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Few Americans have been as explicit in their warnings about Donald Trump than the St. Louis based writer Sarah Kendzior. Her latest book, The Last American Road Trip, is a memoir chronicling Kendzior's journey down Route 66 to show her children America before it is destroyed. Borrowing from her research of post Soviet Central Asia, Kendzior argues that Trump is establishing a kleptocratic “mafia state” designed to fleece the country of its valuables. This is the third time that Kendzior has been on the show and I have to admit I've always been slightly skeptical of her apocalyptic take on Trump. But given the damage that the new administration is inflicting on America, I have to admit that many of Kendzior's warnings now appear to be uncannily prescient. As she warns, it's Springtime in America. And things are about to get much much hotter. FIVE TAKEAWAYS* Kendzior views Trump's administration as a "mafia state" or kleptocracy focused on stripping America for parts rather than traditional fascism, comparing it to post-Soviet oligarchic systems she studied as an academic.* She believes American institutions have failed to prevent authoritarianism, criticizing both the Biden administration and other institutional leaders for not taking sufficient preventative action during Trump's first term.* Despite her bleak analysis, Kendzior finds hope in ordinary Americans and their capacity for mutual care and resistance, even as she sees formal leadership failing.* Kendzior's new book The Last American Road Trip follows her journey to show her children America before potential collapse, using Route 66 as a lens to examine American decay and resilience.* As an independent voice, she describes being targeted through both publishing obstacles and personal threats, yet remains committed to staying in her community and documenting what's happening. FULL TRANSCRIPTAndrew Keen: Hello everybody, it is April the 18th, 2025, a Friday. I'm thrilled today that we have one of my favorite guests back on the show. I call her the Cassandra of St. Louis, Sarah Kendzior. Many of you know her from her first book, which was a huge success. All her books have done very well. The View from Flyover Country. She was warning us about Trump and Trumpism and MAGA. She was first on our show in 2020. Talking about media in the age of Trump. She had another book out then, Hiding in Plain Sight, The Invention of Donald Trump and the Erosion of America. Then in 2022, she came back on the show to talk about how a culture of conspiracy is keeping America simultaneously complacent and paranoid that the book was called or is called, They Knew. Another big success. And now Sarah has a new book out. It's called The Last American Road Trip. It's a beautifully written book, a kind of memoir, but a political one, of course, which one would expect from Sarah Kendzior. And I'm thrilled, as I said, that the Cassandra of St. Louis is joining us from St. Louis. Sarah, congratulations on the new book.Sarah Kendzior: Oh, thank you. And thank you for having me back on.Andrew Keen: Well, it's an honor. So these four books, how does the last American road trip in terms of the narrative of your previous three hits, how does it fit in? Why did you write it?Sarah Kendzior: Well, this book kind of pivots off the epilog of hiding in plain sight. And that was a book about political corruption in the United States and the rise of Trump. But in the epilogue, I describe how I was trying as a mom to show my kids America in the case that it ended due to both political turmoil and corruption and also climate change. I wanted them to see things themselves. So I was driving them around the country to national parks, historic sites, et cetera. And so many people responded so passionately to that little section, especially parents really struggling on how to raise children in this America that I ended up writing a book that covers 2016 to 2024 and my attempts to show my children everything I could in the time that we had. And as this happens, my children went from relatively young kids to teenagers, my daughter's almost an adult. And so it kind of captures America during this time period. It's also just a travelog, a road trip book, a memoir. It's a lot of things at once.Andrew Keen: Yeah, got great review from Ms. magazine comparing you with the great road writers, Kerouac, of course, and Steinbeck, but Kerouak and Steinback, certainly Kerouack was very much of a solitary male. Is there a female quality to this book? As you say, it's a book as much about your kids and the promise of America as it is about yourself.Sarah Kendzior: Yeah, I think there is in that, you know, I have a section actually about the doomed female road trip where it's, you know, Thelma and Louise or Janet Bates and Psycho or even songs about, you know, being on the road and on the run that are written by women, you know, like Merle Haggard's I'm a Lonesome Fugitive, had to be sung by men to convey that quality. And there aren't a lot of, you know, mom on the Road with her husband and kids kind of books. That said, I think of it as a family book, a parenting book. I certainly think men would like it just as much as women would, and people without kids would like just as people with kids, although it does seem to strike a special resonance with families struggling with a lot of the same issues that I do.Andrew Keen: It's all about the allure of historic Route 66. I've been on that. Anyone who's driven across the country has you. You explain that it's a compilation of four long trips across Route 66 in 1998, 2007, 2017, and 2023. That's almost 40 years, Sarah. Sorry, 30. Getting away my age there, Andrew. My math isn't very good. I mean, how has Route 66 and of course, America changed in that period? I know that's a rather leading question.Sarah Kendzior: No, I mean, I devote quite a lot of the book to Route 66 in part because I live on it, you know, goes right through St. Louis. So, I see it just every day. I'll be casually grocery shopping and then be informed I'm on historic Route 66 all of a sudden. But you know it's a road that is, you once was the great kind of romanticized road of escape and travel. It was decommissioned notably by Ronald Reagan after the creation of the interstate. And now it's just a series of rural roads, frontage roads, roads that end abruptly, roads that have gone into ruin, roads that are in some really beautiful places in terms of the landscape. So it really is this conglomeration of all of America, you know of the decay and the destruction and the abandonment in particular, but also people's, their own memories, their own artistic works, you know roadside shrines and creations that are often, you know pretty off beat. That they've put to show this is what I think of our country. These are my values. This is what, I think, is important. So it's a very interesting journey to take. It's often one I'm kind of inadvertently on just because of where I live and the direction I go. We'll mirror it. So I kept passing these sites again and again. I didn't set out to write this book. Obviously, when I first drove it when I was 19, I didn't know that this was our future. But looking back, especially at technological change, at how we travel, at how trust each other, at all of these things that have happened to this country since this time, it's really something. And that road will bring back all of those memories of what was lost and what remains to be lost. And of course it's hitting its 100th anniversary next year, so I'm guessing there'll be a lot of reminiscing about Route 66.Andrew Keen: Book about memories, you write about that, eventually even your memory will just or this experience of this trip will just be a memory. What does that suggest about contextualizing the current moment in American history? It's too easy to overdramatize it or perhaps it's hard not to over dramatize it given what's happening. I want to talk about a little bit about that your take on America on April the 18th, 2025. But how does that make sense of a memorial when you know that even your memories will become memories?Sarah Kendzior: Yeah, I mean it's hard to talk frankly about what's happening in America now without it sounding over dramatic or hyperbolic, which I think is why so many people were reluctant to believe me over my last decade of warnings that the current crises and catastrophes that we're experiencing are coming, are possible, and need to be actively stopped. I don't think they were inevitable, but they needed to be stopped by people in charge who refused to do it. And so, my reaction to this as a writer, but just as a human being is to write everything down, is to keep an ongoing record, not only of what I witness now, but of what know of our history, of what my own values are, of what place in the world is. And back in 2016, I encouraged everyone to do this because I knew that over the next decade, people would be told to accept things that they would normally never accept, to believe things that they would normally, never believe. And if you write down where you stand, you always have that point of reference to look back towards. It doesn't have to be for publication. It doesn't have to for the outside world. It can just be for yourself. And so I think that that's important. But right now, I think everyone has a role to play in battling what is an authoritarian kleptocracy and preventing it from hurting people. And I think people should lean into what they do best. And what I do best is write and research and document. So that's what I meant. Continue to do, particularly as history itself is under assault by this government.Andrew Keen: One of the things that strikes me about you, Sarah, is that you have an unusual background. You got a PhD in Soviet studies, late Soviet studies.Sarah Kendzior: Anthropology, yeah, but that was nice.Andrew Keen: But your dissertation was on the Uzbek opposition in exile. I wonder whether that experience of studying the late Soviet Union and its disintegration equipped you in some ways better than a lot of domestic American political analysts and writers for what's happening in America today. We've done a number of shows with people like Pete Weiner, who I'm sure you know his work from the Atlantic of New York Times. About learning from East European resistance writers, brave people like Milan Kundra, of course, Vaclav Havel, Solzhenitsyn. Do you think your earlier history of studying the Soviet Union helped you prepare, at least mentally, intellectually, for what's happening in the United States?Sarah Kendzior: Oh, absolutely. I think it was essential, because there are all sorts of different types of authoritarianism. And the type that Trump and his backers have always pursued was that of a mafia state, you know, of a kleptocracy. And Uzbekistan is the country that I knew the most. And actually, you what I wrote my dissertation about, this is between 2006, and 2012, was the fact that after a massacre of civilians... A lot of Uzbekistan's journalists, activists, political figures, opposition figures, et cetera, went into exile and then they immediately started writing blogs. And so for the very first time, they had freedom of speech. They had never had it in Uzbekistan. And they start revealing the whole secret history of Uzbekistan and everything going on and trying to work with each other, try to sort of have some impact on the political process in Uzbekistan. And they lost. What happened was the dictator died, Islam Karimov died, in 2016, and was replaced by another dictator who's not quite as severe. But watching the losing side and also watching people persevere and hold on to themselves and continue working despite that loss, I think, was very influential. Because you could look at Václav Havel or Lech Walesa or, you know, other sort of. People who won, you know, from Eastern Europe, from the revolutions of 1989 and so forth. And it's inspiring that sometimes I think it's really important to look at the people who did not succeed, but kept going anyway. You know, they didn't surrender themselves. They didn't their morality and they didn't abandon their fellow man. And I think that that's important. And also just to sort of get at the heart of your question, yes, you the structure of it, oligarchs who shake down countries, strip them and sell them for parts. Mine them for resources. That model, especially of what happened to Russia, actually, in particular in the 1990s of these oligarch wars, is what I see as the future of the United States right now. That is what they're trying to emulate.Andrew Keen: That we did a show with Steve Hansen and Jeff Kopstein, both political scientists, on what they see. They co-wrote a book on patrimonialism. This is the model they see there. They're both Max Weber scholars, so they borrow from that historic sociological analysis. And Kopstein was on the show with John Rausch as well, talking about this patrimonials. And so you, do you share the Kopstein-Hansen-Rausch analysis. Roush wrote a piece in the Atlantic about this too, which did very well. But this isn't conventional fascism or communism. It's a kind of 21st century version of patrimonialism.Sarah Kendzior: It's definitely not traditional fascism and one of the main reasons for that is a fascist has loyalty to the state. They seek to embody the state, they seek to expand the state recently Trump has been doing this more traditional route somewhat things like wanting to buy Greenland. But I think a lot of what he's doing is in reaction to climate change and also by the way I don't think Trump is the mastermind or originator. Of any of these geopolitical designs. You know, he has a team, we know about some of them with the Heritage Foundation Project 2025. We know he has foreign advisors. And again, you know, Trump is a corporate raider. That is how he led his business life. He's a mafia associate who wants to strip things down and sell them for parts. And that's what they wanna do with the United States. And that, yes, there are fascist tactics. There are fascists rhetoric. You know there are a lot of things that this country will, unfortunately, and has. In common, you know, with, say, Nazi Germany, although it's also notable that of course Nazi Germany borrowed from a lot of the tactics of Jim Crow, slavery, genocide of Native Americans. You know, this has always been a back and forth and America always has had some form of selective autocracy. But yeah, I think the folks who try to make this direct line and make it seem like the 20th century is just simply being revived, I've always felt like they were off because. There's no interest for these plutocrats in the United States even existing as a sovereign body. Like it truly doesn't matter to them if all of our institutions, even something as benign as the Postal Service, collapse. That's actually beneficial for them because then they can privatize, they can mine resources, they can make money for themselves. And I really worry that their goal is partition, you know, is to take this country. And to split it into smaller pieces that are easier to control. And that's one of the reasons I wrote this book, that I wrote The Last American Road Trip because I don't want people to fall for traps about generalizations or stereotypes about different regions of this country. I want them to see it as a whole and that our struggles are interconnected and we have a better chance of winning if we stand by each other.Andrew Keen: Yeah, and your book, in particular, The View from Flyover Country was so important because it wasn't written from San Francisco or Los Angeles or D.C. Or New York. It was written from St. Louis. So in a way, Sarah, you're presenting Trump as the ultimate Hayekian b*****d. There's a new book out by Quinn Slobodian called Hayek's B******s, which connects. Trumpianism and mago with Neoliberalism you don't see a break. We've done a lot of shows on the rise and fall of neoliberalism. You don't say a break between Hayek and TrumpSarah Kendzior: I think that in terms of neoliberalism, I think it's a continuation of it. And people who think that our crises began with Trump becoming the president in 2017, entering office, are deluded because the pathway to Trump even being able to run for president given that he was first investigated by the Department of Justice in 1973 and then was linked to a number of criminal enterprises for decades after. You know, that he was able to get in that position, you know that already showed that we had collapsed in certain respects. And so I think that these are tied together. You know, this has a lot to do with greed, with a, you know a disregard for sovereignty, a disregard human rights. For all of this Trump has always served much better as a demagogue, a front man, a figurehead. I do think, you he's a lot smarter. Than many of his opponents give him credit for. He is very good at doing what he needs to do and knowing what he need to know and nothing more. The rest he gives to the bureaucrats, to the lawyers, et cetera. But he fills this persona, and I do wonder what will happen when he is gone because they've tried very hard to find a successor and it's always failed, like DeSantis or Nikki Haley or whoever. And I kind of wonder if one of the reasons things are moving so, so fast now is they're trying to get a lot of things in under the wire while he's still alive, because I don't think that there's any individual who people have the loyalty to. His cult is not that big. It's a relatively small segment of the country, but it is very intense and very loyal to him. I don't think that loyalty is transferable.Andrew Keen: Is there anything, you know, I presented you as the Cassandra from St. Louis, you've seen the future probably clearer than most other people. Certainly when I first came across your work, I wasn't particularly convinced. I'm much more convinced now. You were right. I was wrong. Is there, anything about Trump too, that surprised you? I mean, any of the, the cruelty? Open corruption, the anger, the hostility, the attempt to destroy anything of any value in America, the fact that they seem to take such great pleasure in destroying this country's most valuable thing.Sarah Kendzior: Yeah, it's extremely sad and no, he doesn't surprise me at all. He's been the same guy since I was a little kid. You know, he was a plot line on children's television shows in the 1980s where as a child, I was supposed to know that the name Trump was synonymous with corruption, with being a tax cheat, with being a liar, you know, these were just sort of cultural codes that I was expected to know. What surprised me more is that no one stopped him because this threat was incredibly obvious. And that so many people in power have joined in, and I'm assuming they're joining in because they would rather be on the side with all that power than be a target of that power, but that they feel apparently no sense of loss, no sense grief for things like the loss of national parks, public education, the postal service, things that most folks like, social security for your elderly parents. Most Americans... Want these things. And most Americans, regardless of political party, don't want to see our country torn apart in this fashion. And so I'm not surprised by Trump. I'm surprised at the extent of his enablers at the complicity of the press and of the FBI and other institutions. And, you know, it's also been very jarring to watch how open they are this time around, you know, things like Elon Musk and his operation taking out. Classified information. The thing is, is I'm pretty sure Trump did all that. I mean, we know Trump did this in his first term, you know, and they would emphasize things like this box of physical written documents in Mar-a-Lago illegally taken. But, you know my mind always just went to, well, what did they do digitally? Because that seems much easier and much more obvious. What did they with all of these state secrets that they had access to for four years? What kind of leverage would that give them? And I think now they're just kind of, they're not bothering to hide anything anymore. I think they set the stage and now, you know, we're in the midst of the most horrible play, the most terrible performance ever. And it's, you can be still crushing at times.Andrew Keen: And of course, the real question is whether we're in the last act. Your book, The Last American Road Trip, was written, mostly written, what, in 2024 from?Sarah Kendzior: 2023.Andrew Keen: 2023. So, I mean, here's, I don't know if you can answer this, Sarah, but you know as much about middle America and middle Americans as anyone. You're on the road, you talk to everyone, you have a huge following, both on the left and the right in some ways. Some of your books now, you told me before we went live, some of your previous books, like Hiding in Plain Sight, suddenly become a big hit amongst conservative Americans. What does Trump or the MAGA people around him, what do they have to do to lose the support of ordinary Americans? As you say, they're destroying the essential infrastructure, medical, educational, the roads, the railways, everything is being destroyed, carted off almost like Stalin carted of half of the Soviet Union back into Asia during the Second World War. What does he have to do to lose the support of Middle America?Sarah Kendzior: I mean, I don't think middle America, you know, by which like a giant swath of the country that's, that's just ideological, diverse, demographically diverse supports him. I mean some do certainly. He's got some hardcore acolytes. I think most people are disillusioned with the entire political system. They are deeply frustrated by Trump. They were deeply frustrated. By Biden, they're struggling to pay bills. They're struggling. To hold on to basic human rights. And they're mad that their leverage is gone. People voted in record numbers in 2020. They protested in record number throughout Trump's first term. They've made their concerns known for a very long time and there are just very few officials really listening or responding. And I think that initially when Trump reentered the picture, it caused folks to just check out mentally because it was too overwhelming. I think it's why voter turnout was lower because the Democrats, when they won, didn't make good on their promises. It's a very simple thing. If you follow through with your campaign platform that was popular, then you're going to retain those voters. If you don't, you may lose them, especially when you're up against a very effective demagogue who has a way with rhetoric. And so we're just in such a bad place, such a painful place. I don't think people will look to politicians to solve their problems and with very good reason. I'm hoping that there are more of a sense of community support, more of sense that we're all in this together, especially as financially things begin to fall apart. Trump said openly in 2014 that he intended to crash the American economy. He said this on a Fox News clip that I found in 2016. Because it was being reprinted all over Russian-language media. They loved this clip because it also praised Putin and so forth. And I was astounded by it. I was like, why in the world isn't this all over every TV station, every radio station? He's laying out the whole plan, and now he's following that plan. And so I'm very concerned about that. And I just hope people in times like this, traditionally, this opens the door to fascism. People become extremely afraid. And in their fear they want a scapegoat, they are full of rage, they take it out on each other. That is the worst possible move right now from both a moral or a strategic view. People need to protect each other, to respect each other as fully human, to recognize almost everyone here, except for a little tiny group of corrupt billionaires, is a victim in this scenario, and so I don't see a big difference between, you know, myself and... Wherever I go. I was in Tulsa yesterday, I was in San Francisco last week. We're all in this together and I see a lot of heartache wherever I go. And so if people can lend each other support, that is the best way to get through this.Andrew Keen: Are you suggesting then that he is the Manchurian candidate? Why did he say that in 2014?Sarah Kendzior: Well, it was interesting. He was on Fox during the Sochi Olympics, and he was talking about how he speaks with Putin every day, their pals, and that Putin is going to produce a really big win for us, and we're all going to be very happy about it. And then he went on to say that the crashing of the economy and riots throughout America is what will make America great again. And this is in February 2014. Fox has deleted the clip, You know, other people have copies. So it is, it's also in my book hiding in plain sight, the transcript of that. I'm not sure, like a Manchurian candidate almost feels, you know like the person would have to be blackmailed or coerced or brainwashed somehow to participate. I think Trump is a true volunteer and his loyalty isn't to Russia per se. You know, his loyalty is to his bank accounts, like his loyalty is to power. And one thing he's been after his whole life was immunity from prosecution because he has been involved or adjacent to such an enormous number of crimes. And then when the Supreme Court granted him that, he got what he wanted and he's not afraid of breaking the law in any way. He's doing what all autocrats do, which is rewrite the law so that he is no longer breaking it. And he has a team of lawyers who help him in that agenda. So I feel like on one sense, he's very. All-American. It's kind of a sad thing that as he destroys America, he's doing it in a very American way. He plays a lot of great American music at his rallies. He has a vernacular that I can relate to that and understand it while detesting everything he's doing and all of his horrific policies. But what they want to turn us into though, I think is something that all Americans just won't. Recognized. And we've had the slipping away of a kind of unified American culture for a while, I think because we've lost our pop culture, which is really where a lot of people would bond, you know, movies, music, all of it became split into streaming services, you know. All of it became bifurcated. People stopped seeing each other as much face to face, you know, during COVID and then that became kind of a permanent thing. We're very fragmented and that hurts us badly. And all we've kind of got left is I guess sports and then politics. So people take all the effort that they used to put into devouring American pop culture or American civic life and they put it into this kind of politics that the media presents as if it's a game, like initially a horse race during the election and now like, ooh, will the evil dictator win? It's like, this is our lives. Like we have a lot on the line. So I wish they would do, they would take their job more seriously too. Of course, they're up paywalled and on streaming sites, so who's watching anyway, but still it is a problem.Andrew Keen: Yeah, it's interesting you talk about this death wish, you mentioned Thelma and Louise earlier, one of the great movies, American road movies, maybe in an odd way, the final scene of the Trump movie will be similar to the, you seem to be suggesting to, I'm not gonna give away the end of Thelmer and Louise to anyone who's watching who hasn't seen it, you do need to see it, similar ending to that movie. What about, you've talked about resistance, Sarah, a one of. The most influential, I guess, resistors to Trump and Trumpism. You put up an X earlier this month about the duty of journalism to resist, the duty to thinkers to resist. Some people are leaving, guys like Tim Snyder, his wife, Marcy Shaw, Jason Stanley, another expert on fascism. You've made it clear that you're staying. What's your take on people like Snyder who are leaving this country?Sarah Kendzior: Well, from what I know, he made a statement saying he had decided to move to Canada before Trump was put in office. Jason Stanley, on the other hand, explicitly said he's moving there because Trump is in office, and my first thought when I heard about all of them was, well, what about their students? Like, what about all these students who are being targeted by ICE, who are being deported? What about their TAs? What about everyone who's in a more vulnerable position. You know, when you have a position of power and influence, you could potentially do a lot of good in helping people. You know I respect everyone's decision to live wherever they want. Like it's not my business. But I do think that if you have that kind of chance to do something powerful for the community around you, especially the most vulnerable people in it who at this time are green card holders, people here on visas, we're watching this horrific crackdown at all these universities. My natural inclination would be to stay and take a stand and not abandon them. And I guess, you know, people, they do things in different ways or they may have their own personal concerns and, you know that's fine. I just know, you know I'm not leaving, you know, like I've got elderly parents and in-laws. I've got relatives who need me. I have a lot of people who depend on me and they depend on me in St. Louis and in Missouri. Because there aren't that many journalists in St. Louis. I think there could be, there are a lot of great writers in St Louis, you know, who have given a chance, given a platform, you could really show you what it's actually like here instead of all these stereotypes. But we're always, always marginalized. Like even I'm marginalized and I think I'm, you know, probably the most well-known in terms of being a political commentator. And so I feel like it's important to stand my ground but also You know, I love this, this state in the city and I love my community and I can't fathom, you know, leaving people in the lurch at a time like this. When I'm doing better, I'm on more solid ground despite being a target of various, you know organizations and individuals. I'm at a more solid down than somebody who's a, you know a black American or an immigrant or impoverished. Like I feel like it is my job to stand up for you know, folks here and let everyone know, you know what's going on and be somebody who they can come to and feel like that's safe.Andrew Keen: You describe yourself, Sarah, as a target. Your books have done very well. Most of them have been bestsellers. I'm sure the last American road trip will do very well, you're just off.Sarah Kendzior: It is the bestseller as of yesterday. It is your bestseller, congratulations. Yeah, our USA Today bestsellers, so yeah.Andrew Keen: Excellent. So that's good news. You've been on the road, you've had hundreds of people show up. I know you wrote about signing 600 books at Left Bank Books, which is remarkable. Most writers would cut off both hands for that. How are you being targeted? You noted that some of your books are being taken off the shelves. Are they being banned or discouraged?Sarah Kendzior: I mean, basically, what's been happening is kind of akin to what you see with universities. I just think it's not as well publicized or publicized at all, where there's not some sort of, you know, like the places will give in to what they think this administration wants before they are outright told to do it. So yes, there is an attempt to remove hiding in plain sight from circulation in 2024 to, you know, make the paperback, which at the time was ranked on Amazon. At number 2,000. It was extremely popular because this is the week that the Supreme Court gave Trump immunity. I was on vacation when I found out it was being pulled out of circulation. And I was in rural New Mexico and I had to get to a place with Wi-Fi to try to fight back for my book, which was a bestseller, a recent publication. It was very strange to me and I won that fight. They put it back, but a lot of people had tried to order it at that time and didn't get it. And a lot of people try to get my other books and they just can't get them. You know, so the publisher always has a warehouse issue or a shipping problem and you know, this kind of comes up or you know people notice, they've noticed this since 2020, you know I don't get reviewed in the normal kind of place as a person that has best selling books one after another would get reviewed. You know, that kind of thing is more of a pain. I always was able to circumvent it before through social media. But since Musk took over Twitter and because of the way algorithms work, it's more and more difficult for me to manage all of the publicity and PR and whatnot on my own. And so, you know, I'm grateful that you're having me on your show. I'm also grateful that, you Know, Flatiron did give me a book tour. That's helped tremendously. But there's that. And then there's also just the constant. Death threats and threats of you know other things you know things happening to people I love and it's been scary and I get used to it and that I expect it but you know you never could really get used to people constantly telling you that they're gonna kill you you know.Andrew Keen: When you get death threats, do you go to the authorities, have they responded?Sarah Kendzior: No, there's no point. I mean, I have before and it was completely pointless. And, you know, I'll just mostly just go to people I know who I trust to see if they can check in on things. I have to be very vague here who are not in the government or in the police or anything like that. I don't think anyone would protect me. I really just don't think anyone could help. You know, one thing is, you know, yes, I'm a prominent critic of Trump and his administration, but I was also a prominent critic of. The DOJ and Merrick Garland for not doing anything about all of these threats and also a critic of Biden and the Democrats for not impeaching quickly, for not being more proactive, for not acting with greater urgency. So I'm targeted by kind of everyone except for people who don't have any power, which is a strange situation to be in because I love my readers and I think that they're wonderful and I'm incredibly grateful for them because my books largely spread through word of mouth. It is scary for me, just as like a mom in Missouri without a lot of resources to be targeted by all of these kind of high profile, wealthy, powerful people. But all I have is my voice and my writing. And so I just do what I can. And that's just the way the cards have been dealt for me and it is what it is, so.Andrew Keen: Later historians write about this period in 50 or 100 years time. How do you think you mentioned the Biden administration, you were critical of them. We haven't talked about Kamala Harris's failed presidential term, which I wasn't particularly impressed with. How much moral responsibility do you think that Biden and Harris should be accused of for Trump too?Sarah Kendzior: Yeah, I mean, well, first of all, I'd be delighted if we have historians in the future. Well, I will be, even if I don't.Andrew Keen: Well, there will be, even if, I don't know, in America, there'll be somewhere.Sarah Kendzior: I is where it'll be some sort of AI creation that just, you know, belches out, make America great again, like, you know, like in The Shining or something, just over and over and over again. But assuming we have real historians that actually assess the situation, I think they are going to be tremendously critical of the Biden administration. I think it may in fact go down as one of the worst of all time. And he will be seen as a Neville Chamberlain-like figure who had the opportunity to stop or slow A number of autocratic practices and either chose to look the other way or to enable them. Because the thing is, in 2016, people were very doubtful that America could become an autocratic state. They hadn't seen this before. A lot of this was new to them. From 2016 through 2021, we saw all that Trump was capable of, and he committed a large multitude of crimes,RetryClaude hit the max length for a message and has paused its response. You can write Continue to keep the chat going.AKplease continueEditHere's the continuation of the transcript:Sarah Kendzior: ...and those crimes, not just him, but his cohort were never held accountable. And what they did during the Biden years was plan all of their next moves. Like you don't suddenly have a gulag for Americans in El Salvador, like just off the top of your head. You know, all of this takes planning. We knew about a lot of the plans, you know, the Democrats campaigned about combating Project 2025. And my question to them was, well, what what if you lose? How are you going to combat it then? You know what, if he gets back, what are you gonna do? They would be so offended. They're like, how dare you, you question us. How dare you question, you know, our plans? They're, like, well, I don't, you don't have a plan. Like, that's my question is what is the plan? And they didn't. And they could have spent those four years creating a bulwark against a lot of the most horrific policies that we're seeing now. Instead, they're kind of reacting on the fly if they're even reacting at all. And meanwhile, people are being targeted, deported, detained. They're suffering tremendously. And they're very, very scared. I think it's very scary to have a total dearth of leadership from where the, not just the opposition, but just people with basic respect for the constitution, our civil rights, etc., are supposed to be.Andrew Keen: You mentioned Project 2025, we've got David Graham on the show next week, who's written a book about Project 2025. Is there anything positive to report, Sarah? I mean, some people are encouraged by the behavior, at least on Friday, the 18th of April, who knows what will happen over the weekend or next week. Behavior of Harvard, some law firms are aggressively defending their rights. Should we be encouraged by the universities, law firms, even some corporate leaders are beginning to mutter under their breath about Trump and Trumpism?Sarah Kendzior: And it depends whether they actually have that power in wielded or whether they're just sort of trying to tamper down public dissent. I'm skeptical of these universities and law firms because I think they should have had a plan long ago because I was very obvious that all of this was going to happen and I feel so terribly for all of the students there that were abandoned by these administrations, especially places like Columbia. That gave in right away. What does hearten me though, you know, and I, as you said, I'd been on this tour, like I was all over the West coast. I've been all over, the Midwest and the South is, Americans, Americans do understand what's happening. There's always this like this culture in media of like, how do we break it to Americans? Like, yeah, well, we know, we know out here in Missouri that this is very bad. And I think that people have genuine concern for each other. I think they still have compassion for each other. I think there's a culture of cruelty that's promoted online and it's incentivized. You know, you can make money that way. You could get clicks that that way, whatever, but in real life, I think people feel vulnerable. They feel afraid, but I've seen so much kindness. I've been so much concern and determination from people who don't have very much, and maybe that's, you know, why people don't know about it. These are just ordinary folks. And so I have great faith in American people to combat this. And what I don't have faith in is our institutions. And I hope that these sort of in between places, places like universities who do a lot of good on one hand, but also can kind of act as like hedge funds. On the other hand, I hope they move fully to the side of good and that they purge themselves of these corrupt elements that have been within them for a long time, the more greedy. Aspects of their existence. I hope they see themselves as places that uphold civic life and history and provide intellectual resistance and shelter for students in the storm. They could be a really powerful force if they choose to be. It's never too late to change. I guess that's the message I want to bring home. Even if I'm very critical of these places, it's never to late for them to change and to do the right thing.Andrew Keen: Well, finally, Sarah, a lot of people are going to be watching this on my Substack page. Your Substack Page, your newsletter, They Knew, I think has last count, 52,000 subscribers. Is this the new model for independent writers, journalist thinkers like yourself? I'm not sure of those 52,00, how many of them are paid. You noted that your book has disappeared co-isindecially sometimes. So maybe some publishers are being intimidated. Is the future for independent thinkers, platforms like Substack, where independent authors like yourself can establish direct intellectual and commercial relations with their readers and followers?Sarah Kendzior: It's certainly the present. I mean, this is the only place or other newsletter outlets, I suppose, that I could go. And I purposefully divorced myself from all institutions except for my publisher because I knew that this kind of corruption would inhibit me from being able to say the truth. This is why I dropped out of academia, I dropped out of regular journalism. I have isolated myself to some degree on purpose. And I also just like being in control of this and having direct access to my readers. However, what does concern me is, you know, Twitter used to also be a place where I had direct access to people I could get my message out. I could circumvent a lot of the traditional modes of communication. Now I'm essentially shadow banned on there, along with a lot of people. And you know Musk has basically banned substack links because of his feud with Matt Taibbi. You know, that led to, if you drop a substack link in there, it just gets kind of submerged and people don't see it. So, you know, I think about Twitter and how positive I was about that, maybe like 12, 13 years ago, and I wonder how I feel about Substack and what will happen to it going forward, because clearly, you Know, Trump's camp realizes the utility of these platforms, like they know that a lot of people who are prominent anti authoritarian voices are using them to get the word out when they are when they lose their own platform at, like, say, the Washington Post or MSNBC or... Whatever network is corrupted or bullied. And so eventually, I think they'll come for it. And, you know, so stack has problems on its own anyway. So I am worried. I make up backups of everything. I encourage people to consume analog content and to print things out if they like them in this time. So get my book on that note, brand new analog content for you. A nice digital.Andrew Keen: Yeah, don't buy it digitally. I assume it's available on Kindle, but you're probably not too keen or even on Amazon and Bezos. Finally, Sarah, this is Friday. Fridays are supposed to be cheerful days, the days before the weekend. Is there anything to be cheerful about on April The 18th 2025 in America?Sarah Kendzior: I mean, yeah, there's things to be cheerful about, you know, pre spring, nice weather. I'm worried about this weekend. I'll just get this out real quick. You know, this is basically militia Christmas. You know, This is the anniversary of Waco, the Oklahoma City bombings, Columbine. It's Hitler's birthday. This is a time when traditionally American militia groups become in other words,Andrew Keen: Springtime in America.Sarah Kendzior: Yeah, springtime for Hitler. You know, and so I'm worried about this weekend. I'm worry that if there are anti-Trump protests that they'll be infiltrated by people trying to stoke the very riots that Trump said he wanted in order to, quote, make America great again and have everything collapse. So everyone, please be very, very careful this weekend heading out and just be aware of the. Of these dates and the importance of these days far predates Trump to, you know, militia groups and other violent extremist groups.Andrew Keen: Well, on that cheerful note, I asked you for a positive note. You've ruined everyone's weekend, probably in a healthy way. You are the Cassandra from St. Louis. Appreciate your bravery and honesty in standing up to Trump and Trumpism, MAGA America. Congratulations on the new book. As you say, it's available in analog form. You can buy it. Take it home, protect it, dig a hole in your garden and protect it from the secret police. Congratulations on the new book. As I said to you before we went live, it's a beautifully written book. I mean, you're noted as a polemicist, but I thought this book is your best written book, the other books were well written, but this is particularly well written. Very personal. So congratulations on that. And Sarah will have to get you back on the show. I'm not sure how much worse things can get in America, but no doubt they will and no doubt you will write about it. So keep well, keep safe and keep doing your brave work. Thank you so much.Sarah Kendzior: Yeah, you too. Thank you so much for your kind words and for having me on again. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

The 2022 World Cup in Qatar marked an unforgettable moment in sports history as Lionel Messi achieved his long-awaited victory, cementing his legacy as one of the greatest players ever.  But beneath the celebrations lies a darker narrative. In this episode of Sportly, host Kavitha Davidson explores the phenomenon of sportswashing—how governments and organizations use major sporting events to distract from human rights abuses, labor exploitation, and environmental damage. From Qatar's $220 billion investment to Argentina's controversial 1978 World Cup and even Russia's Sochi Olympics, we unpack the stories where political agendas overshadow the beauty of sports. How can fans balance their love for the game with the knowledge of these hidden realities? Tune in to uncover the powerful intersection of sports, politics, and global image-making. Host: Kavitha A. Davison | Producers: Saadia Khan & Shei Yu I Content Writers: Jonathan Hazel, Shei Yu & Kavitha A. Davidson I Sound Designer & Editor: Paroma Chakravarty I Immigrantly Theme Music: Simon Hutchinson | Other Music: Epidemic Sound | Cover Art Graphic Designer: Sarah DiMichele Join us as we create new intellectual engagement for our audience. You can get more information at http://immigrantlypod.com. Please share the love and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts & Spotify to help more people find us!  Remember to subscribe to our Apple podcast channel for insightful podcasts.  Follow us on social media for updates and behind-the-scenes content. You can reach the host, Kavitha, at kavitha@immigrantlypod.com Follow us on TikTok @immigrantlypodcast IG @immigrantlymedia Sportly is an Immigrantly Media Production For advertising inquiries, you can contact us at info@immigrantlypod.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

David Morris is a 3X Olympian, Olympic Silver Medalist as an aerialist for Australia. David made history becoming the first male to win an olympic medal for Australia in aerials and was also the flag bearer for Australia at the closing ceremonies of the 2014 Sochi Olympics. David had a tremendous career with 45 World Cup starts and 5 World Cup Podiums, he was a  World Cup Winner in 2013 and World Championship medalist in 2017. In this episode we discuss Dave's journey into aerials and his career! Enjoy! #whatdrivesyou #success #skiing . . . . . . . . #aerials #jumping #champion #Olympics #driven #gold #win #inthearena #podcast #skiing #ski #teamaus #sochi #vancouver #gymnast #aerialskiing #winter #sports #athlete #mind #worldcup #championmindset

The next blue moon isn't until May 2026, but luckily for you, you won't have to wait that long to hear the Outside/In team answering listeners' questions. This time, we're exploring why blue moons are cool (or even what the heck a blue moon even is) and other seasonably appropriate curiosities.What's all the fuss about a blue moon?Should we leave the leaves?Which is a more sustainable choice: real or fake Christmas trees?What happens to Christmas tree stumps?What does all that road salt do to the environment?Featuring Asmeret Asefaw Berhe, Tim Gaudreau, Victoria Meert, and Sujay Kaushal.Thanks to Outside/In listeners Zoe, Janet, Gio, Alexi, Prudence, Wendy, Mo, and Devon for their questions and contributions.  SUPPORTOutside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In. Follow Outside/In on Instagram or join our private discussion group on Facebook. LINKSCheck out this study on the long-term impacts of leaf litter removal in suburban yards.Looking for a creative and cute way to keep leaves in your lawn or garden? Consider building a “bug snug.”Read about the mad dash for salt that rescued the 2014 Sochi Olympics' ski events (NYT).Learn more about the turn to beet juice and beer-based de-icers to reduce the harm of excess salt to the environment (AP News) CREDITSHost: Nate HegyiReported, produced, and mixed by Felix Poon, Justine Paradis, and Marina Henke.Edited by Taylor Quimby, Rebecca Lavoie, and Justine Paradis.Our staff includes Kate Dario.Executive producer: Taylor QuimbyRebecca Lavoie is NHPR's Director of On-Demand AudioMusic by Blue Dot Sessions, Jules Gaia, and Jharee.Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder.Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public RadioSubmit a question to the “Outside/Inbox.” We answer queries about the natural world, climate change, sustainability, and human evolution. You can send a voice memo to outsidein@nhpr.org or leave a message on our hotline, 1-844-GO-OTTER (844-466-8837).

Buckle up for our longest episode of the season with Olympic Gold Medalist and Co-Founder of SLVSH: Joss Christensen. The first half of this episode goes through Joss' career and the dramatic story of winning Gold in Slopestyle at the 2014 Sochi Olympics. The second half of the episode focuses on Joss's recent ventures including the story of the creation of SLVSH, the transformation it has undergone in recent years, and the future vision for the company. Plus some good Jib League talk thrown in there. Iberg gets hammered in this one! @TwoPlankerNetwork ⁠https://www.instagram.com/twoplankernetwork/ @inspiredmediatv ⁠https://www.instagram.com/inspiredmediatv/ @osapberg https://www.instagram.com/osapberg/?hl=en Use code "inspired20" for 20% off all individual items on https://darkhorsehempfarms.com/home Intro: @WhiteBlackz https://www.instagram.com/whiteblackzmusic7/ Spotify: ⁠⁠https://open.spotify.com/show/4DoaAVYv69xAV50r8ezybK⁠ ⁠⁠⁠ Apple Podcast: ⁠⁠https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/two-planker-podcast/id1546428207⁠⁠ YouTube:⁠⁠⁠ ⁠https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRvAYQSF4s3bsC887ALAycg⁠⁠ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/twoplanker/support

The surprising success of Russian athletes at the 2014 Sochi Olympics gave Vladimir Putin the political capital to invade Crimea, and it was all built on an elaborate state-sponsored doping program. Russia received little more than a slap on the wrist by the International Olympic Committee, so President Putin was emboldened to attack Ukraine in 2022. This time the IOC had to act, and the majority of Russian athletes have been banned from the 2024 Paris Games.    John Hoberman, Olympic Historian and Professor of Germanic Studies, University of Texas at Austin, joins Ray Suarez to share why the IOC has a history of enabling authoritarian leaders, and why it has blood on its hands. Guest: John Hoberman, Olympic Historian and Professor of Germanic Studies, University of Texas, Austin Host: Ray Suarez, host, On Shifting Ground If you appreciate this episode and want to support the work we do, please consider making a donation to Commonwealth Club World Affairs. We cannot do this work without your help. Thank you.

In this episode of Building Texas Business, I chat with Mike Snavely, CEO of Phunware. Mike details Phunware's evolution from a mobile development agency into a thriving SaaS company delivering high-ROI apps to hotels and healthcare providers. Hear how shifting culture from rigid control to empowering autonomous teams with accountability revived success. Key strategic maneuvers included trimming the workforce judiciously and securing capital patiently. Timely decisions breathe new life into businesses' surfaces repeatedly. We delve into crafting a trusting, candid culture. Difficult conversations are promptly addressed and failures learned foster innovation and resilience. I share that I founded such an environment at a former startup. Mike's unique hobby of creatively mapping dream destinations blends work wisdom with life's pleasures, crafting an episode uplifting attendees' strategies and spirits. SHOW HIGHLIGHTS Mike Snavely explains the evolution of Phunware from a mobile solution development agency to a SaaS company that specializes in customized mobile apps for hotels and healthcare institutions. We discuss the strategic decisions and cultural shifts necessary during the transition to new leadership at Phunware, including capital injection and reshaping the balance sheet for growth. Mike highlights the move from a command-and-control culture to one that champions autonomy and accountability, emphasizing the importance of empowering team leaders. We explore the significance of building a leadership team grounded in trust, accountability, autonomy, and candor, and how these principles contribute to a positive organizational culture. Mike shares his personal career journey, detailing his long-standing experience in mobile technology and his eventual rise to the CEO position at Phunware. We examine how Phunware fosters a culture of appreciation and collaboration through a Slack channel called Momentum, which recognizes and celebrates employee contributions. Mike talks about balancing professional obligations with personal passions, including the importance of prioritizing family and maintaining a positive trajectory in both areas. We discuss the importance of in-person engagement for building and maintaining key relationships with stakeholders, despite the trend toward virtual interactions. Mike reflects on past experiences and learnings, including the value of having prompt and honest conversations to avoid delays in decision-making and mitigate potential failures. We delve into Mike's hobby of pinning dream travel destinations on Google Maps and how this practice turns travel planning into an immersive and memorable adventure. LINKSShow Notes Previous Episodes About BoyarMiller About Phunware GUESTS Mike SnavelyAbout Mike TRANSCRIPT (AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors) Chris: In today's episode, you will meet Mike Snavely, ceo of Funware. In building and maintaining key relationships with your stakeholders, mike shares his opinions on why there is no substitute for being in person to engage on a human level. Mike, I want to welcome you to Building Texas Business and thank you for taking time to come on the show with me. Glad to be here. Thanks for the invitation. So, as the CEO of Funware, let's start by just orienting the listeners to what is Funware and tell us what the company's known for. Mike: Sure so. Funware is a 15-year-old publicly traded company based in Austin, Texas. We build mobile experiences that help hotels and healthcare institutions engage their guests and patients while they're on premises in ways that drive satisfaction and monetization. Chris: Very interesting. So you said the company started I guess in the early 2000s. Mike: Then it would have been in 2009. The company started. It was private for the first 11 or so years of its existence and then we went public via SPAC transaction in 2000. I believe it was 20. Chris: Okay, and it sounds like a fairly niched focus for the company. How did it come to be that the company, I guess, was so focused on kind of those two industries and providing that type of, I guess, service to those customers? Mike: Well, originally it wasn't. So over 15 years, you might imagine, there's been an evolution in the focus of the company, and so the company in 2009 was really more of a mobile solution development agency. So some of the biggest brands you know in the world really selected Funware back in the timeframe to build some of their first mobile apps in the app store. So companies like Fox, the NFL, the Sochi Olympics, wwe, a number of airports and so on were spending a lot of money to build their first mobile application and then to develop their first mobile audience. For lots of reasons and that was two years after the iPhone was introduced. It was actually before the iPad was introduced and so obviously there's a lot of evolution of consumer expectations when it comes to engaging on mobile, and those brands were spending a lot of money in the early comes to engaging on mobile, and those brands were spending a lot of money in the early days to build their first mobile presences. That's evolved over time, and so agencies are really not, they really don't drive the valuation that a SaaS company does, and so we've, over time, evolved into becoming a SaaS company. So we license our technologies. We'll essentially build an app, configuring it for the customer, launch it into the app store and then generate license fees off that app for as long as it exists and is available for download. That's a much better valuation model because typically when our customers get involved with us they stick around. Our retention rate is very high because we drive a positive ROI. So we've kind of followed the evolution of mobile from really high investment work for hire, boutique agency-like development all the way through today where we charge between 50 and $150,000 a year for a given property, whether it's a hotel or a hospital, to have their own mobile app in the app store, to have their own brand in front of their users or guests and then ultimately to develop that one-on-one relationship with that guest or patient in a way that drives repeat business and satisfaction and additional monetization. Chris: That's fascinating. Now you mentioned retention rate. What do you which obviously is very important for success of a company, especially like yours what do you attribute that successful retention rate to? Mike: Well, we do good work and I can make available to you a list and you could even put it in the podcast if you'd like of the apps that we build, or some of the apps that we build. They're beautiful apps. So, number one, we do really high-quality work that all of our customers are proud to have their name on. And then, number two, we drive ROI, plain and simple. For a dollar they put into our solutions, they get between $5 and $50 back, depending on who they are and the specifics of their business. And you know, if I could give you a machine that would, you put a dollar bill in, you get a five or a 50 back out. You would say how many dollar bills can I put in there? Chris: Yeah, no, no, kidding, right Well. I mean, but fundamentally, you mentioned at least you know two fundamental things that is key to customer retention. That's one provide good service. If you're in the service industry, it starts with providing good service and I think an outcome of that is your customer sees a valuable return on the investment for your service. Those are not unique to software but for any kind of service type business right, exactly, that's right. Let's talk a little bit about your. So you're the CEO. The company was founded by others than yourself. How did you come, I guess, to work at Funware and I know just a little bit that you've had this is like your second stint there but give us a little background on your connection to the company and how it was you became the CEO. Mike: Yeah, sure enough. So I've really made a career of pursuing technology trends. So I'm kind of an old guy so I've been in business for a long time. But I started off in offline marketing technologies, sending out snail mail and running telephone centers. Then I evolved into social marketing with a startup in Austin, texas. I then got into mobile and I've been in mobile really kind of on and off ever since. Mobile's a big deal because you've got a device that knows who you are and knows where you are, you tell it all your secrets. It really is an indispensable. It's become an indispensable tool. And so I've really made kind of a career over the last shoot 15 years at this point in mobile. And so I was originally with my first stint in mobile was with a little mobile application development boutique in Austin called Mutual Mobile. That was 2008, 9, 10, 11 timeframe Did something else and then I was recruited to come to Funware by somebody who had worked for me at Mutual Mobile and I said look, we're building out this platform company. We're very interested in having somebody who can really help to drive revenues. Would you be interested in joining? So that in 14, I joined Funware for the first time and I came to run the software business. So I was responsible for all revenues for the software business of Funware from 14 through 16 or so, got to know the company, got to really understand the technologies Actually, a number of the people who were there then are still with the company. Then I went off, worked at a Silicon Valley startup and did a couple of other things, couple of other things. And then, when the founding CEO left in 23, they hired a guy that I had worked with at Mutual Mobile back in the day as the new CEO and he said look, mike, I know that you're great at building businesses on the revenue side. Would you like to come and be my CRO, as I'm CEO of Funware? And he said I'll make it worth your while. So I said no a couple of times and then eventually I said yes. Well, this was September of last year that I rejoined the company and 30 days in the board said look, you know, what we really need is somebody with sales DNA at CEO. Let's try that again. Easy for me to say CEO role. So, mike, would you like to step in as CEO? So I actually I had a buddy who brought me back to be a CRO and then wound up taking this job. We're still friends, we still talk all the time and he was very supportive of that move. But a long story short, I think that the company for a time kind of lost its way in the simple fact of selling, servicing accounts and driving revenues, and that's something I've had the good fortune to develop pretty good skill at, and so now I'm the CEO and I'm going to tell you I think the E in CEO stands for extra. Everything about it is extra, but it really is the best job I've ever had and I'm really enjoying it. I still spend a lot of time working with customers, selling, identifying strategic partnerships and that kind of thing, because I enjoy it, I feel like I'm good at it and it's absolutely critical to positioning the company for growth and valuation, which is exactly my job. Chris: There you go, so let's talk a little bit about that. What are some of the things that you do to build and maintain relationships with those partners, customers, strategic relationships that you think someone listening might learn? Mike: from. Well, it's funny, there's been a real trend away from in-person, and so you and I are meeting today on Zoom. Our business, funware, is essentially 100% virtual at this point, and what I find is there's no substitute for hopping on a plane and going to see somebody, breaking bread with them, getting to know them as a person, understanding what it is they're trying to accomplish, what their hopes and dreams are, what their fears are. Once you get to that point and really just kind of understanding them as a person, and then exposing yourself as a person and say, look, you know, this is what I'm trying to accomplish, mr and Ms, partner or prospect, and really kind of, you know, engaging on a human level, which you know is a whole lot easier for sitting across the desk from somebody, and that's that to me, is is where I spend a lot of my time. I do invest a lot of time in in person, you know, spending time with customers, prospects, partners and the rest of it, and I really just don't think there's much of a substitute for that. Chris: Couldn't agree more. I think that's how, really, until the pandemic, it's how business got done in person. I don't think anything's changed here. I think, especially these days, I think it says so much more that you take the time to do that when you could otherwise, yeah, do a Teams or Zoom call or whatever, and just the human interaction I mean. As humans, I think we're meant to be together, right and interact, and I think that just fosters the relationship. So great advice there. Keeping on that kind of theme you've come back in not in an easy economic time, so let's talk a little bit about managing through kind of some economic uncertain, rising interest rates and all the stuff that's out there in the news. Let's talk about kind of what are some of the things you've done to stay focused and keep your people focused on driving the business forward? Mike: Sure enough. Well, there are some benefits and some drawbacks to being a public and trading company. Of course One is access to the capital markets. That's a benefit, and we certainly have the ability to draw capital out of the markets in ways that don't require us to be as susceptible to excuse me, the interest rate environment, but that doesn't mean that our customers aren't susceptible to that environment. And so we've had to do some things. Selling into hospitality and healthcare, I mean, we're typically selling into pretty big organizations and they have a little bit of a buffer, I suppose, from the ebbs and flows of the economy, particularly when you look at luxury hospitality. I mean, COVID aside, luxury hospitality has really been on a growth tear because of the generation of a lot of wealth on the part of a lot of people and they're wanting to spend it on high-quality experiences. But that doesn't mean that we don't have to be creative from time to time when it comes to pricing a deal or generating terms that are acceptable to the customer. They can digest, they can maybe capitalize the expense as opposed to turning into an OPEX expense and that kind of thing, and certainly we've had to be creative there. When I first took on the CEO role. The company was having a little bit of financial trouble and you could read in our public filings all about it. But, long story short, we were having problems with access to capital and I had to work with my CFO and others you know capital partners to really inject some capital into the company from the market in ways that allowed us, you know, the ability to move forward without paying a lot of interest, frankly. So we were able to kind of reshape the balance sheet in a way that puts us in a great spot for growth today Smaller companies I can only imagine what it must be like if you're dealing with debt financing, distinct from capital financing, and what some of the challenges there must be. We had to make some hard decisions in connection with the recapitalization of the company that had to do with people, in large part because that's our number one expense and those are hard things to do, and I spent many a sleepless night, you know, because I had to do some of those things. But the fact of the matter is that most companies don't cut fast enough and they don't cut deep enough because of those reasons, and it feels terrible, but preserving the company and giving ourselves the ability to go forward and thrive is really kind of the job for the shareholders. Chris: Yeah, and yeah, I agree. I think, regardless of the size of the company, making those people decisions are extremely difficult because, again, we went back to in person and it's human and these people have been with you typically and but it's what they say, right, it is when you have to make the hard cuts, you have to cut muscle and those can be challenging decisions. On the flip side of that, sure, as you come into the CEO role, you are either have or still in the process of building your team. What are some of the things that you do? Processes maybe you've created to help you identify the right people to surround yourself with to further the mission and strategies of the company. Mike: Well, there are two non-delegable duties that the CEO has, in my belief. Number one it's setting the strategy of the company. So we're going to be a SaaS company serving these markets, we're going to drive toward these margins, we're going to deliver in this way, and these are the things that are important for the strategy of the business. Number two is the culture of the business, and so I can't hire somebody to give me a culture. I've got to work with the company to create the culture that we want, and so I'll give you a little bit of a story there. So I have a lot of respect for the fellows who founded the company, a lot of respect for them, because they built something that I now have the good fortune to run and take to the next level. But there was a lot of. They were literally army guys, and there was a lot of army DNA in the company. Now that there's nothing wrong with that, there's nothing at all wrong with that, and the company was successful for a number of years, but and the culture that was built was one of command and control, because that's what the army is Right. Chris: Well, it's not. I'll just interrupt it. That's also not atypical of kind of startup mentality. Right, it's dominant kind of leadership. Got to get it done, got to get this off the ground. Mike: Yep, dominant leadership plus the military background equaled very much a command and control structure, a bit of a cult of personality around the founding CEO, and all of that, you know, paid great dividends. For a long time, I could not be any more different from the founding CEO. I'm not an army guy, you know. And so one of the first things I did when I took on the job is I said look, you know, you know if you're the vice president of sales or you're the vice president of, you know of product or delivery or deployments or whatever it is. You're the CEO of your own business and I'm not going to tell you what to do. I'm going to give you an objective and I'm going to give you the flexibility and the support to go and achieve that objective. You need people. You get people. You need investment. You get investment. But your accountability is to go and run your portion of the business as if you were the CEO. I'm not going to micromanage the decisions at all. I'm going to empower you to do the right thing number one for the customer, because then that ultimately becomes the right thing for the company over many observations and so that was a transition that some people are still working through. Frankly, in leadership roles within the company. It's sometimes people get comfortable being told what to do and we just we don't do that anymore. And you know a couple of people have left as a result of that. They did not have that comfort and that's okay because it's not the right job for them anymore. But most people have really embraced the opportunity of agency and empowerment and the ability to kind of run their own part of the business. ADVERT Hello friends, this is Chris Hanslick, your Building Texas business host. Did you know that Boyer Miller, the producer of this podcast, is a business law firm that works with entrepreneurs, corporations and business leaders? Our team of attorneys serve as strategic partners to businesses by providing legal guidance to organizations of all sizes. Get to know the firm at boyermillercom. And thanks for listening to the show. Chris: Yeah, I mean, there's a lot to unpack there, but clearly what you're talking about in my terms are giving people autonomy, but with accountability, which I think is the right way to go. However, organizations evolve over time, just like people. So I think we talk about command and control in the early days. That, for most companies, may make sense, but where this company is now and size and scale, you couldn't do that because there's too much going on and you have to then hire the right people, and the people that work for the company in the first few years may not work, you know, 10 years, 15 years later, because different skill sets needed, right, so it sounds like you've got your hands around that pretty well. Mike: Well, you know, it's always a work in progress, and so one of the one of the accelerants to adopting a new cultural tone is bringing in people, you know right. So I brought in a couple of guys and they are both guys, I'm afraid, who I had worked with a number of times in the past, who I knew kind of got the way that we wanted to run the railroad and who are are the kind of guys who just roll up their sleeves every day and make the most of the day. And, you know, those guys are not only in leadership roles within the company but they're also, you know, setting a tone for the others they work with most closely day to day, and I absolutely think it's working. Chris: That's great. So kind of sum that conversation up for us how would you define the culture of Funware today? Mike: I'd say that we're kind of a restart up, but with all the good elements of a startup, and what I mean by that is that we had a revenue profile that grew, grew and then it kind of dropped off. For some reason I wasn't here, and we're in the process of growing back up and we're getting in the right people who are interested in not only doing great work and serving the customers really well and building a terrific product, but also ones who are embracing the autonomy and the accountability that we're providing to them, and I couldn't be any more pleased with the reception that I'm getting. Chris: Anything special that you've kind of put in place to kind of help foster that type of culture so that you can perpetuate it and see it grow. Mike: Well, we tend to recognize the behaviors that we're looking for, and here's what I mean by that. So you know, somebody will just do a thing right and they'll do it. They'll achieve an accomplishment, whatever that accomplishment may be, and we'll talk. We've got a Slack channel. Slack is a tool we use all day long, every day, and we have a Slack channel called Momentum, and the Momentum channel is really about recognizing the contributions that a person makes, and the deal is that if you put something in Momentum, you've got to recognize somebody else. So you say, hey, a great thing happened, you got to recognize somebody else. So you say, hey, a great thing happened. And I want to thank Bob over here for his contribution to the thing, because Bob, you know, contributed in a way that if he hadn't done that, you know we might not have gotten the outcome that we're looking for. You know that that's something that you see traffic in every single day, that's great. Chris: We obviously I can relate to that we do something similar here at the firm Every single day. That's great, I can relate to that. We do something similar here at the firm, not necessarily on a specific channel, but it's kind of become part of our culture to. We call them core value kudos and it's about recognizing other people not yourself, obviously in efforts that they made and tying them to our mission and values, so that the behaviors and the values marry up right. And then people. It makes it tangible that I want to thank or, you know, congratulate someone for doing X, Y and Z which demonstrated this value in action. Mike: That's terrific. Yeah, I've been in companies that have done that. I think that's something that I may need to reincorporate into my bag of tricks there, for sure that have done that. I think that's something that I may need to reincorporate into my bag of tricks there for sure. Chris: So you know along those lines your software company. I always am interested to know what are you doing to kind of promote or foster creativity and innovation within the company? Mike: Well, some of the things that you know it's interesting, I'm going to I'll give you maybe a little bit longer answer you might be looking for, but there is, and it's really important to kind of separate the day-to-day from the long-term vision. And what I mean by that is that I'm, let's say, a developer and today I have to fix a bug, and I just have to fix the bug because the bug exists and it's in the way of something happening and it's not my favorite part of the job, I'm quite confident of that. Not my favorite part of the job, I'm quite confident of that. Not my favorite part of the job to fix a bug. But there is some long range stuff that I'm really excited about. A big part of what we do is indoor wayfinding and hyperlocal marketing offers, and there are lots and lots of innovations that we're looking at right now, and so we identify people who are interested in innovation. We put together both formal processes for them to say, okay, you're on the R&D team and you're going to be doing this work, but we also give them informal opportunities. Hey, look, I want you to go to Denver to our customer with Gaylord Rockies and I want you to actually go into the physical space that we're trying to map, and I want you to help me figure out a better way to do it. And so that's two things. It's number one, solving a strategic problem for the business, but it's also kind of getting them out of their, since we're all virtual, it's getting them out of their own office, sending them to Denver, take an extra day, engage the customer, do great work, but also enjoy yourself a little bit. So we try to give people an opportunity to get out of the context within which they're working sitting in my home office squashing bugs and get out into the real world where our solutions are deployed in ways that are not only sort of fun but also problem solving. Chris: So you've been in some leadership roles throughout your career, obviously CEO now. How would you describe your leadership style and how do you think it's evolved over the last few years? Mike: Well, I try to work with people. I try to work as best I can. You can't always do that right, but you can absolutely make the investment of time to get to know them, and so I walk into this job. I've got a CFO that I just met very recently, and I had a chief legal officer that I met just recently, and I had a chief operating officer that I had known actually for some time and one of those guys wound up leaving that I had known actually for some time and you know, one of those guys wound up leaving. But you know the other two guys that I had just met. I made it a real point of going to where they were, sitting down with them breaking bread, understanding who they are, what they were trying to accomplish, why they were at the company in the first place and all the rest of it, because it was important for me to understand whether I could trust and whether it was appropriate to invest in these guys. Right and absolutely it was. By the way, I had a couple of gaps in my leadership team and what I did was find people that I'd worked with in the past and I said, look, are you willing to come and work for me again, and the answer in every case was absolutely so, and that's not because I'm the greatest guy in the world or because I gave him a zillion dollars or anything like that. It's because we have, over the years, established a working cadence that's founded on this idea of trust and accountability, autonomy of action and really candor of discussion. There's nothing that the leadership team and I don't discuss in detail and with candor. We're not afraid to tell our truths to each other. We've created what I think is a safe space for us to really talk about what's on our mind and what concerns or challenges we have, or if somebody is all wet, you know, and and that kind of. That kind of culture. The executive table, I think, filters down to the rest of the business in ways that help support the culture we're trying to build. Chris: Yeah, and I was gonna say it sounds like it's a culture of safety to have the hard conversations, but that those conversations are done in a respectful way. Mike: Yeah. Chris: I don't know if there's no better way to do it Right, and it's okay to fail. Mike: And I got to tell you, I used to race, I used to race cars a long time ago and you know, if you don't crash, you're not driving fast enough and so it's okay. It's okay to crash every once in a while because that means you're pushing the envelope, You're trying to get, you know, you're trying to get to the edge of the performance envelope and that's positive. Chris: Yeah, no, let's talk about that, cause I I there. There's always learning, and so I think there's. You know, when you have setbacks or failures, you can learn from them and it can make you better. Don't let it define you. So can you give us an example of more than not the car racing, because crashing is easy to understand as a failure, but in the business world, as a leader something that you felt a failure of yours, a bad decision, a setback that you absolutely grew from, and it's made you better today. Mike: Yeah, sure enough, I think that my greatest learnings are not being decisive enough and not acting quickly enough. And so you know, let's say, for example, I'll give you the example of last company I worked for before. Well, yes, I'll give you that example. So I was working at an AI video startup in Madison, Wisconsin. It was essentially a unit of a publicly traded company that I won't name, but your viewers can certainly look it up. And, long story short, that company is now bankrupt and I don't fault any of the. I don't fault the CEO of that company, which was not me, by the way, in that, but I fault myself. Yeah, exactly, it wasn't me. I didn't bankrupt the company. This was a guy I had worked with before were pretty small, and so what I said was I need this much to make this happen. I was given about half that much and I didn't adequately reset the expectations on how long it was going to take to get that thing done, slash. I should have had probably more pointed discussion about is this worth doing at all, and I didn't do that. And the long story short is that company is now bankrupt for lots of reasons, but the thing that I that my not being as aggressive as I felt like I should have been was a contributor to that. I think it was a small contributor, but you know all that to say that it didn't help. Chris: And so I kind of trace it. I would say the learning for you is kind of having the hard conversations faster right and that's the kind of culture that's terrifically important for me. Mike: So that informs the culture I'm building at Funware, which is like, if this ain't going to work, I just need you to tell me, and I might disagree and I might argue with you, but I will absolutely hear you. I might argue with you, but I will absolutely hear you. It's going to be super important for us to just trust each other enough to be able to have the discussion about you know, without fear. I guess is where I'm coming from. Chris: I understand that, so let's talk a little bit about you know these are important jobs that you've held over the last few years, and as is the current one. I don't like using the term work-life balance, but how do you? Manage work and personal life to try to keep them both going in a positive direction. Mike: Well, I spend a lot of time with my kids. I really, yeah, my daughter. So I'm here in Ohio, I'm spending time with my father and mother, but my daughter came along, my older daughter came along, she's out of school already. I'm going to go next week pick up my younger daughter in boarding school in Colorado, drive her down to Big Bend, where she has never been, and then, you know, spend time with her over the summer. So I mean, it's really about being deliberate about that and working from anywhere, candidly, in my opinion, helps. There's no expectation. I'm going to the office, I'm going to be there during the business day on Monday through Friday, and what I kind of joke is that I mean, I work a lot, no question about it, but I work around my life as opposed to work, as opposed to planning my life around my work, to planning my life around my work. So I might work, you know, 60 hours a week, but that's not going to be five times 12. That's going to be, you know, kind of eight-ish times seven. I'll work every day a little bit, but I'm certainly going to put my kids first and that's just the way it is. Chris: Well, I can identify with that. I think everyone has to find their own way and each job and role requires different things. In different stages of life require different things. So I think that's what people you know should stay focused on, individually as well as the companies to try to make sure you have good people. You don't want to lose them for those types of reasons. People you don't want to lose them for those types of reasons. Yeah, so, mike, this has been a great conversation. Before we wrap up, I just want to kind of get a little bit more less or a little less serious about things. Tell us what was your first job as a kid? Mike: It'd be funny, you should ask. So I'm back in rural Ohio where I grew up. Right now, at my parents' house, as I mentioned earlier, my first job was was am I allowed to say shit on your podcast? Of course, the texas my first, my first job was shoveling hog shit. Chris: Shoveling hog shit for minimum wage and I was nothing that wants to make you go to college and get a degree than that right. Mike: well, the funny thing is that I wound up raising hogs to pay for college. So it was fine to shovel the hog shit, but I was like, if I was fine to shovel the hog shit, but I was like, if I'm going to shovel the hog shit, I'm going to do it for more than $3.35 an hour. I'm going to do it in exchange for a college education. So that's not exactly that way, but that's a big part of how I kind of got off the farm and moving ahead. Chris: I love that, okay, well, yeah, obviously, as we now know, you're from Ohio, but you spent enough time in Texas for me to ask you this question Do you prefer Tex-Mex or barbecue? Mike: I love Tex-Mex. I would eat Tex-Mex every day of the week All right. And sometimes I do. I do love barbecue, but the thing is that the best barbecue is something I don't want to wait in line for and I don't want to drive a long ways. If I happen to be by La Barbecue or Franklin's a little bit over their great barbecue a little bit overhyped, or if I want a great barbecue, I'll just treat it as a destination thing. I'll go down to Lockhart or something like that, but I can get absolutely terrific Tex-Mex around the corner from my house every day of the week. Chris: Yes, it was one good thing. You know, I think we living in Texas both are abundant right. Mike: But you're right. Chris: The marquee barbecue, you know, is tucked away in some places. All right, so my last thing is if you could do a 30 day sabbatical, where would you go? What would you do? Mike: Well, I got a bunch of customers who have really beautiful beach resorts so I might go to one of those. Chris: You might go break bread with them there. Mike: Break bread with the customers at the most beautiful resorts in the world. That would be one thing I might do. There are a lot of places around the world that I'd love to see, so I've got a Google Maps layer that has little flags. There are probably 800 flags on that map and I add some every week. Places that I like to go around the world. Sometimes they're restaurants that I read about. Sometimes they're beautiful. You know natural features, like you know mountain ranges, the Painted Mountains in the Andes, or you know beautiful lake I've never been to Crater Lake, things like that so what I'd probably do is find 30 days worth of those pins in an area that I can consume within that 30-day period and I'd just go knock it out. Chris: I love that. I like the concept of keeping track of the pins. Yep. Mike: And there's too many on the map that you know I'll be dead and gone before I get to see all of them. But you know, it is kind of a it's a memory bank for things that have caught my interest and that I do want to experience at some point, if I can pull it off. Chris: Love it. Love it Well, mike, thanks so much for taking the time to be a guest on the show. Really enjoyed hearing your story, and the things y'all are doing at Funware sound really fun, exciting and innovative. Mike: Thanks a lot. Special Guest: Mike Snavely.

This special episode is an interview with pro-skier and filmmaker Paddy Graham. Paddy was one of the first wave of British freeskiers who burst out of the UK dry slope and indoor scene into the international arena in the early-2000s.  Paddy is an extremely accomplished freeride and freestyle skier, but is best known for the incredibly creative ski films that he's starred in and produced, as co-founder of the legendary production company Legs of Steel.  SHOW NOTES Legs of Steel started in 2009 (2:45) Paddy learned to ski at Sheffield Ski Village (6:00) Sheffield Ski Village had its own ‘fun park' (8:00) Natives organised ‘The New Breed' quarter-pipe comp at the Birmingham Ski Show Listen to Iain's interview with Pat Sharples (10:00) Stu Brass organised the AIM series (11:30) Listen to Iain's interview with Jim Adlington, founder of Planks Clothing (12:15) Paddy went to Serre Chevalier with Ben Hawker and Noddy Gowans (13:30) He followed that with a trip to the States to film ‘Rad' (16:00) Murray Buchan, James Kilner, James Carr and Laura Berry, Adam Gendle, Ed Leigh, Tim Warwood, Matt Barr and Jonny Verity were also on the trip (17:45) Red Bull asked Paddy to go for the Sochi Olympics (19:30) The ski movie ‘Same Difference' in 2017 featured THE kicker (22:00) The kicker was created in Livigno (23:30) They needed to hit the kicker between 110-117 km/h (26:30) “It was like being shot out of a cannon!” (28:30) The second attempt at jumping did not go so well (31:00) ‘Action Men' came out in 2020 (33:30) Legs of Steel crew produced ‘The Ultimate Run' with Markus Eder in 2021 (33:45) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbqHK8i-HdA Paddy shot in Sheffield in 2023 after Storm Larissa (38:30) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mb9lZlLMLUk Watch Paddy's ‘How To' features for Red Bull (45:00) 'Skiers Jump over chairlift' was filmed for Red Bull at Mammoth Mountain (45:30) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1P0SeYt2TA Listen to Iain's interview with Kirsty Muir (48:00) Paddy has been on some very long bike rides! (49:45) Find out more about Stance Ski Socks (52:00) Advice for aspiring filmmakers and skiers (57:00) Paddy wears a range of Stance socks which all feature Freshtek and Infiknit™ technology; Sargent Snow, Flynn Snow and Baron Snow. Freshtek Performance Mesh keeps you cool with maximised airflow and breathability, whilst Stance's Infiknit™ technology never rips, never tears. FEEDBACK  I enjoy all feedback about the show, I like to know what you think, especially about our features so please contact on social @theskipodcast or theskipodcast@gmail.com    Tim Boyse: "I think I was “that guy“ you recently mentioned who listened to your very first episode. I retired to the Swiss Alps in 2017 and have listening since then. I loved the early episodes with Jim, but I have to say the podcast has gone from strength to strength since you took it on alone. Keep up the good work - you keep giving me so many ideas I can't keep up." rms1765 (Apple Podcasts): “I love the mix of guests on this podcast and everything you are doing to raise awareness about issues facing skiing.” If you like the podcast, there are a couple of things you can do to help:    1) Review us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify   2) Subscribe and every episode will automatically be downloaded for you There are now 216 episodes to catch up with, and 91 were listened to in the last week. 50% of our listeners were in the UK, 18% in the States and the remaining 32% across the world, including Portugal, Taiwan and Brazil.  You can follow me @skipedia and the podcast @theskipodcast.

Morgan McNallie Blunck, wife of professional freestyle skier, Aaron Blunck, is on the podcast! Aaron started skiing when he was just 18 months old, thanks to growing up in Crested Butte in a ski family known for starting the Crested Butte Ski School. Skiing quickly became a passion, and Aaron went from competing in the youth Olympics to being on the inaugural US Olympic team going to the Sochi Olympics. Since then, he's been a regular competitor on the freestyle competition circuit, notably winning Gold at X Games and being crowned the AFP halfpipe champion in 2017. Most recently, Aaron won bronze at last week's Dew Tour halfpipe competition. Morgan and I discuss how she and Aaron juggle his travel schedule with her school and caring for their horses, dogs, and cat. We talk about what it's like marrying a skier when you didn't grow up skiing, and how she stays balanced while life feels totally chaotic. Join me in going behind the scenes with Morgan McNallie Blunck.

Maggie Voisin's life has been defined by skiing, family, and the highs and lows that come with both. A three-time Olympian and 7-time X Games medalist, Maggie knows what it's like to achieve her goals and experience the highest of highs. But, between losing a brother to suicide, untimely injuries, and countless knee surgeries, she's also experienced the lowest of lows. Throughout it all, Maggie innovated, inspired, and spent a lot of time on podiums. Inappropriate Questions asked by Ashley Battersby and Parkin Costain Maggie Voisin Show Notes: 3:00:  X-Games, Whitefish, figure skating, wanting to be a pro skier, Windell's, and moving out as a teenager. 21:00:  Stanley:   Get up to 60% off at Stanley1913.com Best Day Brewing:  All of the flavor of your favorite IPA or Kolsch, without the alcohol, the calories, and sugar. Elan Skis:  Over 75 years of innovation that makes you better. 23:30:  World traveling young (she said dank meal), WSI,  Dew Tour, X Games, Sponsors, the Sochi Olympics, and her injury 40:3 0:  Peter Glenn Ski and Sports:  Over 60 years of getting you out there.  Outdoor Research:  Click here for 25% off Outdoor Research products (not valid on sale items or pro products) 43:30:  More sponsors, more injuries, winning X Games, Olympics part 2, and losing her brother 60:00:  The aftermath of loss, a final Olympic run, the Covid Games,  68 :00:  Inappropriate Questions with Ashley Battersby and Parkin Costain  

50 Episodes!!! That's some crazy shit!!!! So we decided to get a perspective on NZ snowboarding from one of the G.O.A.Ts of snow sports!! Jossi Wells drops by tune in while we talk about Zoi Synnott, Will Jackways, Sochi Olympics, Snowpark, The JWI, and so much more

TW: This episode contains discussions of sexual assault.While figure skater Gracie Gold was capturing America's heart in the 2014 Sochi Olympics, her new not-so-fluffy sports memoir, Outofshapeworthlessloser, reveals that her life behind the scenes was more dark comedy than cookie cutter. Gracie has always been candid about her mental health struggles, which is why Vic has always been a big admirer of hers as a female athlete, and this episode is no exception. Gracie vulnerably reveals new details from her life, opening up about her father's affair and addiction, surviving sexual assault, and being a “failed anorexic.” Gracie and Vic discuss the stigma women face around sexual assault, the pressures of competitive sports, navigating a culture and profession that glamorizes thinness and perfectionism, and you'll hear Gracie's plans for her future in ice skating! Tune in for all the details and check out Gracie's memoir, the most interesting life story Vic has ever read, for a closer look into Gracie's journey to finding peace and acceptance.Read: Outofshapeworthlessloser: A Memoir of Figure Skating, F*cking Up, and Figuring It OutRelated Episode: Gracie Gold: Olympic Figure Skater On Overcoming An Eating Disorder, Depression, & Her Return To The IceSponsors:Vionic www.vionicshoes.com/realpodCora www.cora.life code REALPOD for 20% off!Truly www.trulyhardseltzer.com/locationsLMNT www.drinkLMNT.com code REALPODProduced by Dear MediaThis episode may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products and services. Individuals on the show may have a direct, or indirect financial interest in products, or services referred to in this episode.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

When Wilson Center NOW launched almost 10 years and more than 500 episodes ago, our topic was the Sochi Olympics and our guest was then Kennan Institute Director Matthew Rojansky. Matt, now President and CEO of the U.S. Russia Foundation and a Distinguished Fellow with Kennan, is back to mark the program's anniversary and also help us explore how Russia's role in the world and Vladimir Putin's ambitions have changed during the past decade. In addition to taking a look back at that first episode focused on the 2014 Winter Olympics, Rojansky also discusses Russia's rapidly deteriorating relationship with the West, beginning with the invasion of Crimea and continuing through its ongoing attack on Ukraine. This will be the final episode of NOW in calendar year 2023. We'll see you in 2024 and until then wish you and yours a most happy and healthy holiday season.

Today on Don't@Me, BIG10 hands Michigan notice on potential future penalties, Samuel L. Jackson tears into Colorado football, and Chicago Cubs hire Craig Counsell as their new manager to a 5 year, $40m deal. Plus, former NFL Sideline Reporter, Michele Tafoya gives Dan her opinion on today's generation of men vs. the generation of men featured in the HBO Series “Band of Brothers” – where she thinks that generation of men changed and will we ever see the return of WWII Style Men? Also, Sports Broadcasting Legend, Bob Costas shares his thoughts on the NFL's inroads into Europe, the experience giving the eulogy at Mickey Mantle's funeral, and what it was like covering the Sochi Olympics in Russia. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Katie and Stuart had Evan Strong on this episode of the podcast, who is an olympic superstar that won a Gold medal in the 2014 Sochi Olympics & a Silver medal in the year 2018 in Paralympic Snowboarding. He has done everything that involves a board including skateboarding, surfing, and even playing on chess boards. Join these 3 as they discuss human prosthetics, education, and different living conditions to improve and even help your own kids better develop. About Evan 1:20Living in Maui, Hawaii 11:50Wearing shoes vs not wearing them 15:45Evan's lifestyle 23:00School and education 31:30Prosthetics and shoes 38:45“Nobody has ever thought of ‘Oh, let's build a prosthetic based on natural biology and actually the natural physiology of a human,' and they always just think of it around the shoe or the modern shoe.” 42:35@evan_strongpacificbirthcollective.org

In the last episode with Marcus Kolga, we touched on a global investigation into the doping of Russian athletes during the 2014 Sochi Olympics. In this bonus episode, Sapper Labs' Chief Intelligence Officer, Dave McMahon, discusses his personal work in elite sports, Canadian intelligence, and how the Olympics is more than just a sporting event, but a complex game of tradecraft.  You can find Dave here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cyberspacestrategist/ Cloak & Dagger is a podcast about OSINT, technology, global conflict, and the practitioners and investigators who work in those trenches. Every two weeks, join host and journalist MJ Banias as he explores the stories that shape the worlds of intelligence, security, and technology. For more content regarding OSINT, cybersecurity, and intelligence, visit our blog at www.cloakanddagger.blog  Cloak & Dagger is powered by Sapper Labs Group. For more information, visit www.sapperlabs.com Music featured in this episode can be found here: https://www.cloakanddagger.blog/music-attribution 

Episode Notes What would it take to increase the power of figure skaters so they can influence the decisions that govern their sport? Where else in the Olympic movement is progress being made? What can we learn from sports where players' unions and collective bargaining are common? To answer some of these questions, I turned to Rob Koehler, the Director General of Global Athlete, an organization that helps athletes to organize and speak out on the issues they care about. Rob was previously the Deputy Director General of the World Anti-Doping Agency, the most senior of many positions he held at WADA between 2002 and 2018. He was also vice-chair of the WADA Independent Observer team at the Sochi Olympics. Rob is based in Montreal, Canada. I hope this episode gives you a taste of what is possible when athletes organize and use their voices to push for fairer sport! Transcript is available here. You can follow Rob on Twitter at @RobKoehler2 and Global Athlete @GlobalAthlete. You can reach me with comments or suggestions for topics and people I should talk to, by email at fsfuturepodcast@gmail.com or on Instagram and Twitter @futurefspodcast   If you appreciate the podcast, you can also support my work with the Tip Jar at https://futureoffigureskating.pinecast.co Remember to subscribe and review The Future of Figure Skating podcast on whatever platform you use, and share it with your friends! Resources Olympic Commercialization and Player Compensation: A Review of Olympic Financial Reports. Report by The Ted Rogers School of Management in partnership with Global Athlete - April 2020 https://www.globalathlete.org/research-and-surveys/olympic-commericalization R2O: Effective Athlete Representation in Global Sport 2023. Survey by the World Players Association June 2023. https://uniglobalunion.org/report/r2o-effective-athlete-representation-in-global-sport-2023/ Athletes Germany https://athleten-deutschland.org/en/english/ Rule 40: Do athletes control their image during the Olympics https://athelogroup.com/blog/rule-40-and-the-olympics/ Rule 50: Athlete expression and protest https://olympics.com/athlete365/athlete-expression-rule-50/ Open Letter to the IOC:  https://www.globalathlete.org/our-word/open-letter-ioc-russia-belarus-june-2023 Open Letter Call for Skate Canada and the Government of Canada to Address Abuse in Figure Skating https://www.globalathlete.org/our-word/open-letter-call-for-skate-canada-and-the-government-of-canada-to-address-abuse-in-figure-skating Canadian Parliament Standing Committee on the Status of Women report, Time to Listen to Survivors: Taking Action Towards Creating a Safe Sport Environment for All Athletes in Canada, Recommends the “Government of Canada establish an independent national public inquiry into maltreatment in sports in Canada”. Athletics Association https://athleticsassociation.org/ THE ATHLETICS ASSOCIATION WELCOMES RETURN TO 32 EVENTS IN NEW DIAMOND LEAGUE FORMAT https://athleticsassociation.org/updates/the-athletics-association-welcomes-greater-inclusivity-in-new-diamond-league-format International Swimmers Alliance https://www.internationalswimmersalliance.org/ Aspen Institute, Project Play “Children's Rights in Sport”  https://projectplay.org/childrens-rights-and-sports Sharon Stoll, “What Kind of Character do Athletes Possess” https://thesportjournal.org/article/what-type-of-character-do-athletes-possess/ Evan Bates speaks out https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/olympics/2023/06/23/olympic-skaters-still-missing-medals-500-days-later/70349368007/ ISU Athletes Commission https://www.isu.org/inside-isu/about/athletes-commission ISU Statement on support for Ukrainian skaters and Russian/Belarussian Participation, June 2023 https://www.isu.org/isu-news/news/145-news/14614-isu-statement-ioc-recommendations-of-march-28-2023?templateParam=15 Support The Future of Figure Skating by contributing to their tip jar: https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/futureoffigureskating Find out more at https://futureoffigureskating.pinecast.co This podcast is powered by Pinecast.

Well, in the summer it's nice to think about winter Olympics. Well, you know what? I'm not like most people who watch the Olympics. You know, like the winter Olympics, the women's Olympic figure skating? Well, a lot of people just enjoy the grace of the "twizzles" and the "triple lutzes" (whatever those are). Not me. No, I love the stories. I'm a story guy. So I'm sitting there mulling the stories of those skaters. And thinking, "We've got something to learn from her." It happened. I remember one time, when Italy's finalist, Carolina Kostner skated her long program. It was in the Sochi Olympics. Before she began, they showed her disastrous skate in Vancouver four years ago. She left the ice with her face buried in her hands. It was sad. I mean, in her own words, "It was breaking my heart." And that was going to be the end of her skating career. She didn't want to go through this again. But she did. And on the ice in Sochi, she skated a nearly flawless program and captured Olympic bronze. Look, I don't ice skate. But I know what it is to fall and come back again. I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Coming Back From Falling." I've set personal goals and I've blown it - losing weight, getting to a better place financially, conquering a personal weakness. And like all of us who have tried and failed, I know the temptation to forget it and just say, "I'm not going to get on the ice" again. But then I considered these Olympic lessons that can turn a sad chapter into a comeback victory. Number one, when you go down, don't stay down. The Bible says in Proverbs 24:16, "A righteous man falls seven times, and he rises again." I've watched three children and now our grandchildren learn to walk. They all have the same M.O. Try to walk? Fall down. The fallen baby, of course, has two choices. One, "That's it. I tried my best. I failed. I tried to walk. I can't do it. I give up." Well, that didn't happen! Every child got back up and started walking again. I've decided that the only people who haven't fallen are people who never tried to walk. I watched an Olympic skater whose falls were seen by millions. Who was devastated by the scope of her failure, but she came back with the greatest victory of her life because she didn't stay down. Oh, here's the other lesson: Do it for the joy, not for the result. That's actually what Carolina Kostner's mother told her after the debacle in Vancouver. That's good advice. Stop thinking about how you'll perform. In her words, "I had to skate for the passion and the pleasure." And that changed everything. Way back in the 2002 Olympics, U.S. skater Sarah Hughes surprised everyone - including herself. She went into the finals in fourth place; she didn't have much to lose. So, as the top three contenders competed, you could feel the tension. Every jump. Every landing. Each precision movement potentially could mean victory or defeat. Then Sarah skated. She was just fun to watch, because she was clearly having fun. Skating with reckless abandon. And that freedom liberated her to give the best performance of her life; a gold medal performance. You know, as we look back on our life and we think of the places where we blew it or we failed, especially those we love, I begin to turn to the pages of God's Word to find hope for our falls. And I find it in Micah 7:8 that says, "Do not gloat over me my enemy. Though I have fallen, I will rise. Though I sit in darkness, the Lord will be my light." You know how that could happen? Because it says later in the chapter, "Who is a God like you who pardons sins, forgives the transgressions?" And then it says, "You hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea." To know that every mistake, every fall, every wrong thing, every hurting thing I've ever done has been erased because God's Son died for it on a cross. That is the ultimate freedom for a new beginning. This might be your day for that new beginning. I'd love to help you get started with Jesus. That's why our website's there - ANewStory.com. Check it out. I saw one skater come back with Olympic redemption, because she knew that coming back was getting back up, no matter how ugly the fall. So in a way, you win when you just put your skates back on.

Today Ben is joined by skier, four-time Winter Olympian for Great Britain, presenter of Ski Sunday and much more besides: Chemmy Alcott. With a career high ranking of 8th in the World, 7 times as British National Overall Champion and the only British female skier to ever win a run in a World Cup, Chemmy is widely regarded as one of Britain's greatest ever skiers.East Sussex, where she was born, isn't perhaps your typical start for a pro skiier but Chemmy began the sport from an early age and her talent was clear as a junior. At the age of 12 she became a member of the British Junior Alpine team and she spent every British summer between the ages of 11 and 19 out in New Zealand to train during their winter. As well as skiing Chemmy was a talented tennis player, but it was the winter sport that she chose to specialise in. She went on in her senior career to win numerous titles. Threaded throughout this journey of sporting prowess however has been a tale of injury and overcoming this adversity. She has broken 49 different bones, including her neck at the age of just 11 and her leg following a severe crash whilst training in Canada in 2010. That accident required over 1000 minutes of surgery. Again and again Chemmy picked herself up and battled through the adversity to reach success once again. Since retiring from competing on the world stage after The Sochi Olympics in 2014, she has immersed herself in the world of broadcasting and the media. Among other things she now presents for the BBC on Ski Sunday and commentates on the World Cup Ski Series for Eurosport. Furthermore, she competed in ITV's Dancing on Ice in 2012, finishing 5th. She continues to push herself to tackle and achieve many new physical challenges and has completed the 100 mile road race in London for example and has climbed Mount Kilimanjaro. Her passion for encouraging girls confidence is immense and her ‘X-elle' scheme aims to develop girls confidence through sport.You can follow Rural Business Focus and contact Ben on Twitter @ruralbf_pod or on Instagram @ruralbusinessfocusHave you thought about the benefits of podcasting for your business? If you  want to find out more or work with Ben to make your own podcast or to organise some podcast training for your business visit ruralpodmedia.co.uk This week's call to actionTo assess your own state of resilience as it is at the moment and remember an occasion when you overcame adversity. Be as present as you can.  Timestamps for today's episode1:04 Ben introduces the show.3:57 Chemmy comes in. 4:39 What is resilience for Chemmy?6:15 Skiing dominated Chemmy's life growing up - she explains more about how her childhood experiences prepared her for life. 8:50 Chemmy wants to be a great downhill skier.10:19 How did Chemmy grow up to know how to keep picking herself up, dusting herself down and moving forwards?12:48 Chemmy didn't think that she could release her full potential.15:25 Channelling fresh thinking - but continued breakage of bones.16:20 The rest of the team believes in Chemmy.18:20 Chemmy's accident in 2010 and why it had such an impact. 22:10 Dancing on Ice.23:45 It's ok to not win. 24:00 Goal setting.25:50 What changes can you make on a daily basis?26:04 What drives Chemmy?28:36 What about advice for someone who is going through change?30:46 Chemmy's broadcasting career and BBC Ski Sunday.32:50 Chemmy's retirement from skiing. 34:50 What has Chemmy found most effective in encouraging others to perform at their best?37:08 What does Chemmy do to keep focussed?39:05 What does Chemmy have coming up this year in 2023?40:27 Ben rounds up. 

Dave Jackson officiated over 1500 NHL games and is now the Lead Rules Analyst on ESPN. He joins us to talk about playoff penalties, and the state of officiating. He ref'd the Sochi Olympics, & All-Star Games. We introduce a new segment that you can play along with and the Ottawa Senators are going to play in Sweden again. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Stefi Luxton drops by. Tune in while we talk about, Sochi Olympics, Possum Torr, Being a grom in the era of Snowpark, Beach Thurlow, Wanaka Skate Crew, What it takes to be a professional snowboarder, Life after competitive snowboarding and so much more...Enjoy!!

Josh Loubek is a pioneer of the new school freeskiing movement. He had a solid pro career when the sport was developing and will forever be looked at as a true pioneer. In part 1 of the podcast, we discuss what happens when pro skiing ends, the transition to becoming a sales rep, judging, founding the AFP, the Sochi Olympics, and more. Glenn Mittendorfer asks the Inappropriate Questions Josh Loubek Show Notes Part 2: 4:00: Speaking to the Boise State Football team, contests, and heli-skiing with Plake     11:00:  The end of being pro, becoming an Oakley rep, the start-up cost, life on the road, money, and awards 21:30: Best Day Brewing:  All of the flavor of your favorite IPA or Kolsch, without the alcohol, the calories, and sugar. Puffin Drinkwear: Be the hit of every party and gathering with the coolest and cutest drink accessory ever created. Get 20% off with the code powellmovement Elan Skis:  Over 75 years of innovation that makes you better 24:15: DTC, Luxottica, Armada, growing the brand and product input. 33:00: When things go wrong, sub reps, judging, legends, becoming the go-to guy in the wild west, and becoming the head judge   41:00: Stanley:  Get 30% off sitewide with the code drinkfast Outdoor Research: The best outerwear ever built just got better. Get 25% off all OR products with the code POWELL25 Peter Glenn Ski and Sports:  Over 60 years of getting you out there 43:45: Judging range, the hard parts about being a judge, the IFSA, and the F=founding of the AFP 51:00: The FIS, the Sochi Olympics, quitting drinking, and founding Niima 63:00: Inappropriate Questions with Glenn Mittendorfer

Welcome back Beauty's and Rockstars to another interview. This week we had on a 3 time Paralympian medalist Tyler McGregor. In this episode tyler broke down what the adjustment was from hockey to Sledge hockey. He was the youngest to play on the olympic team in the 2014 Sochi Olympics. Tyler is a winner what ever hes doing. Hes won 2 silvers and 1 bronze medal at the Paralympics in sledge hockey and 2 golds 3 silvers at world championships. We talked about what his first olympic was like and he shared some great story's. Tyler talked about being in the commericals for canadian tire, ccm, gatorade letting us know what it was like. He also talked about how much practice it took to learn to shot as it is completely different form hockey. Tyler also talked about what hes currently working on skating all over the country for sledge skate of hope. Check out the link to donate!!! Follow Tyler McGregor on instagram @tylermcgregor8 Skate of Hope  www.sledgeskateofhope.com  We will see you on Tuesday Beauty's and Rockstars!

Jamie Anderson drops by, tune in while we get a perspective in New Zealand snowboarding from one of the Greatest Of All Time!! We talk about Zoi Synnott, Snowpark, Sochi Olympics, Christy Prior, Will Jackways, Current state of Snowboarding, Abby Jackways and so much more...Enjoy!!!

Why is bobsledding so complex?Today, I'm talking to one of the best bobsleigh drivers and a four-time Olympian, Christopher Spring. He stood on the top step of the World Cup podium two times, finished up the 2018 season ranked third overall in the standings, and placed fifth in the two-man race at the Sochi Olympics. Chris has also had multiple other podiums throughout his career.Remaining competitive in a team sport for years requires one to gain and retain the trust of their teammates. This is only possible if you are working hard and consistently delivering good results at the highest possible level.Tune in and listen to episode 5 of season 8 of Unspoken Bravery. Chris and I discuss what bobsledding entails and what it takes to become a good bobsleigh driver. He also shares about his 2012 crash, the mental burden that came with it, and what encouraged him to keep competing.In this episode, you will learn:Chris explains what the three bobsleigh disciplines entail (04:30)What makes Chris a good bobsleigh pilot (11:07)Why most athletes feel stressed before races (20:01)Chris shares about his 2012 crash (23:59)The benefits of doing other things outside of sports (38:09)Why a simplistic mind is important to Chris (41:10)Connect with Christopher Spring: InstagramLet's Connect!InstagramFacebookErinMielzynski.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Carla MacLeod, Head Coach of both the University of Calgary Women's program as well as the Czechia National Women's team, joins us for episode 197 of the Glass and Out Podcast. MacLeod is currently in her second season with the Dinos program, and will be leading Czechia at the upcoming World Championships after guiding the team to its first ever medal at the 2022 event in August. Her unique ability to inspire what some may consider underdog programs have helped her gain notoriety in the hockey community. From 2011 through 2014, MacLeod was an Assistant Coach with the Japanese National team and helped it qualify for the 2014 Sochi Olympics. It was the first time they had done so since hosting the first female Olympic tournament at the '98 games in Nagano. MacLeod got her coaching career started with the Edge School's U18 Female program. In 2020, the program captured the first ever Canadian Sport School Hockey League Female U18 Prep division Championship. During her tenure, the team upheld an average GPA of 89%, 98% of her players went on to pursue post secondary studies and 88% continued their hockey career. As a player, she patrolled the blueline for Canada's National Women's team for five seasons, capturing two Olympic Gold Medals, the second of which was at the 2010 games in Vancouver. She is also a member of the University of Wisconsin Athletic Hall of Fame, as well as the Alberta SportsHall of Fame. In this episode we discuss why it's important to keep joy in the game, when you should focus on one thing with your team, and how she approaches inspiring and instilling confidence in her players.

Gus Kenworthy is so much more than an Olympic and X Games Medalist. He's more than an AFP or Dew Tour Overall Champion. Really, Gus is so much more than just a skier. He's a humanitarian who risked everything to ride pipe (and slopestyle) like no-one before him. Gus is also the first professional athlete come out in the prime of his career. This is a story about bravery, feelings, and freedom. It's a do not miss where we touch on his is amazing ski career, when he knew he had a secret, living with that over the years, the plan to come out and so much more. Michael Spencer and “Digi” Dave Amirault ask the Inappropriate Questions. Gus Kenworthy Show Notes 3:30:  Not prepping for the season, who he will keep in touch with, Telluride, other brother peer pressure, team sports, and the Fate pants era 11:00:  Is he competitive, crashes, and his really awkward younger years 21:00:  Stanley:  Get 30% off site wide with the code drinkfast Peter Glenn Ski and Sports:  Over 60 years of getting you out there Outdoor Research:  The best outerwear ever built just got better 23:00:  Losing his BFF at 14, Candide, CoreUPT Skis, Armada, and living with Bobby Brown, 33:00:  Do his secrets impact his success (especially at X Games), not being able to focus, and the freedom of being transparent 39:30:  10 Barrel Brewery:  Buy their beers, they support action sports more than anyone Elan Skis:  Over 75 years of innovation that makes you better 41:00:  Is he living a secret double life, Sochi Olympics, having his halfpipe spot taken away from him, getting the silver and does he overshadow the other medalists 52:00:  Quitting Empire Gloves, the coming out plan and telling the world, 62:00:  Inappropriate Questions with Michael Spencer and “Digi” Dave Amirault

Guest: Anastasia Bucsis - Olympic Speed Skater Anastasia joins the podcast to tell us how she got her start in speed skating (and how she almost stopped), her struggles with mental health, and despite having a good time why she felt lonely at the Vancouver games. She tells us about her decision to come out of the closet for the Sochi Olympics, and what her transition to broadcasting has been like. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine has already caused untold suffering to millions of people and upended the global order as we know it. The international community, apart from a few exceptions, has been largely united in its condemnation of this attack on a sovereign country's ability to decide its own future. And several sanctions have thus far been imposed on Russia, many of which also target President Putin, senior Russian officials, and their rich financial backers. President Putin has tried, although without much success, to justify what he terms to be a military operation (and not an invasion). President Zelenskyy of Ukraine has refused to flee his war-ravaged country, and this, together with his regular morale boosting social media posts, has made him a household name in many parts of the world. What kind of threat does Ukraine pose to Russia? How did we get to this point? Can President Putin withstand the backlash from this war? What is Russia's role and purpose in a new global order, and how has it managed to develop an outsized influence in international politics even though it does not have the traditional means of power possessed by the United States or China? Kathryn Stoner is the Mosbacher Director of Stanford University's Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law (CDDRL). She is also a Senior Fellow the Hoover Institution and a professor of political science. She has conducted extensive research on contemporary Russia and has a new book: "Russia Resurrected: Its Power and Purpose in a New Global Order". Twitter: @kath_stonerHost:Professor Dan Banik, University of Oslo, Twitter: @danbanik  @GlobalDevPodhttps://in-pursuit-of-development.simplecast.com/ 

On this edition of No Holds Barred, host Eddie Goldman once again spoke with our colleagues Chris Baldwin of the WAAR Room and Malissa Smith of Girlboxing on the WAAR Room. A video of this discussion has also been posted on the WAAR Sports YouTube page. We spoke with them by Zoom Sunday, February 27. We discussed the need for a ban on Russia from world sports after Putin violated the Olympic Truce agreement and attacked Ukraine. This is the third time since 2008 that Russia has violated the Olympic Truce and launched military attacks. Russia and its proxies attacked the country of Georgia in 2008 at the start of the Beijing Summer Olympics. Russia attacked Ukraine and annexed Crimea during the 2014 Sochi Olympics. Now mere hours after the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics had concluded, Russia launched its vicious and illegal land, sea, and air assault on Ukraine. A ban on Russia may mark the end of the era of all-inclusive world sporting events. But the price for continuing to include Russia and its gang of cheats, dopers, and murderers in world sport is the complete abandonment of any principles associated with real sport. And such inherently corrupt sports organizations do not deserve to exist. The sustainability of an Olympic movement including both democratic and authoritarian countries, where human rights do not exist, has long been questioned as well. Please also subscribe to the No Holds Barred page on Patreon for much more exclusive premium No Holds Barred content. The No Holds Barred theme song is called "The Heist", which is also available on iTunes by composer Ian Snow. Thanks, Eddie Goldman EddieGoldman.com

In a 2011 survey, 44% of elite track and field athletes admitted to doping but the percentage of athletes who are actually caught using performance enhancing drugs is significantly lower, it barely exceeds 1% on average. How do so many get away with using performance enhancing substances and why is no one doing anything to stop it? In this episode, we talk about the IOC's and World Anti-Doping Agency's strategy for catching doped athletes, touch on Russia's 2014 Sochi Olympics big doping scandal, and discuss why doping in sports remains even more prevalent than most think. Twitter: https://twitter.com/behindthegoldInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/behindthegoldpod/…Sources and further reading:Tackling Doping Seriously - Reforming the World Anti-Doping System after the Russian Scandal by Antoine Duval: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2836388 Doping in sport: why it can't be stopped (The Economist): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z466itSHE58&ab_channel=TheEconomist Doping in Two Elite Athletics Competitions Assessed by Randomized-Response Surveys by Rolf Ulrich et al.: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28849386/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As a 4 x Winter Olympian, a career high ranking of 8th in the World, 7 x British National Overall Champion and the only British female skier to ever win a run in a World Cup, Chemmy Alcott is widely regarded as one of Britain's greatest ever skiers.In a time where competing at a Winter Olympics was unusual for a British athlete, Chemmy defied the odds and pioneered a skiing movement that has inspired a generation. Resulting in not just skiers, but British Winter Sport athletes as a whole seeing the Winter Olympics as a realistic and achievable goal.Since retiring from competing on the world stage after The Sochi Olympics in 2014, Chemmy has immersed herself in the world of TV & media, where she now presents for the BBC on Ski Sunday and commentates on the World Cup Ski Series for Eurosport amongst being a guest on many other show. Furthermore, she competed in ITV Dancing on Ice in 2012, where she finished 5th.In addition to her TV commitments and hosting events and despite retiring, Chemmy continues to constantly push her body to the limit, competing in multiple physical challenges including the World's Toughest Ski Race in Greenland, the 100-mile road race in London and climbing Mt Kilimanjaro, raising over £800,000 for charity in the process.Charity work is very important to Chemmy, where she acts as an active ambassador for Right to Play, Ski4Cancer, SnowCamp and United Learning. She has visited multiple under-developed countries such as Rwanda and Tanzania, raising money for areas of conflict resolution and also to promote sport and play to educate ‘over one million children in some of the world's poorest communities.'Chemmy is an inspiration to all, having broken 49 bones in her life including her neck aged 11. She is no stranger to adversity and remains committed to inspiring the next generation and educating people from all over the world through sport. Most notably, she created the ‘X-Elle' scheme, which aims to develop girl's confidence through sport. Part of her passion involves travelling the world, visiting countries such as Dubai and New Zealand, in addition to her travel across the UK, telling her story and inspiring others. From school pupils to businesses, she helps give them the confidence to create big dreams and do everything humanly possible to achieve them.Chemmy Alcott:Instagram: @chemmyskiJohn Pierce:Instagram: @Plan_PositiveSupport the show (https://www.buymeacoffee.com/civewodeja)

https://www.dropbox.com/s/au9rpdjum1oubwl/NCHS040%20-%20Olympics%20Behind%20the%20Scenes.pdf?dl=0 (Click here) to download the full transcription as a formatted PDF. Episode Summary: Welcome to The No Cap Health Show, a weekly podcast where Dr. Brian Boxer Wachler uses his decades of experience in medicine and ability as an expert researcher to provide a light-hearted approach and share health trends popular on TikTok. In this episode, Dr. Brian provides his Cap/No Cap analysis on today's topic: Olympics Behind the Scenes. Steven Holcomb was an American Olympic Gold Medalist, a champion for Olympians, and an inspiration to all. Under what circumstances did Dr. Brian meet Steven? What is Steven's story and what encapsulates his legacy? Find out in today's episode. If you're enjoying the show, we'd love it if you leave the show a Rating & Review at https://ratethispodcast.com/NoCap (RateThisPodcast.com/NoCap). Key Takeaways: 01:39 – With the Olympics in full swing, Dr. Brian introduces today's episode: Olympics Behind the Scenes and plays the very end of the exciting Gold Medal race in Bobsledding where Steven Holcomb and the USA won gold for the first time in over 60 years 03:46 – Dr. Brian shares the story of how he met Steven Holcomb 09:04 – A remarkable battle Dr. Brian fought 11:01 – Dr. Brian recalls his experience traveling for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia 14:15 – Dr. Brian opens up about Steven's untimely death 16:30 – Dr. Brian shares a fun story about the Winter Games at Sochi and Pyeongchang 19:34 – How Steven Holcomb's legacy extends past his illustrious accomplishments in bobsledding 21:18 – Dr. Brian encourages listeners to reach out via his Cameo and Rate and Review this podcast on https://ratethispodcast.com/NoCap (RateThisPodcast.com/NoCap). Tweetable Quotes: “And so the story about [Steven Holcomb's] eyes, his vision, and his bounce back from basically legal blindness was already becoming a big news story. So, we did a press conference and I brought up my little portable eye testing equipment, I checked his eyes and I gave him the thumbs up and cleared him to compete in the Olympics. And then he won the Gold Medal with his three other teammates, Curt Tomasevicz, Steve Mesler and Justin Olsen.” (08:29) (Dr. Brian) “When Steven won that Gold Medal, he would say that I saved him, but in a way he also saved me because he solidified the validity of the procedure. Essentially there was an Olympic Gold Medal behind the C3R Procedure at the time.” (10:00) (Dr. Brian) “At the time, there were these Chechen terrorists that were bombing train stations in Russia. And The U.S. State Department had put out this notice saying all Americans should cancel going to the Sochi Olympics. So, because Steven was going and I knew his family wasn't going, I had this very strong gut feeling that I needed to go to support Steven. I called a buddy of mine who had high-level connections and asked what do you think? He said, ‘Brian, Putin is going to make sure that the Olympic Games are safer than driving down the freeway.'” (11:10) (Dr. Brian) “That was one of the reasons that I wanted to help these filmmakers with this documentary because it's paying tribute to Steven's legacy. He remained so incredibly humble even after everything he had accomplished. His teammates talk about that in the film too. Always down to Earth, always just being so helpful. He was just such an incredible, inspirational person.” (15:16) (Dr. Brian) Links Mentioned: Link to the film Holky: The Steven Holcomb Story on Indieflix (a film in which Dr. Brian was one of the producers) - https://watch.indieflix.com/movie/z1jvXp2ah0MZ-holky-the-steven-holcomb-story (https://watch.indieflix.com/movie/z1jvXp2ah0MZ-holky-the-steven-holcomb-story) DM Dr. Brian your questions and we will respond back with answers - https://v.cameo.com/F5MH0Hglnmb (https://v.cameo.com/F5MH0Hglnmb) https://www.boxerwachler.com/ (Dr. Brian's Website)

2014 Olympic Figure Skater at age 15. The youngest member of the US Olympic Team during the Sochi Olympics. 2015 Four Continents Champion. 2x US Silver Medalist. 3x World Team Member. 2x Junior Grand Prix Gold Medalist. 2013 US Junior National Champion... … that's right, today we are talking with Polina Edmunds. In this episode, you will learn: 1. What it took to become the YOUNGEST team USA athlete in the 2014 Sochi Olympics… (Hint: has to do with getting up at 5 AM in Kindergarten) 2. How you can sharpen your mental game… pulling from lessons of mental toughness from performing at the Olympics 3. An Olympian's secret for how you can escape the DANGEROUS trap of comparing yourself to others… because it may be holding you back more than you know Please enjoy this incredible conversation with my friend, Polina Edmunds!

“Queen of Parks” The Blade Dive - Episode 21 we are joined by Isabelle Falardeau. Originally from Quebec City, Canada… Falardeau has been around some of the best operators, opportunities and resorts in the world. Contributing to companies like Aspen Ski Company, Snow Park, New Zealand, The Sochi Olympics and X Games. Currently Falardeau is not in the Snow Industry, but uses what she learned whilst pursuing a PhD in Tourism focused on  how to professionally combat  the mental health issues in the Snow Industry, specifically in mountain towns. Participating in snowboarding within Quebec City, Canada, Isabelle Falardeau was shown more of the outdoors via her father, who she dubs as a pioneer or pursuer of adventures. Falardeau credits her father with instilling that life-long sense of adventure in her as well.With plans to finish University, Falardeau took time off to pursue Snowboarding in Whistler, Canada. Upon returning to Quebec City for the first class, she arrived to a very serendipitous note stating that class was cancelled,  Falardeau took that sign and returned to Whistler, thus cutting her teeth in one of the most well regarded programs,  by way of Yannick Rioux, Greg Boyd and the Whistler Park Crew. Transitioning to a new country and a new opportunity…Aspen, Colorado became Falardeau's new canvas. The chances to expand her knowledge of the Snow Industry and Terrain Park operations would come by way of opportunities like Cutters Camp and working at Snow Park, New Zealand. Episode 21 is a deep dive into the life and career of someone who is dearly missed within the Snow Industry, but is making her mark within her pursuit of earning a PhD in Tourism. So many harsh realities are also shared, some of which are those heavier topics that people shy away from or are reluctant or don't wish to discuss, such as the mountain town housing crisis, mental health of Snow Industry employees and suicidal rates within mountain towns. Please note that in this episode of The Blade Dive, we do discuss some heavy topics and at no point do we intend to trigger any one individual. Please, check on your snow family and friends, be kind to one another, make sure we are all ok...Enjoy...  and if you're in the machine, go ahead and TURN THE VOLUME UP!Follow us on:https://www.instagram.com/thebladedive/https://www.facebook.com/thebladedive

In this episode Coach Shay talks with former Olympian Paige Lawrence. The two will be diving deep into how to deal with judgement (from players, coaches, judges, etc), how to build a solid foundation of people around you, how to focus on solutions instead of problems, and smooch more! Paige Lawrence is a former olympic figure skater (started skating at age 9) who competed in the 2014 Sochi Olympics for Canada. She is now a performance coach for entrepreneurs and high achievers. She use her athletic experiences to help people ditch the excuses and take quick and impactful actions towards their goals. Instagram: @paigelawrencecoaching Twitter: @paigehlawrence Website: https://www.paigelawrencecoaching.com Connect with us Instagram: @alphagirlconfidence & @shayhaddow Twitter: @shayhaddow

Shireen Ahmed interviews Anastasia Bucsis, 2-time speedskating Olympian for Team Canada and CBC Sports Analyst and host of Player's Own Voice Podcast. They discuss Anastasia's transition from professional athlete to journalist and the challenges of the 2020/21 Olympic games. Anastasia also shares her experience competing as the only out North American athlete at the 2014 Sochi Olympics and publicly opposing Russia's anti-LGBTQ laws. They talk about the progress made and the progress needed to eradicate homophobia from sport and better support for athletes' mental health. **TW: This episode discusses depression and suicide.** This episode was produced by Tressa Versteeg. Shelby Weldon is our social media and website specialist. Burn It All Down is part of the Blue Wire podcast network. For show notes, transcripts, and more info about BIAD, check out our website: www.burnitalldownpod.com To help support the Burn It All Down podcast, please consider becoming a patron: www.patreon.com/burnitalldown For BIAD merchandise: https://www.bonfire.com/store/burn-it-all-down/ Find us on Twitter: twitter.com/BurnItDownPod; Facebook: www.facebook.com/BurnItAllDownPod/; and Instagram: www.instagram.com/burnitalldownpod/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As a 4 x Winter Olympian, a career high ranking of 8th in the World, 7 x British National Overall Champion and the only British female skier to ever win a run in a World Cup, Chemmy Alcott is widely regarded as one of Britain's greatest ever skiers.In a time when competing at a Winter Olympics was unusual for a British athlete, Chemmy defied the odds and pioneered a skiing movement that has inspired a generation. Resulting in not just skiers, but British Winter Sport athletes as a whole seeing the Winter Olympics as a realistic and achievable goal.Since retiring from competing on the world stage after The Sochi Olympics in 2014, Chemmy has immersed herself in the world of TV & media, where commentates on the World Cup Ski Series for Eurosport amongst being a guest on many other shows. Furthermore, she competed in ITV Dancing on Ice in 2012, where she finished 5th.Most recently, she became one of the lead presenters of Ski Sunday, alongside Ed Leigh.We talk about her childhood, her racing career highs and lows, her struggles with motherhood in the early days and trying to juggle it with a blossoming presenting career.The lows from severe injury, from losing her mum very suddenly and most recently, from online abuse at the hand of cowardly, anonymous trolls, have given Chemmy a fairly thick skin and a resilience she shouldn't need to have. It has, however, stood her in good stead and combined with her 96mph skiing and her 100mph personality, she is inspiring young women to give their all to whatever it is they are passionate about. To really care and to not be embarrassed about having goals and dreams and drive.Her new challenge has her ski touring and climbing up three 4000m peaks in Switzerland as part of an initiative by My Switzerland to encourage all women teams to climb all 48 of them between 8th March and 8th September. More info here: https://peakchallenge.myswitzerland.com/en/You can follow Chemmy in the following places:www.chemmyalcott.comIG: @chemmyskiTwitter: @chemmyski (BE NICE!)

The ALL ME® Podcast An Athlete's Voice – Katie Uhlaender Have you ever taken steps to support a cause that is near and dear to your heart? Have you ever used your own platform to raise awareness of a societal issue that needs reform? Taking those steps to effect change for a cause you are invested in is not often easy, but often necessary.  In this episode we speak with one of our ALL ME Advisory Board Members, Katie Uhlaendar. Katie is an Olympian in the sport of Skeleton, a winter sliding sport. Not only is Katie a four time Olympian, she is a World Champion, a 2 time World Cup Champion, an Intercontinental Cup Champion, a North American Cup Champion and more in the sport of skeleton. In the midst of her career, she placed 4th in the 2014 Sochi Olympics, ultimately finishing behind Elena Nikitina, an athlete that was implicated in the State Sponsored Russian Doping Program. When the findings of this program were announced, she was awarded an Olympic medal, when Elena was stripped of the 2014 bronze medal for this doping violation. However, Elena's medal ended up being reinstated on appeal, a decision announced just before the 2018 Olympics. Instead of choosing the path of anger and resentment, she has taken her efforts to reform Olympic organizations to Congress and the Court of Arbitration for Sport, seeking support for athletes in need and penalties for countries that skirt doping laws.   Katie was one of our first female ALL ME Advisory Board members and one of those people that come to mind when we hear the words role model. In the midst of an impressive career in skeleton, she has been an outspoken advocate for fair play along the way and is always fighting for what is just and right for her fellow athletes. She is out there achieving all her goals the right way and we are honored to have her by our side. Resource Definitions and Links: Katie Uhlaender's Career: McLaren Report: Icarus: Senate Bill 2330: Renchenkof Act: Utah Skeleton and Bobsled Association: Follow Us: Twitter:  @theTHF Instagram:  @theTHF Facebook: Taylor Hooton Foundation #ALLMEPEDFREE Contact Us:  Email:  Phone: 214-449-1990 ALL ME League: ALL ME Assembly Programs:  

On today's show, we welcome the official voice of The Colorado Avalanche, Minnesota Vikings, The World Cup 2018, the last five Winter Olympic Games, and the Super Bowl, Alan Roach to talk about his illustrious career as a public address announcer, how he got to announce the Super Bowl for the first time, his perspective on the Minneapolis Miracle, and a story from the Sochi Olympics that you'll have to hear to believe. We also welcome back Mike McMahon to talk about the latest with LIU and Navy DI Hockey as well as what the landscape will look like come the fall. The fellas bring you their thoughts on ESPN televising Korean baseball, the NHL Draft potentially being in June, and finally the most anticipated Bag of Fun Question of the Quarantine! Follow us on Twitter: @Titletown_Takes @IanBeau @connorpowell8 @CamUrbowicz32 @MileHighRoach @MikeMcMahonCHN

Listen up as we review a tough weekend of racing on the World Cup Tour, Ben and I discuss the only race for the Ladies from Rosa Khutor, the alpine Venue from the Sochi Olympics after bad weather saw the cancellation of the Downhill and the warm and wet weekend of racing in Garmisch for the men, plus a look forward to this weekends racing, the women are in Garmisch and the men head to Chamonix.

Welcome to The Dating Is Hard Podcast! On this episode, Joe Welkie talks to Rachel, who started her online dating career at the Sochi Olympics. Did she match with any famous Olympians? You'll have to listen to find out.

In this episode we are super thrilled to have on my great friend Elly Lefort, who trained and competed in two professional level bobsled teams in Monaco and France. He reached his highest performance and gained a wealth of skills to aid him in qualifying for the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics. He is a five time champion at America's Cup and placed 17 out 70 competing countries as the youngest team on the track at the Olympic Games.After the Olympics, Elly used his passion to help others unleash their incredible potential using skills learned in sports and applied into the real world. Elly became an independent wellness coach helping around 1000 people reach their fitness goals and created a team of 10 wellness coach trainees that he manages. He oversaw the physical preparation of the St. Nazaire Rugby Team. He is project team co-leader for the development and opening of a crossfit gym in St. Nazaire.If you are looking on tips on how to compete at the highest levels of sport this is a Podcast you don't want to miss.  

Brett Kelly grew up riding slopestyle in the midwest and later merged His passion for fitness and His love for ski and snowboarding at the US Ski & Snowboard where He initially worked as an intern prior to the 2014 Sochi Olympics. After 3 years working in minor league baseball with the St. Louis Cardinals and the Chicago White Sox as a strength coach, He finally returned to Utah and has been training the US Freeski and Freestyle teams for the last 3 years. Here He has the privilege of working with a high performance team to train the best in the world. This high performance setting is what He wants to bring to you! Top sports med, nutrition and strength staff all working together as your ski or snowboard trainers. ​Masters in Sports Science and Rehab BS in Exercise Physiology and Nutrition CSCS, USAW certifications  

Carrie interviews collegiate coach and NBC Olympics commentator Chad Salmela! Chad shares his scientific approach to training and discusses challenges he faces as a coach. They also chat about his breakthrough into NBC Olympics commentary and his role as a husband and father. Show notes for this episode can be found at ctollerun.com. Chad Salmela As a junior competitor, Chad was one of the Midwest's top junior cross country ski racers, then switched to the sport of biathlon at age 19. After eight years of competing nationally and internationally as a member of the United States Biathlon Team, he moved directly into the assistant coach position for the U.S. Biathlon Team in 1998, while finishing his college degree at Middlebury College in Vermont. After graduation, Chad built and coached a national junior development program for biathlon, managed the 2002 Olympic Games biathlon competitions in Salt Lake City, served as assistant coach and wax technician for the U.S. junior world championship biathlon team, coached cross country running at the Marshall School in Duluth, and announced ski events across the country and on television. Chad was the biathlon color commentator for NBC's coverage of 2006 Torino Olympics and added cross country skiing and Nordic combined to his duties at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. At the 2014 Sochi Olympics, he was the analyst of the cross country ski events, biathlon and the cross country skiing portion of the Nordic Combined. Chad became a household name for his exciting calls of the action. He began his first season as the head men's and women's cross country coach at St. Scholastica in 2016. Salmela had been the school's men's and women's Nordic ski head coach the previous 10 years. He will also assist with the men's and women's track & field programs. In his 10 seasons coaching CSS skiers, Chad led both the men and the women to Central Collegiate Ski Association (CCSA) Championships in 2015. He coached Paul Schommer to the programs' only All-America honors in 2014. In total, under his tutelage, the Saints had 12 NCAA qualifiers in his 10 seasons, including 10 since 2012. Chad was an assistant under recently retired Coach Steve Pfingsten for the first few years at St. Scholastica and prior to that had a role as a high school running coach. Since then he has spent time consulting several elite and master-elite marathon and distance runners.

Jay and Dan welcome Canadian snowboarder, Mark McMorris to the show! The boys reconnect with McMorris for the first time since the 2014 Sochi Olympics. Jay and Dan play "Real or Fake" snowboarding tricks with McMorris.

At 26 years old, Andrew Musgrave, or “Muzzy” as the Eurosport commentators call him, of the British National Ski Team is a top-20 ranked distance skier on the World Cup. The down-to-earth, self-deprecating Scotsman placed sixth in the 15 k freestyle World Cup on Jan. 21 in Ulricehamn, Sweden. And let's not forget, Musgrave burst onto the scene when he won the Norwegian skate-sprint national championship in 2014 before the Sochi Olympics. Then last year, Musgrave busted out a fourth place at 2016 Norwegian nationals in the 30 k skiathlon. That's downright cheeky. Great Britain's Andrew Musgrave racing in the 10 k freestyle at the December 6th, 2014 Lillehammer, Norway World Cup — he placed 13th on the day. (Photo: Go Media) Did we mention he's from Britain (Scotland actually)? We did. He's an outsized presence on the World Cup despite hailing from a land of kilts, bagpipes, and golf links. Musgrave balances out that lack of nordic heritage with a hardy work ethic and a willingness to wend to where the snow and competition is — in his case, that's been Norway. He's based out of Trondheim where he is taking the extended-stay plan when it comes to earning his engineering degree and training for international competition. Nordic Nation caught up with Musgrave on Jan. 24 when he was in Livigno, Italy, for a pre-World Championships high-altitude camp. (Here's a link to a FasterSkier article explaining how the British National Team gets Norwegian assistance with its waxing — the waxing help is mentioned in the podcast. Musgrave also gets wax and ski selection help from Salomon service techs.) (To subscribe to the Nordic Nation podcast channel, download the iTunes app. If you have iTunes, subscribe to Nordic Nation here.) Have a podcast idea? Please email nordicnation@fasterskier.com. albuterol . buy naltrexone online buy chantix online The post Nordic Nation: Musgrave Doing More With Less appeared first on FasterSkier.com.

As athletes compete and hotel rooms disintegrate at the Sochi Olympics, we follow a listener suggestion and take a look back at some of our favorite games about The Games — with the caveat that few of them were ever any good, and we've barely played any of them, if at all. (It's probably funnier that way.) Then there's some brief talk about Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII, a quick overview of the D.I.C.E. awards, and a long, self-indulgent look at your favorite moments from our first 50 episodes.

Vladimir Putin's anti-gay laws made headlines before the Sochi Olympics. We'll hear how dangerous life can be for Russian gays and lesbians.