is the absolute limit to your weekly comic book spending? Get over to the Major Spoilers Website and vote. VOTE MAJOR SPOILERS DISCUSSION Preacher Vol. 1 Here’s a book guaranteed to offend a bunch of people, not only because of its profuse profanity and graphic violence, but because it’s the epitome of iconoclasm. Like a brutal accident, you can’t watch but you can’t turn away. The story follows an ex-preacher man, Jesse, who has become disgusted with God’s abandoning of His responsibilities. So Jesse starts off into the wilds of Texas with his hitman girlfriend and new best friend (a vampire) to find God so that he can give Him a piece of his mind. Despite its superficial perversity, this book contains what may be the most moral character in mainstream comics. A cult hit in the making. Fans of Quentin Tarantino take note. Contact us at podcast@majorspoilers.com Music from this episode comes from Armin Brewer (intro) and James Kennison (closing) from the Nobody's Listening Podcast. A big thanks to both of these guys for creating kick-ass music for the show! A big Thank You goes out to everyone who downloads, subscribes, listens, and supports this show. We really appreciate you taking the time to listen to our ramblings each week. Tell your friends about the podcast, get them to subscribe and, be sure to visit the Major Spoilers site and forums.

In this issue: The Fastest Man Alive gets a producer! The Martians are due on Maple Street, and they’ve brought your daddy’s ass-watch! The future is upon us, but for some reason everybody sounds different! Plus: Creatures what are beautiful! Powers which are super! Heroes what are knocking boots! Sure and I’ve come to drain your wee blood, then! And finally, an internet troll who’s not a racist assclown. All this and more, as we say goodbye to 2009 and say hello to… the rest of 2009! The Major Spoilers podcast is on the air! NEWS This week the Major Spoilers Crew give their quick shot thoughts on the San Diego Comic Con, Green Lantern: First Flight, the voiceless Futurama, Geoff Johns and the Flash movie, and Willem Defoe as Tars Tarkas. REVIEWS Rodrigo Beautiful Creatures #1
 Written: Kurtis Wiebe
 Pencils: Ash Jackson
 Publication Date: 2009-09-23 They say we all have a monster lurking inside of us. Four beautiful college girls uncover their secret passengers - mythic creatures of a long dead age. The surfacing of their true nature hurls them into a hidden world of awakening magic, wonder and monsters. Torq THE BOYS: HEROGASM #3 (OF 6)
 Covers: DARICK ROBERTSON
 Writer: GARTH ENNIS
 Penciller/Inker: JOHN McCREA The Occasional Death At Herogasm Isn't That Unusual, But How One Member Of Fantastico Checks Out Is Nothing Short Of Spectacular. In The Resultant Chaos The Boys Make Their Move- On A Target That May Not Be All He Seems. Hughie, Meanwhile, Runs Smack Into Black Noir In The Worst Possible Way, While Jack From Jupiter Spills A Few More Secrets To A-Train. And Speaking Of Secrets, What Does The Man From Vought-American Want With Vic The Veep...? Stephen PROJECT SUPERPOWERS: CHAPTER TWO #1 Writer: JIM KRUEGER Penciller/Inker: EDGAR SALAZAR (Main Story), DOUG KLAUBA (Special Origin Story) The Next Exciting Chapter Of Dynamite Entertainment's PROJECT SUPERPOWERS Is Here! Overseen Again By Ross, Who Plots And Art Directs The Entire PROJECT SUPERPOWERS Universe, Writer Jim Krueger Returns For Chapter Two, As The Pair Of All-Star Creators Are Joined For The Series By Edgar (DEATH DEFYING 'DEVIL) Salazar! The New Series Is Faster, More Intense, And The WORLD IS AT STAKE! MAJOR SPOILERS POLL OF THE WEEK We’re fortunate enough to have access to a plethora of comics at the Stately Spoiler Manor, but that doesn’t mean we’re loaded.  Sometimes one comic is needed more than others, and a tight budget might dictate what we take home, and what stays behind.  Which brings us to the Major Spoilers Poll of the Week!
 What is the absolute limit to your weekly comic book spending? Get over to the Major Spoilers Website and vote. VOTE MAJOR SPOILERS DISCUSSION Preacher Vol. 1 Here’s a book guaranteed to offend a bunch of people, not only because of its profuse profanity and graphic violence, but because it’s the epitome of iconoclasm. Like a brutal accident, you can’t watch but you can’t turn away. The story follows an ex-preacher man, Jesse, who has become disgusted with God’s abandoning of His responsibilities. So Jesse starts off into the wilds of Texas with his hitman girlfriend and new best friend (a vampire) to find God so that he can give Him a piece of his mind. Despite its superficial perversity, this book contains what may be the most moral character in mainstream comics. A cult hit in the making. Fans of Quentin Tarantino take note. Contact us at podcast@majorspoilers.com Music from this episode comes from Armin Brewer (intro) and James Kennison (closing) from the Nobody's Listening Podcast. A big thanks to both of these guys for creating kick-ass music for the show! A big Thank You goes out to everyone who downloads, subscribes, listens, and supports this show. We really appreciate you taking the time to listen to our ramblings each week. Tell your friends about the podcast, get them to subscribe and, be sure to visit the Major Spoilers site and forums.