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Keith is joined by Jim Sheils, a seasoned real estate investor and builder who specializes in new construction and co-living properties.  Together they explore why traditional long-term rentals are struggling to cash flow and how co-living—renting individual rooms in purpose-built homes—can dramatically boost returns.  Jim breaks down how the model works, who the typical tenants are, and why platforms like PadSplit are essential for management, compliance, and steady occupancy.  Their discussion highlights how co-living can simultaneously address the affordable housing shortage and today's "cash flow crisis" for real estate investors. Episode Page: GetRichEducation.com/617 For access to properties or free help with a GRE Investment Coach, start here: GREmarketplace.com GRE Free Investment Coaching: GREinvestmentcoach.com Get mortgage loans for investment property: RidgeLendingGroup.com or call 855-74-RIDGE  or e-mail: info@RidgeLendingGroup.com Invest with Freedom Family Investments.  For predictable 10-12% quarterly returns, visit FreedomFamilyInvestments.com/GRE or text  FAMILY to 66866  Unlock truly passive real estate income—visit flockhomes.com/GRE today to see if your properties qualify for a 721 exchange with Flock Homes. To get in the best physical, mental, and professional shape of your life, go to DanielThomasHind.com and apply for Daniel's intensive 1-on-1 coaching for burnt-out entrepreneurs and executives. Will you please leave a review for the show? I'd be grateful. Search "how to leave an Apple Podcasts review"  For advertising inquiries, visit: GetRichEducation.com/ad Best Financial Education: GetRichEducation.com Get our wealth-building newsletter free— GREletter.com  Our YouTube Channel: www.youtube.com/c/GetRichEducation Follow us on Instagram: @getricheducation Complete episode transcript:   Keith Weinhold  0:01   Welcome to GRE. I'm your host Keith Weinhold. For the first time ever on the show, we're talking about what some call the greatest real estate cash flow strategy today: co-living. Learn about what it is, what it is not, the pitfalls to avoid, and just how terrifically profitable co-living property can be today on Get Rich Education. What if you got your mortgage loans the same place I get mine? You sure can at Ridge Lending Group NMLS 42056. They provided GRE listeners with more loans than anyone because Ridge specializes in investment property. They'll help you build a long-term plan for growing your real estate empire with leverage. Start your prequal and even chat directly with President Caeli Ridge. While it's on your mind, start at ridgelendinggroup.com. That's ridgelendinggroup.com.    Speaker 1  0:59   You're listening to the show that has created more financial freedom than nearly any show in the world. This is Get Rich Education.   Keith Weinhold  1:15   Welcome to GRE from Dover, Idaho, to Dover, Delaware, and across 188 world nations. You're inside Get Rich Education nation. I'm your host Keith Weinhold. For about five years now, it's been harder to make the cash flow numbers work on long-term rentals, and that's because sure rents are up, but not as much as expenses are, and that's why for your regular income properties, builders buy down your mortgage rate for you so that it works. But now enter co-living properties, and your cash flow can be multiples higher. In fact, today we're going to talk about a model that has seven times the cash flow of a regular long-term rental, for example, instead of renting a detached single-family home to one family, if instead you divide it up into six bedrooms and rent each one of the six bedrooms to an individual, you will drive substantially more income. You've got six rent checks instead of one. That's what a co-living property is in general, and you're usually renting it to tenants that are working a lot. They're away from the property. It's often run through pad split. You'll learn more about what that means. And though co-living is lucrative, you still need the right market, the right layout, the management, which is really key here, and the right operating model. Today, we'll talk to a GRE Marketplace operator that provides co-living properties to investors like us with a management solution. And as you'll see, it gets even better than that. Although they serve just one geographic area in the U.S. which happens to be an investor advantaged area, as you'll see, this is conducive to out of state investors. If you want to own there, we're talking about co living income property today. Next week, there's something vital I want to tell you about, and I can't wait to do that. It's about the way that I talk when I meet a 25-year-old, and I learn that their only source of income is as an employee at a job. And no matter what age you are, what I'm going to share with you is going to apply to you too, and it's pretty transformative. That's next week here on the show. As for today, let's learn about co living. Jim Shields is here. Jim, welcome back to the show.   Jim Sheils  3:56   Keith, good to be here. Thanks for having me.   Keith Weinhold  3:58   Well, Jim, we saw each other in person a few months ago at a conference. I wanted to have you back here today to discuss co living since you're involved in it and you help other investors learn about it. And now you even started providing properties for co living specifically for them. And you know, Jim, with co living, I have seen models in the past where, oh, a single-family home it might be retrofitted, renovated to say have six bedrooms and three bathrooms, and that way you, as the owner, you could rent it to six tenants, really who are each only renting a room rather than renting the whole place to one family. In this way, tenants get cheaper rent because they're only renting one bedroom, and then for the owner, this gives them stronger cash flow because they're renting it to six different parties and not just one. So, with affordable housing really being a struggle for so many, you know, co-living is. Really taking off. So tell us more about what co living is and what it isn't, Jim.   Jim Sheils  5:05   Yeah, co living was something that was brought to us by one of the owners of Pad Split. Actually, they had met me and worked with me on other new construction projects, and and kind of my evolution, as you know, Keith was I I went from doing a ton of fixer uppers for many of years to new construction, and both can get you where you want to go. But I like new constructions. But meeting some of the owners of PadSplits, I found that they were starting to have the same struggles that I was when I was rehabbing a lot of homes. You know, it's not easy to take a three bedroom or four bedroom home and turn it into an eight bedroom or a seven bedroom, and so you know, starting from scratch with new construction, we're able to set up for what they're trying to create, and what they're really trying to create with co living is that affordable housing crisis. There's a lot more single individuals out there not looking for you know whole, not needing whole family dwellings to live. They're more at a basic income level that you know keeps them quite a bit below being able to rent. Like here in Jacksonville, the average price of a one-bedroom apartment is just outside of their qualifying range. So they might have a good job and decent credit, but they can't qualify. So what we've seen co-living do, and again, working through our our management partner of Padsplit, is they are bringing in this system of putting people together in one home, still with the screening, still with certain amenities that you know really help the property get seen, wanted, and rented, and then certain managerial things, where you're providing good options for living in areas that need more affordable living, and for landlord investors like ourselves, you're providing now a new opportunity to beat what I've called the cash flow crisis. You know, we have an affordability crisis, but that's also created a cash flow crisis, Keith. As you know, and the numbers that we've been able to see are quite advantageous for both the renter for the amount they pay and for the owner for the amount they're going to cash flow. And that's what I'm seeing this new co-living movement is about. It's really landlords taking a new risk on a certain type of property and tenants getting a type of property that fits their income and their needs.   Keith Weinhold  7:27   You know, Jim, philosophically, I'm thinking about assisted living homes, and when society changed sometime last century, assisted living homes became more of a trend where a lot of times that's where the elderly people went. Now we have co-living, and you kind of wish the world would be a place like where you know someone freshly out of high school or college could be married and have children, and you know just one or two jobs could float and support that family, and they would be able to afford their own home, either to own or rent. But increasingly, that's just not the world that we're living in. It hearkens back to multi-time GRE guest and legendary investor Jim Rogers. To paraphrase Jim Rogers, Jim Rogers said, "I need to invest in the world with the way that it is, not the way that I want the world to be. That's one thought that keeps coming to mind with co-living.   Jim Sheils  8:29   Yeah, for me too. Honestly, Keith, when I first heard about co-living, it was a few years ago. Someone saw me speak at a mutual event similar to one we last saw each other at. I got off stage, and they came up to me and they mentioned to me we're doing these things called co-living.   Keith Weinhold  8:44   Yeah.   Jim Sheils  8:44   And I was kind of blinded. I was looking backwards instead of forwards, and I said, "Oh, that doesn't sound right. That doesn't sound like it could work, you know. And I had a lot of what ifs, and how do you handle this? Well, you know, as the niches really started to solidify and show real wind at its back, all those questions and doubts I had have been answered, and I've kind of become a believer in why it's working and also the results. You know, for us, build right, finance right, manage right. That's always been our model. That's what's going to help us and our investors succeed. Building it right and managing it right. We had to figure out, but figuring that out-that's key. And it's very cool to see investors today breaking the norms of saying, "Well, you know, we can't have cash flow anymore on a nice new construction property in a growth market like Jacksonville, Florida. You can't have good cash flow. Well, that's just not true with co living coming on because again you're answering the call of a forgotten tenant and their needs.   Keith Weinhold  9:46   Yeah, I just think for any thoughtful investor, it's got to give them pause. But this is where society has gone. Well, we're going to talk about how profitable co living is for investors later. But first, tell us more about the nuts and bolts of how co.   Jim Sheils  10:01   Yeah. So the way that it works is, first of all, you start, you know, again going with our model, build right, finance right, manage right, building it right. When you're starting with new construction, you're able to go into the property with all eyes open, without a lot of surprises, and you're able to build it right to the design that a co-living property of success would entail. You know, we're doing seven bedrooms, seven baths. We're doing 14 bedrooms, 14 baths. We're doing 20 bedrooms, 20 baths. These are all things that we worked with the owners of Padsplit as they've worked and researched areas all over the country, starting here in Northeast Florida. But what we're doing, we figured out exactly what type of build you do you need to do that's going to work? Smaller living areas. There's only one utility box. There's not you know multiple utilities. It's not a multi-unit building. So there's one utility box. You build it to that specimen of either we build anywhere from seven bedroom, seven baths, right up to 20 bedroom, 20 baths, and that's the build part. That way, you're getting into it and not having to, you know, kind of. It's really tough, Keith. I don't need to tell you with your experience to turn a smaller house into that bigger house and starting from scratch with new constructions. Great. The second thing we found was finance. Right, as you know, we do our own in-house financing. Well, a lot of the co-living since the banks didn't understand it. Just like you know, it's become a newer niche. They were locking in at 8% You know, with our in-house financing, we were able to get deals down to five and a half percent. So right there, that helps with the rate, the long-term rate, the cash flow, and then management. Again, we've managed 1000s of properties, but we've really teamed up with PadSplit to help us manage these. This is what they specialize in, not only for attracting investors into their organization, but also for managing the properties and screening the tenants, getting them in, and their management system combined with our Build Right Finance Right has been a great combination.   Keith Weinhold  11:57   Pad Split, somewhat of a platform like Airbnb, but it's for co-living type properties. We'll talk more about pad split shortly. But yes, you are making these more efficient for co-living because right from the beginning, you are building them new construction specifically for co-living type of arrangements, rather than that six-bed, three-bath retrofit example I brought up near the beginning of our chat, but tell us more about who actually lives in co-living homes. What's the tenant profile like?   Jim Sheils  12:29   Yeah, let's go to the opposite end. When I first heard about this years ago, Keith, I said, "Oh my gosh, this is going to be really unqualified, seedy people not working, getting into trouble, and that's just not true. Again, a lot of these people are hardworking, but they can't afford the $1395 for a one bedroom apartment, but they can afford an $825 a month room. And a lot of these people might be working at a local warehouse, at a hospital. They're very localized, blue collar, or some in training jobs, you know, extra five $600 a month makes all the difference. Where it's not going out to rent, not even including utilities, it gives them a nice place to live. So it's really entry level replaceable income people, maybe single people that work at a nearby restaurant. But again, they're trying to save more money in their pocket and not spend it on that higher expense, which the competition would be a one-bedroom apartment.   Keith Weinhold  13:31   Now, the tenancy durations here are shorter than what you're going to have in long-term rentals, of course, because one part of what you do, Jim, is for years you have helped GRE followers with build-to-rent long-term rentals. The resident does get more. They're going to get a furnished room with utilities in co-living arrangements, and they're also probably going to have their utilities bundled as well. So tell us about the typical tenancy duration, and then what all the resident gets.   Jim Sheils  14:00   Yeah. So the residency is going to receive all the things that they have to be turnkey. That's the bed, the desk, the dresser, the closet, the bathroom. Everything is set up there for them, and so they just move in. They're not going to have to pay for electric or water or internet. All that stuff's going to be included. There's a washer dryer normally there. Sometimes they're coin operated, other times they're just included, but that way they're not trying to take out a utility in their name or set up internet. Also, for the investor, that's a good thing because you have one master lease. If you start to do a bunch of leases, well, you could get in trouble with the rules of your community, probably of having multiple leases on one property. It's not a multi-unit building, so you can't do that. So one master lease with one utility and all utilities included allows you to do that. This makes it very easy to move in and out. And the average Tennessee might only be six months, but again, the way that it's set up, what we like about PadSplit is they. Have a very good marketing and screening process, so they're constantly marketing and screening to people in the area, and then they have their own private community with investors. So we'll build it and finance it. Our people will move over to their community for management, so the owners can speak together, and then the tenants, though they're coming through pad split system, and so what I like about that is if they try to not treat the property well, well, they're not allowed back into any pad split properties anywhere within the city. So that's really good for co living protection. So we just see that turnkey approach, and you know you've been preaching turnkey real estate for a long time. Yeah, this is a turnkey room where they're able to move in, they're able to move out easily. They can transfer to another co-living property, and by doing that, you can get people in and out very quickly, which keeps the vacancies low, even with shorter tenancy.   Keith Weinhold  15:57   All right, so an average tenancy duration of about six months, and for you, the prospective investor, as you're trying to understand co-living, maybe think of it as like when you check into a hotel. Co-living residents stay longer than you stay in a hotel, but as far as all the utilities are in the room combined, all into one charge with your WiFi, your water, your electricity, your natural gas, and the room is already furnished. Just one all-inclusive payment, making it easier for that co-living tenant. And Jim, you've been talking about pad split, where you're partnering directly with them, and that's the management part of this. Of course, this is more management intensive than a long-term rental. So, tell us more about Pad Split and how it works. Sort of like an Airbnb platform, but yet for longer-term, affordable room rentals that has the property management infrastructure somewhat already built into Pad Split.   Jim Sheils  16:56   Yeah, I think your comparison to Airbnb is very accurate, Keith. But it's more of a community for both tenants and investors. Airbnb, you know, I have short-term rentals and I use Airbnb. But what I've seen with Padsplit, which I think they've done a good job with, it has a community feel sharing for the investors who are a part of the Padsplit community, and so there's extra communication on your management, how properties are going, what areas are doing that. You know, great source of communication on the ongoing management. But for the tenants too, they know right where to go to find these types of properties, and the tenants also have to join this community. So there's a joining where if you want to rent a pad split, they have to join the community. They have to go through all the approvals and such, so that's pretty much how it's set up. It's seen to be very effective. Again, what held me back from this probably for about two years, Keith, was the management piece. You know, we've always managed our properties. I said, well, this is not our niche. Just like we don't manage short-term rentals, we only rent manage long-term rentals, and so I really had to watch and survey a lot of the existing investors and how they were doing, but it's nice to see someone with a good managerial system for both the tenants and the investors to work together in.   Keith Weinhold  18:12   Does PadSplit handle everything like marketing and tenant screening and rent collection?   Jim Sheils  18:19   So what they handle is the way that pad split works, like here in Jacksonville, where's our main market where we've started building co living properties. Is they will work hand in hand like an Airbnb, but underneath them they'll have preferred property managers that they'll work hand in hand. It so they'll handle certain things of the marketing, the tenant screening, and then some more of the mechanical PM pieces, the property management pieces. There'll be an assigned property manager that the client will be working with, the investor will be working with, and the tenant will be working with. So it's kind of a two-tiered approach. Like right now, my I'll use Airbnb, but I have a property manager for my short-term rentals. Same thing here, but we actually have the preferred management list and approvals through Padsplit.   Keith Weinhold  19:06   Okay, so much of this is handled through Pad Split, but not everything. There's a second tier where they partner with local property managers in that area to, for example, help with tenant turns or help with maintenance requests.   Jim Sheils  19:20   Yep, absolutely, absolutely.   Keith Weinhold  19:23   Now, short-term rental hosts are used to Airbnb fees. What are Pad Split fees like?   Jim Sheils  19:29   There's a monthly fee for belonging to PadSplit to keep your property occupied in there, and I don't remember exactly what it is for the tenants, but I know that they keep it affordable. So overall, you're going to be paying a little bit less than an Airbnb property that you would for you know if you use Airbnb and use a short-term property manager, it can be quite expensive. We've seen the pad splits come in below that and still achieve the goals of a good short-term rental. You know we're seeing. I know we're getting into this later, but taking those fees out and doing quite a bit of contingency because of the move and move outs, we were still seeing like a seven bedroom, seven bath based around the same price of one of our single family homes. The cash flow can be about seven times higher. Wow, on that thing, so it it really does answer the call for higher cash flow by bringing that more affordable rental in.   Keith Weinhold  20:25   We're going to talk more about just how profitable it is for investors, and more about co living somewhat nascent model, a model that's actually been around for quite a while, but it's really gaining traction in making things more affordable for tenants and making things more profitable for investors, we're back with more shortly. I'm your host Keith Weinhold. This is Get Rich Education. Flock Homes helps you retire from real estate and landlording, whether it's one problem property or your whole portfolio, through a 721 exchange, deferring your capital gains tax and depreciation recapture, it's a strategy long used by the ultra wealthy. Now, mom and pop landlords can 721 the residential real estate request your initial valuation. See if your properties qualify at flockhomes.com/gre. That's flockehomes.com/gre. 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Listen to Get Rich Education with Keith Weinhold, and don't quit your daydream. Welcome back to Get Research Education. I'm your host Keith Weinhold. We're talking about co-living, specifically how smart it is to get this right from the beginning and build a new construction single-family home, or something that could be larger than a single-family home with seven bedrooms, seven bathrooms, or 14 and 14, or 20 and 20, and when we think about this gym physically, the footprint. What is parking like at a seven-bedroom home or larger? And did this entail any zoning hurdles?   Jim Sheils  23:15   A couple of things. It can entail zoning hurdles, so I would make sure, especially if you're doing new construction, you have someone who is a builder in the area that knows how to work with the county department or city department of how to get these approved. That's a very important things for how you submit them and how you make sure you're staying compliant. I think compliance is very important, obviously, for a rental and and parking. What we've seen right now is we look for about 50% So when I say 50% of bedrooms, so a seven-bedroom house, we're going to have three or four parking sites. There's a large majority of people that don't have a car, and that's why a lot of these are built near public transportation. But we still try to always serve, you know, based off of what we saw, the needs to stay in compliance, also working with Pad Split on lots of their designs. 50% of parking spots is usually good for the amount of bedrooms that you have.   Keith Weinhold  24:08   What about zoning hurdles? What had to be met there?   Jim Sheils  24:12   It's going to be a trial and error for a new builder or a person who's rehabbing a property. You know, we were not the first to come in and do this, we had watched Pad Split do it for two years and more with rehab properties, but just starting new construction, we knew Northeast Florida and what needs to be done very well, and so it's all in how you present it. Again, if you go in there with multiple utility boxes and such, you're going to be in quite an issue. So we found that we didn't have any issue with that. Also, we own some of these in some of our quad communities, so these were for larger. You know, you've worked with our quads before; they're yeah, you know, larger buildings. Well, we've been able to turn those into, for example, 20 bedroom, 20 baths, and so they operate like a small. Building, but they're in our quad communities where we wrote the HOA, and so they're allowed. And there's a plethora of parking there, so that keeps us in compliance. So really, compliance is knowing what your local city or county is going to require and knowing how to get that approved. That's very important.   Keith Weinhold  25:18   Okay, so these can thrive in sort of duplex and fourplex type neighborhoods. That's where they're being built, and you have a good bit of control over that with you having your own de facto HOA there as well. And Jim, I looked at several of the co-living properties and the footprints and the floor plans, and you know I was really encouraged to learn that really the cost for one of these brand new build seven bath seven bed co living properties really isn't that much more than a regular single family home designed for one family. So talk to us about the pricing.   Jim Sheils  25:57   Yeah, in Jacksonville, for example, seven bedroom seven baths, going between 325 and 345, which is very similar to single-family homes. And then our pricing for our quads, like a 2020, would be in the low nine hundreds, and that's the same as a quad as well. So we've been able to match our pricing to, and we have duplex ones. The 1414 would be mid five hundreds, which would be about the same as a Jacksonville duplex. So you know, I'm going off Jacksonville pricing right now, just as a sample. Sure. Okay.   Keith Weinhold  26:30   The model I looked at was seven bed, seven bath. It had two stories. The price was 325k, and it had 1800 66 square feet. Talk to us about just how profitable that it is for an investor on a pro forma income and expenses basis, Jim.   Jim Sheils  26:49   From what I've seen is if the average single family home was bringing in about $3,500, and that's a net on the year. So we're saying net, you know, cash flow on the year. Let's say it was about $3,500 on the year of a single family home that you bought. Well, your pad split property would be more closer to about 25,000 for the year. Wow! So that's a big jump. Now, with that comes a lot more rent collected, Keith. But also, and again, we can't do it here, but on the performa, there's more expenses because you have pad split. You have just very similar again. I think your analogy of a short-term rental for anyone who owns those very similar. There's more components. There's more pieces to it. There's more management. But what I did like about the performas that were first brought to us, large amount of rent collected, but also a large amount of contingency and expenses calculated in to get that number. So those are what I liked again seeing these is there's a lot of expense taken out to still reach that you know higher cash flow, but you know it's something that you will want to account for as well. You know what keeps people safe? Do your numbers. Do your numbers real. You know talk to people who have owned co-living properties, make sure that you're accounting for the extra expenses of tenants turning over more and and just more management involvement.   Keith Weinhold  28:10   Okay, so on that comparison where you likened it to a long-term rental versus this model, it's about $25,000 of annual cash flow, which is about $2,000 of monthly cash flow, and was that for the seven bed, seven bath model?   Jim Sheils  28:26   Yeah, and it would go up from there for the larger models.   Keith Weinhold  28:29   Yeah. Now, are tenants paying in advance by the week or by the month, or how does that work?   Jim Sheils  28:34   That's a key thing. They pay by the week, which I didn't realize how important that was for affordability and staying current on your rents, but from the things that I've been shown on working with Padsplit, they showed that when they charge people by the week, it's much more affordable. A lot of these people are paid weekly, so it really keeps them in good rhythm, and so they go on a weekly process.   Keith Weinhold  28:57   And is this just as conducive to out of area investors like long term turnkey rentals are?   Jim Sheils  29:03   Yeah. Well, that's why you always want to build right, finance right, manage right. You have lots of great connections. You can find a great builder that's willing to build them. You get good financing and then good management. So you don't have to live in the area, but you want to make sure someone is taking care of that for you. Again, I am going to say I know some people like to manage their own properties from afar. That can work with long-term rentals. I've done it with a few of mine when I left California and came here. From what I've seen, though, for co-living, the involvement-if you are from out of area-I would highly, highly recommend that you follow a manager process and work with a manager.   Keith Weinhold  29:43   Meaning that you would use one of PadSplits recommended managers.   Jim Sheils  29:47   I would use PadSplit with one of the preferred managers that we know well, and actually one of the managers that they highly recommend worked for our company for five years, and she's great. And for what we're. Doing, I can put a stamp of approval on it, and again, I think just seeing the involvement, these can work really well. But you want to have just like any time, but even more importantly, on these ones, you want to have management in place, especially if you're afar.   Keith Weinhold  30:14   Sure. So, what could the involvement realistically look like, Jim, if that out-of-state investor is using Pad Split and using Pad Split's recommended manager. What might that investor have to do remotely? And maybe that's just on an email basis.   Jim Sheils  30:32   You know, a lot can be done by email. Again, Keith, our goal-I don't think you should be spending more than two hours a month on managing your property manager. So again, just because there's more involvement, what I like is it doesn't mean there's more involvement for you. You're paying someone to set that up to handle it. You'll have to be involved somewhat. You are a property owner, but again, I don't see that you have to get involved with every little thing. In fact, I like to step back and not get too involved in my properties. I find like I just kind of go and stir things up. Let my manager do their thing. I'll manage certain big picture managerial things and in communication and overall just directionals. But you should not be getting overly involved. That's what their job is. You should not be doing that.   Keith Weinhold  31:18   Now I'm a turnkey real estate investor myself, as you know, with multiple properties in various states and places, and I'm used to getting monthly emails from my manager in those markets, and that is what my owner statement looks like: income and expenses and anything that's going on with the property. But that's just on a monthly basis. Are there weekly statements for co-living managers and owners?   Jim Sheils  31:42   Still rents are collected weekly, but statements still come out monthly.   Keith Weinhold  31:46   Because—   Jim Sheils  31:47   You want to, what you do is you collect all of the rents, but then again, it's easier to reconcile with all expenses and such that come out on a monthly basis. So it's done monthly.   Keith Weinhold  31:58   Are they writing common mistakes to avoid that are developing in the space, like an investor that gets in and buys their first co living property, and then they think, "Oh gosh, I wish I would have known about this thing sooner that I didn't think about because I'm only used to long term rentals. Any common mistakes to avoid pitfalls like that with co living, Jim?   Jim Sheils  32:17   Yeah, a couple of things. First, again, I can't stress enough that co living, from what I've seen and experienced, they do make money. But on the build it right, you know, going back to our build right, finance right, manage right. Just know if you're going to try one your on your own and you want to convert a home that's three bedrooms into a seven bedrooms, it is a much more tedious, involved process. Where again. Keith, like you said, are you getting things approved with the county or city? Just know that you really want to be in the know, and that's going to take some involvement. So that's my warning on if you're going to use co living and rehab your own property, financing wise. The thing that the mistakes I've seen made is people didn't see that they had higher interest rates, so you want to do that in your numbers. You know, working like with us, we're we have our own in-house financing. We're able to get it down to five and a half percent, but some of these co living banks are looking at it differently, and you might be more around 8% So you want to just do that in your numbers, and then the third pitfall, which we've you know hit on, and this is one of your real foundational rules: is management is key. And on these, where I see the biggest harm, once you get it built right and financed right, it could all fall apart if you don't have management in place. So I would just be you know some of you do it yourselfers. I have some things that I like to do it myself too, but on a more technical type of property like this, I highly encourage you get management in place to do their thing.   Keith Weinhold  33:47   For sure, it is easy to make the case that the management is even more important than the property itself. One of the things that I like about what you do there, Jim, is you're so forward-thinking and you are so into making the experience as turnkey for that investor as it can possibly be, and one of those things is as you rolled this out, you had a lot of the financing hurdles rolled out right with it. Tell us more about those in-house financing options you have that you touched on specifically for co-living, and especially I'm thinking through the lens of like that seven bed, seven bath, 325k co-living property that I saw.   Jim Sheils  34:28   Yeah, I mean it's nice with getting to be a builder of our size with a really good balance sheet. We're able to work with banks and buy large tranches of money or slate large tranches of money at cheaper rates than available to the public. You know, for our normal long-term rentals, we can get down to 3.75. That's for normal houses. You can't get that low because of risk factor. Banks still they like working with us, but we have gotten it down to five and a half percent. So right now, our most popular program is a 30-year fixed five and a half percent for co. You know, and again, a lot of people that have come to have said, "Holy moly, we were locked in at 8.15. We are getting it not as low as our lowest rate, but at a really good rate now. You know, below what's normally offered out there. So that's normal qualifying that you would have to do with any bank loan through us. And our counselors are happy to talk more about that. That's our most popular program for the co living for the seven seven. You're looking at a five and a half percent interest rate, 20 to 25% down. That is a super attractive rate. Is that something that the home builder helps participate in buying down discount points, or that the buyer is asked to do in order to get down to that rate? Working with us, well, it could go either way out in the marketplace, Keith. When working with us, we pay all of those required fees and points to get the lower rate. That's on us, not on the buyer.   Keith Weinhold  35:50   All right, we're talking about co-living properties today-a way to supercharge your cash flow. This is one of the greatest cash flow strategies in all of residential real estate today, Jim. Is there any last thing you have to tell us about co-living? Perhaps something that I did not think about asking you that I should have.   Jim Sheils  36:09   I think that's probably just what you and I talked about, like what Jim Rogers said. It's how not how I want things, but how things are. Yeah. And so for me, I held back for a few years, even when some of the founders right here in my own backyard have pad split to team up with, but I think that I couldn't picture Keith 10 years ago having a short term rental and like wait a minute I'm going to have them stay there every week and I'm going to have to furnish it you know is from the old guy doing long term rentals so I think for people just read up on it it's becoming a very interesting trend there's some very interesting statistics of why this is working, how management can be handled effectively, how to stay in compliance with your city. There's a lot of good information. This is a great starting point to our conversation today, but I don't think this niche should be ignored because the track record is already there and it is answering a need of both investors and tenants, which is pretty cool.   Keith Weinhold  37:04   It has been super intriguing to learn more about this. Jim represents one of our GRE Marketplace providers. It's been great having you back on the show.   Jim Sheils  37:13   Now, thanks for having me, Keith.   Keith Weinhold  37:20   Yeah, a really informative episode today. If you want to learn more about co-living properties, you can do so at gremarketplace.com/co-living. That's where you'll get the investment report, floor plans, financial projections, see the exact pricing, and learn more about pad split there. I've been around this space for a while, and I know investors that own co-living properties. Some other best practices that I've learned about are that you want to have limited visitation or a zero visitation policy for your co-living tenants. As we touched on, these properties can really make money, but don't try to manage them remotely. Make the house rules unusually specific. Address guests, quiet hours, smoking, drugs, pets, parking, food storage, shared bathrooms, thermostat settings, and cleaning and abandoned belongings, and enforce the rules consistently and quickly. Because one disruptive resident can cause several good residents to leave, and in co-living, retaining household harmony that is often more valuable than retaining one problem tenant. Provide professional common area cleaning. Don't expect seven or 14 unrelated adults to collectively develop some passion for wiping down the stove. That is not going to happen. Shared areas should be cleaned at least weekly. Install bedroom locks and then smart exterior locks. Give each resident private space, eliminate shared keys, and immediately revoke keys after move out. Cameras they should generally be limited to lawful exterior and entry locations, not in private spaces. Provide excellent internet in co-living, unreliable WiFi. That is practically a habitability crisis. Use business-grade equipment, strong coverage, and have a backup plan for internet. And as an investor, it's wise for you to maintain a larger repair and turnover reserve than you would for a normal long-term rental. Keep these things in mind, and it can keep seven times the cash flow from becoming seven times the headache. Again, you can get the investment report, floor plans for the very properties we discussed today, financial projections, pricing, and get more information about pad split all at. gremarketplace.com/co-living. That's gremarketplace.com/coliving. Until next week, I'm your host Keith Weinhold. Don't quit your daydream.   Speaker 1  40:15   Nothing on this show should be considered specific, personal, or professional advice. Please consult an appropriate tax, legal, real estate, financial, or business professional for individualized advice. Opinions of guests are their own. Information is not guaranteed. All investment strategies have the potential for profit or loss. The host is operating on behalf of Get Rich Education LLC exclusively.   Keith Weinhold  40:43   The preceding program was brought to you by your home for wealth building getricheduceducation.com

Baked Mojack Cod au gratin! . . . YOU DON'T KNOW MOJACK is a podcast dedicated to exploring the entire SST catalogue, in order, from start to finish. During the podcast we will discuss all the releases that are part of our core DNA, as well as many lesser-known releases that deserve a second chance, or releases that we are discovering for the very first time (we actually don't know Mojack!). First and foremost we are fans, and acknowledge that we are not perfect and don't know everything – sometimes the discussion is more about a time, place, feeling, personal experience or random tangents, and less about the facts (but we will try to get to the facts too). Facebook: www.facebook.com/mojackpod/ Twitter: @mojackpod Instagram: www.instagram.com/mojackpod/ Blog: www.mojackpod.com/ Tumblr: www.tumblr.com/blog/mojackpod Theme Song: Shockflesh

Plongez dans l'histoire des grands personnages et des évènements marquants qui ont façonné notre monde ! Avec enthousiasme et talent, Franck Ferrand vous révèle les coulisses de l'histoire avec un grand H, entre mystères, secrets et épisodes méconnus : un cadeau pour les amoureux du passé, de la préhistoire à l'histoire contemporaine.Hébergé par Audiomeans. Visitez audiomeans.fr/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.

We promised that we'd follow up with a discussion about the exterior of the Ferrari Luce. And we have. Sort of.The challenge is that, beyond slinging epithets its way, there's really not a lot to say that hasn't already been said.Or is there?In this episode, we explore the uni-context, a philosophical concept — developed by Agnes Callard — that might explain why everything is starting to look the same, including Ferrari's first EV.We also explore the movements in our garages (farewell, good ship Margot!),  Drew's experience of designing a pilgrimage in Japan, and the rather underwhelming introduction of the Audi Nuvolari.Sources:Derek Thompson: A Philosopher's One-Word Theory to Explain Why the World Feels So WeirdThat's it for this episode! Thanks for listening.If you like what you hear, please leave a review for us on your favourite podcasting platform. It helps other folk like you find us!And you can sign up for Looking Out - The Newsletter, the sidekick to our podcast, here: automobility.substack.com

Nights' resident screen expert Dan Slevin joins us to chat about the untimely passing of Irish singer-songwriter Glen Hansard, along with Spider-Man's latest outing which swung into theatres last night. Plus, an oft overlooked Sam Neill performance you can watch for free on TVNZ+.Nights' resident screen critic Dan Slevin joins us to chat about the untimely passing of Irish singer-songwriter Glen Hansard, along with Spider-Man's latest outing which swung into theatres last night. Plus, an oft overlooked Sam Neill performance you can watch for free on TVNZ+.Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

It has been a rad summer but now it's time to return to the Pod. Stay tuned, more to come.

Sony says its reserved enough memory for all those PS5s it plans to sell this year with the release of GTA 6, and CipherX sells a mail-order permanent tattoo technology that's pain free and pretty cheap.Starring Jason Howell and Jenn Cutter Show notes found here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week Matty and Brad discuss Halo: Campaign Evolved, Splatoon Raiders, Matty's Favorite OG Xbox games and more! Timestamps: Please keep in mind that our timestamps are approximate, and will often be slightly off due to dynamic ad placement. 0:07 - Intro20:46 - Xbox ranking1:33:13 - Halo: Campaign Evolved/The Master Chief Collection2:18:32 - Sort it Out2:29:37 - Keep it Up2:49:04 - Game Recommendation2:52:22 - Splatoon Raiders3:07:37 - Desktop Explorer3:20:42 - Closing Questions To watch the podcast on YouTube: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/LastStandMediaYouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast for free wherever you're listening or by using this link: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/SummonSign⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ If you like the show, telling a friend about it would be amazing! You can text, email, Tweet, or send this link to a friend: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/SummonSign⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

En plakat med en abstrakt afrofigur får Copenhagen Jazz Festival anklaget for racisme. Men den kritik har kunstneren bag værket selv svært ved at forstå. Jack Kabangu kom fra Zambia til Holstebro som 10-årig og er på få år blevet et internationalt kunstnavn. Hans værker har aldrig handlet om nedgørelsen af sorte, så hvordan er det at høre sin kunst blive omtalt som racistisk mod afro-kultur? Vært: Simon Stefanski. Program publiceret i DR Lyd d. 28. juli 2026.

Football is back. Sort of. On Wednesday, Florida State football began fall camp with its first practice. Head coach Mike Norvell told the local Tallahassee media that his team was basically in “pajamas,” as the Noles will not put the pads on before the weekend. But the head man said his team was able to work in a variety of different groups, including seven-on-seven, team periods, and special teams. Even without pads on, no practice can be wasted with FSU's Week Zero game just one month from today. “Going into today, I wanted to see communication. I wanted to see alignment. Guys getting in position based off the call with urgency…I thought our guys had a great urgency in their communication. I thought they did a good job getting aligned with tempo.” Later in his press conference, Norvell touched on the day of the top three quarterbacks on the depth chart, and seemed especially pleased with his QB1, Ashton Daniels. “You felt his comfort. There were a couple of plays, and maybe in the spring he might try to force something into a situation, (but) today was really clean for him in that regard…I really liked his presence and how he went through the process today.” On Kevin Sperry: “I thought Kevin had some good and moments through the day. He had a couple of throws that he missed. But, he understands what to do and how to do.” On Malachi Marshall: “Today was Malachi's first day here, and he had a couple of moments that he gets to grow through as well. But for his first practice, I was pleased with what I saw.” Off the field, former Florida State WR Anquan Boldin talked to the team yesterday ahead of fall camp. Norvell touched on why he brought in the 14-year NFL veteran to inspire his group as the season begins. “He's one of the great all-time Seminoles and is a guy that is about all the right things…Everything about his journey (made me) excited for our team to hear and guys got to ask some great questions” Ashlynd Barker, who broke the rock for Florida State at the end of summer workouts, took the stand next and discussed what he likes about the secondary. “This is one of my favorite groups that we have had so far because we added a couple of new people and we bonded so quickly. I think that was a special thing…There's no ego or talk back.” Micahi Danzy rounded out the day by telling the media what he wants to work on in the offseason and how he thinks he can improve in year two. “As you know, I struggled on intermediate routes last year, so I wanted to get on the JUGS, work on my catching, and work on getting out of my breaks. So, I have been focusing on that and pushing myself.” The Seminoles will take the field for practice on Thursday and Friday, before receiving an off day on Saturday. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Episode 6 ~ Rebecca Bunt | Decluttering After Loss: How to Sort Through a Loved One's BelongingsIn this episode of Female Voices: Life & Loss, Teresa Reiniger speaks with Rebecca Bunt about the grief that can surface while downsizing, clearing a family home, or deciding what to do with a loved one's belongings.After Rebecca and her husband experienced the loss of three of their four parents, they found themselves sorting through decades of possessions, memories, family history, and unanswered questions. The experience showed Rebecca how exhausting and isolating this responsibility can become—especially while balancing work, parenting, and grief.Rebecca shares practical ways to make the process feel more manageable, including starting with less emotional spaces, working in short blocks of time, grouping similar items together, and finding meaningful places to donate what no longer needs to be kept.Teresa and Rebecca also explore the guilt that can come with letting go, the importance of sharing the stories behind treasured belongings, and why the memory connected to an object may matter more than the object itself.This conversation offers validation and gentle guidance for anyone facing a home filled with belongings, decisions, and love.Guest IntroductionRebecca Bunt is the co-owner of a Clutter Cleaner franchise in the St. Louis area alongside her husband, Tim. After a 25-year career in banking and mortgage services, Rebecca stepped into work supporting individuals and families through downsizing, decluttering, major life transitions, and clearing homes after a loss.As an only child married to another only child, Rebecca brings personal experience to this work after she and her husband lost three of their four parents. Her perspective combines practical support with a deep understanding of the memories, relationships, and emotions attached to the belongings people leave behind.In This Episode● How losing three parents shaped Rebecca and Tim's new purpose● Why cleaning out a home can create decision fatigue and emotional paralysis● How to begin with small, less emotional areas of the home● Why families may disagree about which belongings should be kept● How sharing the story behind an object can make letting go easier● Ways donated belongings can support families and communitiesWhat You'll Take Away● You do not have to clear everything at once.● The memory can remain even when the object does not.● Keeping something out of guilt may create more emotional weight.● Ten focused minutes can be enough for one day.● Asking for support does not make the loss less personal.Memorable Quotes● Rebecca: “Decision fatigue is real.”● Rebecca: “Sometimes people just want to tell somebody the story behind the thing.”● Rebecca: “It's really not about the thing anymore. It's about the memories attached to the thing.”● Rebecca: “Keeping something out of guilt is not a good reason to keep it.”● Rebecca: “We've been there. We know how overwhelming it can be.”● Teresa: “You don't have to do it alone.”Join the Conversation

Same sort of UFO in photos all over the world by Anna Virginius

How you feel on Sunday night tells you something real about your relationship with work. Amy Leneker, the author of Cheers to Monday, calls it one of the most honest assessments we have, and she would know. Seven weeks into medical leave after a panic attack, she sat in a doctor's office, got handed a questionnaire, and could not answer a question about what she did for fun. In this conversation, Amy walks through what she learned from that unraveling and the research that followed. She explains the difference between the stress that helps you perform and the stress that wears you down, and why leaders and their teams so often talk past each other on exactly that point. She shares the zero-to-10 question that opens up a conversation about stress without putting anyone on the spot, her three-step See, Sort, Solve method, and how to separate what you can control from what you cannot. There is a lot in here you can use this week if you lead people. Including one calendar trick involving a standing Friday appointment with Dr. Green. About our guest Amy Leneker is the founder and CEO of the Center for Joyful Work and the author of Cheers to Monday: The Surprisingly Simple Method to Lead and Live with Less Stress and More Joy, published by Wiley in 2026. The book debuted as the number one bestselling business book on the USA Today list. Amy spent more than two decades in leadership, including ten years in the C-suite, before burnout forced a different path. She has studied leadership at Yale, neuroscience at the NeuroLeadership Institute, and stress resilience at Harvard Medical School. She leads an annual national workforce study on stress and joy at work, has trained more than 100,000 people, and hosts the Less Stress, More Joy podcast. She and her family live in the Pacific Northwest. TIMESTAMPS 00:00 Intro and sponsor 02:10 The question in a doctor's office she could not answer 05:05 The signs she ignored for years 05:55 Why your Sunday night mood is honest data 07:10 Turning her own burnout into a literature review 09:35 Eustress and distress, and why leaders and teams talk past each other 11:40 The check engine light and the cost of waiting 13:20 See, sort, solve 15:25 The stress ruler and the zero to 10 question 19:40 Stress and joy are both contagious 20:45 Values that leave you out will burn you out 24:10 Sorting what you can control from what you cannot 26:45 Why the people quickest to offer help are the slowest to ask for it 28:50 Cancel a meeting 30:20 The Dr. Green calendar story 32:35 What leaders get wrong in uncertain moments 34:45 Stress thrives in isolation A QUICK GLIMPSE INTO OUR PODCAST Podcast: Transform Your Workplace, sponsored by Xenium HR Host: Brandon Laws In Brandon's own words: "The Transform Your Workplace podcast is your go-to source for the latest workplace trends, big ideas, and time-tested methods straight from the mouths of industry experts and respected thought-leaders." About Xenium HR Xenium HR is on a mission to transform workplaces by providing expert outsourced HR and payroll services for small and medium-sized businesses. With a people-first approach, Xenium helps organizations create thriving work environments where employees feel valued and supported. From navigating compliance to enhancing workplace culture, Xenium offers tailored solutions that empower growth and simplify HR. Whether managing employee relations, payroll processing, or implementing impactful training programs, Xenium is the trusted partner businesses rely on to elevate their workplace experience. Discover how Xenium can transform your workplace: Learn more Mentioned in this episode: Xenium HR Leadership Cohorts Connect with Amy Leneker: Website LinkedIn Cheers to Monday Connect with Brandon Laws: LinkedIn Instagram About Connect with Xenium HR: Website LinkedIn Facebook Twitter Instagram YouTube

Enjoy our live show from Newcastle.---Yeeessss... The first of the 2026 live MFB 'Status: Arrested' Tour tickets are now on sale.Keep an eye out for more dates to be announced real soon.MELBOURNE - AUG 15 - BASEMENT COMEDY CLUBCody's show CRU$HER is hitting all major centres and more in 2026. He's back. It's red hot. Fuckin' do it. Stop going to shit comedians who charge double and deliver half.-----------------------------------YOUR STUPID has arrived. It's a book. It's a similar vibe to last year's one, but better. If you want a copy, head over to lukeheggie.com and stump up, and it will arrive via Australia Post. Any First Class Patrons, yours have been posted, (including the seppos - at great personal expense) but excluding the three bastards who have not provided an address, and seem to refuse to reply to emails. Sort it out. I'll bring some to live shows too. That is all.Heggie's 2026 show I WON'T SAY IT AGAIN is on sale now too. It's a hand-selected crack team of bits from the last five years. Get on it here.-----------------------------------Heggie dropped a FOURTH YouTube special, GROT, but still left the comments closed like a coward. Watch it here.Cody's new stand-up special "LIVE AT THE CORNER HOTEL" is OUT NOW on YouTubeHave a squizz and leave comments before he takes Heggie's cowardly route and turns off the comments. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode was recorded before the news broke that LeBron James was going to play for the Sixers. Nothing we say in this episode is relevant, and that's why.

Can't be bothered with email or speak pipe? Text us!We're back! Sort of. Monthly-ish. Regular-ish. With a puppy.In this episode of On the Reg, Inger introduces Latte Sipping Socialist, her new desk dog and emerging productivity expert. Meanwhile Jason has actually been working and explains how ClickUp has become his work gravity well.Then we open the mailbag to discuss:• building a note-taking system when ADHD and object permanence are working against you• combining bullet journals with Zotero, Obsidian and NotebookLM• managing complex or collaborative research projects• Bullet Journal nerdery • Typst as a possible plain-text academic writing tool• cheaper ways to record and edit video• why Monday is obviously the first day of the weekOur major work problem is the vexed issue of AI in doctoral education.Should universities restrict generative AI so students still learn the foundational practices of thinking and writing? Or do bans simply drive AI use underground, without guidance or education?We discuss AI dependency, inconsistent policies, writing as thinking, assessment reform, oral examinations, the future of the dissertation and whether academic writing may become the intellectual equivalent of artisanal stonemasonry.There are no easy answers. There is, however, a small brown-and-white dog who looks suspiciously AI-generated...Things we mention:Visit Tiny Latte on Instagram @coton_lattemewburnDownload Jason's notes on Claude integration in ClickupCurtis McHale's websiteTypist websiteOBS: Alternative to Riverside: https://obsproject.comDavinci resolve studio Rectangle Window management (for mac and windows): https://rectangleapp.com/A system for writing by DottoRooster TV show on HBOThe P In PhD doesn't stand for PromptBuJo sticker shop Got thoughts and feel pinions? Want to ask a question? You can email us on -  Leave us a message on www.speakpipe.com/thesiswhisperer. -  See our workshop catalogue on www.ontheregteam.com. You can book us via emailing Jason at enquiries@ontheregteam.com-  Subscribe to the free, monthly Two Minute Tips newsletter here (scroll down to enter your email address) - We're on BlueSky as @drjd and @thesiswhisperer (but don't expect to hear back from Jason, he's still mostly on a Socials break).- Read Inger's stuff on www.thesiswhisperer.com.  - If you want to support our work, you can sign up to be a 'Riding the Bus' member for just $2 a month, via our On The Reg Ko-Fi site

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Welcome to the Big 60s Sort Out USA edition where we are ranking all the Billboard Number 1s from the 1960s for music, lyrics and production.Please note! We are taking a mid-series break after this episode. Keep an eye on our socials (below) to find out when we are coming back.This week's songs:Jimmy Gilmer & The Fireballs - Sugar ShackNino Tempo & April Stevens - Deep PurpleDale & Grace - I'm Leaving it up to YouThe Singing Nun (Soeur Sourire) - DominiqueIf you want to view the chart up to the latest episode, you can do so⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ here! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Garry's new album can be bought on CD or Vinyl here and you can use the offer code WELCOME10 on your first purchase for 10% off!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://elasticstage.com/garryabbott⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Or you can listen digitally to that and all his other albums here:⁠⁠⁠https://garryabbott.bandcamp.com/⁠⁠⁠And you can find Paul's band here:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://goodgriefliverpool.bandcamp.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

This week Cog and Brad rank their favorite gaming soundtracks and yap about all the games they've been playing including The Alters: Last Variable, Spyro the Dragon, and more! Timestamps: Please keep in mind that our timestamps are approximate, and will often be slightly off due to dynamic ad placement. 0:06 - Intro21:21 - Our Top 5 Gaming Soundtracks1:17:48 - The Alters: Last Variable1:26:17 - Spyro The Dragon1:37:12 - Sort it Out1:51:51 - Keep it Up2:11:44 - Game Recommendation2:12:52 - This is the Police2:24:02 - Closing Questions To watch the podcast on YouTube: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/LastStandMediaYouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast for free wherever you're listening or by using this link: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/SummonSign⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ If you like the show, telling a friend about it would be amazing! You can text, email, Tweet, or send this link to a friend: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/SummonSign⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Le Journal en français facile du vendredi 24 juillet 2026, 18 h 00 à Paris. Retrouvez votre épisode avec la transcription synchronisée et des exercices pédagogiques pour progresser en français : https://rfi.my/CuRD.A

Pour écouter 5.000 ans d'Histoire en une fois, sans pub et avec les Bonus :https://m.audiomeans.fr/s/S-tavkjvmo Retour sur le 24 juillet 1911, quand le Machu Picchu sort des nuages. En effet, le 24 juillet 1911, un homme grimpe les pentes abruptes de la cordillère des Andes au Pérou. Il s'appelle Hiram Bingham, il est professeur à Yale et il cherche une cité perdue, Vilcabamba, dernier refuge supposé des Incas. Et ce n'est pas exactement ce qu'il va trouver. Ce jour-là, guidé par des paysans locaux, il découvre dissimulée sous la végétation une cité de pierres suspendue à plus de 2400 mètres d'altitude. Des terrasses, des murs cyclopéens, des temples parfaitement assemblés, comme intactes malgré les siècles. Le Machu Picchu. Les habitants du coin la connaissent déjà, mais Hiram Bingham, lui, la révèle au monde occidental. Il prend des notes, des photos, envoie des télégrammes, la presse s'emballe, on a retrouvé la cité perdue des Incas. En réalité, le Machu Picchu n'était ni une capitale, ni dernier bastion, certainement une résidence royale, ou un sanctuaire, peut-être les deux, construite au XVe siècle sous l'empereur Pachacutec, puis abandonnée à l'arrivée des Espagnols, sans jamais être détruite. Et longtemps, la jungle en a gardé le secret, le 24 juillet 1911, le mystère ressurgit donc des nuages, et on découvre une civilisation brillante, capable d'architecture monumentale sans roues, sans fer, sans écriture, mais avec une précision défiant les siècles. Aujourd'hui, le Machu Picchu est un symbole de résistance, de beauté et d'un monde précolombien qu'on a trop souvent voulu effacer. A demain dans TIME SHOT pour une nouvelle Minute Histoire. Hébergé par Audiomeans. Visitez audiomeans.fr/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.

It's a Midsummer Episode! Jason celebrates Outdoor Girl Summer, Jessi celebrates Out Of Office Girl Summer and they both celebrate The World Cup Final! Sort of. Was the halftime show a bust? Was Justin Bieber a downer? Did Shakira get revenge? Did Jessi get aroused? No soccer will be discussed in this in-depth conversation about the World Cup.Then, “Panic Pouches” are HOT on Tik Tok- if you don't have one, it's probably because you aren't 25, but Jessi will explain it anyways. An A-list pop star tells us about her lettuce diarrhea… but did we really need to know? Plus, an in-depth investigation into the cancellation, and resurgence of (pregnant) Anne Hathaway. Grab your fidget spinners and relieve your anxiety with this ALL NEW episode! Leave Jessi a voicemail about ANYTHING… HERE: 323-448-0068 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How can organic writing and leaning into the pivot help your stories stand out? And how can you pitch a story as a discovery writer if you genuinely don't know what's going to happen next. Steven James gives his writing tips after more than 20 years as an author. In the intro, Better Than Free in an Age of AI [Kevin Kelly on Tim Ferriss; Kevin Kelly on The Creative Penn]; Future Vision XPrize; A Different Kind of Bucket List. Today's show is sponsored by Draft2Digital, self-publishing with support, where you can get free formatting, free distribution to multiple stores, and a host of other benefits. Just go to www.draft2digital.com to get started. This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn Steven James is the multi-award-winning and international bestselling author of 21 novels across thrillers, YA, and science fiction, with more than a million copies sold, as well as the author of non-fiction craft books for writers, a writing teacher, and the host of The Story Blender podcast. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. Show Notes How to lean into organic writing, and what to focus on instead of plot How characters unfold on the page, and why an attitude beats a background Producing an outline for an agent or publisher when you genuinely don't know what happens next Don't pitch the plot, pitch the pivot The four choices you have in every scene, and why logic plus surprise is the engine of story Faith, moral clarity and big questions You can find Steven at StevenJames.net. Transcript of the interview with Steven James Jo: Steven James is the multi-award-winning and international bestselling author of 21 novels across thrillers, YA, and science fiction, with more than a million copies sold, as well as the author of non-fiction craft books for writers, a writing teacher, and the host of The Story Blender Podcast. So welcome to the show, Steven. Steven: Thanks for having me, Jo. Good to be here. Jo: Great to have you on the show. First up— Tell us a bit more about you and how you got into writing and publishing. Steven: Oh, gosh. Well, the thing is, when I was a kid, I fell in love with stories. My uncle would always, whenever we got together for the holidays—Christmas, New Year's and so on—he would take my sister, my brother and myself into a corner of the room while the other adults had coffee, and we would just sit there, and he would get this look in his eye and he'd say, “I'm going to tell you a story.” We were transported to another world. We were swashbuckling with pirates, or facing down a grizzly bear in Alaska, or flying over the desert on a flying carpet, or whatever. I fell in love with imagination and stories and everything. So I started reading as much as I could, mostly short stories. They had a programme at our library called the paperback book exchange, where you bring a paperback book and you leave it, and you can take any one of the paperback books that they had. You could keep it as long as you wanted. If you wanted it for your life, that's fine, or you could just bring it back as soon as you finished reading it. Anyway, I went crazy over the summers reading short stories, mainly. As I got older, I was like, “I think I want to be a storyteller.” So I actually got my master's degree in storytelling. Then I started to travel and tell stories, but I had three little daughters at home, and I was like, “I don't want to be gone 300 days a year when they are growing up.” So I ended up starting to write stories instead of travel, and then it just kind of shifted in that direction. That was in '97. Oh my goodness, that's long. '97, '98. So then I started to write books, and then eventually in 2007, I think, my first novel came out. Now, mainly, I've been writing novels ever since. Jo: It's so interesting. Was it a job, storytelling? Is that what you did before you became a book writer? Or did you have a different job? Steven: I mostly would go to events, conferences, schools and so on, and do a family-friendly storytelling show. So I would tell personal stories, some folktales reimagined. I would go to different events around the country. Mostly it was that. Then I started to shift. I wrote for magazines for a while—80 different magazines I wrote for over those years, a couple of hundred different articles, stories. I was like, “I'm just going to try to make a living telling stories.” So the shift has gone back and forth between actually telling stories and writing stories, but these days, I don't know. I'm still speaking. I'm still out there teaching. Jo: That's so interesting, because it's obviously a completely different thing to tell a story in person than it is to write a story. So when you decided to shift that way, what did you have to learn and unlearn? Because your thoughts on the page are so different to when you can make eye contact with an audience. Steven: That's a good point. I kind of started by telling stories back when I was in college, so I sort of moved from telling to writing. And you're right, there's so much that's lost, whether it's eye contact or pauses. On a printed page, there's always the same amount of space between every word—a space. But when you tell stories, obviously you pause for effect in different places, different areas, and so it's quite different. So if I have an idea for a story, I usually have to decide, is this going to be written or told? And then I do it in that medium. Then if I want to, let's say, tell a written story, I almost have to relearn it, or retell it very differently. You have gestures, body language. All of those things are obviously lost in text, so they are very different. I think for me it's been good, because when I tell stories, I hear different characters speaking, so that when I write, usually dialogue comes fast to me. I can hear what people are saying. I don't always know where they are. I don't always know the setting. I don't even know the scene necessarily, but I can hear the dialogue. Then it also helps me to step into the characters, like when I'm writing different points of view, so that I think I can do a good job of getting into that character's mind, as if I were that person. I think some of that comes from just telling stories. Jo: You've taught so many writers over the years, and it's interesting you said that you hear characters' dialogue. I see visual film in my mind. I don't hear any voice at all. It's all silent. I struggle with dialogue, but I do great world building. Do you find that this really is different by the author? I feel like we fall into these different groups. Steven: Yes, I do. I kind of feel like that's very true as far as what comes first, whether it's a description of a place, whether it's the action. I mean, basically a story has dialogue, narration—or we call it sometimes exposition—and description. Those three things. Every story has those three things, and those are the three that we use to tell a story, a novel. So some people tend to drift into one or the other as sort of their default setting: dialogue, description, or action. That's true. I think also something else that's interesting about writers is they tend to fall into either the camp of being a wordsmith or a storyteller. Not everyone, but I feel like some people are wordsmiths, where I read what they're writing, and I'm like, “Man, this is so powerful, evocative,” whatever. Maybe there's no story there. It's just really interesting writing. Other people just are natural storytellers, and they have to really work on the wordsmithing. I think that's me. I'm more naturally just a storyteller, but it takes me a long time to get the descriptions to where I want them, to choose exactly the right word. That takes me more effort. Some people have to build up the storytelling muscles. I have to build up the wordsmithing muscles. Jo: Well, part of the reason I wanted to talk to you is because you talk about this thing called organic writing in your book Story Trumps Structure, which is out now in a second edition. I call it discovery writing, so similar to you. But most people in the writing community seem to obsess about plotting and planning. So talk about your process of organic writing. You say in the book, “Trust the fluidity of the process.” Tell us more about that. Steven: Well, I remember in high school even, when my teacher got up front and he kind of got this very almost wise look on his face, and he goes, “A story is something with a beginning, a middle, and an end.” I'm sitting there in high school like, “Well, so does a bratwurst. What are you talking about here?” A description of a chair has a beginning, a middle, and an end. The sentence, “Preheat the oven to 450 degrees,” has a beginning, a middle, and an end. My view is that saying a story is something that has three acts is like saying that a pizza is something with three toppings. It might have three. It might have one. It might have five. So the idea for me is not to worry about structure, trying to tick off the boxes of a template, a formula you find online, a fill-in-the-blanks kind of a thing. But instead, to actually look at what lies at the heart of the story—the character, the tension, the struggle, the pursuit, the pivots and plot twists, and the payoff at the end. As you develop those aspects of the story, I feel like you need to worry less and less about following a formula. The more you understand what lies at the heart of a story, I feel like the less you need to plot and the less you need to write by the seat of your pants. A lot of people say, “Oh, you write by the seat of…” No, I don't write by the seat of my pants, because I know what a story contains, so I know that in a certain scene a character will make certain choices that are unpredictable but that escalate the tension, and different things like that. I'm a huge proponent of discovery, as you say, or organic writing. I won't get the quote exactly right, but Ray Bradbury said something along the lines of, “Plot is the tracks left in the snow after your characters have run by on their incredible destinations. It cannot precede action. It is the chart that remains when an action is through.” So he's saying plot is not what precedes action. After the action, you have plot. So the whole idea of trying to plot out a story before you write it is going about writing exactly backwards. Plot doesn't precede action. It's the result. So I always tell people, “Don't worry so much about the plot. I want you to look at the pursuit.” A plotter might say, “Well, what should happen?” And they'll just come up with something. But an organic writer—a pursuit-based question would be, what does the character want? Now, when I know what the character wants, I will know what should happen. So literally, it will lead me to the story. Focusing on plot will not necessarily lead you to the story. It might lead you down the wrong track. Jo: Then in terms of your actual writing process— Do you start writing without knowing the ending? Do you write in order? Is the organic side also in the process? Steven: I've never started a book where I know how it will end. So I usually start with either a character that's fascinating or, in some cases, a premise, a question. Then as I write, I explore the possibilities of where it might go. I've tried to outline a scene—like one scene, not a whole book—and it never works. I can't even outline one scene. I've tried, and I'm like, okay, that's… What I end up with is completely different from it, so it's just a waste of time and effort for me to try to outline or plot out a story. I'm much more interested in the pathway the characters will take as they face obstacles and setbacks in their pursuit. As the struggles and the tension develop, what choices will they make? That's how the story will unfold for me. Jo: I'm similar. Then I also wonder— Do you do character sheets and character bios, or do the characters also unfold organically? Steven: Absolutely, I don't do any of the sheets and bios and stuff. The characters really come to me as I write. I begin to get to know them. I always tell people, a character with an attitude is more interesting than a character with a background. So a lot of people will spend a lot of time on, like, where's this character gone to college, and what's their first pet's name, all that stuff. I'm not trying to dump on that idea. I get that that can be helpful. But I'm like, how would I know that until I've spent time with them? Then once I begin to spend time with them, I'm writing and I'm like, “Nah, this doesn't seem like what that character would really say or do,” so I have to go back and rejigger the story to hopefully make it fit with that character. Then I like to give the characters some sort of attitude. I'm not talking about a negative or judgy attitude, but an attitude about something that is unique or different, and that makes them not a template character, not an archetype or whatever, but unique. Sort of this constellation of unique traits, characteristics, maybe wounds, flaws and so on, that create a character where you're like, “This is a character like none I've ever seen before. I want to spend time with this character.” Jo: Then you're spending time with the character by writing what's happening, as opposed to writing loads of stuff beforehand and then starting to write. You're actually finding all of this out during the process of writing. Steven: Yes, and I think it's kind of like getting to know someone. If I were to say, “Okay, I'm going to write down Jo's bio,” or whatever—okay, I'm making stuff up, because I don't know you super well. If we were to spend time together, hang out, whatever, talk, over the course of time I would start to know, oh, she likes this, she doesn't like that. This is important to her. This is what she would weep or pound the table over—whatever, all of the things that come with time. It's like a friendship in real life to me. So I can't sit down and tell you what a character in real life would think and say and do if I don't know them, but the more time I spend with them, then the more I'm able to predict that accurately. I think the mistake a lot of people make is they think, “I'm going to get to know this character with a background,” and then they start writing it, and instead of looking at the context, they look back at the—I don't know what you call it—the background or something like that. I always feel like what you mentioned earlier is, like, hold it loosely in your hand. Trust the fluidity of the process. As you're writing, you have an instinct. “Ah, I think this character would say this or do this.” So trust that. Trust that instinct. Trust that moment in the story, instead of trying to go back to an outline, back to a character description, or whatever it might be. So I'm a big proponent of looking at the context—not just what happened, but what is the result? So looking at the impetus and the implication of the choices and the activities. When something occurs, what would the character naturally say or do or think or respond? Then what would that cause? What's the implication that that would have on the rest of the story, on the rest of the characters? So, really trying to keep your finger on the pulse of the story, and adapt as you move forward through it. Jo: I love all of that, but I also am very aware that you've been in traditional publishing for over 20 years, and one of the things with agents and publishers is that they often ask for an outline. So how do you manage that? Or how did you more earlier in your career, because I imagine they just trust you now. Earlier in your career, or people listening who want to pitch but they write in this organic way, how do we deal with that kind of thing? Steven: Well, okay, so there's two good questions. One is about producing an outline for an agent or editor or publisher and so on. The other is how to pitch a story. So the first: I would write the premise down, and maybe a paragraph or two, and then where I think it might go. Basically, I would focus on the questions that the characters will face, maybe the moral dilemmas, the sacrifices they have to make, the world they live in. I kind of know that stuff, and I can write a couple of paragraphs about that. But beyond that, I just don't know what's going to happen, so I can't really provide more. I'm looking at my shelf at the books that I've done, and mostly that's what I've done is kind of a couple of paragraphs focusing on the premise and the problem, the struggle, and so on like that. As far as pitching a story, I always tell people, “Don't pitch the plot, pitch the pivot.” I think that there's a screenwriter—I think that he talks about this a little bit. I've not read the book Save the Cat, but people have told me, “Oh, he kind of brings this up in that book.” The idea is to pitch the irony instead of what occurs. So sometimes when I tell people to pitch, or I give them ideas, one process that you can use is: when, must, before, or else. So, when this occurs, this character must do something before this, or else. So you have the character, you have the struggle, you have the inciting incident, you have the stakes, and you have the countdown. It works well for thrillers. So for instance, like Jaws. When a man-eating shark starts eating people in a small seaside village, the sheriff must stop him before more people die and the town loses its economy. So there you have when, must, before, or else. Now, no one's going to buy the story based on that, because there's no irony, there's no pivot. It's just a description of the plot, and that's what most people pitch. So I always tell people, pitch the part of the story that you wouldn't expect. So for instance, in there you might pitch: when a shark starts eating people in a small seaside village, the only one who can stop him is afraid of the water. Now you're like, “Oh, well, that's interesting. How does that happen? What happens there?” With my book Broker of Lies, the pitch was something like, when a high-level Pentagon redactor ends up on the run, he must stop a terrorist attack before he's neutralised by the people he trusts the most. So the pivot is that the people he trusts at the Pentagon the most are actually trying to neutralise him because he's on the run, and all that kind of stuff. So why would they be trying to do that? Well, that's interesting. So it's always looking for the irony, the pivot. Why is this character the last one in the world who would ever be equipped to tackle this problem or face this issue? So that's one way to do a pitch. Obviously there's lots of them, but I think your goal with a pitch is to get them to say, “Tell me more.” It's not necessarily to summarise the whole story. Jo: That's great advice. So you teach writers—I first saw you at ThrillerFest, I think it was 2012—and you do events, you run writing retreats. So you work with a lot of authors, and I wondered, what are the challenges that you see from authors with, say, five books? So not the beginner authors, because obviously there's a lot of challenges. But those who, let's say they've got the three to five books, things are going all right, but they're like, “How do I get to the next level?” What are the craft issues, or the business issues as well, that mid-list authors face? Steven: Well, business, I'm not the guy to ask. I could try to answer that, but I mean, basically: meet your deadlines and write something amazing. Try to be easy to work with, but also stand up for what you wrote as far as working with editors. It's sort of a fine line you have to walk. The one thing that over the last few years I've really noticed in a lot of writers who are in that space is that they don't have many pivots. They tend to write predictable stories, and that's why they tend to stay where they're at—whether it's because they're following an outline or a plot formula or whatever it is. So when I talk about a pivot, I mean a moment in the story where something happens that's both unexpected and inevitable. For instance, if you're reading a story, you want things to make sense. You want them to be logical. That's one thing. But you don't want them to be too predictable. If it's too predictable, it's boring. It's like, I'm not interested. So we also want surprises. We want these two things. We want logic, and we want surprise. When those two things meet and you have a moment in the story where it's like, “I didn't see that coming, but that totally makes sense,” that's what we want, and we want that in every scene. I feel like a lot of authors don't have that in every scene. Now, you might say, “Well, every scene?” Well, yes, because basically those two factors, logic and surprise, can only meet in four different ways. You could have something that's very logical but has no surprises. That's going to be boring. It's going to be too predictable. We don't want that. You could have something that is very surprising but not logical. It makes no sense. A lot of stuff is surprising, but that's not what we want, because it's unbelievable, and it's like, what is going on here? You could have something that has neither logic nor surprise, which obviously we don't want that. The only other option is to have a moment that is both logical and surprising. So you have a choice in every scene. You have four choices, actually. You can have it be predictable and boring. You can have it be nonsensical. You can have it be unbelievable. Or you can have a pivot. So I find myself trying to really coach people on pivots. They'll say, “Oh, well, do I need it in every scene?” I'm like, “You can choose, but do you want it to be predictable or boring or nonsensical, or do you want it to really drive the story forward?” I think it's because people have been taught structure and plot and three acts and all this kind of stuff, but they haven't been taught this idea—even though it's not something I made up. Aristotle, in Poetics, thousands of years ago, put it a little bit differently, but he said, “The reversal of the situation”—what I call the pivot—”is the moment at which the action veers around to its opposite”—that would be what I call surprise—”subject always to a rule of probability or necessity”—which is the logic. So he's basically saying the same thing in just a little bit different language, but you have these three factors. You have logic, you have surprise, and you have them come together in a specific moment. I don't know why it's not taught more. I have never found anyone who teaches pivots. I have not found any books, so I wrote a book recently about how to use pivots. It's so central, and I think great storytellers naturally do it. You'll read a book, or you'll maybe watch a show, and you're like, “Oh, I didn't see that coming. That totally makes sense.” I don't see anyone else out there really focusing on teaching that. So that's a huge thing for me, really, to help people move up in their writing, elevate it to a different level. Jo: Is that Delve, Pivot, Propel? Steven: Yes. That book came out a couple years ago. We just re-released it. I updated it some, but it talks pretty much in depth about pivots and how to actually use those to propel the stories forward. Jo: Maybe you could just give us one tip on how to do that, because going back to the organic writing—let's say I've been organically writing, and every time a character has a decision to make, I think at that point about what I want to write and I write it. Are you suggesting that we go back in the edit and look at the end of every scene and redo it? Because I can't imagine that I would get this right every time. I would need to do that in an edit, I think. Steven: I think for me, when I'm writing, I'm always asking myself a series of questions. One is, what would the character naturally do? I want to make it believable and natural. Let them do it. I want to escalate the tension, so I'll ask myself, “How can I make things worse?” Then I'll always ask myself, how can I add a pivot to this scene? So as I'm writing a scene—again, I don't know how it will end when I start it—but if I use the first idea that comes to mind, probably a lot of readers would guess that as well, because it's the first idea that comes to mind. It's probably logical and probably predictable. That's why most stories end up being too predictable. It's because we go with the first idea that maybe we had. So I try to discard that. Maybe the second idea, just discard it. Then I start thinking, okay, now if I've discarded the obvious, what is going on? What's below the surface? So to answer your question, I'm looking for what isn't what it appears to be, or who isn't who they appear to be, or a surprising way to bring together plot threads that I didn't see related before. So it's always looking for the unexpected, the surprise, because most of the time that is what we're missing. Now, if you have a great surprise, then you have to lean into making it believable. So you've got to move into that idea of, well, what would the character naturally do? You can't just have him do something ridiculous and then say, “Oh, it's for my twist.” No, you can't do that. You've got to play fair. So it has to be believable, causally related, logical, and surprising. That's what you're shooting for. Those are the questions going through my mind. So as I'm working on a scene, I'm like, “How could I end this?” Or include something that people won't see coming right away. The best ideas always come to me then. It's so interesting. A lot of people will say, “Oh, don't write organically,” or, quote, “by the seat of your pants,” whatever they'll say, “because then you might write yourself into a corner.” I'm like, “Yes, absolutely write yourself into a corner. That's what I'm trying to do in every scene.” And then you write yourself out of a corner in a way that's logical and surprising. The best twists I've ever come up with have been when I'm in a corner. So why would I warn people against going to the place where the best ideas await them? That just seems mean. Why would I do that? No, I want you to have the best possible ideas. So yes, look for corners, write yourself into them, and then write yourself out of them in a way that's both logical and surprising. Jo: I guess also it needs to be genre specific. We write mainly thrillers, and there is this fine line, isn't there? I love Stephen King, but one of the most unbelievable endings is Under the Dome. I still remember feeling betrayed. I don't know if you've read that one, but— Steven: Oh, no. Jo: I was like, “I'm sorry, you've just changed genre in the last chapter of the book. What is going on here?” Steven: That's actually interesting. The fourth question I ask… So I ask, what would the character naturally do? How can I make things worse? How can I add a pivot? But the fourth question is, what promises have I made that I have not yet kept? So genre, to me, is a promise. You build up a promise in your writing at the beginning of the book, and then I feel like as we write, we have to honour that. So if we bring something up that's super interesting, bring it back or whatever. Keep your promises. Keep your narrative promises. It's true of really any genre. Let's say you're writing a romance. You want to respect the conventions, but not fall into the clichés. So there's going to be a moment where the lovers meet, right? They haven't met before. I don't know what they call it, a meet cute or a cute meet. I think they call it a meet cute, I guess. Jo: Yes. They do. Steven: Anyway. So they're going to meet, right? And you're like, “Oh, I'll just have them meet.” Well, try to do it in a way we haven't seen before. Add something else to the scene. Add a third element, as my friend Bob Dugoni likes to say. Add something a little bit that we're like, “Huh, I've never seen that before.” We know they're going to meet, but let them meet in a way that we don't anticipate, that we can't predict right away, that isn't exactly by the numbers, and then you're going to be on the right track. Jo: So then, talking about reader expectations and genre, I wondered if I could also ask you about your Christian faith, because many people listening are people of faith, and some people want to write a Christian book. Other people want to bring their faith into, say, a mainstream type thriller in an authentic way. So how do you balance your faith and your writing? Because I think you have some series that are more sort of Christian than others. Steven: It's interesting. When my first novel came out—The Pawn, like a chess piece, The Pawn—back almost 20 years ago. Gosh, 20 years ago. Nineteen. But anyway, when it came out, someone wrote to me and said, “Is this a Christian book?” I'm like, “What would make a book not Christian?” I'm like, maybe if it has a lot of idolatry, or witchcraft, or maybe sexuality or graphic violence. Then I'm like, oh, wait, that's… No, that's the Old Testament. So it's interesting, because people have asked me similar questions over the years. My books are not sermons in disguise. I'm trying to write great stories that anyone of any background or faith will enjoy. I always ask big questions. I let my characters wrestle with questions that matter, I think. Do my choices matter? Is there hope? Is there a God? Is there no God? Do I have free will? Can I find forgiveness? Can I offer forgiveness? Can I extend it, or whatever? So I always try to base the stories on something deeper. I do believe that there is good and there's evil in the world. That's part of my worldview. So when people talk about moral ambiguity, I don't want to write or read something that's morally ambiguous. I want moral complexity, but I also want moral clarity. So whenever you write, the question is, what are you justifying and what are you condemning? And if you're justifying something that's morally—I would say wrong, actually—then I don't feel like that's the kind of book I would want to write. So I want to write stories that explore good and evil, that explore our world, human nature, in an honest way. I feel like when you write honest stories, people, no matter what their background or whatever faith, then they will connect with it. I think a lot of people, if they start off with an agenda—whatever that agenda might be, let's say it is a Christian agenda, like I want people to trust in Jesus, let's say—so they write a story. Well, what you're doing, you're actually starting your story with an answer, and drama is not built on answers, it's built on questions. So you're actually diminishing the amount of tension. You're also diminishing the possibility of a pivot, because we all get where you're going. It's predictable, but there's probably no surprise. You're diminishing the payoff at the end, because we're like, “I saw that coming. I exactly knew where you were going with this.” So instead, I don't start with an answer. I always start with a question, or in some cases a moral dilemma, like, what's more important, protecting the innocent or telling the truth? That's interesting to me. If I had to choose between the two, would I tell the truth or would I protect the innocent? It's interesting, because people might come down on different sides of it. They might say, “Oh, you should always tell the truth,” or they say, “You always should protect the innocent.” I'm like, okay, well, let's explore it. Let's literally ask the question. So I come from a certain worldview, but I've written characters who have very different worldviews from me. I'm always just trying to be honest with the character, ask big questions, tell a story that examines human nature and sort of the paradoxes of the human condition in a way that will resonate with really whoever the readers might be. Jo: And of course that worldview is part of your author voice and part of what readers come to you for. I also notice that you have some pretty diverse different series. How do you manage that diversity of series under your one brand? Do you find your readers move from one to the other, or do you have different readerships? Steven: You mentioned the B word—brand. That's what publishers are always telling me: “What's your brand?” I'm like, “I don't know. You tell me what my brand is.” I've done fantasy, science fiction, conspiracy. I've done spies and police procedurals and crime and suspense, thrills, whatever. So I would say the one thing that really ties all my stories together is probably just suspense. They are stories with suspense. Some are more high concept thrillers, some are more dark fantasy, but they're built around suspense. So I guess that would be intelligent suspense, maybe, if I was trying to come up with a brand. Something like that. Because I don't want them to be dumbed down. They're not dumbed down stories, so they're a little bit more complex than you might find in other places, but always built around the idea of suspense. Suspense to me is basically—my definition is apprehension born of concern. So we're concerned about a character, and we're apprehensive because there's peril around the bend, or right in front of them. So I want the readers to really care about a character, and then try to build the story and the suspense around that empathy or sympathy that we have for the character. Jo: I think it's really interesting, because again, you mentioned 2007—we're coming up on 20 years since first published. The publishing industry has changed a lot. So what do you think has changed most in publishing for you, and what are your thoughts on routes to market for new authors these days? Or even established authors who are finding that things have changed, which they obviously have. Steven: Well, I'm not a marketer, I'm not a businessman. I'm just a storyteller at heart. So I just keep writing stories that I would be intrigued with reading, stories that I feel like are resonant. Then I look for publishers for those. I've been to a variety of different publishers over the last decade. I've done some different types of stories. I feel like you have to just write the story instead of trying to write for a specific market trend or something like that. So I might not make as much as some of my friends, I might not sell as many books, but I feel like I have to write certain stories if they grab ahold of me. There's a Native American—I think the Pawnee tribe, anyway, in the United States—but they were saying that all the stories that exist are out there already, and when one finds you, it's your job to share it with the world. I think that's kind of interesting. Sometimes—maybe it's just true for you, I don't know, Jo—but it's like a story will grab hold of me, or an idea, and I'm like, “I can't shake it.” That's a story that I want to tell the world. I would say that stories are becoming shorter, dumber. People are trying to write faster. They're trying to write several books a year, and as a result of that, some of the quality has gone down. This is all unfortunate. I'm still sort of a dinosaur. I still tend to write longer, complex stories. But people have shorter attention spans and whatever, and they're not reading as much. The structure of stories, I think, is changing slightly, where people will have to spend more time on a hook to really grab the attention of the readers. Then there might be a longer slow period, or more info dumping, which I'm not a fan of. So they kind of look like, “I want to get readers hooked at the beginning, and then get them to flip pages.” So I tend to set up my stories a little bit differently than that. So I'm not the best guy to ask about marketing and sales and stuff like that. I feel like, write a story that will not let you go. And if you do that, I feel like that's the kind of story that will resonate with readers, because there's a deep honesty to it. You care, you're passionate about it. It's not just something you're trying to spin out just to sell books. That's my view. Jo: I guess I also feel that writers are doing other things. So you have non-fiction, you have your podcast, you do events. I see you sell books direct from your website. It's like the business expands into multiple streams of income, so that the art doesn't have to pay all the bills. Steven: That's interesting. I do love to teach writing at conferences, events, and speak at different things. So I guess if you think about it that way, my brand might be just story, or storytelling, or something like that. Really trying to get out there, and whether it's speaking or writing, just tell a great story. So it's so interesting when I work with publishers and they'll ask, “What's your brand?” Basically it's like, “What's your box?” is really what they're asking. What box can we stick you in that will make it easy for us to package you and sell you? I know myself, and just a lot of authors that I know, we don't think in a box. Every one of my stories is not boxy. It's not the same. They're different. I know a lot of authors like that too. So it's unfortunate. I get it, that it's part of them trying to market and sell the books. I understand that, but I think being honest, genuine with the story, doing the very best you can, writing a worthy book, and then letting them come up with a way to categorise it, is probably the best bet. I don't know. Jo: We're almost out of time, but this is obviously a podcast, and you have a podcast. So tell us about The Story Blender Podcast and what people might find over there. Steven: Yes, I appreciate it. Basically, I interview some of the leading writers and storytellers in the world every week, and the goal is for great storytellers to share the secrets of great storytelling. So I basically pick their brains, kind of like what you were doing with me today, and find out what projects they're working on, and really just try to get insights into storytelling. So it's tons of fun. I've been doing it now for a number of years, and I guess I've interviewed over 250 different authors and writers from around the world, and so I always enjoy it. It's a ton of fun. It's The Story Blender, and people can find it anywhere. Jo: So where can people find you and your books and everything you do online? Steven: Probably the best place is StevenJames.net. I think I'm on different socials @readstevenjames, so you can look me up there—Facebook, Instagram, X, and so on. I think they're all under readstevenjames. Check out the website, drop me a note. I always enjoy hearing from readers. Jo: Well, thanks so much for your time, Steven. That was great. Steven: Thanks, Jo. I appreciate it. Good luck. The post Organic Writing And The Power Of The Pivot In Fiction With Steven James first appeared on The Creative Penn.

In this conversation, Lee sits down with two of Unleashing Leaders' top change agents, Skye Connors and Emily LaPorta, to tackle a problem every high performer eventually hits: too many priorities, not enough hours. Skye and Emily built UL's internal SOP for handling conflicting task requests and walk through how it works, from the physical warning signs of overload to the tiebreakers that step in when two tasks conflict. Feeling overloaded usually means you're trusted with more, not that you're falling short. Lee, Skye, and Emily break down the prioritization shortcuts that quietly wreck teams: First in, first out. Last in, first out. Whoever screams the loudest. And the fallback of declaring "everything is priority one," which just pushes the decision onto your team, leaving them to default to whatever's easiest. What UL actually uses instead is a framework that sorts commitments by required, desired, and optional, weighs critical path and impact, and falls back on real tiebreakers, like prior commitment and relative priority, when everything else ties. Emily closes with a reminder that this gets easier with practice: "Am I required?" and "What is the impact?" stop needing a checklist and become instinct.   Additional Resources Attend Unleashing Leaders University: https://unleashingleadersuniversity.com/curriculum Learn more about Unleashing Leaders: https://unleashingleaders.com/ Follow Unleashing Leaders on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/unleashingleaders Connect with Lee on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leeallenscott/ Follow Unleashing Leaders on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/UnleashingLeaders/ Follow Unleashing Leaders on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/unleashingleaders/   Key Takeaways: Feeling overloaded is a sign of trust and competence, not a warning sign of failure. Notice the physical tell (tight chest, racing heart) before it drives a bad decision. First in, first out, last in, first out, and "whoever screams loudest" all fail as standalone strategies. Declaring everything priority one pushes the decision to your team, and they'll default to whatever seems easiest, leaving the hard stuff undone. Sort every ask into required, desired, or optional before you commit to it. When priorities truly tie, fall back on real tiebreakers like prior commitment and relative project priority. With practice, questions like "Am I required?" and "What is the impact?" stop needing a checklist and become instinct.  

Hexa Away did something genuinely clever — it took the arrows/sort mechanic everyone's chasing and rebuilt it on a hexagonal 3D grid, which turns out to be a better fit than flat arrows ever were. Then it scaled hard on AppLovin, hit a wall, and downscaled almost completely. It's a great game and a UA cautionary tale in one.We break down Hexa Away - a hexagonal-grid sort puzzler from the CyberAgent/GooDroid studio (yes, the Uma Musume people). They cover why the hexagonal grid is a genuinely better canvas for the arrows mechanic (escape routes, tangible blockers, room for more mechanics), the standard-but-solid IAP puzzler feature set, and the numbers that make it significant: it's now the sixth-biggest sort puzzler by revenue (behind Pixel Flow, Magic Sort, Yarn Loop, Marble Sort, and Block Out), doing ~$90K/day IAP plus ~$42K/day in ads at peak, with 500K+ DAU on pristine US-heavy traffic. But the real lesson is the UA story: they went ~90% AppLovin, scaled to 800K DAU in April, then crashed back — because a ~4% day-30 retention simply can't support that level of scale, and once you burn through the AppLovin audience, the ROAS doesn't come back.The takeaway: a great core and a clever mechanic aren't enough. Concentration risk on one channel plus weak retention is how you overshoot your UA and torch your cash.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━⏱️ TIMESTAMPS00:00 Why Hexa Away is significant — the 6th-biggest sort puzzler03:40 Arrows on a hexagonal grid — "hexagons are the bestagons"07:40 The blocker framework and monetizing on difficulty11:20 The numbers — $90K/day, 500K DAU, pristine US traffic12:20 The ad-revenue breakdown — ~$42K/day, 36% of total13:30 Four new creatives, ~200 total, and the banner problem15:00 The AppLovin over-scale — 800K DAU then the crash18:30 The 4% day-30 retention that explains everythingPotensus is a premium ad network built by people who've actually been on both sides of this industry - game publishers, agencies, and successful exits. They get it.Here's the thing - Potensus has direct deals with Amazon, Apple, Coca-Cola, Vodafone. Not programmatic. Direct. Those budgets land in your game at premium CPMs, no middleman tax.And they handle everything with their in-house team. PLUS they're partnered with PlayableMaker WINK WINK - so they'll take a brand's YouTube video or a static banner and actually turn it into a playable ad or rewarded video. Proper interactive format, built for gaming inventory. Brands getting a gaming-native creative, publishers getting higher CPMs. Everyone wins.Head to potensus.com to get started or check their creative portfolio here https://vimeo.com/showcase/12093300?fl=so&fe=fs---------------------------------------This is no BS gaming podcast 2.5 gamers session. Sharing actionable insights, dropping knowledge from our day-to-day User Acquisition, Game Design, and Ad monetization jobs. We are definitely not discussing the latest industry news, but having so much fun! Let's not forget this is a 4 a.m. conference discussion vibe, so let's not take it too seriously.Panelists: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jakub Remia⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠r,⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Felix Braberg, Matej Lancaric⁠Join our slack channel here: https://join.slack.com/t/two-and-half-gamers/shared_invite/zt-3bckldvr8-8PXvzciMWdheOzED9hq0SA---------------------------------------Matej LancaricUser Acquisition & Creatives Consultant⁠https://lancaric.meFelix BrabergAd monetization consultant⁠https://www.felixbraberg.comJakub RemiarGame design consultant⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakubremiar---------------------------------------Please share the podcast with your industry friends, dogs & cats. Especially cats! They love it!Hit the Subscribe button on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple!Please share feedback and comments - matej@lancaric.me

The lost episode is back! ( Sort of ) After a broken audio file caused the original episode to disappear into the podcast abyss, the boys are here to give you the highlights and revisit the conversations you missed. Brian and Cory dive back into their discussion about AI in comedy — can artificial intelligence actually create great jokes, or is there something about the human experience that can't be replaced? Then Cory puts Brian on blast and calls out his decision to teach a comedy class. Is Brian passing on valuable knowledge, or has he officially become "that guy" telling everyone how to do comedy? The boys debate, disagree, and do what they do best — talk way too much about comedy. Episode 304 of the Wicked Funny Podcast is here!

Your 60-second money minute. Today's topic: Inflation Cooled In June. Sort Of Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This week is a fit check. Sort of ... This week is all about the ways that we choose to present ourselves to the world. Whether we are looking for affirmation or planning to go against societal expectations. Bring a hat by Sam Elkin Our first story was originally Performed as part of QueerStories live storytelling event in Mparntwe last year. Sam explores a space between gender affirming care and hair … or hair loss. Written and performed by Sam Elkin Special thanks to NTWF and 8CCC 102.1fm. You can hear more performances from the night by checking out the NTWF podcast. The Clippers by Mel Bakewell Sometimes hair as a social symbol is just a little too much to bear, and maybe its better to go against expectations and just chop it all off. Produced by Mel Bakewell Music: Myrian by Blue Dot Sessions The Subtle Art of Chill Guy Nicknames by Jay De Leon Lagman But it's not just all about who has hair and who doesn’t. Sometimes it's just the way you present yourself to the world. And the way the world lays claim to you in response with ancient art of nicknames. You know the whole Romeo-and-Juliet-whats-in-a-name thing? Well for Jay a name, or at least a nickname, can be everything. Writer, illustrator: Jay De Leon Lagman @saturjaysunjay Sound Designer: Matthew Forbes That story was recorded live as part of an All The Best x Read To Me live storytelling event, ExtraOrdinary Tales in 2025, supported by the City of Sydney. All the Best Credits Host: Gabriella Accaria Executive Producer: Melanie Bakewell Programming & Community Coordinator: Catarina Fraga Matos Production Manager: Kwame Slusher Digital Trainee: Imogen Brosnan Mixed & Compiled: Emma Higgins Theme Music composed by Shining Bird Special shout-out to all our volunteers See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What if the future of higher education depends less on old systems and more on curiosity? I speak with John Frost, vice president of marketing and enrollment management at Doane University, about his path from basketball dreams and local news to student recruitment and educational leadership. John shares how storytelling, liberal arts education, strong relationships, and applied learning can turn natural talent into career skills. We also explore AI in education, college costs, financial aid, trade schools, and why higher education is changing rather than fading away. You will find a hopeful look at student success, lifelong learning, and the human support that helps people become unstoppable. Highlights: 04:58 - Why student opportunity matters more than campus image. 12:22 - How one conversation can change a student's future. 16:51 - Why respectful disagreement keeps curiosity alive. 24:55 - How applying knowledge creates real impact. 36:28 - Why AI should support learning, not replace it. 55:12 - How higher education will keep shaping future leaders. About the Guest: How one storyteller–turned–strategist is transforming the way America thinks about college. Meet JOHN FROST, the enrollment innovator on a mission to rebuild faith in higher education. As Vice President of Enrollment Management and Marketing at Doane University, a four-year public university, John is rewriting the playbook on how colleges attract, inspire, and serve the next generation of learners. Before he led campuses, John led with a camera, as a reporter, editor, and photojournalist covering real human stories that shaped communities. That same instinct for truth and connection now drives his work in education, where he helps institutions move beyond numbers and focus on what really matters: student purpose and success. With nearly two decades of experience across Metropolitan Community College, Southern Illinois University Carbondale, and Doane University, John has guided organizations through shifting markets, declining enrollments, and cultural change. His leadership has sparked bold conversations around student engagement, workforce readiness, and the evolving value of a college degree. John's voice bridges two worlds, media and academia, helping audiences understand not just why college is changing, but how it can thrive again. Ways to connect with John**:** - Facebook link: https://www.facebook.com/DoaneUniversity/ - Instagram link: https://www.instagram.com/doaneuniversity/ - LinkedIn link: linkedin.com/school/doane-university/ - X link: https://x.com/DoaneUniversity - YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/user/DoaneCollegeNE - Website link: https://www.doane.edu/ About the Host: Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog. Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards. https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/ Thanks for listening! Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below! Subscribe to the podcast If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can subscribe in your favorite podcast app. You can also support our podcast through our tip jar https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/unstoppable-mindset . Leave us an Apple Podcasts review Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts. Transcription Notes: Michael Hingson  00:04 What if the biggest thing holding you back isn't what's in front of you, but rather what you believe? Welcome to Unstoppable Mindset, where inclusion, diversity, and the unexpected meet. I'm your host, Michael Hingston, speaker, author, and advocate for inclusion and possibilities. This podcast explores how the beliefs we carry shape the way we live, lead, and connect with others. Each week, I talk with people who challenge assumptions, face adversity head-on, and show what's possible when we choose curiosity over fear. Together, we focus on mindset, resilience, and the small shifts that lead to meaningful change. Let's get started. Well, hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of Unstoppable Mindset. Today we're going to have a lot of fun. Today we're going to talk to John Frost. John is an interesting kind of guy. He's a higher education strategist. He is the vice president of marketing and enrollment management at Doane University in Crete, Nebraska. And before we started, we were just talking about the weather. We're recording this on the 10th of March, and he said he's in the about 60. We're 60-eight, going up to 70-three here, so maybe spring is finally coming. We can hope. I remember once when we were still living in New Jersey. It was May of 2001. We thought the spring was here, and we got a bunch of snow one afternoon or one evening in New Jersey. Yeah. Well, the next morning, so where I I took the dogs out when we lived in New Jersey, we had to I had to actually walk down a hill, and the next morning, some of the snow started to melt, and that night the whole hillside was as slick as glass because the ice there the snow froze, so it was ice. John Frost  02:10 Oh my goodness! Michael Hingson  02:12 And so what I did was not walk down the hill. I went. I put my snow boots on, and I and I made it down once and came back up. I said I'm not doing that anymore. I had a long flex leash, and I put the long leash on each dog separately, and let them go down the hill. And I stayed at the top to make sure that they didn't slide. John Frost  02:30 It sounds, hey, I like that. It sounds like you're a great strategic person because you came up with a game plan to allow them to go down up and down the hill. Michael Hingson  02:39 Yeah, I certainly wasn't going to go down that hill with him anymore because that was too scary. John Frost  02:43 Yeah, that's dangerous. Michael Hingson  02:45 Well, John, welcome to Unstoppable Mindset. We're glad you're John Frost  02:49 here. Hey, I'm happy to be here, and thank you for allowing me to be on your platform and taking time out of your day. And I'm looking forward to the great discussion that we're going to have. Michael Hingson  02:57 Well, and taking the time out of your day, we appreciate that too. So it's it's 2o'clock there. So by the time we're done, it's going to be time for the afternoon coffee break. John Frost  03:06 Hey, hey, good call, great call. Michael Hingson  03:10 Well, tell us kind of about the early chon growing up. Yeah, that's fun to start there. John Frost  03:15 Yeah, that's a great question. So one of the things I always like to share with people is that when I was a young man, I wasn't planning to go to college to work at a college. That wasn't the game plan. If anything, just like a lot of young, especially young boys growing up in North Carolina, we want to grow up and play basketball. And I thought I was going to go to the NBA, and we all know the greatest basketball player of all time is Michael Jordan. He's from North Carolina, so we all dreamed of that dream. But you know, I played sports growing up. I was fortunate enough to to get an athletic scholarship to go to college, and went to college. Didn't really know exactly what I was going to do already. Well, I finished at Wayne State College, and got my bachelor's degree there. But you know, while I was there, I figured out like, okay, I'm not going to the NBA. What I'm going to do, and so somebody, somebody was like, hey, you know, John, you don't mind, you know, connecting with people, having conversations. You don't, you're not, you're not afraid to talk in public. Maybe you should think about going into broadcasting, and so that's what I started to study. And so I was fortunate enough to get a communications degree, and then I was from that point I went and worked in local news for about four years. So I was able to be a reporter and a photojournalist and an editor, and was able to connect with a lot of people and tell a lot of stories, but the unique thing about doing news is that the only opportunity you have with the story is just to share it. Right? You can't really impact it. And so, one of the things that I appreciate about higher education is that when I transitioned to higher education after four years in local news, I realized. I had the ability to impact the story, so it wasn't just about sharing the story of the individuals that I serve. It was about making their stories a little bit better through education, and so I started my career in higher education as a recruiter, worked my way up, worked at you know for profits and private schools and state schools, colleges and universities, and and now I'm fortunate enough to be the vice president at Doan University, and I've been here for about three years. So that's kind of like a little snapshot of my story. Michael Hingson  05:28 How long were you in broadcasting? John Frost  05:30 For about four years. About four years, Michael Hingson  05:33 sir. And then you went to the schools, huh? John Frost  05:35 Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Michael Hingson  05:36 Wow. So you went. So where did you where did you start, and what kind of colleges did you did you go to all over the country, or what? John Frost  05:46 Yeah. So what's funny is when I started my career in higher education, I started out as a recruiter, and I was working for a for-profit institution. And here's a unique thing: the school that I worked at was in a strip mall, so you could go to Sears and look at a lawnmower, and you can go to Verizon and get a phone, and you can go to the Slurpee shop and get you a slushie, and then you come talk to me about about college. And one of the things that taught me about working at a college in a strip mall was you really had to get to understand the students, and it wasn't about all the glitz and glamor that you may think about a traditional college. It was still about the opportunity. It was about the dream, and that's what I learned when I first started out as a recruiter: is being able to help somebody to make their dream into a reality and having those great conversations. Michael Hingson  06:38 How did you learn the art of storytelling? What what is it that that caused that to happen? Because it sounds like it's kind of natural for you, but did you learn it growing up or what? John Frost  06:49 Well, you know what? That's a great question. One of the things I like to share with people is the art of dialog, right? Just discussion, engagement, and growing up as a kid in North Carolina, we didn't have too much, but we always was able to run our mouths. Right, we was always able to talk. We was always able to talk about what we did or what we didn't do because, as you know, back in the day, we didn't have camera phones. We didn't. We didn't have all this technology that captured everything that we did. And so, when you would when you would you know get somebody's attention, you had to hold it. You couldn't just say, "Hey, I played basketball and it was fun. It would be like, "Hey, I played basketball and I did this move, and this guy tried to guard me, and I blocked the shot and I did this. Or even if you went down the street because your mom wanted you to go get a you know a gallon of milk or a carton of eggs, that was the story behind it because you got chased by a dog and and or whatever. So I think the the the art of storytelling is just something that's natural to the human spirit. But then also not just talking about your story, but being able to understand somebody else's and and being able to connect with them because if you talk to people long enough, you'll find a connection. Michael Hingson  08:02 Yeah, did did your parents encourage storytelling, or did they think about that at all? John Frost  08:07 You know, that's a great question. My dad was probably one of the greatest storytellers I ever met. He was, I mean, the stories that he would tell me about how he grew up, the things that he experienced. I mean, even though he may not had a photo, even though he may not have had like video, he can get you to where he was at, and you could and you could see it. I mean, my dad was a was a guy that could tell you a story, and he'll tell you about hey, because he grew up around a bakery, and he would tell you how the bread smelled. So no matter what the story meant, he would always start off well. You know, I grew up by a bakery, and this is what it smelled like. And and and you would get yourself to that point. And so I would say, if I if if my ability to tell the story, I would say I got that from my dad. Michael Hingson  08:54 Yeah. So it it was something that you learned. Now, are there other kids in your family, or just you? John Frost  09:00 No. So I'm fortunate enough to have. I'm the youngest out of four, so I have an older brother. I had an older sister, and I have another older sister. But unfortunately, she passed away probably like 16 years ago. So, yep. But so it's just three of us now. But but yeah, you know, I was the youngest, so I was the one that's always causing trouble. Michael Hingson  09:24 Well, gives you something to do in your free time. Yeah, exactly. Did did the other two also grow up to tell stories and and appreciate John Frost  09:35 it? Yeah, they was they grew up to tell stories. They couldn't tell them as good as I could, though. But no, my brother he he spent 25 years in the military in the Air Force, and was a Persian linguist, and so he has some really cool stories about his travels in the military. He still works for the military right now as a civilian, and my sister. She works in behavior science. She helps with social work and things like that. And my oldest sister, she helped run her own business before she passed away. Michael Hingson  10:10 Now you were in the military for 24 years. John Frost  10:12 No, my my brother. My brother was okay. I wasn't Michael Hingson  10:15 sure. Okay, great. Yeah, my brother. That makes more sense. Time. Yeah, yeah. No, John Frost  10:18 no. He he decided to take that route. I didn't. Michael Hingson  10:20 Cool. Well, but you're going to claim credit for being the best of the three in storytelling. John Frost  10:26 Absolutely. There you go. Michael Hingson  10:29 And and how would they react if they heard us talking about that? John Frost  10:32 It don't matter. They're not on the call, so it's all good. Michael Hingson  10:37 Good point. Can't can't argue with that. So you. you, so you were in broadcasting for four years, and then you went into to different things in higher education. Why did you end up going into higher education? You know, why didn't you continue in broadcasting, or what happened? John Frost  10:57 Well, you know, I love broadcasting. Don't get me wrong, and it was it was. But I always say broadcasting is a is a very unique career path. You always running and gunning, and I worked here in Lincoln, Nebraska. So you know you doing snow stories, you doing Husker football, you doing things about the budget, things about whatever the government the governor is saying, and at some point, I know for me personally, it was a guy that I ran into who who done what I did when I was in news for 30 years, and one of the things that he had shared with me was don't get jaded, don't go to a story and it's just another story. Don't forget the the human approach. Don't forget the people that you're talking about. And he said the mistake that he made was again he did this for 30 years. He said he he got he stayed in the business too long, that it was just another day. It was just a job. And when he shared it with me, that made me have a lot of time for reflection and thinking about okay, so what is it that I really want to do? Even though I love the broadcasting field, it was always on the go, which I loved to do. I said, "Is there something else for me to to do? And I didn't know anything about higher education, you know. To be honest with you, sir, I did not. Other than I went to college, that's about good as it was. I didn't understand the business. Yeah, yeah. I didn't know the business of higher education and things like that. But anyway, you know, I remember back in the day, I just was curious and looking at some different options, and I happened to apply for a recruiter job. And when I went in for the interview, they said, "Hey, you know, your job is to have conversations with people and try to get them enrolled in school. I was like, "Well, that's simple enough. I don't have to be out in the cold, you know, covering snow stories anymore. And I'm from North Carolina, so I don't have to worry about covering Husker football no more. And then, you know, I get to really make an impact. So that's all it was. It was just, you know, I was still a young man. I was still looking to find my way, and I was fortunate to find higher education. Michael Hingson  13:04 So, when you did recruiting, what what's a favorite story and success that you had at recruiting? John Frost  13:10 Oh, thank you! I love when people ask me this question. So, I always share in my colleague Andrew's in the room with me, helping me do this podcast, and he's probably heard this story like 13,000 times, but you know, Michael, the best story that I like to share is the story when I was a first, and I started out as a recruiter, not really knowing what I was doing. But I had a conversation with a young lady. She was a single mom, and she was a single mom, and we went through the whole process of talking about her goals and her dreams and how we can help, but then as we was kind of finishing up, you know, kind of getting towards the end of the process of the conversation, started getting teary-eyed, and so my first thing is like, oh my goodness, what's going on? Why is she getting teary-eyed? Like, what did I say? What did I do wrong? And then you know, I paused there, and she looked at me, and she said, "You know, you're the first person ever tell me that I can accomplish this goal. You're the first person ever tell me I can do this. And right then and there, sir, that's when I realized what the opportunity I had in front of me is that she went on to get her degree and went and get a master's degree, but with whatever was going on in her life, that was a that was a game changer, and I was happy and fortunate enough to be a part of that. And so that's when I realized what I get to do for recruitment, and I never forgot about that. And and when people ask about why we're successful in doing the things that we're doing, I think you never forget that that it's not just a job. It's an honor. It's a privilege to get to change people's lives through education. Michael Hingson  14:47 You know, going back to what your your friend in the the media for 30 years said, I I agree with that. I have been a speaker now for 24 years, and my belief is it's it's. Never about me. It's about what I can do to be involved and enhance what goes on at an event where I'm invited to come and speak. And I I spend time asking the event organizers what kind of messaging do you want? What can I do? How can I best be of of help to you in making this event as successful as possible because I know there are so many speakers who think it's all about them and and it's not it's it certainly isn't for me so I hear what you say about him saying don't ever let yourself get jaded because that I can see how it could happen, but but I've always just believed that's that's not the way to go. You know, we've got a lot of things going on in the media, and in in our country today, and I talk to so many people who say I don't even watch the news anymore because it just upsets me and so on, and and I say, look, one of my basic philosophies is: don't worry about what you can't control. Focus on what you can. That doesn't mean you're not aware of the other stuff going on, but you don't have to let it affect you because you're not going to be in a position to really control it. Actually, you can once every four years, and that's at the ballot box. But John Frost  16:16 yeah, Michael Hingson  16:17 but but the bottom line is, you can you can still watch the news, but you can choose not to let it affect you and drive you crazy, and and I think that's so important. And you know, all of the all of the presidents lately have all done things that were productive, and they've done things that weren't productive. And you know, we can't. I I I love to say I'm an equal opportunity abuser, which is why we don't talk about politics much on the podcast. But you know I remember so much when the when Barack Obama was about to be inaugurated as president, and I was watching the Letterman show one night, and and Letterman was bemoaning the fact that it's going to get boring around here. We're not going to have a president to pick on anymore. We got a good guy coming in, so you know you knew where he stood. But you know we can't we can't tell the jokes. Well, you know that didn't last very long, but that's okay. But we have control over what we let affect us. It doesn't mean that we don't need to be aware, but we can control whether we allow it to affect us and bother us or not. And I think that's part of the whole art of conversation because we're in a world where people don't want to talk to each other. If you don't believe what I believe, then you're wrong, and and that's just not the way to do John Frost  17:39 it. No, I agree 100% and that and that's one of the things I like to tell people about the how important a college campus is. It's one of the few places still on the planet and in our country where you can agree to disagree, and it's okay. It's called class, right? Yeah. And so, and and you can have different conversations. You can you can share different perspective. The one thing about I think sometimes when we leave college that we forget is that we forget the ability to still be curious, right, and still want to learn and still want to understand. It's not about being right; it's about getting it right. And so I think that's one of the most powerful things that happens on a college campus is that you still are somewhat not forced, but you encourage to engage with people from different walks of life for different perspectives and things like that. So, really good point, and I think it just feeds into what we do here on a college campus. Michael Hingson  18:36 Do you find that that's true across colleges that people are still able to to participate in the art of conversation? John Frost  18:44 Yes, one of the things that one of the things that I've been fortunate enough to do, especially in my role, and I've done it at every school that I worked at, is that I like to sit in the classroom. I like to go to the classes to see what's going on, and I'm telling you, and it never fails. I mean, there's a lot of opinions and thoughts about the future and about the current generation and the future generations, but man, their thought patterns, their ability to kind of have different discussions and conversations. I mean, it's 10 times better than it was when I was that age because they do have access to so much information, so they they can construct a really great argument. One of the things that you see in the classroom is them being able to know how to learn how to deal with disagreement, and so that's been taking place. But yeah, I think the art of conversation is still profound, and I think it's still being encouraged in our classrooms by our faculty members. Michael Hingson  19:44 Isn't it great when you're in a classroom or you're either involved or observing a conversation, and someone just comes up with something incredibly-and I don't mean this in a bad way-but unusual or profound that you never thought of, and maybe the other people hadn't thought of. That's the whole issue with thought patterns, and people just come up with unique things that make you go off in different directions. John Frost  20:07 Yes, yes, it's a beautiful thing. Michael Hingson  20:09 Fun, yeah, John Frost  20:10 fun. It's a beautiful thing. That's what I say. It's a beautiful mind, right? I mean, it's it's that's what we should be doing, right? I always say we're not here to to do this on our own. We're here to to do it together in different ways by conversation, by engagement, by agreeing to disagreeing. Sometimes when somebody disagrees with you, it challenges you to think a little different to make sure what you're saying is: Do you really believe that, or you just saying what you think you know, right? And so I think it's a beautiful thing, Michael Hingson  20:40 and I think it's great when professors contribute to that and make you think in different directions, and you don't even need to know what what they actually think about whatever. Although I'm sure that that usually comes out as as time goes by. But still, if they make people think, then that's a good thing. John Frost  20:59 Yes, yes, Michael Hingson  21:01 it's so important to do, and I think it's important that that all of us do that. I know I had an academic advisor who spent lots of time with me. He was the dean of physical sciences, actually. So I'm not quite sure why I got Dr. Rhinos. He was the discoverer of the neutrino, but I did, and and he he and I had a lot of interesting conversations, and I hope I challenged him too. But he certainly challenged me in terms of some of the ways that that I thought about things, and sometimes we agreed, and sometimes we didn't necessarily agree. But what a what a neat guy, and and it's so great to have people that that basically are in their own way philosophers in whatever they do. John Frost  21:47 Absolutely. Speaker 1  21:51 If you enjoy Unstoppable Mindset and would like to help us continue bringing these conversations to you each week, we've created a way for you to support the show, your contribution helps us cover production costs and continue sharing stories, insights, and ideas that inspire people to live with purpose and possibility. If supporting the podcast feels right for you, you'll find the link in the show notes. Thank you for being part of the Unstoppable Mindset Community. Michael Hingson  22:24 So, what did you do after recruiting? How long did you recruit, and what did you do after that? John Frost  22:30 Well, I mean, I was fortunate enough to to always get promoted and move up, but I'm always recruiting. I always tell people I'm always selling because we're always selling the opportunity of education. I don't, whatever role that I may have, if it's a director or if it's a assistant director or vice president, I feel like the most important role that I have is being an educational advocate. At the end of the day, I know a lot of people have their opinions about higher education or about education in general, but the one thing that I always challenge them with is that education is one of the still one of the real resources that still can change people's lives. It's it's still one of those things. People say, "Well, well, why should I do this and why should I do that? Because it works. You're looking at it. If I mean, if it wasn't for higher education, I probably wouldn't be here. I don't know what I would have done, but because of higher education, just like I mentioned at the beginning of our conversation, it provoked me to think differently about my own skill set beyond just athletics. It was about some of those soft skills, and and hey, John, you naturally don't mind conversating with people and and and talking. Like I didn't know you can get paid to talk. You know what I mean? Like I didn't know that was an option. That wasn't on the bingo card. So, but if it wasn't for education and having those conversations, as we as we talked about, I wouldn't have known that that was an option. And so, at the end of the day, I mean, I'm just a country kid from East Winston, North Carolina, who wanted to be a basketball player. Instead, I turned out to be a guy that's an educational advocate that probably did more in this role than I ever would have done by shooting a basketball. Michael Hingson  24:15 Couldn't get Michael Jordan to come and give you a few pointers, huh? John Frost  24:18 Nah, he he didn't have time for me. You know, maybe he can do that to my sons or somebody, but now he ain't have time for me. Michael Hingson  24:24 Well, you know, that's that's okay. You could have always you could have always gone off and tried to get Magic Johnson or Larry Bird. John Frost  24:31 Yeah, that's true. That's true. But I'm a Mike guy. I'm a Mike guy. Michael Hingson  24:34 Yeah, yeah, yeah, and whatever. That's that that works well. So you you've always been promoted. You said you've been at Doane for three years. Where were you before that? John Frost  24:47 Yeah, so I was fortunate enough to work at College of St. Mary, which is the the undergrad program was for all females, and the graduate program was inclusive of everybody. So I worked there for a few years, and then before. There, I was at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, in Illinois, and that was a great experience as well. And then several other places, like I said, I worked in community colleges, and and then also some private schools throughout the Midwest. And so, been a lot of different places, learned a lot. Every school is different, but they also the same. That's why I tell people because they're the same because they all are trying to do the same things and trying to help people get their educational credentials and opportunities. But they're different in how they go about it. They all have their own character. They all have their features and benefits, and they all have all have their own unique stories. And so, again, it it it ties into our discussion about stories because every person that walks one of those university halls are going to be able to have be part of that overall story of that university. Michael Hingson  26:01 I like one of the things that you said. You learned a lot. You you are always learning, and I think that's so important because the reality is you never know when a new nugget of knowledge will come and be profound and hit you right in the head, and you take it and run with it. But learning a lot is so important. John Frost  26:18 Yes, yes, and and I will piggyback on that is, you know, and something that I try to tell the people I serve and also my kids, you know, information is power. It's power, but information with application allows you to have impact, and so it's great to have the information, but if you're not applying it, then it's not going to be useful, right? Yeah. So even though we all are learners, once you learn something, the question would be, how will you use it moving forward? Michael Hingson  26:49 Yeah, and that's and that's an important part of it. It isn't enough to let it build up inside of you and have all this information if you're not doing something with it. What good John Frost  26:58 is it? Absolutely. Michael Hingson  27:00 And and information and knowledge changes over times. Things that maybe 30 and 40 years ago people studied are so commonplace today because there's so many new things that you know we we evolve. John Frost  27:14 Yes, yes. I always tell people, you know, 40 years ago they used to smoke in airplanes, right? Yeah. At some point, somebody figured out that wasn't a good idea because they got new information. Right. So I agree 100% to what you said. Michael Hingson  27:30 I think one of my best best examples of information is for years the movie Airplane wasn't shown on airplanes, and I flew on a flight once, and then they showed it. I was going, I can't believe it, but they're showing airplane on an airplane. That was great things people do, but but yeah, I hear what you're saying. Yeah, for for years people smoked on airplanes. They had a non-smoking section where I always sat, but still, it's great that there's not smoking. Although they still haven't totally done away with liquor on airplanes, and I've I've seen some people who've gotten pretty exposed to having a number of drinks on an airplane. I was on a flight with one guy. It was a morning flight, actually. We're flying from Ontario to Dallas, and I had gotten upgraded, so I was sitting next to this guy. He ordered a double vodka tonic, and he had nine of them. But by the time we got to Dallas, John Frost  28:26 oh wow! Michael Hingson  28:27 And I'm oh wow, my gosh! I don't know how he got off the plane, but he did. But I'm just, I guess the body adjusts. But I didn't even have one, you know. I'm whatever. Oh John Frost  28:39 my goodness! He must. He must be either either really excited or really nervous, one of the two. Michael Hingson  28:43 I don't know, one of those something, but it was pretty fascinating because he just kept ordering them, and and the other part about it was they kept bringing them. So, wow, yeah, ah, well, the world is a funny place. John Frost  28:58 It is. Michael Hingson  28:58 So tell me a little bit about Doane College, and and I know it's a liberal arts college. So tell me about that. But tell me about Doane. John Frost  29:05 Yeah, Doane University. Doane University. Michael Hingson  29:08 I said college. I'm sorry. John Frost  29:09 No, no worries, no worries. We've been around for 153 years. You don't. You don't Michael Hingson  29:14 sound that old. John Frost  29:15 That's a good one. And we have undergraduate programs. Have about 30-five undergraduate programs. Education was what was built on, was built on again educating the community, educating future leaders, and that's one of the things with our president of the university is that we build leaders. That's one of our mantras that we that we stand on. At the same time, we have opportunities for online, in person, hybrid. So we have a lot of different modalities. We also have graduate programs within business and education, leadership. In addition to that, we have Open Learning Academy. Which that that platform is built for students that may even go to other schools that are looking to take additional courses to get into medical school or some type of additional schooling, but they may not have the the right classes or skills yet, so they take those courses with Open Learning Academy, and we have a lot of non degree seeking opportunities, certifications. So Doane is just is one of those schools that's a leader in building the future. It's a leader in trying to think differently. It's it's a organization that's that's embracing the things that are changing in our society. We don't run from those things. We run we don't run from them. We run to them because we want to be the the leaders in making the world a better place, but also being able to solve problems, be able to have innovation and enhancement to the human experience, and that's what we do. So I can go on and on, but Darwin University is a wonderful place. We have the Crete campus here, which is our main campus, and then we also have class offerings in Lincoln, Nebraska, and also in the Omaha metro area. And then, as I mentioned, online. Michael Hingson  31:12 Where is Crete? John Frost  31:14 Crete is about 40-five minutes away from the state capital of Lincoln, Nebraska. Lincoln. Michael Hingson  31:19 Okay. John Frost  31:20 Yep, and it's about an hour away from the the largest city in Nebraska of Omaha. So that's where it's about at. So it's it's more on the eastern side of the state, but it's a great place to come and and get your education. Michael Hingson  31:35 So it's a liberal arts college. What does that mean exactly? John Frost  31:39 Oh, that's a great question. So the one of the things about the liberal arts is that it's a holistic view of the human experience, right? It's not just hey, I'm learning something just to learn it. It's not just focus on a physical or medical perspective. It's a overall leader, I would say, human experience, so you're not just going to come to school and focus on just your program. You're going to come to school here and get an education in the classroom and outside of the classroom. You're going to study some different things. You're going to do some worldly things. It's going to be hands-on. So the liberal arts is really big because we feel like that's what's missing. I mean, unfortunately, in higher education, sometimes people just want to get the degree and go on with their lives. We want to make sure you understand the degree that you have and how you can utilize it in a multiple of ways beyond just whatever the whatever the program was that you got your degree in. Michael Hingson  32:39 I had the pleasure last September 11th of speaking at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, and I had never actually heard of MCLA, but until they they reached out to me, but it was it was kind of fun and and very enjoyable. And people asked really good, well-rounded questions when we had some Q and A sessions, which I always really appreciate. It's it's good to really get people who are are thinking, and so it was a lot of fun. John Frost  33:06 Awesome, yeah, that sounds great. Michael Hingson  33:08 Yeah, they wanted to do something around September 11th, and we did. So John Frost  33:13 yes, Michael Hingson  33:13 I I can't complain about that at all. It was um a it was a little bit of a challenge to get to, because it was the the nearest airport is Albany, and it was like, well, about an well an hour hour and 20 minutes away. But but we got there, so it worked out. So I I but I enjoy the the whole concept of what liberal arts colleges are about. I think it's important to deal with your degree, but I think it's important to also, as as you say, get a more rounded understanding and learn how to use the degree and learn to use the skills that you get. John Frost  33:48 Absolutely, absolutely. Michael Hingson  33:51 Which I think is so. What sets Doane apart? What makes Doane unique? Maybe from a lot of other places. John Frost  33:58 You know, I get that question a lot of what separates Don, and I think it's it's beholden to the individual that I'm talking to. The one thing about Don is I think that separates us from everybody else. It's not about telling somebody what they can't do. It's about figuring out how they can do it, and that's what Don does with us being a small liberal arts college. We're very hands-on, and I know a lot of colleges say that, but we're about relationships. We're not about being order takers. We're about being dream makers, and that's just as simple as I can make it. If you come to Doane University, you're not just coming just to go through the process and and go through the ups and downs of being a college student. We're trying to make sure that you understand what it is that. Because here's the thing: majority of the students that start sometimes don't know exactly what they want to do. I mean, we have a lot of students that start college and they're undecided, and so what. We like to make sure that we do is build that relationship, understand that particular student, and then come up with a game plan to get them to where they want to be. And I feel like that's what we do. We're not just going to say, "Hey, I'm interested in criminal justice, or "I'm interested in nursing, or "and we just say you go, yeah, go ahead. We have that good luck. God bless. We're going to say, hey, you know what? Tell me more about that. Why are you interested in in nursing? And again, one of the things I used to always use when people say they're interested in nursing, I'll ask these three questions. I ask these three questions. First question: Are you afraid of blood? Right. Michael Hingson  35:35 Good point. John Frost  35:36 Second question: What would you do if I vomited right now? Would you be the person that run, or would you be the person that help? And the last question: How do you feel being on your feet for 12 hours a day? Michael Hingson  35:46 Yeah, John Frost  35:47 right. So by the time I get through those questions, I kind of have a good understanding exactly if they are want to be a nurse or not. But then the follow-up question, which is the most important question, Michael, is tell me why do you want to be a nurse? Well, I want to help people, and so, granted, sometimes just like I mentioned about my story, sometimes you're limited on what your options are. So even though somebody wanted to be a nurse because they want to help people, but they may not be a good fit. However, we can show them, hey, there's a variety of ways that you can help people. It may not be nursing, but here's some other options that we can look into, and that's what separate us. That's what we do. We have a conversation, and we don't rush that conversation. It's just like what we're doing right now. We get to know each other, and we get to help. For by the time they walk across that stage, they're excited about that degree they have in their hand. Michael Hingson  36:37 That's great. I every every year I I just always make it a habit to get a physical, and there usually blood draws as part of it. And it's so fun to go in and when I sit down and they're getting the needle and everything ready to do the blood test, I say, now I just have to ask, what are you going to do if I can't stand the sight of blood? I've had a couple who fall into the trap, and then they finally figure out. Oh, this guy's blind. What's he talking about? Oh gosh. But you know, I guess I'd probably be a good nurse. I can I can answer those three questions. But you know, things things happen, and you know, you got to do what you got to do. Well, absolutely. So right now, higher education, like I think so many things are, is going through some some major changes. We're seeing so many technological advances. So higher education is being challenged to adapt faster because so many things are happening. We haven't even talked about AI, but how is Doane responding to all the the new and sometimes innovative ways of of dealing with education and and helping students progress. John Frost  37:51 Yeah, it's just like I mentioned. We embracing all the new changes. I mean, one of the things that Doan is doing is really embracing AI, looking out, looking at how do you teach the future about AI? How do you utilize it? How do you harness it in a way that it makes it something that it's a resource? It's not a shortcut, and and and use it as a prompt to again, as we talked about earlier, to to create curiosity, and it's just like I mentioned before, you know, yeah. There's conversations about higher education, but as I mentioned, I would put higher education up against any other industry about how it changed society. Like I said, it works; it changes people's lives. You have people that come from all over the world to get a college education, right? Because they know it's something that they need to have to be able to move forward in their life, and also to amplify and enhance their abilities that they have. The one thing that I say about college is that it takes those natural talents and make it into a marketable skill set, and so that's what we're doing with the rhetoric and the conversation about higher education, is it worth it? Should people still do it? The one thing that I've always said is like maybe you may not be the student that starts college right out of high school, but at some point in time, you're going to have to get some additional training. At some point in time you're going to have to go get some additional post-secondary education just to be able to progress in life, because as we all said, you know, with AI, different things with technology, different ways of thoughts, being able to work with different people-that that's what a college does, and and that's what you are investing in. That's probably going to be one of the best investments that you're going to have in your life. Michael Hingson  39:40 Do you find that there are some people who still do, or who just do treat AI as as a shortcut and try to use it to circumvent doing the real work that they need to do? John Frost  39:53 Absolutely, but I think that tells more about that person than AI. Yeah. Right. Michael Hingson  39:57 Oh, I agree. I agree. One of one of. My favorite comments about AI is back in I think it was 2022 around Christmas time. I was at a family gathering and there were a couple people there who were complaining about AI, and then teachers are so frustrated because students just write their papers using AI and you don't know that they're learning anything and. and I I popped up and I said, "You're approaching this all wrong. Let if a student wants to use AI to write their paper, let them write their paper. But what the teacher should do is collect all the papers and then take one period and call each student up to the front of the class, right in front of everybody, and give them a minute to defend their paper. John Frost  40:44 Yes, without the paper, Michael Hingson  40:46 you know either they know it or they don't, and you're going to find out very quickly who really did the work and and who didn't, and people who didn't are going to catch on pretty quickly that that doesn't work. John Frost  40:57 Yes, and isn't it funny that when you think about education, when you think about the philosophers from back in the day, you know you had some philosophers who thought writing was the wrong thing to do, right? Because they they they they would get up and just have these lone soliloquies about what they know and and challenge things. So I think it's funny that with AI allowing us to write, it's going to make us be more verbal and have to articulate our stance and perspectives on things a little bit more. So I think it's fascinating how there's a full circle approach because when you first start thinking about education and those things, it wasn't about writing long solitarys about things. It was about being able to get up and and articulate it, and so I think to your point, I think that's what is going to somewhat force us to do is people be able to get up and to defend what they're sharing with other people. Michael Hingson  41:54 Yeah, and if they're and if they're smart, they'll do it right. Yes, I've I've used AI in writing articles. I'll I'll even ask it several times to write an article about something, and then I read through them. And when I find an idea or something that I think is great, I'll incorporate it into what I write Speaker 2  42:11 to to Michael Hingson  42:12 create the article. Well, I think AI is a great tool as far as it goes, but it is a tool. Yes, and it's never going to be as smart as I am, John Frost  42:21 no, and I don't mean Michael Hingson  42:22 that in an egotistical way. It just isn't. John Frost  42:24 No, and AI can only do what we teach it, right? Michael Hingson  42:27 Right. John Frost  42:27 I mean that's the thing. And and what's fascinating is that if you look at electricity, electricity was criticized when it first came out. You know what is this going to do? When you looked at the news, well, there was that Michael Hingson  42:39 that dumb guy who sent his kite up in the air and finally shocked himself. Yeah, exactly, John Frost  42:43 Benjamin Franklin. Yeah, so I mean, throughout history, every new thing has been challenged, and it has been told that it was the beginning of the end of the world. And but you know, 1000s years later, we're still here. Michael Hingson  42:55 Yeah, but as we all know, the Earth is flat. There is still a flat Earth society out there, and they come up with pretty creative things to try to convince people the world is flat. So there you go. Yes. Ah, well, but you know, I think it's a great tool, and people will find ways to use it and use it effectively, and that's what should happen. What about higher education in general, why is, to some degree, it declining, and how do we deal with that? John Frost  43:26 And that's a great question. I'm not sure when people say that. I'm not sure if higher education is declining. I just think people are, aren't doing the normal trend of just coming to higher education straight out of high school. I think that's where the. I think most people are doing education. They're just doing it a different way. I mean, are people going to trade schools? Yes, but everybody's not going to be able to be a plumber or electrician or anything like that. I think it's not declining. I just think it's changing. To be honest with you, I just think people are looking at it from a different perspective and utilizing it, and and that's what it should do. I mean, it should not stay the same forever. And so that's why I'm fortunate enough to be in this industry because I get to be part of that conversation and process of what it's going to look like for my kids, what it's going to look like for my grandkids. To be honest, if we're doing the same things they did when I was in college, we're doing something wrong. Yeah. And so I think it's changing. I think humans are changing, and I think that's what's so exciting about what's happening in higher education right now. Michael Hingson  44:28 One of the big problems, of course, though, with higher education, and I'm I'm assuming I may be wrong, but more now than somewhat in the past is is the cost. It's getting more and more expensive to do, and I don't know whether that's a relative thing or an absolute percentage-wise. You can prove that it's more expensive, but still, how do you deal with with the people who say it's just so much more expensive to go? John Frost  44:51 Yeah, no, that's a great one. And and I think it depends on what are you looking for, right? I mean, everybody is. Looking to go to X Y Z University. I never Michael Hingson  45:03 go to X Y Z anyway. John Frost  45:05 I mean X Y Z because A B C is probably better. Yeah, exactly. But the the thing is, is understanding what is your. It's just like anything. It's an investment, and if it's an investment, it's what is your financial ability to to work towards that investment, and that again goes back to our conversations with the students that we serve, is them understanding what does it cost to come to Doane University, what does it mean to invest in Doane University, and how does that return looks like once you're done here at Doan University? The one thing that I always would tell people, I can't guarantee anything, but what I can guarantee is that you're going to do a lot better with a degree than without it, because you're going to provide yourself an abundance of options that wouldn't be available if you did not have that degree. In which, because if you have those options, that's going to allow you to be able to create revenue for yourself, that then allows you to have additional options that wouldn't have been that you wouldn't have been to have if you didn't make that initial investment up front by investing in college. But like I said, with ever since I've been in this industry, the one thing that I've always stressed to the people that I serve is, you know, understanding your financial responsibility, understanding scholarships, understanding your ability to get scholarships, understanding financial aid, understanding grants, understanding there's a variety of ways that you can get support to support you to finance college, and so that's the main thing is being able to understand those options and knowing how to move forward with those. Michael Hingson  46:38 Do you think there are some people who are better off not going to a four-year college, or rather, let's just say higher education in general. They're more technical, and they should just do a trade school. Or do you think everyone should get a a full bachelor's degree at least in college? John Frost  46:56 Yeah, and as I mentioned, I think everybody deserves the opportunity for some post-secondary education. Not does everybody need to go to a four-year school or two-year school? No. If you put me in a trade school right now, I probably flunk out. That's just not my skill set, right? Me too. Yeah. So, but I do. That's one of the Michael Hingson  47:14 reasons I never go to X, Y, Z. But yeah, John Frost  47:16 you may be more of an A, B, C. You know, yeah, and so, but that's the see, but that's the that's the uniqueness and the joy that I get in what I get to do, is that I get to help qualify what are some of the best options for the individual that I'm working with and serving, and and being able to tell them, hey, I think this is may maybe a better option, or have you thought about these particular things? Because no, I don't think everybody needs to go to Harvard or everybody needs to come to Doane. But I do think if you do decide to go to Doane, you're going to have a wonderful experience, and you're going to be able to do some really great things. But no, I think at the end of the day, is what's best fit for you, and being able to understand those post-secondary education options. Michael Hingson  48:06 How does college, or how should college, work to help people not only prepare for that first career, but for careers, especially those that perhaps we haven't even thought of yet? And how do you do that? John Frost  48:19 Yeah, I think it comes down to like we talked about the curiosity. What are you naturally good at? I think the one thing that I've seen that I guess I I wouldn't say I've been disappointed, but I've seen a decline, is that I don't I don't see a lot of people who are dreaming or curious about what they're good at. It's almost like they're waiting for somebody to tell them what it is. I don't know if that's an online thing or what have you. But even even when I was a recruiter and I would work with young people, they would say, "Well, I don't know what I want to do. And I always say, "I don't care what it is. Take the top 10 things that you dislike. I don't. It could be basketball. It can be writing. It can be candy. It can be whatever. It can be great shoes, whatever, and take the top 10 things. And we have this thing called Google. I don't know if you heard about it, but and just plug those things in there. Hey, I love candy. Is there a career in candy? I love you know looking at shoes and and understanding shoes. Is there a career? I mean the the the uniqueness of information that we have now than we had 30 years ago is amazing, and so I I think that's what I've I've seen a decline. And the way colleges can help prepare people is to to allow them to be courageous and being curious, and and Michael Hingson  49:44 oh, go ahead. No, John Frost  49:46 and I think that's the thing that we want to do. But go ahead, I'm sorry. Michael Hingson  49:48 Do you think that there's so much access to so many things online? You mentioned Google, but just the whole concept of smartphones and and everything else. Do you think that that's. Sort of helping people do less real dreaming and imagination because they just expect everything to be spelled out right in front of them. John Frost  50:09 And I think it's to the eye of the beholder. You know, smartphones are not good for dumb people, right? So, but I think smartphones for curious people are a powerful thing. I can honestly say, and this is kind of off topic, but I wouldn't consider myself a cook about 1012, years ago. But if it wasn't for the internet, if it wasn't for YouTube, I wouldn't have learned how to smoke meat and do barbecue, right? Yeah. Because that wasn't something I did when I was a kid. It wasn't something I was even thinking about, but because I had a curiosity and I and I love barbecuing and I love smoked meats and I love grilling and things like that, I I learned because of my smartphone how to do all those things, how to prep the meat and how to marinate things and how to be curious about recipes and how to develop flavor profiles and all those things that I did not know about. If it wasn't for the the advent of having a smartphone to just look it up, like, hey, how do you how do you make pulled pork? You know what I mean, and just taking it from there. So I think I think again, smartphones are not good for dumb people. I'm not saying people are dumb, but I think it's powerful for curious people. And as long as you're curious, I think it can be a really great asset for you if you utilize it right. Michael Hingson  51:31 And I think that's absolutely true. I think it all comes down again to curiosity. It's great to have a technology so that you can look things up and and satisfy your curiosity, but what we what we do need to do is to try to work as best we can at encouraging curiosity at all levels and encouraging more people to be curious. And that's where I think the real challenge is because people think you don't have to really be curious because you can look things up, they they don't get John Frost  52:03 it. Yes, no, I agree 100, and that's why I say it depends on the type of person you are, right? I mean, if I mean, I don't spend a lot of time on my phone if I don't have to, but when I am curious about certain things, I can go to it and learn more about it and say, "Oh, this is what I need to do. And but if you was a person that was going to cut a corner or do shortcuts, you was going to figure out a way to do that anyway. It's not the it's not the resources you Michael Hingson  52:29 right, and the the time is going to come when you're going to regret taking those shortcuts because you didn't really imagine very well. And I, I always regarded the internet, dark web notwithstanding, as as a as a treasure trove, yes. Of course, I'm I'm waiting for someone since the Department of Justice and the Attorney General back in I think 2022 said that the internet is a true place of business, and so it falls under the ADA, and all websites have to be accessible. I'm just waiting for somebody to go off and challenge one of the dark web sites. That's probably not accessible. I'm waiting for that to happen. Take that before a judge, you know. But but still, but I I think that the internet and and so many things and ChatGPT and all the other large language model technologies are great because they really give you the ability to exercise curiosity, and I think that's so fun. John Frost  53:32 Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Michael Hingson  53:34 So, what's an example that you can talk about? Let's say from Doane about how industry and the college have collaborated to help in terms of education and showing people what they can really do. John Frost  53:49 You know, that's a good question. It happens every day. It happens every day. It happens every day when the first day of school to the last day of graduation. You're looking at the the ultimate collaborative effort of maybe hundreds of people for that individual to walk across that stage. Even though it's one name on that degree, it might have taken 100 people to get them there, from the advisors, from the faculty members, from the friends that they meet, from the from the from the from the coaches, from all types of different people that that one individual encountered to keep them encouraged, to keep them going. Always tell people, especially being here in Nebraska, when you go to school in Nebraska, one day you're gonna have a class that's at 8o'clock in the morning, and you're gonna wake up, and you're gonna walk out there. You're gonna feel negative 10 degree weather, and you're gonna first thing you're gonna think about is I can go right back in and go lay back down. But it's that encouragement of your friends. It's the encouragement of the folks that that are behind you that's gonna tell you you can make it to class. You can make it to class, and that's all it takes. And so I think the the culmination of all those things is what it is that we do. I mean, when that individual walk across that stage and they see grandma or mama or daddy or whomever screaming their name and yelling and all that, they went to class. They didn't turn back around and go. They lay back down. They stood up, and that's why they walk across that stage. So that's the greatest example I can give you, because that's what Dome does. And like I said, we've been doing it for 153 years. So it's not going to be too many places. It's not going to be too many things where you're not going to see a Dome graduate that's doing great things, not necessarily just for themselves, but for the organizations that they serve and and the people that they serve, and then for the greater good of the world. Michael Hingson  55:42 I don't know. For me, I had classes almost every day at eight in the morning. But the other part about it was, if I had a schedule for whatever reason where I didn't have a class at eight in the morning, I felt funny. I was so used to having classes then. I didn't know what you know. I I I I I did figure out I could go study and I could do things and and did, but still I love those early morning classes. That was me. But yeah, I didn't like those John Frost  56:10 early morning classes. No, I didn't like them. Michael Hingson  56:12 You didn't like them, huh? No, that was when Michael Jordan was looking for you to do basketball stuff. Where were you? But yeah, I I hear you. Well, tell me what's next? What's next for the whole future of higher education? Where is it going, or what do you see happening in the future? John Frost  56:30 We're just going to get better. We're just going to get better. That's all. That's that's that's what's happening. I mean, the unique thing about any college campus is that you you have the future in your hands with the people, the people that's going to be running corporations, the people that's going to be finding cures for certain illnesses or things like that, the people that's going to be teaching the youth, future business people, politicians-they're on our campus and they're going to leave their mark because that's one thing that I've always said. I mean, it's not too many discoveries. It's not too many great things that's happening in our society that's not oriented with a college campus. And so the future is that a college campus is just. It may look different. It may feel different. We may do things a little different. But at the end of the day, it's still going to be part of our future. It's still going to be getting better. It's still going to be helping humanity. I always tell the folks that I serve that I don't care what title you have. The first title, the most important title is being a human, and so that's what the future of higher education is going to look like. It's just going to get better. Like I said, it's going to be different. I mean, you got to think when higher education first started. You know, women couldn't go to school, minorities couldn't go to school, and there were so many different things that you couldn't do. Now look at it. I mean, if you talk to the forefathers or the presidents of some of these universities, if you told them that that you and I would even be doing this, they'd be thinking they would throw you an insane asylum, right? That you'll be able to talk to somebody in California and you're in Nebraska, but this this is what this is what curiosity, this is what higher education provokes, Michael Hingson  58:10 as it should be. It's so cool, and I know it's only going to continue, and it will continue to get better. If people want to reach out to you and pick your brain, or just talk with you about Doan, or just talk with you about education, or whatever. How do they do that? John Frost  58:26 Yeah, of course. Feel free to email me at johnfrost@done.edu. So J J O H N dot frost frost at don d o a n e at.edu and then also follow us on social media. Just put us on any social media platform and put don.edu. You can find us, and then if you want to just connect with us, just look us up on our website doane.edu. That's our website. We'd love to learn more about you. If you're thinking about coming to college or looking more into lea

I greet you in Jesus' precious name! It is Tuesday morning, the 21st of July, 2026, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today. We start in the Book of Genesis 4:9:”Then the Lord said to Cain,” Where is your brother, Abel?” And he said, ”I do not know. Am I my brother's keeper?” Oh yes folks, indeed we are! We are responsible for each other. Let's look at Deuteronomy 22:1. The Lord says: “You shall not see your brother's ox or his sheep going astray, and hide yourself from them; you shall certainly bring them back to your brother.” You and I have a responsibility, first of all to God and then to our fellow man. If we see something is not right, we have an obligation to help him. If somebody has lost something precious and you find it, it is not a case of finders keepers, losers weepers. Remember, we used to say that when we were young? No, go and find out who it belongs to and return it because this is what God requires of us.I remember many years ago, we had a wonderful meeting on the farm. We had many, many men coming to Shalom. I had a beautiful maize crop standing, and the maize was just about ready for reaping. It was nice and golden in colour, and one of the men who came to the meeting decided he was going to take home a souvenir, so he took one of my maize cobs, a full maize cob, and he put it in his vehicle, and when it was over, it was a wonderful meeting we had, he went home with that cob.Do you know, many years later, I am talking maybe 20 years later, I got this phone call, and he is probably listening to this message - and bless you, my dear friend - he said “I took it and it wasn't mine and it has been bugging me ever since”. And he sent back that maize cob in a package to me on the farm. Obviously, I would have said to him, “Keep it, man. What is one mealie cob?” But there is a principle. It was not his, and he knew it, and so he returned it, and that brings peace to you.Sometimes you might be a Comrades runner and a stone gets into your shoe. The best thing is to stop immediately. Take the stone out and then you will be able to finish that race properly. If you don't, eventually that stone will eat away and you will have a massive blister and probably won't even be able to finish the race. Sort things out. If there is something that belongs to your brother, take it back to him so that you can have peace and joy in your heart.Until next time, Jesus bless you and have a wonderful day. Goodbye.

Keith explores how investors can build legacy wealth by owning productive teak timber and the land beneath it in Panama.  Mike Cobb, an international real estate developer with over 30 years of experience, explains why Panama's legal framework, economic stability, and U.S. dollar economy make it a compelling destination for first-time offshore investors.  They discuss the long-term return profile of teak, its resilience as a hard asset, and common mistakes to avoid when investing internationally, along with how a sawmill and vertical integration can enhance returns.  This discussion highlights how the strategy can diversify both geography and asset type while also opening doors to potential residency options abroad. Episode Page: GetRichEducation.com/615 For access to properties or free help with a GRE Investment Coach, start here: GREmarketplace.com GRE Free Investment Coaching: GREinvestmentcoach.com Get mortgage loans for investment property: RidgeLendingGroup.com or call 855-74-RIDGE  or e-mail: info@RidgeLendingGroup.com Invest with Freedom Family Investments.  For predictable 10-12% quarterly returns, visit FreedomFamilyInvestments.com/GRE or text  FAMILY to 66866  Unlock truly passive real estate income—visit flockhomes.com/GRE today to see if your properties qualify for a 721 exchange with Flock Homes. To get in the best physical, mental, and professional shape of your life, go to DanielThomasHind.com and apply for Daniel's intensive 1-on-1 coaching for burnt-out entrepreneurs and executives. Will you please leave a review for the show? I'd be grateful. Search "how to leave an Apple Podcasts review"  For advertising inquiries, visit: GetRichEducation.com/ad Best Financial Education: GetRichEducation.com Get our wealth-building newsletter free— GREletter.com  Our YouTube Channel: www.youtube.com/c/GetRichEducation Follow us on Instagram: @getricheducation Complete episode transcript:   Keith Weinhold  0:01   Welcome to GRE. I'm your host Keith Weinhold, talking about a legacy investment. You can profit from this real asset long term, and so can your heirs. It's real estate, but not housing. It's a diverse and more primitive use type. Today on Get Rich Education, you know. Mid South Homebuyers, that top Memphis turnkey provider. I learned that a secret weapon behind their explosive growth is more than just you buying their properties. It's an executive coach. For nine years now, their CEO Terry Kerr and his COO Pat Mix have worked privately with a coach who I've now learned from too, and he doesn't market himself online anywhere. After 12 years behind the scenes, that coach is now making himself available exclusively for GRE listeners. His name is Daniel Thomas Hind. If you're a hard-charging business owner or investor who wants to get in the best shape of your life, physically, mentally, and professionally, you can fill out an application for a free consult. This is private one-on-one coaching for those willing to go to uncommon lengths to achieve uncommon results. Thanks to Daniel, we've all become better leaders, better operators, and better men. It started by showing up for ourselves. Now it's your turn. Go to DanielThomashind.com. H-I-N-D. That's DanielThomashind.com, and sign up before spots fill.   Keith Weinhold  1:35   What if you got your mortgage loans the same place I get mine? You sure can at Ridge Lending Group NMLS 42056. They provided GRE listeners with more loans than anyone because Ridge specializes in investment property. They'll help you build a long-term plan for growing your real estate empire with leverage. Start your prequal and even chat directly with President Caeli Ridge while it's on your mind. Start at ridgelendinggroup.com. That's ridgelendinggroup.com.   Speaker 1  2:08   You're listening to the show that has created more financial freedom than nearly any show in the world. This is Get Rich Education.   Keith Weinhold  2:24   Welcome to GRE from Cherokee, North Carolina, to Cherokee, Panama, and across 188 nations worldwide. I'm your host Keith Weinhold. Welcome back to another Wealth Building Week. You are inside Get Rich Education, where financially free beats debt free. Today we're talking about a specific investment that is not residential real estate. In fact, it's a more primordial real estate type that predates housing. So therefore, it is lucid and intelligible. It's easy to understand. Sort of the opposite of more arcane investment like AI data centers or crypto mining. At a basic level, this makes it easy to understand, and there aren't any tenants to manage. It also does not pay you as often as monthly, though as you'll learn, there is income and appreciation is expected too. Now, if you invest outside your home country, you're probably going to want to be diligent and select a politically stable nation that also has an operator based in that region with a fantastic track record. It helps if they're close to the U.S. This small nation is close to the U.S. in both geographic proximity and economically. Their currency is even the U.S. dollar. They even share an electrical system with the U.S. with the same outlets and voltages. As you might be guessing, where I'm talking about, this nation also has a consumer culture somewhat similar to the U.S. with American restaurants and retailers and brands in our real estate world. What we find more important is how, like the U.S. this nation is a constitutional presidential republic, and both nations have these separate executive, legislative, and judicial branches, the three branches and elected presidents, in these competitive multi-party elections, and both America and this place have market-oriented economies that emphasize private property and private enterprise, banking and financial services, international commerce, logistics, ports, and aviation.   Keith Weinhold  4:49   Today, we're talking about the opportunity for you to own productive timber and the land beneath it, teak hardwood trees in Panama, a quarter-acre parcel. At a time with your name on the deed, that direct ownership is known as fee simple ownership. I have directly invested in Panama for about 11 years myself. Now, though teak might be able to survive in a climate like Hawaii, mere survival is not enough in the U.S. It is difficult to impossible to find anywhere that grows productive plantation teak. Here in the late 2020s decade, we've had bouts of El Nino or La Nina a lot of places in the world, and that has severely weakened some crop types. Other providers of different agricultural investments are failing, but not this teak. They're resilient, and we'll get into the physical properties of the teak. I'm going to ask today's distinguished guest about that. He and his business partners planted some select timber 27 years ago, and they've been offering teak hardware parcels to investors for that long, 27 years, and for about the last 10 years to GRE investors. Hundreds of you are participating now, but I'm going to wait to ask more about the physical teak product itself until later, because what's more important are the investment environment and the strength of the operator. So learn more about this and what the projected investment returns are, and just how much exactly does a quarter-acre parcel of teak cost? If you so choose, owning teak parcels also gives you the option of residency status in Panama, and you only need to spend two days there every two years in part of maintaining that status, they offer investor in-person tours of the teak plantations too because they're proud of what they do there. I expect a fascinating discussion with Mike, the teak company co-founder and CEO. This week's guest has become a friend since I met him about 10 years ago. He co-founded and is CEO of an international real estate development company. He's got active projects throughout Central America. He's been doing it for more than 30 years, so he's not a tinkerer and not trying out project concepts.   Keith Weinhold  7:26   And at this point, he's helped thousands of North Americans diversify their portfolios through international real estate ownership and residency planning, and even lifestyle investing. And if you've ever attended an investment conference on something like global diversification. You might have seen him speak there because he's such a frequent, recognized speaker and voice, and he's authored multiple books on real estate, financial freedom, expat living, and just unlocking a better lifestyle. Hey, welcome back onto the show, Mike Cobb.   Mike Cobb  7:59   Oh Keith, nice to be with you. And you're right. 10 years, we've enjoyed one another's company at many conferences. It's always great to be back with you virtually. I look forward to seeing you again personally one of these days as well. And yeah, thank you for the very kind words on the intro.   Keith Weinhold  8:14   Yeah, if I'm teetering on whether or not to attend a conference, I ask myself, is Mike going to be there? That's right.   Mike Cobb  8:20   We'll hang out,   Keith Weinhold  8:22   100% And you know, Mike, he's also an avid reader of GRE's "Don't Quit Your Daydream" newsletter. So then, clearly, he's even smarter than you've ever thought. You heard him on the show before, so you knew he was smart, but now he's even smarter than you ever knew since he's a reader. Tell us what you like about the newsletter.   Mike Cobb  8:40   You know, Keith. I gotta say, every issue that comes in, I read it. By the way, today's issue said read before Thursday, so you give me a couple days tomorrow at least to read it. Anyway, no, you know what? You are so powerfully succinct. The charts that you put in are wonderful. You were a geographer major, and and so spatial things are important. I also recognize. I love the charts. I love the graphs, and I hate to even say I love sort of the I hate to call it the trivial information, but you know enough data points that seem trivial when you put a theory around them actually become meaningful. And what you are able to do is you're able to connect dots that most people don't connect. That's the hallmark of genius, and I think you are a genius, by the way. And I think your newsletter shows that. And so, thanks for putting it out. Your readers are very, very fortunate to have you there, giving them the kinds of information that are super relevant in the marketplace at one level and on a specific level. But even more important, creating the theoretical constructs that allow them to understand the why of something's happening because you know if you understand the why of something you know it makes a lot more sense first of all but it also allows us to maybe forecast the next what coming down the pike and if we can be on the front edge of something or you know being able to look over the hill or around the bend that's. Powerful in the marketplace, and and you bring that power to your readers. Well done, man.   Keith Weinhold  10:04   Thanks. Yeah, it's not just what; it's why this matters. And that was an incredibly kind thing to say. I write every word of the letter myself, and you, the listener, you can get the letter free now@greletter.com I send it about weekly, and Mike, I know that U.S. investors, including some Get Rich Education followers, they've been increasingly looking offshore for one thing many perceive the political risk has palpably higher than it was a few years ago. So, just broadly, tell us more about what North American investors seem to be looking for.   Mike Cobb  10:42   Sure, I summed it up earlier today. I was talking with a conference organizer, and he was really giving me the hard sell on why I should come to his conference. And it's probably not a good fit. But I heard myself say it for the first time. What we really help folks do in certain spheres, but maybe in this sphere, is help people get a good night's sleep, you know, peace of mind, right? And when you've got the political turmoil, you wrote an article or a newsletter a couple weeks ago, and it was about inflation, the kinds of things that were happening, and it was so spot on. And I think your readers, and not just your readers, but people who are tuned into what's really happening from a political standpoint, a financial standpoint. There is no way you can print this much money. There's no way you can have these kinds of things going on all the time that create a huge run-up of debt, right? And it's not even the debt; it's the implications of the debt. What's going to happen next? How's this thing going to unwind, right? And so when you have all of this stuff going on. You have people who are really, really worried about their future. It's a financial future. I say there are two train wrecks. There's a train wreck of debt, which is what I just talked about, and there's a train wreck of freedom. And that train wreck of freedom is really, in some ways, a result of the train wreck of debt. But when you've got a train wreck or two train wrecks happening, we really have three choices. We can ride it out, right? Take the ride and go for the crash, right? We can do something about it, but we really have to do something about it before. I'm going to mix a metaphor here, but if you know a hurricane's coming in three or four days, you don't wait till the wind's blowing 150 miles an hour to put up the plywood, right? You get out there while the sun's still shining. You put up the plywood, and then when the hurricane hits, like you got plywood over the windows, and you can ride out the storm. And this is where I think so many people are today. They're recognizing this hurricane is coming. The problem is, is that I don't think people always know where to go get plywood, right? What do I do? How do I protect myself and my assets, right?   Mike Cobb  12:38   And what this conversation right here is about is here's one kind of plywood you can put up on your window and the diversification overseas the diversification internationally into a hard asset that is not really inflation proof because I'm not sure there is such a thing but largely inflation proof or a big a great hedge against inflation real stuff hard assets real estate timber commodity right this is. what so many people are now looking at, and then the other piece of it is you can layer in a residency, which starts to give you that political plan B. You've got an economic plan B, kind of the hedge against inflation, but you've got this residency component that gives you sort of a hedge against the political uncertainty, and 1000s of folks have moved in this direction. Several 100, I think it's about 600 folks now, have picked up the residency as part of their timber investment as well. So a lot of different things going on, but I think they do circle all the way back to this train wreck of debt and a train wreck of freedom, the political divisiveness kind of what's happening.   Keith Weinhold  13:40   Now, what if someone hasn't invested in a hard asset overseas before, Mike? I'm thinking some people might come ask you. You know, why would I do this? For example, I live in the United States, where we have a rule of law and stable, mature markets and high property ownership rights. So, why should I look to diversify internationally with hard assets,   Mike Cobb  14:01   yeah, I think there's a general answer, and then maybe a couple specific answers. Generally, you know, I would never bet against the U.S. the U.S. economy. We're the largest economy in the world. I would never bet against it, right? But I think that for prudence, we would all want to have at least another basket for a few of our eggs: 5% 10% 20% Pick. Pick a number that's comfortable, but have some of your investable net worth outside your home country. Like that's just prudent, right? Why would you have everything all in one basket? And so we see that as a general answer. Specifically, a country like Panama, where we do have artique plantations, they have public title escritora publica. It's fee simple title, but in the civil law, so it's called escritora publica. The rule of law is strong in Panama. And then the other thing about Panama that I absolutely love is you have the canal, and the canal provides both economic stability and political stability. On the economic side, it generates just. Under $5 billion a year of cash flow, year in year out, right? So just it's like an ATM machine for a country with a population of about 4 million people. Do the math on that; like that's a huge amount of money on a per capita basis, right?   Keith Weinhold  15:13   Narrow water passages have really been newsworthy for a long time now, too.   Mike Cobb  15:16   Well, they have, and just like the Strait of Hormuz, right? You know, people sometimes go. I hear it said, "Oh, the canal is a vital strategic U.S. interest. That is absolutely 100% correct. But if you're a country that produces any goods that ship, or you're a country that receives any goods by ship, that canal is a strategic interest to you, and by definition, that's every country in the world. Every country in the world wants that canal open and transiting, right? Because everybody either produces or receives or both, right? And so you've got the political stability element as well as the economic stability element. You've got the rule of law. Panama is a great, great place for that person who you mentioned who's never done an overseas investment, never gone offshore, right? What's an easy place to start? What's one of the safest places to start is Panama, and it's in this hemisphere too, so it's close. I mean, you can get there for three hours from Miami, three and a half hours from Houston. Flights all over to U.S. Canada. It's easy. So I think a lot of folks see Panama as a very, very easy way to make that first step overseas.   Keith Weinhold  16:25   I happen to know that you just flew in from Panama. You're in the United States today, but you're constantly going to Central America. You span time zones more often than almost anyone I know. You mentioned fee simple ownership in there. For those that don't know, I think of that as direct ownership, where you don't have some weird administrative government layer in there that can dilute your hard asset.   Mike Cobb  16:47   Right, you can own it in your own name, you can own it in a corporation, so it's easy to own it. But yeah, no layering, right? By the way, the Constitution treats owners who are Panamanian the same exact ways it treats all foreign owners, and actually, we do business all over Central America. The one thing that we look for is a a legal regime that protects foreigners and foreign investors the same as it does domestic. Panama does that.   Keith Weinhold  17:12   Yeah, so investing in hard asset in Panama is a bit like investing internationally with training wheels on, due to its close relationship with the United States bolstered by the Panama Canal, but yet if someone hasn't invested internationally first, there are still a few mistakes to avoid. Maybe things that one isn't aware of. Can you tell us more about that?    Mike Cobb  17:33   The biggest danger people have when they make their first foreign investment is what I call margarita madness, right? And a lot of times it happens. You're on vacation in Cancun. You're having the time of your life. You're you just went parasailing, whatever. You're walking down the beach, and some developer says, "Hey, come on up here and take a look at my condo project. You know, and we'll buy you dinner at Senior Frogs tonight. We'll give you a coupon or whatever, right?   Keith Weinhold  17:55   Right.   Mike Cobb  17:55   And a lot of people do that, and then later that night, that's Senior Frogs. They're celebrating the condo they just bought, right? I mean, it's not how we transact real estate in the U.S. and Canada. There's a due diligence process. There's a due diligence period. It takes weeks or months to transact on a property, not hours, right? And so the single biggest mistake is that, and the way that we really can resolve it. I mean, my book is all about this. In fact, you have a copy, and I think you've helped some of your your readers and listeners get copies as well. It's called "How to Buy Your Home Overseas and Get It Right the First Time, and it really boils down to three simple principles: buy what you see. Is it there? Right. Own community. Right. Make sure it's in a place where you have people around. Right? Because there are a lot of ghost towns out there, and then know the developer. Do your due diligence on the developer himself, right? So you've got these three principles, and if you follow those three principles, you could do a lot better. But I actually think there's even a better way, and it has to do with character. It has to do with us, and you know when we move to the developing world, anywhere outside of you know North America, Northern Europe, maybe Australia, New Zealand, right? We're moving from the land of seller beware, right? Think lemon laws, think Ralph Nader, think advocacy groups, you know, lots of laws and regulations that control the seller, to the world of buyer beware, where none of those laws exist, and so now you're on your own. And because we've been living and transacting our whole lives in a seller beware environment, in a bubble of protection, we're protected by the government, right? We think we are. We'll just say that anyway. But we're protected. We're in a bubble, and we move to the land of buyer beware.   Mike Cobb  19:38   The problem is we don't really know how to transact. We don't know the right questions to ask, and our single biggest advantage, our single biggest attribute or asset that we have, is actually humility, because we don't know what we don't know, and we have to forget what we think we know. Assumptions, right? We can't bring assumptions with us that hold true. Some do some. Don't right. If we approach a transaction overseas with humility, there are no dumb questions. I'm going to ask every question I can think of. I'm going to do as much research as I can within a limited period of time. I'm not going to not analysis to paralysis forever. I'm going to say, look, I'm going to spend the next 30 days. I'm going to do a ton of due diligence, and at the end of 30 days, if I like what I say, I'm going to transact, right? So you're you're not getting the deer in the headlights never to do something, right? But you know, several weeks, maybe a month or two, depending on what it is you're doing, is enough time to do really, really good due diligence. Ask all the questions you can think of, but approach it with humility. And when we do those things, we transact so much, so much better than if we just rush into it with Margarita Madness.   Keith Weinhold  20:44   Right? People get caught up in those emotions with Margarita Madness and end up with a timeshare that they can't get rid of, or something like that. You said something so interesting there, Mike. When you move from the developed world to the developing world, you move from a seller beware world, like with some of the things you have to be aware of, and like you need to give disclosures and such into a buyer beware world. I hadn't thought of it that way before.   Mike Cobb  21:08   Yeah, and really, a lot of my book and a lot of the presentations that I've given, you've seen me give over the years, really deal with what I call a change in thought process. Because mostly in presentations, right? My goal in a presentation is to help somebody change how they think, to take away the bubble and understand that they're on their own, right? It's not really their own. They have you, they have me, they have other resources, right? But they don't have this bubble of government or regulations or laws out there protecting them anymore. Now it's the individual, and as an individual, I don't want to be rugged individual. I want to find other people that can help me, right? But I have to do that as opposed to it's just there for me, right? So if I can help people change how they think, they will transact so much better. They'll make better investments. They'll make investments that work for them in ways that they want them to work for them, right? They'll achieve the goal or the dream in a much, much, much higher percentage of the cases,   Keith Weinhold  22:04   we're talking about investing antique tree hardwood plantations, principally in Panama, like you mentioned, and we're talking about one mindset about crossing borders with our investing, and another is oftentimes, at least for GRE listeners, we're crossing asset use type because we're so used to residential rental housing. So when you cross into agriculture or forestry, I guess as it is with teak, what are some of the bridges to cross there as we change use type?    Mike Cobb  22:35   The reason I love timber generally and teak specifically in Panama in this case is that most people, most people, and I hope that many of your readers aren't most people. Most investors look at 20-five years and they simply say themselves, "No way, no way. And I love that because right now teak timber is being cut down 10 to 12 times faster than anyone is replanting it. And the reason people don't replant it is because most average investors come along and say, "Oh, it's 25 years. I can't wait 25 years. Well, you know what? Good, because the folks who do decide to move ahead and plant the teak, what that means is the price of teak is very highly likely to continue to increase in value far beyond inflation. Teak wholesale teak prices have gone up five and a half percent a year on average for the last 50-three years. I think that number is going to increase largely because there's this huge psychological barrier. People think, "Oh, 20-five years, but back in 1990-eight I bought 100-acre cattle pasture in Panama, and we had a professional forestry company plant it and maintain it for the last now 27 years, and two two and a half years ago, we started building a sawmill. Our sawmill is up and running. In fact, was just down there and brought back one of our first retail products. We're producing lumber. Our first container of lumber is headed out to a distributor in Colorado next week.   Keith Weinhold  23:56   Mike's holding up a nice cutting board for those in the audience.   Mike Cobb  24:00   Nice cutting board. We're setting up an e-commerce site. We're going business to consumer with cutting board, bath mat, shelving, tables, chairs. We have our whole production facility ramping up with new retail products. So the bottom line is, is yeah, man, it does take 25 years. You know.   Keith Weinhold  24:15   The lantation to harvest cycle. That's the 25 year span you're talking about here. The patience it takes for an investor.   Mike Cobb  24:21   Thank you. Yes, absolutely. And then, as we cut down this mature plantation that we we are now harvesting right now, it gets replanted, and the next 25 year harvest. I'm 61 Maybe I'll make 86 I don't know. Maybe not. Right. But my kids probably will, and they'll get the big harvest in 25 years, and then it'll replant, and maybe they'll get a next one, or maybe it'll be the grandkids, right? And so what we found savvy investors, people who are really not your average bear, right? And they think to themselves, how can I create generational wealth stewardship? I have enough money coming in. I mean, Keith, that the I mean, you can own teak for 10 grand. You can. Own a quarter acre of teak. You own the land. You own the trees. 10 grand, like it's 9000 something or other, but 10 grand, right? I mean, the bottom line is it's such an affordable, easy investment, right? And it turns into well over $100,000 in today's numbers. Who knows what inflation? But in today's numbers, buying power, you know, 10,000 turns into 100,000 right? Over 20-five years, and so most people who do this recognize the fact that they might get the first harvest, but it's their kids, their grandkids, their great grandkids who are going to get this harvest every 20-five years thereafter. And so the 20-five year thing becomes a wonderful thing, not a bad thing. Right, it keeps many people out, which keeps the price of teak high and growing, which we like. But it also creates this cash flow period. People go, "Oh, it doesn't cash flow. I'm like, "Absolutely, it does. It cash flows phenomenally four times a century. Like you have an internal rate of return of almost 11% 10 point something, right? You have an internal rate of return of 11% and it cash flows four times a century. This is a phenomenal cash flow investment. You might get to see the first one or the second one, but you're probably not seeing three or four. But somebody else in your lineage, your family, your heirs will see it, and they will all be so happy you made that decision to own teak.   Keith Weinhold  26:22   We're talking about the ability for you to own teak parcels and the land beneath it, title in your own name, one quarter of an acre at a time. We're going to talk more about that with Mike when we come back. You're listening to Get Rich Education. I'm your host Keith Weinhold. Flock Homes helps you retire from real estate and landlording, whether it's one problem property or your whole portfolio, through a 721 exchange, deferring your capital gains tax and depreciation recapture. It's a strategy long used by the ultra wealthy. Now mom and pop landlords can 721 their residential real estate. Request your initial valuation. See if your properties qualify at flockhomes.com/gre. That's flockehomes.com/gre.   Keith Weinhold  27:09   Let me ask you something: If you've worked hard to build wealth, is your money positioned to actually support your goals? A lot of accredited investors leave capital sitting in cash because it feels safe, but inflation and missed income opportunities can quietly erode its value. Freedom Family Investments offers freedom notes for investors seeking structured income backed by real estate. It's a straightforward approach built on real assets, not speculation. And full disclosure, I'm an investor myself. What I like is that their team walks you through how it all works, so you can decide if it aligns with your portfolio and income goals. Every investment carries risk, and nothing is guaranteed. But with a track record of consistent, on-time investor payouts, they built real credibility. Go to freedomfamilyinvestments.com to book a clarity call or text family to 66866 That's family to 66866.   Ken McElroy  28:12   This is Rich Dad advisor Ken McElroy. Listen to Get Rich Education with Keith Weinhold and don't quit your daydream.   Keith Weinhold  28:29   Welcome back to Get Rich Education. We're talking about international investing with teak tree plantations. This isn't something experimental. We're not talking about a tinkerer here. You have to be more careful when you go overseas, and we're talking about with the owner of an international company that's been doing this for 30 years, providing international investments. But the teak tree plantation, I think, began in 1998 or 1999 Is that right?   Mike Cobb  28:56   Yeah, 98 was the purchase of the property, and in the rainy season of 99 we planted the first 100 acres. Yep.   Keith Weinhold  29:03   Yeah. Well, talk to us more about that because you talked to us about how historically teak appreciates at about 5% per year. Tell us about how we get to that 11% internal rate of return.   Mike Cobb  29:15   Yeah. Sure. I mean, so two things. One, you've got the five and a half percent a year kind of calculated out over a very long period of time, 50-three years. So that's a pretty good statistical baseline. And then the fact that your trees actually physically grow, right? I mean, back in 2008 my joke is from 2008 to 2012 While the rest of us in real estate were hating life, my trees just simply kept growing, right? They just kept growing. And so what you start off with is about 100 maybe 110, I think, trees on a quarter acre, and in the end, after all the thinnings, you end up with somewhere between 22 and 25 trees per quarter acre, and each of those trees produces about 1.2 to 1.6 cubic meters of timber. For lumber, by the way, one of the things that we are working on, and you know, look at the end of the day, you had a walk, jog, run, right? And we're in the walk stage right now, but we're harvesting out all of the other elements of the teak tree. Your lumber piece, that just you know, sell it as boards, you know, one by fours, one by sixes, one by eights, whatever it is. Ship that stuff off. That's your 1.2 to 1.6 cubic meters, but you've got other pieces of the tree. You've got stuff that's too thin, the root stock that can be turned into other things, including cellucrete with cellulose, the ground up, the sawdust itself. We're saving all the sawdust. We're going to use that for cellulite. This is the math on this. Our investors get 80% of the net proceeds after processing costs, which is 15% my company gets 20% and so we, my company, has the highest incentive to drive the highest possible return to the investor possible because I get 20% of whatever I make for the investor, and so all the numbers we use are always the net investor number, right? And we have a business plan. All the numbers are laid out. It's all there, and it's pretty easy to see how the IRR gets up. About I think it's 10.6, 10.7% I can't remember. Just under 11% but it's all in the business plan, Keith. And again, this is part of that due diligence process, right? Get a copy of the business plan. Get on the phone with one of our property consultants maybe take a trip to Panama. I just got back. We just took a group of people. Yeah, we got tours. Yeah, we have tours, and so like as part of the due diligence process, come visit, come see the trees, come see the sawmill. Right? If it's something that makes sense from a an investment standpoint, yeah, the material, the facts, and the due diligence is all there for people to be able to pick up and do over a you know several week period, you know 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, whatever it is.   Keith Weinhold  31:47   Well, let's back up because seemingly you have had really good prescience. Because when we look at world agriculture today, we see some problems. Whether some people want to call it erratic weather, other want to call it climate change, and how that's really ravaged some crops and created disruptions in certain produce. Or with coffee, you know, we've also got a cattle production problem, for example. But you've chosen something that's been really resilient. Tell us more about that resilience and just why teak of all crops and forestry.   Mike Cobb  32:22   Let me start by saying, who was it? Yogi Berra says, you know, predicting is hard to do, especially when it's about the future or something. Exactly. Yeah. Right. But I mean, look, we're talking about the future. I mean, who the heck knows, right? I mean, that's what makes it investing rather than you know something else. But teak has been grown in plantations for almost 400 years. It was started by the British in India, what was then Burman throughout Southeast Asia. And one of the things the Brits did so so well is they documented everything. They had statisticians keeping track of altitude, rainfall, soil types, different stock. I mean, just anything and everything that you could imagine, and so by the early 1900s, some of the best books about teak and teak plantation farming was written. I actually read those books in order to interview the forestry management companies in Panama that we would hire them to manage our plantation, because I don't know anything about it, right? But I wanted to be prepared to do the interviews, so I was. What amazed and fascinated me was this incredible track record of production for almost 400 years of teak as a commodity in the marketplace, and then for the last 50 years, 53 years, you know, seeing what's happened to the price of teak in that time period. Look, nobody can predict the future. Weather patterns change. Teak as a species, is very very resilient. You know, the highest quality teak is grown in very specific conditions, and the Darien province of Panama has exactly the conditions to produce the highest quality teak. If those conditions change, maybe the quality of the teak goes down. Maybe the quality of the teak goes up a little bit. Who knows, right? I mean, at the end of the day, we don't control weather. We don't control weather patterns. We don't control the future. But that thing goes back to the idea of diversification. Like, how can we mitigate against the future? I think we do that by just simply broad diversification. And if we have all of our assets and stocks, bonds, and rental real estate, we're pretty concentrated, especially if it's all in the United States, right? Our home country, for example, and so some diversification into other sectors probably makes sense. I know it makes sense for me because I think that's my way of hedging against the uncertainties of the future.   Keith Weinhold  34:37   Let's talk about the tree quality and then the sawmill, because some people don't understand that teak really has pretty special properties that maple or black cherry or oak doesn't have.   Mike Cobb  34:47   It does. It has a very very high oil content and it has a hardness that makes it extremely resistant to rot fungus, which is why it's used in the marine environment. If you look at Chris Craft. Boats or yachts. You always hear about teak, teak, teak. Teak is used in maritime environments because it holds up to the salt water-not just salt water-holds up to water, but even more so, salt water and the environment, which makes it unique. And so, even if you don't treat teak, right, you just leave it out. It turns gray, but it doesn't rot. And then you can come back. You can you know sand it and varnish it and turn it into that beautiful, rich color. It's a beautiful, beautiful wood. It's funny because it has furniture uses, outdoor furniture, patio furniture, things like that, decking. But now they're starting to use it in hardwood floors. They're using it in gates and fences and soffit materials. Again, outdoor uses, but it can be used indoors as well for very very fine furniture, which at the end of the day teak has a panache that a lot of these other woods don't have. Mahogany is certainly one mahogany. The thing about mahogany is it's softer, right? It's a softer wood. It carries some qualities in terms of the grains and the colors that make it a a very favorable product for cabinetry and other things. We actually looked at mahogany as a species to possibly grow, and it's about a 30-five to 40-year harvest cycle. And so, when we looked at that, we said, you know, we can get our heads around 20-five, and and maybe someday we will do some mahogany plantations as well. But for now, we we started with teak. Actually, when we did the analysis, I don't know if this is still true, but 27, 28 years ago, when I did the initial research and analysis, it had the best time value of money ROI.   Keith Weinhold  36:29   Ah, that's the first time I learned that. And some of these durability properties that you've been talking about really go back to my earlier question about how some more sensitive crops have been ravaged lately.   Mike Cobb  36:39   Yeah, it holds up very very well to the environment. By the way, it'll do well in pretty much everything but desert, right? If it rains too much, the teak will grow faster. Actually, it produces a less quality. The quality of the teak is less. If so, if panama's rain system changed and it started raining every day of the year, where we have it growing, teak trees would grow wonderfully. The quality of the teak would be lower, right? Still, be teak. It'd still be valuable, but not as valuable in the marketplace. So.   Keith Weinhold  37:08   Now you've been here to talk about teak before, but something that you added a few years ago was a sawmill to really bring some vertical integration there. And now you're not at the mercy, perhaps, of the price that you would need to sell to a lumberyard. Can you tell us more about how it's going with that?   Mike Cobb  37:22   Yeah, absolutely. Well, the bottom line is, is because we earn 20% of what we earn for the investor on their wood, our goal is to sell it for as high a possible price. And lumber does pretty well. I mean, you can sell logs. Let's just start there. You can cut the trees and sell the logs for X. You can turn the logs into lumber and sell it for you know whatever 578 x. You can turn it into things like cutting board, chairs, tables, a finished product, and there you're talking about you know not just five to 7x You're talking about another 10x on top of that. So that's like 30x right? I mean it's an incredible difference. So from log to finished product, it's about a 30 times differential in what you ultimately achieve out of the marketplace for return. Right now it takes longer to do it. There's more work involved, but at the end of the day, because you make more of the investor, we make more. Some of the teak is going to go out as finished product, and so we get a blended return of lumber. We don't do logs, but we're going to have a blended return of lumber and finished product that will push that yield up maybe higher than we've anticipated, which would be just fine with everybody.    Keith Weinhold  38:30   ll right, all right. Diversifying your exit, then. Well, before we learn about how we can get a hold of more information, is there any last thing that we should know about investing across international lines into teak, maybe something that I didn't think about asking you, Mike.   Mike Cobb  38:45   The only thing there is two of the teak farm parcels can be bundled together for a half acre with about a I don't know it's a seven $8,000 legal piece government fees to achieve a residency. So you can actually become a resident of Panama with the teak investment, and again coming in on about 600 folks have done the residency as well as the investment and ownership of the teak farms. So I would say that's a piece. Again, if people aren't sleeping well at night, they're worried about inflation, they're worried about social disruption, polarization, where things are headed, right? And they like the idea of the teak investment, then you know it may make sense to just do the extra government legal piece and get the residency card. I mean, I just did that. By the way, I think you know I'm a I'm a Nicaraguan resident because I lived in Nicaragua for 14 years.   Keith Weinhold  39:34   Mike is holding up his Nicaraguan ID.   Mike Cobb  39:37   but last summer I also got my Panama residency card, so now I have, y'all. I'm a U.S. resident, U.S. citizen, and I'm also a Nicaraguan. I think I held up my West Virginia driver's license. Hold on, let me go. Here's my Nicaraguan residency. Sorry, I was like, yeah. Wait a minute. Anyway, so right. So I'm a U.S. citizen, and I'm a resident of both Nicaragua and Panama. And so, this is something that a lot of folks choose to do because of the uncertainty, the political and social uncertainty in their lives. The teak itself will help with the economic uncertainty, but the residency then helps with the other two elements.   Keith Weinhold  40:15   Next time you fly in and you're doing customs in Panama City or Managua, show them your West Virginia driver's license and see how they like it. See what happens.   Mike Cobb  40:22   It wouldn't work. Hahaha.   Keith Weinhold  40:25   Well, the prices are low. You do not need to be an accredited investor in order to do this. So there's really no qualification bar to clear. There's really no limit in the number of parcels that you can buy. Some people like to purchase 10 parcels, but you can buy as little as one, and tell us more about that price.   Mike Cobb  40:42   Yeah, in fact, we've introduced Keith since the last time we talked a financing program. Oh,   Keith Weinhold  40:48   I didn't know that yet.   Mike Cobb  40:49   We did. That's a fairly new. It's a this year thing, right? So the teak parcels, I think 9890 or something, whatever. Call it 10 grand. The parcels just under $10,000.   Keith Weinhold  40:59   Okay.   Mike Cobb  40:59   Yeah, and they have a down payment and a credit card thing. I think it stretches maybe over a year or two, so it's a fairly short period. Let's people who don't have the entire 10,000 upfront who want the teak investment to be able to acquire it. And if they're doing the residency piece, the residency piece can only begin after the teak farm piece is acquired, right? But it can also lead to the residency piece over time. So yeah, and then there are some discounts on three of them and 10 of them. So we have a lot of people that actually end up getting them for. And and here's a really cool thing because it's titled in your own name, it can also be titled in a child's name or a grandchild's name. And so we have a lot of people that actually acquire them and they don't take ownership. They put it in their kid's name or their grand name. Yeah, so it's a wonderful way to move that asset already right out of the gates into the next generation or the next generation.   Keith Weinhold  41:52   So we're talking about diversifying at least twice, both internationally and then in a different asset type as well. This has been fascinating to learn about, Mike. It's just fascinating alone, I think, to learn about the geography and the teak itself. And like we touched on earlier, they do organize tours. Any reputable provider should do that. They're proud of what they offer there. Tours in the Darien province of Panama, in this case, to see your teak tree parcels. It's a really approachable price. If you want to learn more and get a report and perhaps purchase some parcels, Mike's one of our GRE marketplace providers. You can visit gremarketplace.com/teak or talk to your GRE investment coach. Mike has been fascinating as always. It's been great having you back on the show.   Mike Cobb  42:40   Nice to be here. Thank you, Keith.   Keith Weinhold  42:48   Teak is one of the more durable crops that there is. The demand for teak hardwood is substantial, and it's really growing. They have also had the same tree manager for all 27 years since the teak was planted, some real continuity there. The name of the manager is Heyo Forestall. There's a little to manage with the teak hardwood trees, like performing thinnings, and those thinnings do give investors like you intermittent income. So you're not waiting for absolutely everything for 25 years, but the income from the thinning is really small. Most of the return takes place in that 25 years, and it's interesting to me to see the profile of the GRE investor in teak because it attracts young investors, and maybe that's because the cost of entry is so low. It also attracts older investors because they more often have an eye toward passing along something productive to their heirs that is going to outlive them. A lot of them don't want to give their heirs money because money can be spent on fleeting trivialities. Also, the older a person is, they just have an easier time visualizing the fact of 25 years and knowing that it really will pass by. And yes, in-person tours are offered there in the Darien province of Panama, and there were 13 to 14 attendees on a recent tour. They do need to limit the group size, and the tours are for you, whether you're an existing investor or not. If you're just checking it out, that's for you too. If you believe that you want to attend a tour and you don't want to buy, I understand that you can get your money back from the tour.   Keith Weinhold  44:35   The next tour is in September. Each quarter-acre newborn teak parcel costs $9,680 $9,680 and over 20-five years, it's projected to produce about 110k in today's dollars. And yes, now with financing, we've talked about this investment on GRE before, but it's the first time where they now have financing in place, so you don't even need. 9680 to get started. Also, retirement funds might be eligible for use here. And really, when you think about the long-term horizon of this investment, retirement funds make sense. If this is potentially interesting to you, get a hold of the report that goes into the details and shows you some projections and more. You can do so by either contacting your GRE investment coach or visit gremarketplace.com/teek. Money may not grow on trees, but sometimes trees grow into money. Until next time, keep growing your means and maybe a few trees. You could visit gremarketplace.com/teak. Until next week, I'm your host Keith Weinhold. Don't quit your daydream.   Speaker 1  45:53   Nothing on this show should be considered specific, personal, or professional advice. Please consult an appropriate tax, legal, real estate, financial, or business professional for individualized advice. Opinions of guests are their own. Information is not guaranteed. All investment strategies have the potential for profit or loss. The host is operating on behalf of Get Rich Education LLC exclusively.    Keith Weinhold  46:21   The preceding program was brought to you by your home for wealth building. getricheduceducation.com  

PARAcast 509 "Sort Teams by Race" We managed to produce a PG-13 show because Emily Izatt joins us with her father Kevin Izatt. We talk about the Utah Summer Games, increasing USPSA's capacity and worrying about physical limitations while wearing cleats.   Show Sponsors: Rune Tactical Dominate Defense W-74 Guide Rods Weekend Gunner Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@paracastfirearmspodcast905 Telegram: https://t.me/PARAcastpod Patreon: patreon.com/user?u=16370931 Chat: @paracastchat (telegram) https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-paracast/id940994458

Kris and David are back to discuss the week that was March 15-21, 1993, the last of our “backlog” shows. Topics of discussion include:WCW's tour of the UK and Ireland, where they changed the WCW World Heavyweight Title twice in a week with Big Van Vader flipping the belt back and forth, plus why this really didn't get talked about much on TV.Ric Flair goes “Up Close” with Eric Bischoff on TV, talking about his return to WCW and Barry Windham being NWA World Heavyweighht Champion.The Cole Twins get a fan club.The Big Bossman returns to All Japan while Hulk Hogan is on his way to New Japan.New Japan's faction warfare and how fun that was.The birth of Michinoku Pro Wrestling.The three major promotions in Mexico receive their David Awards.Chuck Wepner shows up at a New Jersey indie show to referee the most 1993 New Jersey indie match you could possibly think of.Arn Anderson works three house shows in SMW the same week that Chris Candido makes his debut as The Avenger.Kevin Sullivan brutalizes W*ING Kanemura on SMW TV in a famously gruesome moment.Bert Prentice sings live on Memphis TV. Sort of.Eddie Gilbert cuts a shoot promo about his position in the USWA and is basically done with the promotion as a result in true Eddie fashion.Vince McMahon misses Monday Night Raw's first visit to Poughkeepsie to receive the Michael Landon Award, so Rob Bartlett joins Gorilla Monsoon as Bobby Heenan “Not Vince McMahon,” and that doesn't go too well.All this and so much more on a damn fun episode of BTS!Timestamps:0:00:00 WCW0:57:20 Int'l: AJPW, NJPW, FMW, Michinoku Pro debut show, NOW, PWC, W*ING, AJW, JWP, LLPW, Dino Bravo funeral, AAA, CMLL, Juan Herrera, Arena Naucalpan, UWA, & Tijuana1:46:53 Classic Commercial Break1:55:05 Halftime2:40:18 Other USA: WIN, IWF (Mansfield), UWS/Chuck Wepner, WWWA (PA), NGWA, SMW, USA (AL), USWA, GWF, Big D, CWUSA, & Wrestling Fury/MidwestWA4:02:49 WWFTo support the show and get access to exclusive rewards like special members-only monthly themed shows, go to our Patreon page at Patreon.com/BetweenTheSheets and become an ongoing Patron. Becoming a Between the Sheets Patron will also get you exclusive access to not only the monthly themed episode of Between the Sheets, but also access to our new mailbag segment, a Patron-only chat room on Slack, and anything else we do outside of the main shows!If you're looking for the best deal on a VPN service—short for Virtual Private Network, it helps you get around regional restrictions as well as browse the internet more securely—then Private Internet Access is what you've been looking for. Not only will using our link help support Between The Sheets, but you'll get a special discount, with prices as low as $1.98/month if you go with a 40 month subscription. With numerous great features and even a TV-specific Android app to make streaming easier, there is no better choice if you're looking to subscribe to My AEW and other region-locked services.For the best in both current and classic indie wrestling streaming, make sure to check out IndependentWrestling.tv and use coupon code BTSPOD for a free 5 day trial! (You can also go directly to TinyURL.com/IWTVsheets to sign up that way.) If you convert to a paid subscriber, we get a kickback for referring you, allowing you to support both the show and the indie scene.To subscribe, you can find us on iTunes, Google Play, and just about every other podcast app's directory, or you can also paste Feeds.FeedBurner.com/BTSheets into your favorite podcast app using whatever “add feed manually” option it has.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Kris and David are back to discuss the week that was March 15-21, 1993, the last of our “backlog” shows. Topics of discussion include:WCW's tour of the UK and Ireland, where they changed the WCW World Heavyweight Title twice in a week with Big Van Vader flipping the belt back and forth, plus why this really didn't get talked about much on TV.Ric Flair goes “Up Close” with Eric Bischoff on TV, talking about his return to WCW and Barry Windham being NWA World Heavyweighht Champion.The Cole Twins get a fan club.The Big Bossman returns to All Japan while Hulk Hogan is on his way to New Japan.New Japan's faction warfare and how fun that was.The birth of Michinoku Pro Wrestling.The three major promotions in Mexico receive their David Awards.Chuck Wepner shows up at a New Jersey indie show to referee the most 1993 New Jersey indie match you could possibly think of.Arn Anderson works three house shows in SMW the same week that Chris Candido makes his debut as The Avenger.Kevin Sullivan brutalizes W*ING Kanemura on SMW TV in a famously gruesome moment.Bert Prentice sings live on Memphis TV. Sort of.Eddie Gilbert cuts a shoot promo about his position in the USWA and is basically done with the promotion as a result in true Eddie fashion.Vince McMahon misses Monday Night Raw's first visit to Poughkeepsie to receive the Michael Landon Award, so Rob Bartlett joins Gorilla Monsoon as Bobby Heenan “Not Vince McMahon,” and that doesn't go too well.All this and so much more on a damn fun episode of BTS!Timestamps:0:00:00 WCW0:57:20 Int'l: AJPW, NJPW, FMW, Michinoku Pro debut show, NOW, PWC, W*ING, AJW, JWP, LLPW, Dino Bravo funeral, AAA, CMLL, Juan Herrera, Arena Naucalpan, UWA, & Tijuana1:46:53 Classic Commercial Break1:55:05 Halftime2:40:18 Other USA: WIN, IWF (Mansfield), UWS/Chuck Wepner, WWWA (PA), NGWA, SMW, USA (AL), USWA, GWF, Big D, CWUSA, & Wrestling Fury/MidwestWA4:02:49 WWFTo support the show and get access to exclusive rewards like special members-only monthly themed shows, go to our Patreon page at Patreon.com/BetweenTheSheets and become an ongoing Patron. Becoming a Between the Sheets Patron will also get you exclusive access to not only the monthly themed episode of Between the Sheets, but also access to our new mailbag segment, a Patron-only chat room on Slack, and anything else we do outside of the main shows!If you're looking for the best deal on a VPN service—short for Virtual Private Network, it helps you get around regional restrictions as well as browse the internet more securely—then Private Internet Access is what you've been looking for. Not only will using our link help support Between The Sheets, but you'll get a special discount, with prices as low as $1.98/month if you go with a 40 month subscription. With numerous great features and even a TV-specific Android app to make streaming easier, there is no better choice if you're looking to subscribe to My AEW and other region-locked services.For the best in both current and classic indie wrestling streaming, make sure to check out IndependentWrestling.tv and use coupon code BTSPOD for a free 5 day trial! (You can also go directly to TinyURL.com/IWTVsheets to sign up that way.) If you convert to a paid subscriber, we get a kickback for referring you, allowing you to support both the show and the indie scene.To subscribe, you can find us on iTunes, Google Play, and just about every other podcast app's directory, or you can also paste Feeds.FeedBurner.com/BTSheets into your favorite podcast app using whatever “add feed manually” option it has.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Welcome to the Big 60s Sort Out USA edition where we are ranking all the Billboard Number 1s from the 1960s for music, lyrics and production.This week's songs:The Tymes - So Much In LoveLittle Stevie Wonder - Fingertips (Pt. 2)Angels - My Boyfriend's BackBobby Vinton - Blue VelvetIf you want to view the chart up to the latest episode, you can do so⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ here! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Garry's new album can be bought on CD or Vinyl here and you can use the offer code WELCOME10 on your first purchase for 10% off!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://elasticstage.com/garryabbott⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Or you can listen digitally to that and all his other albums here:⁠⁠https://garryabbott.bandcamp.com/⁠⁠And you can find Paul's band here:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://goodgriefliverpool.bandcamp.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

We have another summer concert report, because "Weird Al" Yankovic's Bigger and Weirder Tour returned to New England! Also: Retro 80s games at the Free Play Bar Arcade in downtown Providence! The Logan Awards for Excellence in Comedy Music! The return of Chickens in the News, in which we learn about a farm where you can gamble on chicken races! (Correction: This farm is in Boulder, Montana, not Boulder, Colorado! Sorry!) And a long-awaited conversation about the 80s cult film Streets of Fire! Hopefully you can stand this much excitement! Okay, nap time. Nominations are open through July 25th for the Logan Awards! Chicken races! And our regular links... The Flopcast website! The ESO Network! The Flopcast on Facebook! The Flopcast on Instagram! The Flopcast on Bluesky! The Flopcast on Mastadon! Please rate and review The Flopcast on Apple Podcasts! Email: info@flopcast.net Our music is by The Sponge Awareness Foundation! This week's promo: The Watch-A-Thon of Rassilon!  

Flopcast episode 741! We have another summer concert report, because “Weird Al” Yankovic’s Bigger and Weirder Tour returned to New England! Also: Retro 80s games at the Free Play Bar Arcade in downtown Providence! The Logan Awards for Excellence in Comedy Music! The return of Chickens in the News, in which we learn about a […] The post Flopcast 741: A Menacing Sort appeared first on The ESO Network.

Why is this world such a mess? And why doesn't God do anything about it? Those are the questions Jesus addresses in the parable we look at today. Jesus teaches us important lessons about patience and trusting God's plan by assuring us that God will sort it all out in the end.

Back after a year off of uploading. Here's what happened, and why membership's open again. Want to subscribe? www.adamchernoff.com 

This week Lockmort and Brad discuss Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced, Final Fantasy VII, Esoteric Ebb, and more! Timestamps: Please keep in mind that our timestamps are approximate, and will often be slightly off due to dynamic ad placement. 0:00 - Intro20:23 - Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced55:03 - Final Fantasy VII1:18:01 - Esoteric Ebb1:32:05 - Sort it Out1:53:05 - Keep it Up2:05:15 - Game Recommendation2:06:57 - Detroit: Become Human2:20:43 - Closing Questions To watch the podcast on YouTube: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/LastStandMediaYouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast for free wherever you're listening or by using this link: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/SummonSign⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ If you like the show, telling a friend about it would be amazing! You can text, email, Tweet, or send this link to a friend: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/SummonSign⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

4 - Kölcsönkérte barátnője fogyatékos gyerekét az orosz nő, hogy kikerülje a sort a benzinkúton by Balázsék

Seth and Luke discuss the 'netflixification' of sports that's been happening over the past few years. Is it sort of starting to make things less fun?

Group A strep in the pediatric ED: from strep throat to invasive disease and toxic shock. Host: Ellen Duncan, MD, PhD Brian Gilberti, MD https://media.blubrry.com/coreem/content.blubrry.com/coreem/Group_A_Strep.mp3 Download Leave a Comment Tags: Infectious Diseases, Pediatrics Show Notes Background Group A strep = Streptococcus pyogenes — gram-positive organism that colonizes the pharynx, but also the perianal and genital mucosa (worth remembering when the source isn’t the throat). Extremely common. The episode cites an estimated ~289 million cases/yr of strep pharyngitis in children 5–14 (NIH). For a U.S.-specific, verifiable anchor: the CDC estimates strep throat drives ~5.2 million outpatient visits/yr in people

In today's ep, a couple guys get a bit carefree with their attire, possibly (definitely) under the influence...Yeeessss... The first of the 2026 live MFB 'Status: Arrested' Tour tickets are now on sale.Keep an eye out for more dates to be announced real soon.NEWCASTLE - JULY 18 - 3PM - NEWCASTLE AUDITORIUMMELBOURNE - AUG 15 - BASEMENT COMEDY CLUBCody's show CRU$HER is hitting all major centres and more in 2026. He's back. It's red hot. Fuckin' do it. Stop going to shit comedians who charge double and deliver half.-----------------------------------YOUR STUPID has arrived. It's a book. It's a similar vibe to last year's one, but better. If you want a copy, head over to lukeheggie.com and stump up, and it will arrive via Australia Post. Any First Class Patrons, yours have been posted, (including the seppos - at great personal expense) but excluding the three bastards who have not provided an address, and seem to refuse to reply to emails. Sort it out. I'll bring some to live shows too. That is all.Heggie's 2026 show I WON'T SAY IT AGAIN is on sale now too. It's a hand-selected crack team of bits from the last five years. Get on it here.-----------------------------------Heggie dropped a FOURTH YouTube special, GROT, but still left the comments closed like a coward. Watch it here.Cody's new stand-up special "LIVE AT THE CORNER HOTEL" is OUT NOW on YouTubeHave a squizz and leave comments before he takes Heggie's cowardly route and turns off the comments. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Good things are happening for the people I love most right now and I feel so many different emotions. My son just left for a new job out of state. A dear friend is buying a house and moving to North Carolina and though I am genuinely thrilled for each of them…I also noticed my heart ache with the missing of them just thinking about them leaving.  Turns out what I really want is for them to go off and live their best lives but also do that from my basement/town  and be upstairs/over for dinner.  Good thing last week I did an episode about changing the lens on our lives lol.   So I've been feeling funny, a little off all week. Sort of fragile. It's the grief. Living underneath it all, amongst the change..even when it's really wonderful change, which it usually is. Most of us just never learned to look for it there. This one's for anyone who's been feeling a little off and couldn't quite say why. 3 Things You'll Take Away: Even good change has grief in it. The anxiety, the edginess, the feeling of being off is grief. Naming it changes how you relate to it.The thing you're avoiding feeling is running your behavior. So much of our weird behavior traces back to a door we don't want to open (because feeling it means feeling it.) But the door doesn't disappear just because you closed it.Check in with four parts of yourself: Body, mind, heart, soul. Each one needs something different right now. A hard workout. A good cry. Pizza with a friend. A poem. Asking separately what each part needs is a real practice — and it's something you can do today. ✨ Have something circling the drain of your brain and heart? Join Ask Me and My Intuition Anything — live on Zoom, $35, first Friday of the month.

Enjoy a quick sniff with Ryan, Brant and Gary Arce! . . . YOU DON'T KNOW MOJACK is a podcast dedicated to exploring the entire SST catalogue, in order, from start to finish. During the podcast we will discuss all the releases that are part of our core DNA, as well as many lesser-known releases that deserve a second chance, or releases that we are discovering for the very first time (we actually don't know Mojack!). First and foremost we are fans, and acknowledge that we are not perfect and don't know everything – sometimes the discussion is more about a time, place, feeling, personal experience or random tangents, and less about the facts (but we will try to get to the facts too). Facebook: www.facebook.com/mojackpod/ Twitter: @mojackpod Instagram: www.instagram.com/mojackpod/ Blog: www.mojackpod.com/ Tumblr: www.tumblr.com/blog/mojackpod Theme Song: Shockflesh

How is he a month old already?!I genuinely don't know. It has been over a month since I've sat down at this mic, and even longer since I've sat down with Brittany, and in this episode we're finally catching up on everything, my labor and delivery with Colin, the scary shoulder dystocia moment that I will genuinely never get out of my head, and what this last month of postpartum has actually been like.I get into how different this whole experience has felt going from one kid to two versus the sheer terror of going from zero to one. We talk about breastfeeding and oversupply (again) and sleep deprivation and the very real challenge of trying to take care of a newborn while also making sure Amelia doesn't feel like she got completely deprioritized.I also get honest about the boredom of these early newborn weeks, the identity shift, and how even a solid relationship gets tested when a baby enters the picture. And through basically all of it, I keep coming back to the same thing I talk about in my own recovery and with so many of you: control. What I can't control, what I don't need to control, and just how much more peaceful it is when I actually let that go.This one's a ramble in the best way. Grab your coffee, or your baby carrier, and let's catch up.Also in this episode: an update on my coaching community and Panic to Peace, which is opening again in a couple of months!Just a little reminder, even though I've been quieter on social, I'm still so here for you in all the ways that matter. Here's where to find me and get some support while I'm easing back in:HERE'S WHAT TO SAY TO YOUR BRAIN WHEN YOU'RE SPIRALING: https://ahealthypush.myflodesk.com/calmpanicTAKE MY FREE QUIZ AND FIND OUT WHAT'S CAUSING YOU TO STAY STUCK: https://www.ahealthypush.com/blocking-quizA HEALTHY PUSH INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/ahealthypush/GET THIS EPISODE'S SHOW NOTES: https://www.ahealthypush.com/post/rr6

This week Ben and Chris join Brad to rank their favorite Xbox 360 games, chat SAND: Raiders of Sophie, Fatekeeper and more! Timestamps: Please keep in mind that our timestamps are approximate, and will often be slightly off due to dynamic ad placement. 0:00 - Intro15:10 - Our favorite 360 games1:12:33 - SAND: Raiders of Sophie1:22:50 - Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas1:42:26 - Fatekeeper1:50:23 - Sort it Out2:22:57 - Keep it Up2:30:17 - Game Recommendation2:32:43 - Star Wars Jedi: Survivor2:39:43 - Dishwasher: Vampire Smile2:50:44 - Closing Questions To watch the podcast on YouTube: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/LastStandMediaYouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Don't forget to subscribe to the podcast for free wherever you're listening or by using this link: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/SummonSign⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ If you like the show, telling a friend about it would be amazing! You can text, email, Tweet, or send this link to a friend: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/SummonSign⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ectopic pregnancy, the classifications of abortion, and gestational trophoblastic disease: three early-pregnancy complications that look alike on the page. Sort the whole cluster with one line, hCG level plus ultrasound, and see exactly what the PANCE and your OB-GYN EOR actually test. The post 167 Early Pregnancy Complications: Ectopic Pregnancy, Abortion Types, and GTD appeared first on Physician Assistant Exam Review.

Valenti and Rico continued their ongoing discussion about the latest news regarding Dylan Larkin and Steve Yzerman in the second hour.