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Mastering Ecosystem Growth and AI Transformation Subscribe to our Newsletter:https://theultimatepartner.com/ebook-subscribe/ Check Out UPX:https://theultimatepartner.com/experience/ In this episode, Vince Menzione sits down with Rebecca Jones, Chief Growth Officer of Bridge Partners, to deconstruct the “Power of Three” co-selling model and the shift from AI experimentation to scalable business outcomes. They explore the critical importance of customer-centricity, the role of agentic workflows in solving complex B2B problems, and why the most successful leaders prioritize progress over perfection to show momentum within weeks rather than years. From her background in the financial sector to her experience scaling with industry titans like Microsoft, Rebecca provides a masterclass on navigating the current “tectonic shifts” in technology through strategic alignment and executive commitment. Key Takeaways Bridge Partners focuses on connecting strategy to execution, boasting a 90% referral rate driven by deep expertise in product marketing and partner ecosystems. The market is shifting from mere AI “dabbling” to purposeful applications in MVP and scale, specifically through agentic AI that tackles real business problems. Success in today's landscape requires knowing your underlying value and maintaining an unwavering focus on customer-centricity. The “Power of Three” (Hyperscaler, GSI, and ISV) remains the ultimate design for go-to-market scaling, provided there is a clear joint value proposition. To show immediate momentum, new executives should focus on “quick wins” achievable within six to eight weeks rather than long-term three-year plans. Effective co-selling requires removing blockers like compensation misalignment and securing top-down executive sponsorship across all leadership silos. If you're ready to lead through change, elevate your business, and achieve extraordinary outcomes through the power of partnership—this is your community. https://youtu.be/nClWjCm6S6A At Ultimate Partner® we want leaders like you to join us in the Ultimate Partner Experience – where transformation begins. Key Tags Rebecca Jones, Bridge Partners, Chief Growth Officer, co-selling, Power of Three, Hyperscaler, GSI, ISV, SAP, Microsoft, agentic AI, AI experimentation, pipeline velocity, pre-sales workshops, account-based marketing, ABM on steroids, GTM strategy, executive sponsorship, partnership ecosystems, B2B growth, tech industry trends 2026, Ultimate Partner, Vince Menzione, orchestration, value proposition. Transcript Rebecca Jones Audio Episode [00:00:00] Rebecca Jones: Because most of the agents I’ve seen drop into um, a lot of the areas where you and I can download are features. [00:00:07] Vince Menzione: Yes, [00:00:08] Rebecca Jones: they’re really feature agents. I love where we are ’cause we’re starting to tackle real business problems. [00:00:17] Vince Menzione: We just finished Ultimate Partners Winter Retreat here in beautiful Boca to a sold out crowd. Today I’m joined by Rebecca Jones, the Chief Growth Officer of Bridge Partners for this compelling discussion. Rebecca, welcome to the podcast. [00:00:33] Rebecca Jones: Thank you, Vince. [00:00:34] Vince Menzione: I am so thrilled to have you in Boca in the studio. [00:00:37] Vince Menzione: We’ve been working together now for a couple of years. We [00:00:39] Rebecca Jones: have, [00:00:40] Vince Menzione: and yesterday we were at the Ultimate Partner live executive winter retreat here in Boca. Uh, we’re recording in late February, early March timeframe. And, uh, just it was so thrilling to have everyone in the room yesterday. [00:00:55] Rebecca Jones: Was it? I mean, the energy. [00:00:56] Rebecca Jones: It was amazing. [00:00:57] Vince Menzione: Yeah, [00:00:58] Rebecca Jones: it was amazing. And thank you so much for having me. I mean, Florida’s gorgeous this time of year. It’s nice to get outta Seattle. [00:01:04] Vince Menzione: Well, it’s, it’s always, I, I, we, we love Seattle. Yes, we love, we do love to be in Seattle and especially in the spring, which we’ll be there together. We’ll talk about that in a little bit, but, um. [00:01:14] Vince Menzione: This is our first time actually having an interview. I mean, we’ve had you on stage. Yes. We’ve had Bridge as a part. Bridge Partners has been a partner. It’s ultimate partner. How’s that? And, uh, you’ve led some workshops. You help organizations to be successful and I thought just like to start out like, tell us more about you. [00:01:32] Vince Menzione: Yeah, bridge Partner and your role at Bridge Partners. And, uh, just to frame, to frame the conversation today. [00:01:40] Rebecca Jones: Okay. Of course. So let me tell you a little bit about my background. Um, I’ve been in the technology industry for a few decades now, and I started within the product and go to market, side of the house. [00:01:54] Nice. [00:01:54] Rebecca Jones: And I’ve navigated across a number of functional areas. From product to partner and sales. [00:02:02] Vince Menzione: So product development, [00:02:04] Rebecca Jones: engineering, [00:02:04] Vince Menzione: product marketing. Product marketing. [00:02:05] Rebecca Jones: Product marketing. [00:02:06] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:02:07] Rebecca Jones: Yes. And so when you look back on the areas of where I focus my time, it’s really how do you help customers grow and how do you help companies grow? [00:02:17] Rebecca Jones: Um, and a lot of my background is in B2B. [00:02:20] Vince Menzione: Very cool. [00:02:21] Rebecca Jones: Yeah. [00:02:21] Vince Menzione: And where’d you get your start? [00:02:23] Rebecca Jones: I started actually in the financial sector. [00:02:26] Vince Menzione: Very cool. [00:02:27] Rebecca Jones: Yeah, [00:02:27] Vince Menzione: very cool. That’s, well, that’s a good grounding and [00:02:30] Rebecca Jones: it’s an excellent grounding. And when you look back, and when I look back at what that provided as a foundation, it’s really the economics of a business and how do you help a business and what are the trend lines behind that by industry and and whatnot. [00:02:45] Rebecca Jones: And so I moved from that over to. More agency view, and so the real market facing view and then back inside to really look at how companies develop their products and bring ’em to market. [00:02:56] Vince Menzione: That’s an exciting, well, I think it’s exciting. I hope our listeners and viewers think it’s exciting and I know Bridge Partners because when I was at Microsoft, we worked with Bridge Partners. [00:03:06] Vince Menzione: But for the listeners and viewers that are with us today, maybe a little bit of background about the company and its, and its structure and go to market. [00:03:13] Rebecca Jones: Yeah, of course. So Bridge Partners is almost 20 years old. [00:03:18] Vince Menzione: Wow. [00:03:19] Rebecca Jones: Wow. [00:03:19] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:03:19] Rebecca Jones: Can you believe it? [00:03:20] Vince Menzione: We were newbies when I was working with you. [00:03:22] Rebecca Jones: We, we were newbies and uh, the company was really founded on the principle of how do you connect strategy to execution. [00:03:32] Rebecca Jones: And within that, our first customer was Microsoft. [00:03:36] Vince Menzione: Interesting. [00:03:37] Rebecca Jones: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, and that was an incredible spot to be and an incredible time to be in a company that started to evolve and grow with one of the titans in the industry. And obviously a incredible market leader in the tech industry. [00:03:56] Vince Menzione: Well, and that time 20 years ago, ’cause I was, I was along for that journey. [00:03:59] Rebecca Jones: Yeah. [00:04:00] Vince Menzione: Uh, it was a time of tumultuous change at Microsoft. [00:04:03] Rebecca Jones: Yes. [00:04:04] Vince Menzione: Uh, in fact, we were talking about the, uh, entrepreneur’s dilemma earlier, uh, today, and Microsoft was going through that period where, you know, we, everyone loves Steve Bomber, but there was a time within the organization that it was stuck. [00:04:18] Rebecca Jones: Mm-hmm. [00:04:19] Vince Menzione: And it had to transform as an organization. [00:04:22] Rebecca Jones: A hundred percent. And so when you think about companies like Microsoft, it’s not only what they do, but how they bring that to market. Yep. And uh, so when you think about where Bridge Partners started and having the privilege to be in Microsoft of all places to, um, cut your teeth on you look at where we started and where we’ve grown from there. [00:04:44] Rebecca Jones: Uh, within the tech industry, we’ve worked across, um, multiple hyperscalers. We’ve worked across, uh. Really the top tier tech and telco, those top 100. Yep. And all the household names. And then throughout that, across the partner ecosystem, because you and I both know these companies grow and scale their businesses through the partner ecosystem, and so we’ve been privileged to work across. [00:05:08] Rebecca Jones: Multiple depth and breadth partners in that play. [00:05:12] Vince Menzione: And as an agency, are you more known for project management go to market? Uh, what, what are the areas and focus where the outcomes that you achieve? [00:05:21] Rebecca Jones: Yeah, so we’re known for. Being on the growth side of the house. And how I define that is you find us in marketing, but that center of gravity is in product marketing. [00:05:32] Vince Menzione: Yes. [00:05:32] Rebecca Jones: And then how you scale that through partner ecosystems and then supporting that field or that sales organization. So when you think about those three pillars within the organization, that’s where you’ll find us. [00:05:43] Vince Menzione: And why would I choose Bridge Partners? [00:05:46] Rebecca Jones: Oh, well, um, based on experience. Um, and then when you think about Bridge Partners, it’s not, um, just what we do, but when you take a look at our engagements and background, we’re over 90% referral. [00:06:01] Vince Menzione: Wow. [00:06:02] Rebecca Jones: And so people take us with them and um, what I look at is have we actually moved the needle or driven the customer outcomes? And when you think about the customers that we’ve worked with and the companies in this industry. It’s quite a roster and I don’t take that lightly because if you’re going to help support these companies and help them grow, it’s a testament to how we were able to accomplish that. [00:06:27] Rebecca Jones: Because all these companies have complex enterprise organizations. Their go to market is nuanced and how they want to, and then, um, get and grow. And so these are just a couple of the different ways that we’ve been able to be successful. [00:06:42] Vince Menzione: Fantastic. You know, you’ve done workshops at our events and talked to our community about how to help them achieve their greatest results. [00:06:50] Vince Menzione: What would you say to them? Now we’re living in this time? I, I I, I said this earlier, I don’t want to use the term tectonic shifts, but I’m running out of words to describe how tumultuous this time feels right now to me. [00:07:03] Rebecca Jones: It’s interesting you say that. I was thinking about that. ’cause both you and I have been in the industry for a bit. [00:07:08] Rebecca Jones: Yeah. And, um, there’s some pattern recognition happening right now for me and how I look at the go to market and these, these points in time and the evolution and. This point in time, it is a tectonic shift. But a lot of companies have other, have had to go through these challenges before. If you think about, um, the migration to the cloud and [00:07:33] Vince Menzione: yes, [00:07:33] Rebecca Jones: all of the unlocks that it has, and at the end of the day it’s, it’s shifting and thinking about new business models and it’s shifting and thinking about go to market, but there is. [00:07:43] Rebecca Jones: There are things that ring true no matter where you are. And one of the things I’ve always taken a look at is, do you know your underlying value and relevance in market? And are you being customer centric? That never goes outta style, right? Do [00:07:58] Vince Menzione: you know your value and are you customer centric? That makes a lot of sense, right? [00:08:02] Vince Menzione: Yeah. And do they, what do you do? And, and do they, how do what, how do they answer to that question? [00:08:07] Rebecca Jones: Well, that’s a, that’s a thinking question. Yes. Right? Yes. It takes a minute to think about that. Um, where is your moment of relevance with a customer? [00:08:16] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:08:17] Rebecca Jones: Where is your moment of relevance with a customer? [00:08:19] Rebecca Jones: And when you think about your reason to exist as a business, you have a really defined ICP, an ideal customer profile, and where’s your moment of relevance and. Yes. There’s a lot happening right now, and I think also because of where we sit in the industry and being in the midst of all of these giants with incredible technology to bring to market. [00:08:44] Rebecca Jones: Yeah. We’re, we’re in the front end of this wave or the, the, the tectonic shift that you’re talking about. It’s just, you know, it’s unsettling to a certain degree, but it’s really energetic and it’s. Dynamic and, and there’s so much opportunity out there. So [00:08:59] Vince Menzione: much so, you know, you had me thinking about the $600 billion that’ll be invested this year and just in cloud infrastructure and chips, right? [00:09:08] Vince Menzione: Yeah. So data centers and chips, and talk about that being like kind of creating this wave, this huge tsunami that’s coming for the beaches and, and everything seems to be. Every week there’s a new announcement, and recently it’s been philanthropic and clawed. And yes, uh, the markets are reacting. They’re, um. [00:09:30] Vince Menzione: They’re almost, uh, imploding in some ca in some cases because they’re trying to react the financial analysts, they’re trying to react to what’s happening right now. [00:09:38] Rebecca Jones: It, the investment is massive and it’s, it’s incredible and it’s massive. And over the last year, you saw a lot of experimentation. Yeah. And you saw a lot of dabbling, a lot of, you know, quite. [00:09:52] Rebecca Jones: Frankly, a little bit of concern about is this gonna pay off? [00:09:56] Vince Menzione: Yes. [00:09:57] Rebecca Jones: And when you look at where we are in this chain cycle and this adoption cycle, we’re right at the front end, the early adopters. And so a lot of the work that we’re doing, and where I’m focused on is how do you move from experimentation? To truly having some movement over into MVP and scale. [00:10:18] Rebecca Jones: And so I’ll just harken back to Yeah, [00:10:19] Vince Menzione: please. [00:10:20] Rebecca Jones: That product mindset of when you’re looking at opportunity within the business, there was a lot of, um, there was a lot of pockets of experimentation just for fun. Just for fun. And so when you look across the business, um, and what, what we observed was, um, businesses of all different sizes, experimenting and, and some were just, they’re fun, they’re dabbling, right? [00:10:45] Rebecca Jones: But it, it changed in the second half of last year, people became much more thoughtful, much more purposeful, um, thinking forward about how would this be applied to my business? Yeah, because the question now isn’t. Could we do this? It’s really, should we do this [00:11:03] Vince Menzione: right? And and there was a period of time, I don’t mean to interrupt you, but there was a period of time when we were talking about earlier in in last year, we were talking about halluc hallucinations still. [00:11:13] Vince Menzione: Yes. So there was a lack of confidence on the platform side. Yes. Microsoft had brought out. Uh, it’s copilot solutions early to market. And there was some, uh, pushback from the community saying, we’re not seeing the results of that. Yeah. From the financial community specifically. And then I think what you said is then the second half of the year things started to change. [00:11:35] Vince Menzione: There was greater confidence. The [00:11:36] Rebecca Jones: Yeah, [00:11:37] Vince Menzione: I’d say the models got better. [00:11:38] Rebecca Jones: The models got better. But when you think about innovation, that’s inherent risk, [00:11:43] Vince Menzione: right? [00:11:43] Rebecca Jones: Right. Yes. When, when you’re on an innovation curve, yes, that’s risk. And so you have to look at as any great CFO will tell you diversification innovation. [00:11:56] Rebecca Jones: When you start to look at that market landscape, you’re creating risks. Yes. So they’re investing a lot and they wanna know when the payoff is coming back into the business. Right? Or back into the market. [00:12:08] Vince Menzione: So Rebecca, where is the AI market right now? [00:12:13] Rebecca Jones: Oh, that is a tough and great question, Vince. [00:12:18] Vince Menzione: I mean, we’ve gone through it and I’ll, I’ll kind of frame this for, yes, for, for everyone, at least from my perspective of what’s happened, right? [00:12:24] Vince Menzione: So, uh, September, 2022. Chat, GBT. Yeah. So we get into chat bots or chat bot, chat bot, chat bot, chat bot the first year or so, beginning of last year, 2025. A agentic AI really starts to take hold. It’s, it becomes a new term. In fact, I don’t think we were even using the term agentic AI before the end of 24, beginning of 25. [00:12:47] Vince Menzione: And then agents have really proliferated, um, all of the marketplaces now have agents and people are developing their own agents and so on. And all the tools, like all, all the cloud tools have agent capabilities. And now, um. We’re in 2026 and we’re still in the first quarter. It feels like the agents are starting to rule the world and maybe taking over the world [00:13:10] Rebecca Jones: they might be. [00:13:11] Vince Menzione: Yeah, [00:13:11] Rebecca Jones: right. There is definitely a proliferation of agents and I’m anticipating a lot of consolidation of that. ’cause most of the agents I’ve seen drop into, um. A lot of the areas where you and I can download are features. [00:13:26] Vince Menzione: Yes. [00:13:26] Rebecca Jones: They’re really feature agents and those will get consolidated ’cause the where we are and you ask where we are in the market. [00:13:33] Rebecca Jones: What I love. I love where we are ’cause we’re starting to tackle real business problems. And what I’m observing and what we’re working on is really helping connect back into the business to really start that transformational work. [00:13:48] Vince Menzione: So take us through that. I’d love that. I’d love, give us a scenario or [00:13:51] Rebecca Jones: give us a use case. [00:13:52] Rebecca Jones: Do this. Yeah. I think’s really great scenarios here that I can walk you through. And first and foremost it is, and I’m gonna go back and I talked about specialization in specialty areas. Yes. That’s really important. Um, we talked yesterday during the conference around, um, industry. What industry are you in? [00:14:11] Rebecca Jones: You know, I’m in tech and that’s, that’s, we know that industry, we know those business models really well. That’s extremely important. And then you move within that. And what functions do you know and functions in this, you know, order are the product marketing function, how does that work? [00:14:30] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:14:30] Rebecca Jones: How does that work in an enterprise organization or a sales function or a. [00:14:36] Rebecca Jones: Partner function. And within that, what are all the workflows? How do these teams operate together? And so that’s where that curiosity comes in of not just how you did the work. How is the work orchestrated? [00:14:49] Vince Menzione: Inter orchestration is a huge topic area. [00:14:51] Rebecca Jones: Orchestration is a huge topic. Let’s, let’s go [00:14:53] Vince Menzione: there. [00:14:54] Rebecca Jones: E Exactly. [00:14:55] Rebecca Jones: And that’s where that curiosity, you know, I was talking about pattern recognition comes in how is the work designed? And that becomes. The blueprint for how you start to think about agentic workflows. And if you don’t have a great workflow, you don’t wanna replicate that in an agent, but Exactly. You definitely need to understand that. [00:15:18] Rebecca Jones: And so why don’t I take something that, um, I think will resonate for anyone listening to this podcast, because everyone is probably looking for growth this year and wanting to accelerate [00:15:28] Vince Menzione: Yes. [00:15:29] Rebecca Jones: Sales. Their pre-sales funnel. So if we just take that pre-sales motion and specifically now with where partners might play in that or where, um, technology companies might want to enable their partners better. [00:15:47] Rebecca Jones: When I start to break down a pre-sales function, you have areas within that. Whole workflow that your marketing department might be driving. They might be driving top of the funnel or or demand programs. And then as you move down the funnel, let’s call it mid funnel, that really has opportunities for partner and field sellers to come in and. [00:16:07] Rebecca Jones: You might be seen or observing that your, um, pipeline velocity is not where you want that, right? Mm-hmm. You might be, you know, as they say, stuck. Stuck. [00:16:18] Vince Menzione: Yep. [00:16:19] Rebecca Jones: And so when you start to look at what agents could do within that, I’ll use a real use case, um, around pre-sales workshops. You and I are both familiar with that. [00:16:28] Vince Menzione: We, we are, we were just talking about this last night, in fact, at dinner, about pre pre-sales workshops and how this is still such a vital component, how organizations work together. [00:16:37] Rebecca Jones: Such a vital component, um, for multiple reasons, right? You get to engage directly with the customer. You get to spend time with that customer. [00:16:46] Rebecca Jones: You get to ensure you understand what are their most pressing use cases and really help them design and buy into a solution far before you get to a proposal. And quite frankly, if you do this right. You also have an adoption plan, and then think about it from other functional areas in the organization. [00:17:02] Rebecca Jones: You start to pattern match across those presale workshops. You can start to see the use cases that are most valuable in market and start to put that into your messaging. So you think about presale workshop, it’s just not the activity of having a workshop, but if you could build an agent. To really help design around partners, enabling partners to deliver better presale workshops. [00:17:27] Rebecca Jones: Interesting. And how are you ingesting information that goes into the workshop? How are you helping, um, develop materials and first drafts faster for proposals post? How are you. Data is informing this. What are you collecting and what are you providing, and then what are you delivering? If you take that one simple component in a pre-sales process, you can see where I’m going. [00:17:53] Rebecca Jones: Yeah. All of a sudden, an ecosystem starts to show up around how could you connect better back with product marketing? What are they doing? What could you inform them with, with the data that you’re bringing in? [00:18:03] Vince Menzione: Interesting. [00:18:03] Rebecca Jones: And then what are the. Deterministic pathways outside of that, that you could be informing downstream down to first, first stress faster on proposals. [00:18:13] Rebecca Jones: Are you helping those partners with an adoption plan? The service partners in there. And so that is the designer and the architect of understanding how that workflow comes to life. And then you can really start to think about the outcomes that you wanna drive. And that’s where I love to start the conversations. [00:18:31] Rebecca Jones: That shouldn’t be an afterthought. That should be where you start. [00:18:35] Vince Menzione: So how do you, how do you, how do you start with this? You gave me a great example, but how do you apply this in the business? Like what do you take when you meet with a client to talk about pre-sales workshops as an example? [00:18:47] Rebecca Jones: Yeah. [00:18:47] Vince Menzione: You take a proforma of what a pre-sales workshop would look like. [00:18:51] Vince Menzione: I’m, I’m, I. I might be wrong on this, but you have, like, you, you now have, uh, AI or AI that they go out and pull the data that you would normally ask maybe in some, some, uh, process, uh, information flow process that we grab and, and pull this into the, to the, to the form. The [00:19:10] Rebecca Jones: first question I always ask is, why. [00:19:12] Rebecca Jones: Why is this so important and valuable? I might have an assumption why, based on my experience, but I want the facts, right? I wanna know how they’re measuring it today, so we have a baseline and I wanna understand what their goals are. [00:19:28] Vince Menzione: Okay? [00:19:29] Rebecca Jones: Are they looking to increase revenue? X percentage. Uh, how many deals are they anticipating? [00:19:38] Rebecca Jones: How many presale workshops do they typically deliver through partner a year? Are they looking to scale that? Probably, yes. Are they looking to increase the value that they’re getting into contract post presale workshop? Probably yes. But I want that empirical data. And then I also wanna know where are they storing that? [00:19:57] Rebecca Jones: Where are they sourcing that? And so it, it really. The question and the question set really is understanding the business outcomes and the why. I, I ask a lot of why, and it really helps you frame in what would be the best outcome or the best solution, and then where do you start? Because there’s a lot of appetite for a. [00:20:21] Rebecca Jones: A transformational workflow from A to Z. And that’s a hard place to, [00:20:26] Vince Menzione: it’s hard show momentum. It’s hard. It’s hard, [00:20:27] Rebecca Jones: right? [00:20:27] Vince Menzione: It’s, it’s hard to document your current workflow flows. [00:20:30] Rebecca Jones: Yeah. [00:20:30] Vince Menzione: Let alone come back and do this ally. [00:20:33] Rebecca Jones: Yes. [00:20:34] Vince Menzione: And create the best outcomes. [00:20:36] Rebecca Jones: Yes. [00:20:36] Vince Menzione: So I go back to this and I go, well, what, what creates the best outcomes? [00:20:39] Vince Menzione: Where the customer signs at the dotted line, and then how do you work back from that to the pre-sales workshop? Is that how [00:20:46] Rebecca Jones: you do it? A hundred percent. It’s a hundred percent. And then where do you start? How do you show, um, progress, not perfection. And so in this world, there’s a lot of, um, pressure. To show progress, outcomes, momentum. [00:21:00] Rebecca Jones: Yeah. And these very significant investments that are being made. And so how do you get them to quick wins? And so you know this, for any new executive coming into role, what are your quick wins? Yes. Right? Yes. You need to transform an organization, you need to transform a function. How do you set them up for success? [00:21:19] Rebecca Jones: And that’s always in my mind, that’s always in the mind of. The bridge partners, leaders of how do you set this leader up for success? And it’s that point between strategy and execution. How do you help them show quick wins? And so I broke you down that process. Yep. Of how would you think about in that use case, how to bring that back and help them show quick wins? [00:21:42] Rebecca Jones: Not in six months or a year, but in six weeks to eight weeks. How do you, how do you get them on that journey and then help them build to that next slide. And [00:21:51] Vince Menzione: in fact, that’s how you, you, you’ve made your, your name or your fame in the industry is really coming in and helping some of these executives, especially when they’re newer in role. [00:22:00] Rebecca Jones: Yes. [00:22:00] Vince Menzione: And those of us who’ve been around the Microsoft ecosystem know this well. Like you get asked day one, what’s your plan? The, while the fire, while the fire hose is blowing in your face at a hundred, a hundred miles an hour? Uh, what’s your plan? [00:22:14] Rebecca Jones: What’s your plan? What’s your [00:22:14] Vince Menzione: plan? [00:22:15] Rebecca Jones: What is your plan? [00:22:16] Vince Menzione: Yeah, yeah. [00:22:16] Vince Menzione: And then you have to show some measurable results fairly quickly. [00:22:19] Rebecca Jones: You have to [00:22:20] Vince Menzione: because you’re asked to get up in front of everyone. Yeah. Very soon. [00:22:23] Rebecca Jones: And that’s a blueprint that we have. We have, it’s a quick win. And when you think about all of these organizations that we’ve worked with, um, speed to market is a value signal. [00:22:36] Vince Menzione: Yep. [00:22:36] Rebecca Jones: Right? And that speed and quality. Where are you willing to take the risk? Where are you willing to fail fast? And what outcomes are non-negotiable and what are, and so when you look at that, there’s, there’s conversations that need to be had on. And being able to filter out the noise to get down to what’s really gonna move the needle, um, for our clients and for the executives that we work with. [00:23:06] Rebecca Jones: So they can show momentum and progress quickly. And then we talked a lot about it. We don’t do three year plans, right? We’re gonna help you show progress in months, [00:23:16] Vince Menzione: nice. [00:23:17] Rebecca Jones: And in quarters, right? It’s not, um, 10 years. [00:23:19] Vince Menzione: Can anybody even have a three year plan anymore? [00:23:22] Rebecca Jones: Who’s got one? [00:23:23] Vince Menzione: I’d love to spend some time on co-selling with you. [00:23:25] Vince Menzione: Yeah. Just because I know this was a topic that came up one of our workshops in the Yeah. We hosted, yes. Last year we hosted a session. With another partner. Bridge Partners. [00:23:34] Rebecca Jones: Yes. [00:23:35] Vince Menzione: And you talked about the power of three and I know you’ve published some information about the power of three. I thought maybe we’d talk about that. [00:23:41] Vince Menzione: ’cause I think that is fascinating and it seems very relevant even in yesterday’s conversation. Uh, there was a conversation about another partner, uh, that is looking to build an ecosystem that hasn’t really thought about building out an ecosystem before, as an example. And this, this, I think is some of the work that you do really applies against this. [00:24:01] Rebecca Jones: Yeah. This, I mean, it, it’s a hot topic, right? Yeah. Power of three, which fits under the umbrella of co-sell Yes. And co-selling. And everyone has a slightly different definition, so I’ll define where we play. Good in there. Um, and then I’ll talk to you about the power of three, um, because that’s one of. Um, I’ll call it the scenarios under co-selling. [00:24:23] Rebecca Jones: Yes. And it’s a very popular one. It [00:24:24] Vince Menzione: is pop Well, it is for v various reasons too because, and I’ll just set the context for this. We were used to co-selling being a technology organization and a and a hyperscaler, like a Microsoft. [00:24:37] Rebecca Jones: Yes. [00:24:37] Vince Menzione: Going to do something together and driving direct output or sales. Now we have finally seen where marketplaces, which has become the co-sell engine, have now enabled the channel. [00:24:49] Vince Menzione: Um, the reseller enabled, uh, offers now to now, uh, operate on behalf of, and so at least in that case, that’s three right there. Now, there might be more than just three. We talk about the seven seats of the table, but the power of three is palpable right now. [00:25:04] Rebecca Jones: Yeah. Let me tell you about that concept of the power of three. [00:25:07] Rebecca Jones: ’cause when you think about the classic one [00:25:10] Vince Menzione: yeah, [00:25:10] Rebecca Jones: it’s a hyperscaler. [00:25:11] Vince Menzione: Yep. [00:25:12] Rebecca Jones: A GSI. And then an ISB. [00:25:15] Vince Menzione: Yes. [00:25:15] Rebecca Jones: Right? [00:25:16] Vince Menzione: Yes. [00:25:16] Rebecca Jones: I mean that’s the, that’s the power, the powerful power, the three three, [00:25:19] Vince Menzione: the three giants in the [00:25:20] Rebecca Jones: room. The three giants. Yeah. And that’s rarefied air. [00:25:24] Vince Menzione: It is [00:25:25] Rebecca Jones: very [00:25:26] Vince Menzione: verified air. It’s, [00:25:26] Rebecca Jones: yeah. Right. And, uh, we do, we have a published article on that, um, and running a power three with SAP, uh, and it is, um, it changes the dynamics. [00:25:41] Rebecca Jones: Of how companies are gonna scale and grow in this market, right? [00:25:46] Vince Menzione: Yes. [00:25:46] Rebecca Jones: Because we know, um, that what got you to this point? Is likely not gonna get you to that next stage of growth. And all the conversations around the platform play is the partner ecosystem, right? And I look at the opportunity, not just with the power through, I’m gonna talk to you a little bit more about that story and what we’re doing there and how we’re looking at that. [00:26:12] Rebecca Jones: Um, but it is the ultimate. Design for your go to market. Yeah. When you think about how partners and the various types of partners can help you scale, but you need to know what you need. You absolutely need to know, [00:26:29] Vince Menzione: yeah. [00:26:30] Rebecca Jones: What are you trying to achieve in your go to market and what’s missing? [00:26:34] Vince Menzione: What are the gaps? [00:26:34] Vince Menzione: Gaps? [00:26:35] Rebecca Jones: What are the gaps? Are the gaps before you apply? Yes. The power of three, or I’ll talk to you about a couple other use cases within that. So the power of three. Has long been on everybody’s, you know, can, can we get this done right? Can you pattern match the customer set? I’ll often refer to it as a BM on steroids, account-based marketing and on steroids. [00:26:59] Rebecca Jones: Can you pattern match, um, the, the hyperscaler, let’s just use Microsoft in this scenario, the, the. High potential customers of Microsoft Joint with SAP joint, with A GSI. And the more specialized and specific you get in there, it’s not just any, because think about the size of these, you know, companies. Yeah, right. [00:27:24] Rebecca Jones: Then you start to look at, well, let’s get a little bit more specific on these product sets, these industries, these use cases. And then you start to refine that where you can start to identify your greatest opportunity for growth. So that’s the first stage of that. And it is, you know, we, we think about where is that overlap and where is that opportunity, but how do you activate that? [00:27:51] Vince Menzione: And it’s complex because, uh, as you, as you mentioned those three. Organizations, each of them have different go to markets. [00:27:59] Rebecca Jones: They do, [00:27:59] Vince Menzione: they have different, a different mapping of their geographies and their ideal customer profiles. [00:28:05] Rebecca Jones: Mm-hmm. [00:28:06] Vince Menzione: Um, and they, yeah, and they apply different tactics and selling tactics and channel tactics and so on that you have to layer in or you have to take into account when you build this. [00:28:15] Vince Menzione: And SAP’s a very different go-to market motion than a Microsoft, than a, than a, an EY or any name the GSI percent. Yeah. [00:28:23] Rebecca Jones: And so that is why not only is it, um, complex from a. Sharing and figuring out what data you’re going to share. Yeah. But how do you activate it? How [00:28:35] Vince Menzione: do you activate it? [00:28:36] Rebecca Jones: And uh, and that is what all companies are striving to do. [00:28:41] Rebecca Jones: Who are you gonna go to market with? Yeah. What is your best play in the industry? And so I, you know, while this one. There’s very few companies that are gonna be able to activate directly with the hyperscaler, right? Yes. Uh, Microsoft AWS or Google. Um, but there are ways in which you can apply this strategy no matter the size of your organization. [00:29:05] Rebecca Jones: And so when you think about. The power of three. It could be any combination. You are the designer, you are the decider of who is in your power of three. And when you start to kind of unpack that a little bit, it could be Microsoft, SAPN one ISV, or it could be a combination of complementary I ISVs that unlock a play. [00:29:28] Vince Menzione: Mm-hmm. [00:29:29] Rebecca Jones: Like migration to the cloud. [00:29:31] Vince Menzione: Right. [00:29:31] Rebecca Jones: Like it, it could be [00:29:33] Vince Menzione: backup and recovery. I could rattle off the different types of solutions. Yeah. [00:29:37] Rebecca Jones: What is, where are you seeing the greatest opportunity to scale and what ISVs could come in to help you do that? So when you extract that from the power of three, the classic power of three of Costone, you brought that down to, you know, how do you think about that in the masses of marketplace? [00:29:56] Rebecca Jones: Yeah. Or partners of any size. I like to bring this back to. Where do you believe your greatest opportunity is? Do you have, um, opportunity or weakness in your portfolio, your product set? Could a partner come in and help augment that? Do you have a tech platform and you need a services arm to help extend that? [00:30:19] Rebecca Jones: I I mean the, it it, the world’s your oyster. Yeah. You get to kit this together any way you need and then. The power of bringing these companies together. And you and I both know, and that was much of the conversation yesterday, is, um, the greater goodness of companies coming together Yes. To compliment one another to solve a customer problem. [00:30:39] Vince Menzione: How do you take it from concept to execution? Because to me, that’s. Especially when you’re talking about not just one organization like a micro, you’re working with a Microsoft or an SAP, but you’re layering in three types of organizations and you’re going across different sales motions. How do you get them all? [00:30:58] Vince Menzione: How do you get them all aligned in working together the right way? [00:31:02] Rebecca Jones: Magic. Magic. [00:31:03] Vince Menzione: Okay. [00:31:04] Rebecca Jones: I’m kidding. [00:31:04] Vince Menzione: Call bridge, call Rebecca [00:31:07] Rebecca Jones: Magic. [00:31:07] Vince Menzione: Nine nine nine five five five five. [00:31:09] Rebecca Jones: Let, let, let me, uh, let me talk about that because [00:31:13] Vince Menzione: Yeah, [00:31:13] Rebecca Jones: it’s one, there’s the good work, there’s the good thought work and the strategy of how to ensure you’re, you’re pointing and you’ve got the team lined up, right? [00:31:22] Rebecca Jones: Right. And the players lined up. But activation of that. Oh, [00:31:28] Vince Menzione: massive work. [00:31:29] Rebecca Jones: It’s massive work. Yeah. And it’s not a set it and forget it. [00:31:33] Vince Menzione: Right, [00:31:34] Rebecca Jones: right, [00:31:34] Vince Menzione: right. [00:31:35] Rebecca Jones: And when you think about the alignment, and you talked about we, we’ve got different fiscal year ends and we’ve got different sales and center plans. I will talk about a few things. [00:31:45] Rebecca Jones: One, executive sponsorship, top down. [00:31:48] Vince Menzione: Yep. [00:31:48] Rebecca Jones: Right. Um, ensuring, you know, compensation. You gotta get rid of the blockers and the barriers. [00:31:55] Vince Menzione: Yep. [00:31:56] Rebecca Jones: And you have to make it easy and you have to create that space because it’s really, and I’ll talk to you about some of the platforms and technology behind it, but it’s humans working together. [00:32:07] Rebecca Jones: There’s a lot of power in what we’re able to do now with, um, part tech platforms and with agentic solutions. And how do you automate this and how do you bring more power and visibility? Better than ever and, and more than ever. But at the end of the day, we’re activating teams. Across companies. Yep. To work together to bring this together. [00:32:34] Rebecca Jones: And there are playbooks, um, and any, there’s great playbooks out there, but you need to activate that. [00:32:41] Vince Menzione: You need to activate it. And you, you said you gotta get the executive commitment at the top? [00:32:45] Rebecca Jones: Yeah. [00:32:46] Vince Menzione: Not just at the CEO level, but across the leadership team. That’s right. In every silo. Uh, you’ve gotta get, uh, the organization, you have to get compensation taken care of because those, those can be blockers, those could be real blockers from getting the results you want to get. [00:33:00] Vince Menzione: And then you gotta get activation. [00:33:03] Rebecca Jones: Yeah. [00:33:03] Vince Menzione: Right? [00:33:04] Rebecca Jones: You gotta get activation and you have to be really clear on how you’re gonna activate what’s gonna move the needle. And you have to be ready to test, learn, optimize, and you need to put those into sprints. So I’ll give some examples around that. [00:33:20] Vince Menzione: Please do take us through the sprints. [00:33:21] Vince Menzione: ’cause this is, this is getting beyond the theory now. This is what I really wanted to capture with you. Take us through it. [00:33:28] Rebecca Jones: Yeah. [00:33:28] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:33:29] Rebecca Jones: So let’s just say we’ve got, we’ve got a power of three. [00:33:32] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:33:32] Rebecca Jones: You know, um, ready to roll and, and we’ve picked our industry and we have our use case. Um, between the three of us, the three players, you’re gonna start by allowing someone, and in this case it’s been Bridge Partners to really ensure we have a joint value prop, um, proposition for that end customer. [00:33:54] Rebecca Jones: Mm-hmm. And, you know, you gotta take a little ego out of the room. Typically on the power of three, you’ve got the leading companies coming in. But at the end of the day, if you’ve done this right, it’s, it’s customer first. It’s what’s gonna help solve this customer pain point in that language. And then when you think about activation, it’s who’s, who’s in role first? [00:34:20] Rebecca Jones: Right. And who’s taking point in these customer conversations. Right. Okay. And that is really, really, that’s important. Important. That is important. Who has the relationship? Yeah. Who is going to take lead and who’s gonna follow? And it gets all the way down to whose paper. Is this on? And that’s, that’s sometimes hard. [00:34:41] Rebecca Jones: You’ve got three players in the room, but it’s incredibly important to have those conversations and ensure that this is really end state for the customer. Yeah. So really going through roles and responsibilities and how are we gonna architect this for the customer’s success. Yeah. So that is a critical component of the playbook and then understanding. [00:35:02] Rebecca Jones: Where and what programs are we gonna drive, and then who’s taking what actions. And so I, I mentioned a BM on steroids a little before. Yes. There’s amazing things that you can be doing in market, [00:35:14] Vince Menzione: account-based marketing, [00:35:15] Rebecca Jones: m account-based based marketing, you dunno. Um, account-based marketing and there are some amazing things. [00:35:20] Rebecca Jones: Really truly connected sales and marketing, in this case. Connected sales, marketing and partner. Yeah. And how do you activate these partners together? [00:35:27] Vince Menzione: You used the term part tech, which. Not everyone understands partner technologies. Yes. Organizations like Partner Tap, work Span. Yeah. Tackle. [00:35:37] Rebecca Jones: Structured. Yeah. [00:35:38] Vince Menzione: Structured. If you, these are companies that help with co-selling methodologies, marketplace methodologies. [00:35:44] Rebecca Jones: Yes. [00:35:45] Vince Menzione: Or combining all of those, [00:35:46] Rebecca Jones: if you know, uh, J McBain, uh. Beautiful visual flat map of, um, it looks a little, the 28 moments. Yes. I was just, well, the 28 moments and he’s got the part tech landscape. [00:35:59] Vince Menzione: Oh, [00:35:59] Rebecca Jones: the islands. The islands. [00:36:00] Vince Menzione: Yes. The islands. [00:36:00] Rebecca Jones: Yes, we got it. But there are part tech solutions that support [00:36:03] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:36:03] Rebecca Jones: Partner programs, co-sell programs, partner marketing, you know. Yes. And really help to automate a lot of those processes. [00:36:11] Vince Menzione: Yes. [00:36:12] Rebecca Jones: Um, and a lot of those programs. [00:36:13] Vince Menzione: So Rebecca is such a great conversation today. [00:36:16] Vince Menzione: I mean, we can go. Thank you so deep on this. [00:36:18] Rebecca Jones: I know. [00:36:18] Vince Menzione: Which means that we’re all gonna have to be back together in Redmond. You live in the Seattle area? I do. And you’ll be with us. Um, we’ll be hosting the Ultimate Partner, live in, uh, may, May 11th to the 13th. If you’re marking your calendar as listeners and friends, uh, and you’ll be there and. [00:36:36] Vince Menzione: Probably driving some more of this conversation in a workshop format, I hope. [00:36:41] Rebecca Jones: I hope so too. Yeah, it was really rewarding last year. I mean, there’s nothing more powerful to be in the room with partners because the partners are frontline to customers. [00:36:51] Vince Menzione: Yes. [00:36:51] Rebecca Jones: And understanding what they’re seeing and hearing. [00:36:53] Rebecca Jones: And I always think voice of the customer is your ultimate signal. Yeah. So I can’t wait to be there. [00:36:58] Vince Menzione: Very cool. And I have a favorite question I ask all of my guests now. Uh, it is a favorite of mine. You are hosting a dinner party and you can choose where in the world you wanna host this dinner party, and you can invite only three guests, though from the present or the past to this amazing dinner party. [00:37:18] Vince Menzione: Whom would you invite Rebecca and why? And why? [00:37:22] Rebecca Jones: Yeah. Yeah. I’d, um, this is such a great question. I think on every single day I’d have a different collection of folks that I’d want at my home. Uh, I’ve had dinner at some amazing places for me. I would love to host this at my home. [00:37:38] Vince Menzione: Very cool, very [00:37:39] Rebecca Jones: cool. Uh, and the people that I would want there for this particular dinner party, I’m gonna pick, um, three iconic women. [00:37:51] Rebecca Jones: Coco Chanel, [00:37:52] Vince Menzione: Coco Chanel very cool [00:37:54] Rebecca Jones: designer. [00:37:55] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:37:56] Rebecca Jones: Um, really changed how women thought about an identity and wardrobe. Um, I would invite Georgia O’Keefe. Wow. She’s my favorite artist. [00:38:07] Vince Menzione: Yeah. [00:38:08] Rebecca Jones: Um, she is one of my favorite artists. Uh, I’m, uh, art and history background. And, uh, [00:38:16] Vince Menzione: that explains, [00:38:17] Rebecca Jones: that, explains that, um, a really interesting perspective. [00:38:22] Rebecca Jones: I love her view on landscapes and. She, [00:38:26] Vince Menzione: that’s why I know her as, you know, landscapes [00:38:28] Rebecca Jones: a landscape artist, um, and much more behind that. And then I would bring one of my favorite authors in, who’s Tony Morrison? [00:38:36] Vince Menzione: Tony [00:38:37] Rebecca Jones: Morrison. [00:38:38] Vince Menzione: I don’t know Tony Morrison. [00:38:39] Rebecca Jones: Oh, um, I would, beloved is her book and Oh, yes. When you think about. [00:38:45] Rebecca Jones: Um, and this is really my passion, my background in art and literature and design, and to have three, three women there, that voice of Tony Morrison, you’ve put that book on your list. Okay. It, it, it changed my life. Uh, and, um, Coco Chanel and, um, Giorgio O’Keefe, I think it would be a really interesting conversation. [00:39:07] Rebecca Jones: I love very cool trailblazers, women who really helped. I don’t know how much they recognize how much they really changed the narrative for other women, um, in their fields and together. But I think it’d be a really fun evening. [00:39:23] Vince Menzione: Very different. Very different. Uh, I was, I know a little bit about Cocoa Chanel ’cause my mom was always in the beauty and fashion industry. [00:39:31] Vince Menzione: So as a kid growing up, I mean her shoe was iconic. [00:39:34] Rebecca Jones: Yeah. [00:39:34] Vince Menzione: Iconic. Chanels an iconic brand was iconic. And, and she was a, wasn’t she a survivor of the. Of, uh, Nazi Germany maybe or something. There’s some, there’s some background or there’s [00:39:44] Rebecca Jones: some background. Flee. Flee [00:39:45] Vince Menzione: Nazi Germany [00:39:46] Rebecca Jones: or something. And what she’s really known for is, um, well many things, but yes, as a designer, really changing the tone and temperature Yes. [00:39:56] Rebecca Jones: Of um. How, you know, fashion and female identity. I think she, um, created the, what everybody knows is the little black dress and really got all that more structured and more modern look and feel of how to, how to wear and just really created a powerful path. [00:40:14] Vince Menzione: Very cool. Yeah. Very cool. [00:40:15] Rebecca Jones: So that’s who I’d have it, this one. [00:40:16] Vince Menzione: That will be a funer. [00:40:17] Rebecca Jones: Next time I’m on your podcast, I’d have a whole new crew. [00:40:21] Vince Menzione: Okay. Well I might. Bring dessert. If you don’t mind, I might bring a little, maybe a little chocolates I think maybe might be very appropriate would for this group and just maybe pop in for a few minutes. [00:40:29] Rebecca Jones: That would be great. [00:40:30] Vince Menzione: Because I don’t wanna inter interrupt the flow my, because this is be a great conversation. Oh my, [00:40:33] no, [00:40:33] Rebecca Jones: you would, I think you’d have a ball. [00:40:34] Vince Menzione: Okay. I, [00:40:35] Rebecca Jones: I mean, I know how close you were to your mother. [00:40:37] Vince Menzione: I am. [00:40:37] Rebecca Jones: And so, yeah. [00:40:39] Vince Menzione: So, um, this isn’t, again, I use this tumultuous term, but we are living in interesting times right now. [00:40:47] Rebecca Jones: We are. [00:40:47] Vince Menzione: And for all of our viewers and listeners. What is your advice to them? What is the one thing you would say? We’re in the first quarter of 2026. Yeah. This ball is moving fast or this puck is moving fast. Yeah. If you were a hockey player, um, what would you say to us now? What, what, what is the one thing you would go do if you’re not doing it now that you should be doing? [00:41:11] Rebecca Jones: Take a moment. Take a moment. As leaders. Your company and your organizations are looking for clarity. They’re looking for a path forward, and there’s a lot of energy out there, which is very exciting, but it can be also very distracting. [00:41:30] Vince Menzione: Yes. [00:41:31] Rebecca Jones: So hold some confidence and clarity for your organization and figure out where you need to be and where you’re going. [00:41:39] Rebecca Jones: That’ll help set your strategy, and this will all come into view. And so what I look to is how do we help enable the organization to grow? And by doing that, you ha you have to put the oxygen mask on yourself. Yeah. Take a moment. [00:41:53] Vince Menzione: Pause. [00:41:55] Rebecca Jones: Pause. Reflect, reflect. I told you I walked down to the beach this morning. [00:41:59] Rebecca Jones: It’s a great moment. Take a moment for yourself. It’s not passing you by. We’re just getting started. [00:42:06] Vince Menzione: Did you hear that? My friends and listeners? Take a moment. And so great to have you here in the room. Yeah. [00:42:13] Rebecca Jones: Thank you so [00:42:14] Vince Menzione: much. Thank you. And I want to thank our listeners, our viewers, for following along, ultimate Guide to Partnering and our YouTube channel Ultimate Partner. [00:42:23] Vince Menzione: And please, please, please come join us. We have an incredible year ahead. This was our event, number one of five. And Ultimate partner Live will be in Bellevue on the 11th through the 13th of May. [00:42:36] Rebecca Jones: Yeah, I’ll [00:42:36] Vince Menzione: see. You’ll see you there. Rebecca will be there. It’s [00:42:38] Rebecca Jones: in my backyard. [00:42:39] Vince Menzione: It’s in your backyard. And we are gonna have incredible leaders in the room. [00:42:42] Vince Menzione: So thank you for watching. Thank you for listening to The Ultimate Guide to Partnering. [00:42:47] Rebecca Jones: Don’t forget, ultimate Partner Live is coming [00:42:50] Vince Menzione: soon, May 11th through the 13th in beautiful Bellevue, Washington. I hope to see you there.s I, as I wrap up here, I just wanna make sure that what, where

What made Egypt the longest-surviving country in the world? Aidan Dodson is a professor and author of over 30 books and helps us explore fundamental shifts in our understanding of ancient Egypt. The discussion spans the civilization's long run, from the unification around 3000 BC—a feat commemorated by the crucial Narmer Palette—until Christianity began to erode its religious and linguistic foundations around 300 AD. Dodson examines the Pyramid Era, explaining these structures as magical machines designed to transition the dead king into a god. He also covers the rise of the sun cult and the political power of female pharaohs, including Nefertiti, whose historical importance lies in her role negotiating the religious transition from Akhenaten's revolution to Tutankhamun's return to tradition. The episode concludes with Dr. Dodson's top archaeological discoveries he wishes he had witnessed.   00:00 Introduction 01:30 A Passion for Egyptology 02:47 How Ancient Egypt is Presented to Young Audiences 03:47 Defining the Span of Ancient Egypt 04:21 The Unification of Egypt 08:18 Narmer: The Unifier of Egypt 09:56 Daily Life in Early Ancient Egypt 11:31 The Political Center: Memphis 12:57 Knowing the Personalities of Ancient Rulers 15:48 The Narmer Palette and the Discovery of Human Sacrifice 24:29 The Dawn of the Pyramid Era 27:44 Imhotep: Djoser's Right-Hand Man 30:38 Sneferu: The Greatest Pyramid Builder 33:36 The Purpose of the Pyramids 38:35 The Elevation of the Sun Cult 40:34 The Pyramid Texts and Egyptian Religion 44:49 The Female Pharaohs 49:25 Nefertiti: From Glamour to Political Power 53:57 Dr. Dodson's Top Archaeological Moments 54:50 The Discovery of Tutankhamun's Tomb 01:00:04 The Imperial Relationship of Ancient Egypt and Nubia 01:03:17 The Nubian Pharaoh   Aidan Dodson is honorary full professor of Egyptology in the Department of Anthropology and Archaeology at the University of Bristol, and has authored some thirty books. He was also Simpson Professor of Egyptology at the American University in Cairo in 2013, and Chair of the Egypt Exploration Society during 2011–16. Awarded his PhD by the University of Cambridge in 2003, he was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London in 2003.   Connect with Aidan Dodson

Die Springbok-sewes se afrigter, Philip Snyman, sê hy is trots op die span se kliniese spel teen Spanje in die eindstryd van die Kanadese wêreldreekstoernooi in Vancouver. Suid-Afrika het ses drieë gedruk en Spanje 38-12 verpletter. Dit was die Blitsbokke se derde titel in vyf toernooie in die huidige seisoen. Snyman sê hy is tevrede met die span se volgehoue spelpeil en die groep se diepte:

This week's stories: Healthy Diets That Offset "Bad Genes" A major UK Biobank study of over 100,000 people found that following any one of five healthy dietary patterns was associated with up to 3 extra years of life — and the benefit held regardless of genetic predisposition to longevity. Your DNA is not an excuse. The macro pattern matters more than the perfect protocol. • Sources: -https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.ads7559 -https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12904179 -https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/eat-well-live-longer-study-5-healthy-diet-plans-longevity Micro-Habits in Sleep, Activity, and Diet That Extend Life Researchers built a composite "SPAN" score combining sleep, movement, sedentary time, and diet quality and found that small improvements across all four — we're talking minutes per day — cut mortality risk by up to 64% when stacked together. The gains only showed up when behaviors improved in combination, not in isolation. • Sources: -https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11863424 -https://theconversation.com/small-improvements-in-sleep-physical-activity-and-diet-are-linked-with-a-longer-life-273502 -https://www.lboro.ac.uk/news-events/news/2026/january/small-improvements-in-health-linked-to-longer-life Methionine and Cysteine Restriction: The Diet That Mimics Cold Exposure New research shows that reducing sulfur amino acids — methionine and cysteine, found heavily in certain animal proteins — triggers fat browning and thermogenesis in mice, mimicking the metabolic effects of cold exposure without the cold. Supporting human data from Nature Metabolism suggests this lever works in people too • Sources: -https://elifesciences.org/reviewed-preprints/108825v2 -https://www.nature.com/articles/s42255-025-01297-8 -https://topics.consensus.app/news/research-finds-low-methionine-and-cysteine-diet-increases-caloric-burn-in-mice-evidence-review Tyrosine and Lifespan: What the Data Says for Men A Mendelian randomization analysis of over 270,000 UK Biobank participants found that genetically higher tyrosine levels were associated with nearly one year shorter lifespan in men — with no significant effect in women. This reflects lifelong endogenous levels, not short-term supplementation, but it's a signal worth understanding if you're using tyrosine strategically • Sources: -https://www.news-medical.net/news/20260301/Higher-tyrosine-levels-linked-to-shorter-lifespan-in-major-UK-Biobank-analysis.aspx -https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1105915 -https://www.aging-us.com/news-room/high-tyrosine-levels-linked-to-shorter-lifespan-in-men War Doomscrolling and WW3 Anxiety as a Stealth Aging Accelerator Compulsive consumption of conflict and war news is linked to PTSD-like symptoms, existential anxiety, and chronic stress — even in civilians far from any battlefield. Layered on top of cardiology data connecting chronic stress to heart disease and stroke, your news diet is now a legitimate healthspan variable. Subtractive biohacking is still biohacking. • Sources: -https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/07/240718124709.htm -https://www.theguardian.com/technology/article/2024/jul/19/doomscrolling-linked-to-existential-anxiety-distrust-suspicion-and-despair-study-finds -https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/doomscrolling-dangers -https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9517387 All source links are provided for direct access to the original reporting and research. This episode is designed for biohackers, longevity seekers, and high-performance listeners who want mechanism-level clarity on circadian biology, neurodegeneration signals, cognitive training, caffeine strategy, and supplement regulation. Host Dave Asprey connects emerging science, behavioral data, and policy shifts into practical frameworks you can use to build a resilient, adaptable health stack. New episodes every Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and Sunday. Keywords: healthy diet longevity genes, UK Biobank diet study, Mediterranean diet lifespan, DASH diet mortality, SPAN score sleep activity diet, micro habits longevity, mortality risk reduction, methionine restriction thermogenesis, cysteine restriction fat loss, sulfur amino acids metabolism, FGF21 fat browning, tyrosine lifespan men, Mendelian randomization amino acids, tyrosine supplement risk, doomscrolling aging, war news anxiety stress, chronic stress heart disease, psychosocial stress healthspan, biohacking news, longevity research 2026 Thank you to our sponsors! -AquaTru | Go to https://aquatruwater.com/daveasprey and save $100 on all AquaTru water purifiers.-BEYOND Biohacking Conference 2026 | Register with code DAVE300 for $300 off https://beyondconference.comResources: • Get My 2026 Clean Nicotine Roadmap | Enroll for free at https://daveasprey.com/2026-clean-nicotine-roadmap/ • Get My 2026 Biohacking Trends Report: https://daveasprey.com/2026-biohacking-trends-report/ • Dave Asprey's Latest News | Go to https://daveasprey.com/ to join Inside Track today. • Danger Coffee: https://dangercoffee.com/discount/dave15 • My Daily Supplements: SuppGrade Labs (15% Off) • Favorite Blue Light Blocking Glasses: TrueDark (15% Off) • Dave Asprey's BEYOND Conference: https://beyondconference.com • Dave Asprey's New Book – Heavily Meditated: https://daveasprey.com/heavily-meditated • Join My Substack (Live Access To Podcast Recordings): https://substack.daveasprey.com/ • Upgrade Labs: https://upgradelabs.com Timestamps: 0:00 - Introduction 0:18 - Story #1: Diet vs. Genetics 2:14 - Story #2: 1% Better Every Day 4:26 - Story #3: Sulfur Amino Acids & Fat Loss 5:55 - Story #4: Tyrosine & Longevity 7:58 - Story #5: Doomscrolling & Aging 10:00 - Weekly Roundup See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Tim Jones discusses what the political landscape looks like as midterms rapidly approach us. C-SPAN is for congress, so should there be a MO-SPAN for the Missouri senate? Can price increases be a good thing? David Stokes explains. Gen Z are taking it upon themselves to learn what they weren't taught. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Die naweek het met 'n knal begin vir die Copps 94.1-span in Windhoek, met lede wat deur 'n aggressiewe vrou aangerand is voordat sy vir haar familie se veiligheid deur die polisie weggeneem is. Dit was ook nie die enigste drama nie, en Kosmos 94.1 se Francois Lottering doen verslag:

In late 2023, stones began falling on homes across Thailand, India, Zimbabwe, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Eswatini - flying through windows with impossible accuracy, striking family members, evading every form of surveillance deployed to catch whoever was responsible. The phenomena continued through 2024 and into 2025. The earliest recorded case dates to 530 CE, which means whatever this is, it's been happening for a very long time.IN THIS EPISODE: From India to Zimbabwe to the Philippines, stones are falling from nowhere, fires are igniting without sources, and investigators remain baffled. *** Psychiatrists are scrambling to understand why AI chatbots are fueling delusions, hospitalizations, and even deaths in vulnerable users who trusted them as confidants.CHAPTERS & TIME STAMPS (All Times Approximate)…00:00:00.000 = Stones From Nowhere00:02:23.135 = Show Open00:03:39.455 = Invisible Stone Throwers, Part One: It Knew When They Gathered00:12:51.515 = Invisible Stone Throwers, Part Two: Smoke Rose From Sealed Suitcases ***00:34:25.800 = Invisible Stone Throwers, Part Three: Lithobolia, The Stone Throwing Devil ***00:45:38.994 = The Chatbot That Convinced People It Was Alive, Part One: You Didn't Hallucinate This ***01:04:51.182 = The Chatbot That Convinced People It Was Alive, Part Two: No Intervention Came ***01:22:19.313 = Show Close*** = Begins immediately after inserted ad break PRINT VERSION to READ or SHARE:Invisible Stone Throwers: The Global Outbreak Of Poltergeist Attacks In 2024:https://weirddarkness.com/2024poltergeists/The Chatbot That Convinced People It Was Alive — Then Drove Them Mad: https://weirddarkness.com/aipsychosis/=====(Over time links may become invalid, disappear, or have different content. I always make sure to give authors credit for the material I use whenever possible. If I somehow overlooked doing so for a story, or if a credit is incorrect, please let me know and I will rectify it in these show notes immediately. Some links included above may benefit me financially through qualifying purchases.)= = = = ="I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness." — John 12:46= = = = =WeirdDarkness® is a registered trademark. Copyright ©2026, Weird Darkness.=====Originally aired: February 12, 2026EPISODE PAGE (includes sources): https://weirddarkness.com/InvisibleStoneThrowersABOUT WEIRD DARKNESS: Weird Darkness is a true crime and paranormal podcast narrated by professional award-winning voice actor, Darren Marlar. Seven days per week, Weird Darkness focuses on all things strange and macabre such as haunted locations, unsolved mysteries, true ghost stories, supernatural manifestations, urban legends, unsolved or cold cases, conspiracy theories, and more. Weird Darkness has been named one of the “20 Best Storytellers in Podcasting” by Podcast Business Journal. Listeners have described the show as a blend of “Coast to Coast AM”, “The Twilight Zone”, “Unsolved Mysteries”, and “In Search Of”.DISCLAIMER: Stories and content in Weird Darkness can be disturbing for some listeners and intended for mature audiences only. Parental discretion is strongly advised.#WeirdDarkness #Poltergeist #Paranormal #ChatGPT #AIpsychosis #Supernatural #TrueStories #UnexplainedMysteries #OpenAI #Haunted

In this week's podcast we discuss the new SPAN Edge main electric service panel and the capability to avoid costly main electric service panel upgrades.About Jamie Duran & ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Solar Harmonics⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Brought to you by Solar Harmonics in ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Northern California⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, who invite their customers to “Own Their Energy” by purchasing a solar panel system for their home, business, or farm.  You can check out the website for the⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ top solar energy equipment installer⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Solar Harmonics, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.In each episode we discuss questions facing people making the decision to go solar. The solutions to your questions are given to you – straight  – by one of the leading experts in the solar industry, Jamie Duran, president of Solar Harmonics.Feel free to search our library for answers to questions that you're facing when considering solar.About Adam Duran & Magnified MediaSolarcast is produced and co-hosted by Adam Duran, director of ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Magnified Media⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. With offices in downtown ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠San Francisco⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Los Angeles⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ & ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Walnut Creek, California⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, Magnified⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Media is a ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠digital marketing agency⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ focused on digital marketing, local and⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠local & national SEO⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠website design⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and lead generation for companies of all sizes.Magnified Media helps business owners take control of their marketing by:• getting their website seen at the top of Google rankings, and• getting them more online reviews,• creating social, video and written content that engages with their audience.In his spare time, Adam enjoys volunteering with several community-based non-profits and hosting his own weekly podcast ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Local SEO in 10⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Check it out!

Kako nastanejo sanje ... Pripoveduje: Ivan Rupnik. Napisal: Daniel Hevier. Prevedla: Barbara Šterbenc Svetina. Posneto v studiih Radia Slovenija 1996.

In this episode of the Cookbook, host Iris Goldfeder welcomes back Scott Span, a leadership and executive coach. They discuss the nuances of entrepreneurship, the importance of mindfulness, and the challenges of leadership versus management. Scott shares personal stories about his family, the lessons learned from loss, and the significance of building genuine relationships with clients. The conversation emphasizes the need for preparation, presence, and the power of connection in both personal and professional realms. Chapters 00:00 Welcome to the Cookbook 01:00 Introduction to Scott and His Journey 01:47 The Role of a Leadership Coach 06:07 Mindfulness and Morning Routines 10:52 The Importance of Presence 18:07 Navigating Leadership and Management 23:59 The Transition from Management to Leadership 30:01 Building Genuine Client Relationships 37:09 Lessons from Loss and Growth 44:02 Reflections on Personal Experiences 49:52 The Impact of Family Dynamics 56:08 The Power of Connection and Learning 01:02:04 Final Thoughts and Takeaways

W najnowszym odcinku wideokastu „Polityka o historii”: judaizm bez tajemnic, czyli jak wyglądały początki judaizmu. Nasz gość, prof. Łukasz Niesiołowski-Spanò, historyk starożytności, przybliża ze szczegółami, jak powstał judaizm. Rozmawiamy o tym, jak wyglądały dzieje Żydów i czy Stary Testament to na pewno najlepsze źródło wiedzy. Zastanawiamy się, jak wyglądał judaizm w czasach Jezusa, jaki był Bóg Izraela i co byśmy o nim wiedzieli, gdyby Biblia się nie zachowała. W rozmowie poruszamy takie wątki jak niewola babilońska, obrzezanie religijne jako znak odrębności, ale też narzędzia kontrolującego wspólnotę. Rozmawiamy też o tym, kiedy powstała Biblia i czy Biblia została zmieniona – a jeśli tak, to co to oznacza. Czy Biblia jest dziś wiarygodna? Z prof. Łukaszem Niesiołowskim-Spanò rozmawia Agnieszka Krzemińska, tygodnik „Polityka”.

Tijd voor ontspanning. Door spieren eerst aan te spannen en vervolgens te ontspannen, lukt het vaak om tot diepere ontspanning te komen.

On this episode of Confessions of a Creative Director, we're getting into how creatives can actually play a role in fighting hate.Design Director Nick Adam's roots aren't in design school. They're in the punk shows, graffiti, and rave culture of ‘90s Chicago, scenes that taught him how visual language shapes belonging, safety, and identity. That lived experience came rushing back during a recent moment in when he saw someone covered in Nazi symbols being treated like it was no big deal.That's the wake-up call: hate is hiding in plain sight. And if creatives want to do anything about it, we have to know how systems of exclusion and identity really work, not in theory, but on the ground.In this episode, we talk about identity as civic infrastructure. About visibility as protection. And why real belonging isn't something you declare it's something you design into lived experience.Because every creative decision either reinforces the world we've inherited or helps build the one we actually need.To dive deeper, check out these links mentioned on the show:Help Stop HateSlow & Low 2025 2024the book

Wake up with Froggy 99.9’s The Wake Up Call as Scotch, Tank, and Mandy play Birthday, Birthday, Birthdays! Today’s two names span Oscar‑nominated prestige drama and reality‑TV legend status. Can you guess the celebrities before the final clue? We’re talking the breakout star of Normal People and Aftersun, and the long‑haired bounty hunter who turned A&E into appointment TV.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Podcast: SecurityWeek Podcast Series - Cybersecurity InsightsEpisode: Embedded Industrial Security: The Network-Native AdvantagePub date: 2026-01-29Get Podcast Transcript →powered by Listen411 - fast audio-to-text and summarizationAndrew McPhee, Industrial IoT Security Solution Manager at Cisco, joins the SecurityWeek podcast and dives into why traditional monitoring and SPAN-based approaches fail to deliver true visibility in industrial environments, and how network-native security embeds inspection, segmentation, and protection directly into the network. We discuss real-world implementation challenges, economic tradeoffs, and how to move from visibility to action without disrupting operations.  (Want to continue the discussion? Contact Cisco.)Follow SecurityWeek on LinkedInThe podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from SecurityWeek, which is the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Listen Notes, Inc.

Andrew McPhee, Industrial IoT Security Solution Manager at Cisco, joins the SecurityWeek podcast and dives into why traditional monitoring and SPAN-based approaches fail to deliver true visibility in industrial environments, and how network-native security embeds inspection, segmentation, and protection directly into the network. We discuss real-world implementation challenges, economic tradeoffs, and how to move from visibility to action without disrupting operations.  (Want to continue the discussion? Contact Cisco.)Follow SecurityWeek on LinkedIn

Leading Into 2026: Executive Pastor Insights Momentum is real. So is the pressure. This free report draws from the largest dedicated survey of Executive Pastors ever, revealing what leaders are actually facing as they prepare for 2026. Why staff health is the #1 pressure point Where churches feel hopeful — and stretched thin What worked in 2025 and is worth repeating Clear decision filters for the year ahead Download the Full Report Free PDF • Built for Executive Pastors • Instant access Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. We’re continuing our conversations with executive pastors from prevailing churches, unpacking what leaders like you shared in the National Executive Pastor Survey, so you can lead forward with clarity. Today we're joined by Paul Alexander, Executive Pastor at Sun Valley Community Church and Senior Consultant with The Unstuck Group. With more than 25 years of ministry experience and nearly 15 years at Sun Valley, Paul brings a blend of practitioner insight and coaching wisdom. Sun Valley is one of the fastest-growing churches in the country, with six physical locations, a prison campus, and more expansion on the way. In this conversation, Paul helps unpack one of the most pressing themes from the National Executive Pastor Survey: staff health, culture, and organizational structure. Is your church clear on vision and strategy but still struggling to move forward? Do you sense tension or fatigue beneath the surface of your staff team? Paul offers candid, practical guidance on how leaders can cultivate both healthy and high-performing teams. Staff culture is often the real growth lid. // Many churches leave strategic planning sessions with remarkable clarity—clear vision, strong strategy, and actionable next steps—yet still fail to move forward. The reason is rarely theological or missional; it's cultural. Team culture and staff structure often become the limiting factor. Just as personal growth stalls when internal issues go unresolved, churches stall when unhealthy patterns persist within leadership teams. Healthy and high-performing. // Many churches swing between two extremes: high performance with little concern for soul health, or relational warmth with minimal accountability to achieve the vision. Neither honors the full call of ministry. The healthiest teams refuse to live at either end of the pendulum. Instead, they pursue a culture where people are cared for deeply while being challenged to steward their gifts faithfully toward the mission. You can't legislate health. // Health cannot be enforced through policies alone. Leaders set the tone through example, not rules. Staff watch how senior leaders manage time, rest, family, boundaries, and pressure. Late-night emails, skipped days off, and constant urgency quietly shape expectations—even if leaders say otherwise. Pastors need to lead with moral authority, not moral perfection: modeling rhythms that reflect trust in God rather than fear-driven overwork. Practical rhythms that protect people. // At Sun Valley, staff health is reinforced through intentional systems. Leaders are expected to take their days off and use vacation time; reports track whether staff actually do. Full-time staff receive sabbaticals every seven years, including non-director-level roles. Marriage retreats are offered as a gift to staff couples, recognizing that healthier marriages produce healthier ministry. These investments cost little financially but yield long-term fruit in sustainability and trust. Hire leaders, not doers. // A common staffing pitfall is hiring doers instead of leaders. While competence and skill earn someone a seat on the team at Sun Valley, long-term effectiveness depends on their ability to develop others. Staff are evaluated not on how much ministry they personally accomplish, but on how well they equip volunteers to lead. Volunteers are the heroes; staff exist to serve and multiply them. This mindset shifts ministry from bottlenecked to scalable. Structure must evolve with growth. // Churches often treat structure as fixed, but Paul insists that growing churches must restructure continually. Span of care, staffing ratios, and role clarity must be revisited regularly. He points to healthy benchmarks—such as staffing costs and staff-to-attendance ratios—as helpful indicators, not rigid rules. When leaders ignore structure, culture suffers; when structure is aligned, momentum increases. Fruit requires clarity and measurement. // Every staff role at Sun Valley includes measurable outcomes. Paul likens this to personal goals—no one expects a marriage to improve without intentional action. Clear metrics create focus, alignment, and accountability. Monthly one-on-ones blend personal care with performance review, ensuring leaders are supported holistically while still moving the mission forward. Encouragement for leaders sensing tension. // For executive pastors who feel something is “off” but can't quite name it, Paul urges them not to ignore that instinct. Growth exposes weaknesses, and structure or culture may need adjustment. Whether the issue is misalignment, unclear expectations, or misplaced roles, addressing it early prevents deeper damage later. To learn more about Sun Valley Community Church, visit sunvalleycc.com. For resources on staff health, structure, and strategy, explore theunstuckgroup.com or email Paul directly. Watch the full episode below: Thank You for Tuning In! There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I'm grateful for that. If you enjoyed today's show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they're extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally! Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: SermonDone Hey friends, Sunday is coming… is your Sermon Done?Pastor, you don't need more pressure—you need support. That's why you need to check out SermonDone—the premium AI assistant built exclusivelyfor pastors. SermonDone helps you handle the heavy lifting: deep sermon research, series planning, and even a theologically aligned first draft—in your voice—because it actually trains on up to 15 of your past sermons. But it doesn't stop there. With just a click, you can instantly turn your message into small group guides, discussion questions, and even kids curriculum. It's like adding a research assistant, a writing partner, and a discipleship team—all in one. Try it free for 5 days. Head over to www.SermonDone.com and use promo code Rich20 for 20% off today! Episode Transcript Rich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. Really glad that you’ve decided to tune in. We’re doing a special series here this month where we’re looking at the results of a national survey that we did of executive pastors across the country. And we’ve pulled in some leading XPs from prevailing churches to help us think through these issues. Like we’re sitting across the table, if you talk about this problem, they want to help you with that. And today it’s our honor, our privilege really to have Paul Alexander with us. He is the executive pastor at Sun Valley Church for over 10 years. He has 25 years of experience. He’s a senior consultant with Unstuck, I think for 13 years. And he’s worked with all kinds of churches on health assessment, strategic planning. Sun Valley, if you don’t know this church, you’re living under a rock. fantastic church in Arizona, six physical locations, if I’m counting correctly, plus in prison, plus online. It’s repeatedly one of the fastest growing churches in the country. Paul, welcome to the show. So glad you’re here.Paul Alexander — Yeah, Rich, glad to be with you. Hopefully the conversation can help your listeners, man.Rich Birch — I really appreciate that. Why why don’t you fill in the picture about Sun Valley? I know we’ve had you on in the past. You should go back and listen, friends, but kind of give us the Sun Valley picture. Kind of tell us a little bit about that to set some context today.Paul Alexander — Yeah, man, been here now for almost 15 years. It’s wild to think back. When I first joined the team, it was one location, 10 acres, one exit, one entrance.Rich Birch — Wow.Paul Alexander — And, you know, there’s a lid to what you can do with that. And so we had originally went multi-site because we had to go multi-site. You know, the mission that Jesus gave the church to help more people meet him and grow up in their friendship with him. We had a lid to that with the space we were in. And so we had to go multi-site. It wasn’t cool. It wasn’t cute. It wasn’t fun. It wasn’t an experiment. It was like, if we’re going to obey Jesus, we don’t have an option.Rich Birch — Right. Yes.Paul Alexander — And so over the years, we’ve had the opportunity to add new locations. And, yeah, six physical locations, one in a prison. Our next prison campus opens up Q1. We grand open our Chandler location in March, and we break ground on San Tan in May. So, yeah, man, fun times, lots of people meeting Jesus.Rich Birch — So multi-sites not dead at Sun Valley.Paul Alexander — Man, multi-site’s not dead in America. Yeah.Rich Birch — I know. And it’s true, right? It’s one of those like, people are like, oh, I don’t know. That’s an old idea. I’m like, that’s not what I’m seeing. I’m like, gosh, there’s so many prevailing churches like Sun Valley that are just doubling down. That’s that’s fantastic. Rich Birch — Well, looking forward to today’s conversation. So friends, you’ve joined us actually for within, what did we ask, two questions that were about fears for next year and or for this year, 2026, you caught me. We recorded this late in 2025.Rich Birch — And we’re talking today about the biggest fear. 24.8% of all respondents identified staff health, organizational structure, morale, succession, leadership – the people issues as a primary fear heading into this year. In fact, and then a separate question we asked about data and insight. Where are you lacking some of that? Almost 9% of respondents answered that they’re looking for better data on staff pipeline and org chart and leadership development, these sort of things.Rich Birch — When you combine them together what does that mean? Nearly three in ten surface staff related tension as a defining pressure point for 2026. And when I was thinking about this issue, I thought of no one better than Paul to pull on and to have this conversation with. So Paul, when you look at the churches across the country, you interact with a lot of churches both just because you’re a great person and through Unstuck, and you’re and Sun Valley’s a leading church and people will ask you questions all the time. Where do you think staff health breaks down the most and why is that? Why is this such a tension for us as we lead from our seats?Paul Alexander — Yeah, well, to your point, Rich, it comes up repeatedly with my work with Unstuck with churches. It’s not uncommon to do a health assessment, strategic planning with the church, and you walk out of the room and they have great clarity on vision, on where they’re going next. They have great clarity on strategy, like how they’re actually going to pull this off and do it.Paul Alexander — And yet you walk out of the room and the lid to move towards that vision, actually obey Jesus and do what Jesus has commissioned and command commanded them to do, the lid is the culture of the team. And the team culture and the team structure is what’s holding them back from going where Jesus wants them to go. Paul Alexander — Which we shouldn’t be surprised by this, frankly. that’s That’s the organizational side of how that shows up. This shows up in our own life personally. So on a micro scale, what’s preventing you and I from actually following Jesus and what He’s calling us to do in 2026? Well, it’s not Jesus’s problem. The problem is not with him. The problem usually with us.Rich Birch — Yes.Paul Alexander — The problem is with how we structure our life, our family, our time, maybe something in our own heart and in the culture of our own heart and our families.Paul Alexander — And so on on a macro scalele scale in the church, it’s not a surprise that this shows up. Most most churches have a tendency to run on a pendulum, Rich, of either being a really high performing team or a very, very healthy team. And at Unstuck, we want we want staff teams to be both very healthy and very high performing.Paul Alexander — The the problem is most churches, their staff swing through that pendulum from one side to the other. And so, and you’ve seen this repeatedly, where it’s take ground and in just do the next thing. And they’re very project oriented and destination oriented, and they have a tendency to not really care about the soul of the team, the health of the team, and they’re caring much more about the the destination they’re chasing.Paul Alexander — Or they’re sitting around looking at each other, praying for one another, kumbaya-ing together, and they’re neglecting the actual call that God’s put on their life. It’s not just a personal holiness, but to invite others people other people to know Jesus as well.Paul Alexander — And while that’s an over-exaggeration, fundamentally, that’s very true of what happens with staff teams. And so, yeah, walking away from a strategic planning with the church, you’re thinking, oh, they’ve got everything they need.Rich Birch — Right.Paul Alexander — They just don’t have the culture to pull it off. their Their staff culture is going to prevent them from going where God wants them to go. Or they’ve hired ah a lot of doers on the team and they don’t actually have leaders. So they’ve hired people to do ministry instead of lead ministry. Or they don’t really have a development pipeline. You know, they don’t have a plan to coach up and build up people that the Lord’s already entrusted to them right underneath their nose, to invite them into leadership in the church. And so, yeah, there’s some overarching things that are common.Rich Birch — Yeah, so when I saw this came out, I wasn’t surprised by this result. We’ve seen similar results in past years. But whenever I look at this fear that leaders have, I’m reminded what our mutual friend Jenni Catrin says. She talks about senior leaders are, we think our staff culture is better than it actually is. Like from our perspective, sitting as an executive pastor, lead pastor, we look around and we’re like, man, this is a great place to work. But that’s not necessarily the case with our people. Rich Birch — Sticking with this idea of like high performing and healthy, when you think about Sun Valley or the churches you coach, what are some practical rhythms or structures that you’ve put in place or seen put in place that really help try to do both of those things. Cause I think that’s, I think that’s ultimately what honors the Lord is like, we do want to be high performing. We, the mission’s massive. Like, gosh, we got to get out and reach some people, but we, we don’t want to drive over our people to get there. Paul Alexander — Yeah.Rich Birch — Help us understand what does that practical, some of those practical rhythms look like.Paul Alexander — Well, I don’t I don’t think a lot of XPs are going like what I’m about to say… Rich Birch — Uh-oh. Paul Alexander — …but you you cannot legislate health. You can’t. You can’t build enough guidelines. You can’t build enough policies. You can’t make people be healthy. You also can’t lead a healthy organization unless you yourself are healthy. It’s that’s a just it’s just a fact. You can’t take your family somewhere you haven’t been.Paul Alexander — You disciple people, to use a Bible word for a second, you can’t disciple your own children and your own family and people close to you by intention or neglect. We do that all the time, and unless you have something to actually give them. And so this is why even in the Old Testament, you know God gives the law and we realize we can’t live up to the law. And so it honestly only shows our own imperfection. Right. And so God you know, Jesus says, “Well, hold on a second. The Sabbath was made for man. Man wasn’t made for the Sabbath.” Paul Alexander — And so um what does that mean? It means, I think, as executive staff, senior staff in the church, you actually have to lead with some moral authority in this area. And so people are going to watch if if they get an email from you at 11 o’clock at night, that tells them what’s expected of them. Rich Birch — Right.Paul Alexander — Without you ever even saying it, you’re telling them what’s expected. If you’re texting them after work hours, so to speak, and it’s not an emergency, it actually, you know, it could probably wait till tomorrow, but you’re having it right now because it’s important to you, and you don’t have the personal self-control to be able to not have that conversation with that staff member at that time.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.Paul Alexander — You’re telling them how they’re supposed to behave. They’re watching you just again, leadership so much like parenting. And I don’t want to minimize this, but children watch their parents and they naturally adhere to and take on the behaviors of their parents and the family unit that they grow up in. Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s so true.Paul Alexander — And culture a lot like that. It’s way more caught than taught. And so the leaders of the executive staff and senior staff, they’ve got to lead with moral authority, not moral perfection. We’re not going to see that this side of seeing Jesus, right? Not moral superiority. We’re not better than anybody. But just to be able to say, hey, man, if if everybody at my church and on my staff. If they manage their time the way I manage my time, if they manage their finances the way I manage my finances, if they used alcohol the way I use alcohol, or if they use the internet or social media the way I do, if they traded their… would my church be more of what Jesus wants it to be or less?Rich Birch — That’s good. That’s so good.Paul Alexander — And so there’s a moral authority component to this. They got to model this. Okay.Paul Alexander — Now, practically, Rich, because you know, okay, what does it actually mean? Take your time off. Rich Birch — Right.Paul Alexander — Like that sounds so silly, but I mean, I remember as a young guy in ministry, my my wife was working Monday through Friday. Friday was supposed to be my day off. I’m not the kind of guy that’s going to sit around and like watch Oprah on Friday. Or like, you know, just snack and binge watch Netflix or something like that. That’s not how God wired me up. And so I would just go into the office.Rich Birch — Right.Paul Alexander — And I’m like, my my wife’s working. Well, we don’t have kids. um I’m going to go get some stuff done. I’m going to move the ball forward.Rich Birch — Yeah.Paul Alexander — And I remember the XP I was working with on the senior staff at the time came in to get something out of the office. And he saw me and he’s like, Paul, what are you what are you doing? And so I do the whole, my wife’s working and I’m not going to sit around and watch Netflix, blah, blah, blah. He’s like… he gave me a gift. He said, Paul, if you don’t take every day off between now and the end of the year, don’t bother coming in in January.Rich Birch — Oh my goodness.Paul Alexander — Yeah, yeah, yeah.Rich Birch — Wow.Paul Alexander — And looking back, that high challenge was a tremendous gift, to begin to teach a young man in ministry that had a propensity to drive hard to learn how to actually slow down and enjoy my life and receive from the Lord.Rich Birch — That’s interesting.Paul Alexander — And so, um yeah, take your day off. It sounds so silly.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. No, it’s good.Paul Alexander — I get a report on my desk once a year, Rich, of all of our staff, even multiple campuses, all that, who’s taking their time off and who hasn’t taken their time off. And it’s not uncommon for me to have a conversation in January to say, hey, dude, if you don’t take all your time off this year, we’re going to have a problem. Because you’re no good burning out. The Lord needs you in the game for the long run.Rich Birch — Yeah.Paul Alexander — And I need you in the game for the long run. Sun Valley needs you in the game for the long run. Rich Birch — Yeah. Right. Paul Alexander — Your family needs that, and you can’t self destruct. So.Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s so good. I had a similar interaction early on in ministry where I had a senior leader say to me, it with a similar kind of tone, don’t forget, take your day off is on the same list as don’t kill someone. Like, you know, which always stuck with me where I was like, you know, okay. And he said it in a funny kind of like, but but the message was was clear, right?Paul Alexander — Yeah.Rich Birch — Same kind of thing. Hey, we, and I don’t know that I’ve always lived by that. Paul Alexander — Yeah, sure.Rich Birch — Are there other behaviors that you, you know, in a similar way would lean in. I think the fact that you’re pushing on, okay, as us as senior leaders, are we setting the pace with the health of our organizations? Lean a little bit more in on that for us.Paul Alexander — Yeah, sure. So a couple of practical things that any leader can actually make their decision to start doing today. Establish a finish line. In some regards, you know, when is ministry ever really done? Rich Birch — Right.Paul Alexander — Well, when 7.5 billion people on the planet know Jesus, we’re done, right? So it’s one of those, the poor will have you with you you’ll have with you always. There’s never going to be a done moment. So you got to choose each day when you’re done. And if you don’t choose it, someone else will choose it for you. Paul Alexander — And so talk with your family, figure it out. And there may be a moving target from day to day and what the rhythm of your family is and the rhythm of your ministry is the Lord’s entrusted to you. But you have to personally establish when’s the finish line. I’m going to turn my phone off. I’m gonna turn my email off. I’m going to mute this or whatever. And unless something’s burning down, I’m not going to I’m not going to jump in. Simple things.Paul Alexander — Marriage retreats. We started experimenting some time ago with marriage retreats for our staff at Sun Valley. And so like everybody would say, it’s a good thing for people’s marriages to get better. And sometimes we’ll do that for our people in our churches. And we just thought, well, gosh, what if we did that for our staff? You know, if the marriages of our staff got better, would the ministries that the Lord’s entrusted to them get better? Of course they would.Rich Birch — Of course they would, yeah.Paul Alexander — So we just started doing a marriage retreat couple times a year for our staff.Rich Birch — Wow.Paul Alexander — We invite, you know, 10 to 15 couples. We have a professional counselor that we pay for that runs the thing. And we we just do that as a as a gift to our staff. Because we think, if our staff marriages get better, the ministry that the Lord’s entrusted to them will get better. Paul Alexander — We do sabbaticals every seven years for our full-time director level staff and up. And there’s a period of time that they get and a financial allowance they get. And they think about it in three in three different buckets, like professional development, personal development, and just family. And and ultimately we want them to rest so they can minister from a from a full cup, you know?Paul Alexander — And ah some time ago, we actually made the decision. It didn’t cost us anything, Rich, that even our full-time staff, no matter what their level in the organization was. So for example, a full-time administrative assistant. If they’re full-time, every seven years they get a sabbatical. We give them… Rich Birch — Oh, wow.Paul Alexander — …yeah, you’re full-time admin at Sun Valley. You get, now the scale of it’s a little different.Rich Birch — Sure.Paul Alexander — We just give them a month off with no financial allowance, but we give a month off every seven years to take at one lump sum… Rich Birch — Wow. Paul Alexander — …to get out and refresh their soul and enjoy their life a little bit. What’s that really cost us? Nothing, but time.Rich Birch — Right. Right.Paul Alexander — Nothing.Rich Birch — Right.Paul Alexander — And so, yeah, there’s some real tactical things that you can do to invest in your team. Again, you can’t make them be healthy people, but you can kind of roll the carpet out and pave the way for them to be healthy people.Rich Birch — I love that. That’s some real practical examples. I love what you’ve you’ve outlined there and been you know super practical. That’s, yeah, that’s fantastic. I get the sabbatical question actually quite a bit. I think churches wrestle with that and they you know they they think, oh, you know how should we do that? So you do, kind of like what we would typically think of as a sabbatical at director and above, but then everyone else does kind of this one one month off. That’s great. And they do they have to submit a plan for the sabbatical ahead of time? Some churches will do that where they have to kind of define, hey, this is how we’re going to do. Just give us a little more detail on that.Paul Alexander — Yeah. We’re not uber religious about it, Rich. Rich Birch — Sure. Paul Alexander — We, we, we, there is a plan and their supervisor talks through their plan with them… Rich Birch — Yeah. Paul Alexander — …because there’s a financial allowance that follows that. Rich Birch — Yep.Paul Alexander — So yeah, they have the conversation ahead of time. As a representative of the board, I actually sign off on all those sabbaticals just to make sure they’re thinking about and they’re thinking…Rich Birch — Right.Paul Alexander — …intelligently about how they want to spend their time. But functionally, to be honest, like you and your wife just went on vacation, right?Rich Birch — Yep.Paul Alexander — If our staff went on vacation for like an entire sabbatical and sat on the beach for a month or two, and they came back a little bit more rested, and they’d read a couple of books and spent time with the Lord… Rich Birch — Right. Paul Alexander — …and they walked and prayed and fasted and enjoyed their life a little bit, they’d probably come back a little healthier. Rich Birch — Right. Yeah, that’s great.Paul Alexander — So I don’t have strong feelings about it, man. Rest, enjoy your life.Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah, that’s good.Paul Alexander — Yeah.Rich Birch — That’s so good. I love that. I want to loop back on one thing you talked about earlier. You talked about hiring or or are the way our staff position themselves as doers versus leaders. I think this is a critical Ephesians 4, how we’re supposed to be equipping our people. But I see way too many of our team members, I see us fall into this all the time where we just slip into doing. Coach us around that. What difference does that make around cultures in our organizations?Paul Alexander — Well, yeah. Wow. Now you’re starting to talk about where accountability comes into play in culture, right? And where culture gets violated.Paul Alexander — So it’s not uncommon. So I still, at the size we are, director level and up, I still at least have a phone conversation interview with every single director level hire and up about our culture as they’re joining the team here. And if they do join the team, we go through net new staff orientation. Once a quarter, Chad, the lead pastor and myself, spend a half a day with all of our new staff and talk through our culture and our philosophy of ministry and our strategy and all that stuff.Paul Alexander — And frankly, it’s just a time to hang out have a meal together and create some relational accessibility. Because most these people I’m not going to work with day to day. Rich Birch — Right.Paul Alexander — But I want them to know that we care about them, love them, and they’re they’re part of the family now. And so we we don’t hire people that aren’t absolutely fantastic, incredibly gifted people. Rich Birch — Right.Paul Alexander — And it’s easy to compliment everybody in the room. Rich Birch — Right. Paul Alexander — Hey man, glad you’re on the team. Whether I hired you or somebody else hired you, I know you’re awesome because we don’t hire people that aren’t awesome. And you were gifted, you’re gifted. Someone saw something in you. We invited you to the team. But here’s the deal. You’re no longer going to be evaluated on how awesome you are. Now that you’re on the team—congratulations—you’re going to be evaluated how awesome you can make everybody else. Rich Birch — So good.Paul Alexander — And so your job and how great you are and gifted you are and skilled you are, that’s what got you in the room. What’s going to keep you in the room is your ability to make everybody else just as incredible as you. And so we just say that from the very beginning. Paul Alexander — And, you know, a lot of churches, their ministry staff kind of think, OK, I have to get all these volunteers in place to help them accomplish my ministry. At Sun Valley, we flipped that upside down. And the hero of the ministry at Sun Valley is the volunteer. We’re helping the church actually be the church. The staff’s role is to be a servant, to help people find their gifting, their place, their calling. And real leaders who are getting paid real money that attend your churches, um they want to solve big problems. They don’t want to just push a broom. Now, occasionally you run into the CEO or the general or whatever, who’s like, I just want to push a broom to help me remain humble. Great. We can we have a lot of brooms you can push.Rich Birch — Yes.Paul Alexander — But most people are competent, skilled, gifted, educated people. And they want to be called into something that’s big, and where they feel like they’re making a real difference. And so, yeah, our job as a staff is to call them into that, tee them up for that, support them in that, and let them run. Not let them run within the boundaries of our strategy and our culture and our vision, but let them run. So, but we’ve got to paint the riverbanks for them.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s really good. I love that. You know, kind of a related issue is how how is Sun Valley ensuring that you’ve got the right people in the right seats? What does that look like in your system? Like, how are you, like, what’s the what’s the cadence of, you know, regular reporting and like goal setting? Paul Alexander — Yeah.Rich Birch — And, you know, how are you holding people accountable? What does that what does that look like? I realize that could be like a whole episode in of itself… Paul Alexander — Sure. Rich Birch — …but give us kind of a thumbnail version of that.Paul Alexander — Yeah. Thumbnail. I mean, at the end of the day, I’ll give you the, how it happens, but, besides the hiring process and recruiting process, that stuff matters a lot. Right. So you’re inviting people to something that they’re actually gifted and called to. But at the end of the day, um it’s really results, Rich. The Bible way to say that is fruit. Rich Birch — Right.Paul Alexander — OK, for all of our listeners who are high on the theology side of things, I can sympathize with you. I went to Bible school, too. Really, it’s fruit. And when you are in a place, when your staff are in a place where they’re playing to their strengths and their gifting, and they’re in a place where they’re not overreaching and trying to attain a different role, and they’re not talking about career path, they’re just content to be the person and play the part in the body of the Lord’s gifted and call them to to play, they’re going to have more fun and they’re going to produce more fruit.Rich Birch — Yep.Paul Alexander — It’s just a fact. And so when when you see all this striving and, you know, this ambition to like, I want more, I want more, I want more. It’s a very American, Western idea, right? And the biblical way of doing that would be, hey, well why don’t you be faithful with what the Lord’s entrusted with you today? And when he sees fit to entrust more to you, guess what? He probably will.Rich Birch — He will.Paul Alexander — There’s probably going be some stray arrow out of the battle that was never even intended to hit that guy. It’s going to find just the right place in the chink in the armor. And you’re going to ascend to the throne at the right time when the Lord wants you to. So, you know, relax. Do what the Lord’s called you to do today.Rich Birch — Right.Paul Alexander — Be faithful in that.Rich Birch — Right.Paul Alexander — And he’ll entrust more to you when he’s ready.Rich Birch — Right.Paul Alexander — So that’s a big deal. that it may sound ah like a contrite, a little bit Bible answer to that. But when your staff are personally in a place where they’re doing what God’s called them to do, and they’re they’re very sober-minded about that, they’re going to have more fun. That’s really important. They’re go to have more fun in ministry. It’s going to be more fulfilling and they’re going to produce more fruit.Paul Alexander — Now, how’s that work its way out with what you’re talking about? We have an annual run of strategic planning that we do, both senior staff and then at the campus level. And that we refresh that every single year. Out of that come real clear objectives where the Lord’s calling us to go. Then goals, professional goals are set around that at the campus level. And then that kind of trickles down. That all gets into review systems. There’s monthly one-on-ones where they’re talking about the performance side of things.Paul Alexander — But it’s really normal, Rich, where if you and I were working with one another and I was reporting to you, you’d say, hey, Paul, what’s going on with you and Lisa? And you’d be asking about my daughters and you’d be asking about my sons. And we’d be talking about life and marriage and family. And and what’s the Lord doing in your life? What’s he saying to you these days? You know, and you know where’s he challenging you? Where’s he encouraging you? So they’re very natural, normal, that part of things there. You’d probably pray for me actually in that meeting that one-on-one. Paul Alexander — And then we talk about, okay, how are we doing with our goals? What what are the measurables? What are the setbacks? Because there’s always setbacks. Rich Birch — Right. Paul Alexander — And what are the things that went faster than you thought they would go? And you’re finding real real traction.Rich Birch — Right.Paul Alexander — And then my your job as a supervisor would be, how do you get roadblocks out of the way for me to be successful? Rich Birch — Right. Paul Alexander — How do you fuel things that I need fueled so I can be successful and and reach my goals? Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good. Paul Alexander — So yeah, does that make sense? Rich Birch — That makes total sense. So I, you know, in other contexts, I’ve said results matter because the work that you do matters so much. Like and, and we, and we, we want to think about results. We want to think about fruit. What percentage of, or you know, in a round sense of the team at Sun Valley has like a number or a metric or a like they can measure, it’s not like qualitative, like, oh, things are better. It’s like, no, no, we know. I know whether this is working or not. What percentage of your people you think have a metric like that they they think about on a regular basis?Paul Alexander — All of them.Rich Birch — Love it. Tell us about that. I think this is going to be mind blowing for leaders of churches who do not think about these things. And I know, you know, there’s people out there who, who they they haven’t wrestled with this idea. Unpack that a little bit more.Paul Alexander — Yeah. So, I mean, okay. So if I say, I want my marriage to get better this year, we’ll go real personal for a second. Rich Birch — Sure.Paul Alexander — I want to get my marriage. That’s wonderful. Who doesn’t want their marriage to get better? How are you going to do that?Rich Birch — Right.Paul Alexander — That that just doesn’t magically happen. You don’t drift towards relational intimacy with your spouse.Rich Birch — Yes.Paul Alexander — What you do is you drift apart. That’s what happens.Rich Birch — Right.Paul Alexander — Absence doesn’t make the grow heart grow fonder. It makes it wander. Rich Birch — Yes. Paul Alexander — And so, you know, you’ve got to figure out, okay, how many date nights am I going to do? How much am I going to budget towards this? Are we going to do an annual retreat as a husband and a spouse together, maybe a marriage retreat? Are we going to go on vacation? What are the conversations we feel like we need to lean into? Do we need some do we need some coaching? Rich, if you’re a professional counselor, do I need to go to you and get some some input and some professional coaching? Because goodness gracious, you can see some things that I don’t see because I’m in the fray of it day in and day out. Paul Alexander — So yeah, we’ll get real tactical and say, what book are you going to read? How many of those books are you going to read? What podcast? Rich Birch — Right.Paul Alexander — Are you going listen to the unSeminary podcast? You know. What are you going to do to to grow and in your marriage this year or as a leader. And so, yeah, if you can’t measure it, then you can’t actually do it. Rich Birch — Right. Paul Alexander — And then it gets down to opinions and, you know, everybody’s got one of those. So.Rich Birch — Yeah. Alright. I imagine imagine I’m an executive pastor you meet at a conference or you’re somewhere and you’re at an airport lounge, and they’re church of a thousand people, maybe 1500 people. They’ve got 10 staff and they’re sensing that, man, there’s some misalignment, but it’s it’s at the level of like, I think there might be a problem here. I’m not entirely sure. I feel like there’s cracks starting to happen in the staff culture, but it’s not like a giant fizzer. It’s just like things just don’t feel right. What would be some of the first steps that you would suggest a leader take to try to get clarity on actually where things are at with their staff team… Paul Alexander — Yeah. Rich Birch — …you know, in the next 90 days kind of thing?Paul Alexander — Yeah, that’s a good question. Okay, so first of all, I’d say, and this may sound, I mean, play Captain Obvious for a second, don’t ignore that inclination.Rich Birch — That’s good.Paul Alexander — So the Holy Spirit is is is impressing upon you, something doesn’t smell right, then it probably doesn’t smell right.Rich Birch — That’s good.Paul Alexander — Don’t bury that. Don’t avoid that. Avoiding something you know you have to solve is never going to make that situation better, ever.Rich Birch — That’s so true.Paul Alexander — And so don’t avoid it. Go with that feeling. Lean into it a little bit and and begin. Why? Why do I feel this way? What is what am I sensing that needs to be solved? Because my hunch is they’re anticipating something. If they are a good intuitive leader, they’re probably anticipating something before it’s going to happen.Paul Alexander — And so structure is always a lid to growth in a church. Churches always need to restructure. This is really important. So once you get a structure, it’s not like, oh we’re going to be with this structure for the next 15 years. Rich Birch — Right. Paul Alexander — And if it’s a growing church, you’re always going to need to restructure. And that’s just normal. Get used to it.Rich Birch — Right.Paul Alexander — It’s just part of what it is. Rich Birch — Yes.Paul Alexander — And so I think you’ve got decipher, is it a structure issue or is it a culture issue? That that’s, you know, Wwhat am I sensing that needs to be actually needs to be solved? If it’s a culture issue, where is there a violation of your culture taking place, and how do you help it get better? Maybe you haven’t defined what your culture is. Rich Birch — Right.Paul Alexander — Maybe you can’t actually really articulate it. Maybe you haven’t written it down, trained it. Maybe you have not filmed 5 to 10 minute videos for every new staff member to to onboarding to actually understand your cultural distinctives. Maybe you’ve not embedded that into your annual reviews and actually, you know at review time, you’re actually reviewing me on how we’re doing, how I’m doing with our staff culture.Paul Alexander — So maybe that’s something you need to just kind of look in the mirror and say, you know what, as a leader, I have the power to change that. And I’m going to get that better this next year. We’re going really clear about what our staff culture is. Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s good.Paul Alexander — And then we’re going embed that and train it. If it’s a structural thing, is it truly a structural thing or do you have one or two players that just aren’t playing their part? You know, you’ve got ah this wonderful body the Lord’s put together. He talks about the church being the body of Christ, this wonderful body but where we’re limping because our ankle, we got a bum ankle. And the reality is we either need to rest it, you know, so we can get it healed up. We need to maybe get some repair done to it, or we need to like reconstruct that thing. We need a new ankle. Rich Birch — Yeah.Paul Alexander — All of those are fine answers. And I think just being honest about the team that we have and everybody playing in the right place. And then structurally, you start to get into span of care and you know do we have the right number of staff? Those are real answers you can really get. When we do staffing and structure with churches at the Unstuck Group, there are real healthy benchmarks. There are real healthy financial numbers that are good benchmarks, you know. If you’re spending more than 50 cents on the dollar on your staffing, you should ask yourself why.Paul Alexander — You know, if you have more than your staffing, you’re, you know, beyond one to 75 and you’re creeping into an area that’s really unhealthy. You know, I’ve seen churches that are staffed like one full time staff member for every 30 attenders at the church.Rich Birch — Right, right.Paul Alexander — And you’re just like. It’s sad, frankly, because the Lord’s called us to so much more. And um so those are those are like the basic science side of things that need to be changed. You know, if you’re not clear about who your senior staff is, if you got, if your senior staff, like your executive staff, are making decisions about like the color of the carpet, and they’re making decisions that that are low-level decisions, then you kind of got to look in the mirror and say, boy, are we training our staff that all big decisions have to come to us? Or are we pushing decisions down and actually teaching people how to lead and make decisions? So myriad of things.Rich Birch — That’s good. That’s so good. One of, in last year’s, kind of rundown of, you know, most listened to podcasts, Amy from the Unstuck Group, hers, I think was our second most listened to podcast. And she, she dove in deep on exactly what we were just talking about their, friends. You should go back in the archives, find that episode. It will, it’ll, you know, all that structure stuff. Rich Birch — And I would say on that, particularly on structure and some of those benchmarks, I think too many of us think our church is like this precious, it’s so different than every other church out there. And and and that’s true. It is a unique body. There’s a there’s one way that that is true. But in this way, there are actually a lot of commonalities you can learn from other churches and gain wisdom from folks like Paul who have done this before and talked with lots of churches. So don’t don’t be in isolation about this, Paul. This has been an incredibly helpful. I’ve got a page of notes and other questions I wanted to ask as we were going through. Oh, I want to talk about that. Oh, I want to talk about that.Rich Birch — But I know you’ve got other things to do than be on our podcast. But as you’re thinking about the 2026, the year coming up here, what’s a question or two that you’re wrestling with that you’re thinking through? It doesn’t have to be on what we just talked about there. But just as you think about the future of Sun Valley, what are some things that you’re thinking about going into this year?Paul Alexander — Yeah, that’s a good question. I mean, we pressure we’ve deal with pressure points just like every church does, right? Frankly, the pressure points we’re dealing with, we’re going through a season of a couple of years of pretty significant growth. A lot of people needing Jesus. last This is the first time in back-to-back years we baptized more than 1500 people, you know, in back-to-back years. And so there’s a huge responsibility that our growth, our front end growth is beginning to outpace our engagement. Things like people engaging in groups and building meaningful friendships that are around God’s word or, engaging and volunteering and being the church, not just coming to church, right? And a giving, learning to be generous, generous and steward with the Lord’s entrusted to them. Kind of these markers that we see of people who are actually beginning to look like Jesus. They’re not just, you know, you know, attending church and trying to figure Jesus out a little bit.Paul Alexander — And so in a lot of ways, we need a bigger boat. We’ve got multiple campuses that are doing two services on Saturday and three services on Sunday. And we’ve, we’ve got to get some bigger rooms. And you know, the other side of it is is growth sometimes can grow faster than our ability to grow leaders. I mean, you think about your own personal leadership, Rich. I mean, how long has it taken you to become the leader you are today?Rich Birch — Right. Right. Not overnight. Not in 18 months.Paul Alexander — Yeah, your whole life.Rich Birch — Yes, exactly.Paul Alexander — Yeah, the answer is your whole life. Rich Birch — Yes.Paul Alexander — And so there’s definitely been crucible moments. My hunch is if we unpack your leadership journey, there’s been crucible moments where the Lord has ah stretched and grown you in unique ways and unique seasons because of pressure points that you went through. And so um we’re figuring out how do we accelerate leadership in in our staff?Rich Birch — That’s good.Paul Alexander — And you you accelerate leadership not by by giving resources, but by constricting resources. Because leaders always figured out and grow through constriction moments. Rich Birch — That’s good.Paul Alexander — And so giving stretch assignments, all those kind of fun things. So yeah, we deal with pressure points just like everybody else does. I mean, everybody’s like, oh, I’d love to have that problem. I know you would. It’s a wonderful problem to have. It’s still a problem because we don’t want to become a lid to more people meeting Jesus in 2026. You know, by us not solving something that’s in our control to solve.Rich Birch — Yeah. In other contexts, I’ve talked about platinum problems. Those are are great problems, but they’re still problems with things we have to wrestle with. And and friends, if you’re not tracking with Sun Valley, you should be, or Paul or the Unstuck Group, these are all organizations you should be getting a chance to kind of follow along with. If people want to kind of connect with the church, get a better sense, follow along with your story, where do we want to send them online? Tell us about that. And then also Unstuck Group. I want to make sure we we send people there too.Paul Alexander — Yeah, Unstuck Group is super easy to find. Unstuckgroup.com. The listeners can email me at paul@theunstuckgroup.com. That’s the easiest way to get me, frankly. The easiest, cleanest way to get me if someone has a question or wants to follow up on something personally. I’m happy to do that, man.Rich Birch — Thanks so much, Paul. I appreciate you being here today and and really looking forward to seeing what happens in 2026 at Sun Valley. Take care, man.Paul Alexander — Yeah, glad to, man. Thanks for the invitation. Hope the conversation is helpful.

Urologist Dr. Mohit Khera joins Michael to break down the real science behind testosterone, erectile dysfunction, libido, and the “sex span”—how long we can enjoy a healthy, fulfilling sex life. From blood flow and hormones to lifestyle and longevity, this episode reveals what truly drives sexual health and overall well‑being.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A version of this essay has been published by firstpost.com at https://www.firstpost.com/opinion/shadow-warrior-donald-trump-and-global-disorder-the-unravelling-of-the-old-world-order-has-begun-13970884.htmlThere is a general air of uncertainty in international relations right now, and there is the distinct feeling that the old order changeth. The upheaval is likely to bring difficult times to all of us. The long-predicted end of the “liberal, rules-based international order” seems to be upon us, with a definite fin-de-siecle feeling. The certainties that we have long held on to are no longer reliable.Foremost, of course, is the role of the United States, which bestrode the world like a colossus in the aftermath of the Second World War, and again after the end of the Cold War. Those of us born in the post-war years looked up to America, the “City on the Hill”, the beacon, celebrated in song and film, a cultural anchor in addition to a military and economic superpower.I remember the day my dad walked into the dining room with his newspaper and told us, “Marilyn Monroe is dead”. I was a small boy, and I had no idea who Marilyn Monroe was, but I remember that moment. I vaguely remember the Kennedy assassination. And every month, SPAN magazine brought images of the good life. My father did his PhD on John Steinbeck.Thus, for me and for those of my generation, it was only natural to look up to the US as an exemplar. In college, we used to refer to it, only half-jokingly, as ‘God's own country'. (This was before Amitabh Kant applied this moniker to Kerala, and it stuck). I remember us reading Time and Newsweek in the IIT Madras hostel common room. We read them cover to cover.So it was but natural for us to write the GRE and apply to US universities; and many of us got in, with good scores and good grades. It was relatively easy in the late 1970s. And it was a revelation for us to go to a country that pretty much worked well; the standard of living was quite a bit higher than back at home, where you had to wait 6 years for a phone or a scooter.But fifty years later, things are not the same. The gap in the standard of living between India and the US had narrowed considerably, although the rule of law, clean air and public spaces, and the lack of petty corruption, plus the tendency to stick to the letter of agreements (ok, I grant that Trump may be an exception) are all still much more prevalent in the US.What has happened, though, is the relative decline of the US in almost every way. Take research. Or manufacturing. Or popular culture. Others are narrowing the gap steadily. Or take the streets of, say, San Francisco. The pristine, well kept streets I encountered when I first moved there are now in shambles, sometimes covered in human feces, with homeless people and needles all over the place.The US, and it hurts me to say this, as I am an unabashed Americophile (if that's a word), over-extended itself through unnecessary wars and unwise crusades which the Deep State promoted for self-preservation, but which in fact turned out to be counterproductive.As I wrote recently in relation the Venezuela gamble, the US may well be following in the footsteps of other countries that once held the reserve currency, but fell into a trifecta of excessive debt, reduced core competence, complacency and overextension.The resulting retreat into “Fortress America” as outlined in the National Security Strategy, as well as the unabashed pursuit of American interests at the expense of allies and friends, is causing everything to fall apart, as in W B Yeats' warning.The reaction of the US's closest allies to various Trump diktats has been instructive. Europeans and the British applauded when Trump chose to peremptorily remove President Maduro from Venezuela and make a play for that nation's massive oil reserves. But when he began in earnest to pursue Greenland, there were loud protests from some parts of NATO.That alliance appears to be crumbling as Trump, not unreasonably, suggests that Europeans need to pay for their own security, instead of expecting the US to finance it forever. Also, despite the appearance of a land-grab, Greenland has a trade and security rationale: as the Arctic Sea becomes more ice-free due to climate change, the fabled Northwest Passage and other trade routes open up, China is already ready for its own land-grab with its “Polar Silk Road”.Here's a tweet from Ken Noriyasu of the Nikkei, highlighting future trade routes:But the threat to Denmark's territorial integrity, in case Greenland opts to join the US, has rattled NATO members. Threats of escalating tariffs (10–25%) on Denmark and other NATO allies have sparked outrage. Joint Nordic/European statements reaffirm sovereignty; U.S. rhetoric treats it as a strategic necessity (Arctic resources, China/Russia competition). This treats allies as transactional subordinates, eroding NATO cohesion.The end of NATO would be a seismic shift, but I have long argued that Western Europe should bury its hatchet with Russia, because their real long-term foe is China, which has its eye on Siberia on the one hand, and Europe's entire industrial might on the other.There is more: Ongoing wars (Ukraine, Middle East), tariff wars, alliance strains, and rising “spheres of influence” logic. Davos 2026 panels describe it as the “last-chance saloon” for the old order. UN Secretary-General Guterres warns leaders are “running roughshod over international law.” Think tanks (Brookings, Stimson) call it an interregnum: the liberal order is dying, no coherent replacement has emerged, and “monsters” fill the vacuum. Is “some rough beast” slouching towards Bethlehem to be born, as in the apocalyptic prophecy?What will rise from the ruins of the old world order? We can only wonder, as there are several possible answers:* Transactionalist multipolarity. Great powers (U.S., China, India, EU/Russia bloc) negotiate deals based on leverage, not universal rules. Might means right, backed by economic coercion or force.* Fragmented regional orders. Spheres where dominant powers set norms (U.S. in Americas/Arctic, China in Indo-Pacific, Russia near its borders, if there is a rapprochement with the EU). I have long predicted spheres of influence in the wake of what I see as a G2 condominium between the US and China.* No-rules world (worst case). Rising impunity, more unilateral interventions, eroded deterrence, potential for cascading crises. We are already beginning to see this with China's unilateral land- and sea-grabs (e.g. the “nine-dash” line).2025 was an annus horribilis. 2026 is shaping up to be worse. None of the above scenarios is good for India, especially as it is beginning to get its manufacturing in order, at what appears to be exactly the wrong time, as tariff wars abound.By the looks of it, 2026 will be worse for all concerned. Centrifugal forces are going to tear up globalism, and a narrow nationalism may not bode well for anybody.The AI-generated podcast from notebookLM.google.com is at:1650 words, 19th Jan 2026 This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rajeevsrinivasan.substack.com/subscribe

The U.S. Coast Guard has approved the fixed-span design for the proposed new Interstate Bridge over the Columbia River, a decision announced by Sen. Maria Cantwell that advances the Interstate Bridge Replacement Program toward construction, addresses maritime navigation concerns, and removes the need for a lift span that currently disrupts traffic on Interstate 5. https://www.clarkcountytoday.com/news/coast-guard-approves-fixed-span-design-for-new-interstate-bridge/ #InterstateBridge #IBR #Infrastructure #Vancouver #WashingtonPolitics

It started with a simple idea from James Tyack: “What if we hosted a hackathon at ELC Annual?” The result was a unique experiment where 14 senior engineering leaders stepped away from strategy to build and ship functioning apps in one weekend, unlocking new insights on AI-native workflows, "vibe coding," and the future of engineering. In this episode, we deconstruct the entire hackathon operational playbook, sharing lessons on everything from “best failure awards” and async collaboration structures to structuring ideation periods for maximum business alignment. Beyond the logistics, we explore how getting hands-on helped these leaders overcome imposter syndrome and why "rolling up your sleeves" is now a prerequisite for leading effective engineering teams. Plus, James shares how he plans to evolve the hackathon format at ELC and beyond. If you've been curious about leveraging hackathons to drive innovation, expose your team to new tools, or evolve how your org builds, this episode provides the blueprint for successful implementation. ABOUT JAMES TYACKJames is an engineering manager with a passion for people, technology, and learning. He's built and led distributed, diverse teams of engineers across locations and timezones for 10 years. James believes strongly in the value of diversity and championing a sense of belonging for everyone, from day 1. He's well versed in growth strategy, chaos engineering, major incident response, and blameless practice, and culture grounded by trust and psychological safety. He leads the Growth Acquisition team at Coursera where he's proud to be part of an organization that's transforming lives through learning. Previously, James enjoyed building and leading the Growth and Integrations engineering teams at PagerDuty. This episode is brought to you by Span!Span is the AI-native developer intelligence platform bringing clarity to engineering organizations with a holistic, human-centered approach to developer productivity.If you want a complete picture of your engineering impact and health, drive high performance, and make smarter business decisions…Go to Span.app to learn more! SHOW NOTES:The results of ELC's first-ever hackathon: 14 leaders shipping fully functional apps (2:21)The “Scrappy” beginning: Extending the invitation and early community engagement (4:50)The most surprising insights: Problem solving for “life outside of work” and micromanaging AI agents (5:42)Navigating the shifting boundaries between product, engineering, and management roles (8:43)James' personal journey: Building 5 apps in 5 hours to stay relevant and relatable (10:05)Deconstructing the Hackathon structure: The “Take-Home Assignment” approach (16:16)The Hall of Fame: Creating artifacts to recognize contribution (18:00)Iterating on the format: Pivots made for the next hackathon iteration at Coursera (18:47)The importance of a 2-week ideation period for alignment (20:59)A recap of the playbook: Seeding ideas, easy tooling, and safe deployment (22:15)The future of hackathons: Cross-functional participation beyond engineering (26:46)Rapid Fire Questions (28:15) This episode wouldn't have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-HostJerry Li - Co-HostNoah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan's also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This is a special episode, highlighting a session from ELC Annual 2025! Bill Coughran (Partner @ Sequoia Capital & former SVP of Engineering @ Google) and Bret Reckard (Talent Partner @ The General Partnership) deconstruct the evolving role of engineering leadership in an era dominated by AI hype. Bill is a legendary leader who joined Google right after the .com bubble and has seen every major industry shift since. Drawing on his experience scaling Google and advising world-class startups, Bill shares why the best leaders are "catastrophic thinkers," how to balance servant leadership with the need for decisive action, and why AI is forcing every leader to return to their technical roots. Plus they cover enduring companies and real value capture in the AI era, the nuances of organizational design, the "apprentice model" for mentorship and the dangers of over-layered hierarchies that stifle speed. Bill also provides a candid look at leadership transitions, offering a tactical guide for those moving from Big Tech to early-stage startups. ABOUT BILL COUGHRANBill Coughran works as a founders' coach and partner at Sequoia Capital to help build spectacular technology-centric companies. Previously, Bill was Senior Vice President of Engineering at Google with oversight of Chrome, YouTube, maps, google.com, underlying infrastructure systems, and security.ABOUT BRET RECKARDBret Reckard is Talent Partner at The General Partnership (TheGP), a hands-on venture firm working alongside ambitious founders in talent, engineering, go-to-market, and product. He leads TheGP's Talent vertical, matching foundational leaders, early engineers, and key specialists across the portfolio. Before this role, Bret spent over a decade at Sequoia Capital leading Talent and Network, where he helped hundreds of founders at companies like Stripe, Confluent, Retool and DoorDash build their early teams. This episode is brought to you by Span!Span is the AI-native developer intelligence platform bringing clarity to engineering organizations with a holistic, human-centered approach to developer productivity.If you want a complete picture of your engineering impact and health, drive high performance, and make smarter business decisions…Go to Span.app to learn more! SHOW NOTES:Introduction and Bill Coughran's background at Sequoia and Google (1:36)Hiring pitfalls and the biggest mistakes made as a leader (3:49)Managing crises: Acting as a dictator during the 2010 Google hack (5:25)Building for the AI world without chasing "shiny objects" (7:09)Developing context: How to learn AI without relying on LLM summaries (9:02)Identifying enduring companies and real value capture in the AI era (10:53)The debate on coding assistants and the future of junior engineering talent (13:23)Transitions: Making the leap from large organizations to early-stage startups (15:59)Staying curious and finding excitement in the next professional challenge (18:23) LINKS AND RESOURCESLink to the video for this sessionLink to all ELC Annual 2025 sessions This episode wouldn't have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-HostJerry Li - Co-HostNoah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan's also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This is a special episode, highlighting a session from ELC Annual 2025! OpenAI evolved from a pure research lab into the fastest-growing product in history, scaling from 100 million to 700 million weekly users in record time. In this episode, we deconstruct the organizational design choices and cultural bets that enabled this unprecedented velocity. We explore what it means to hire "extreme generalists," how AI-native interns are redefining productivity, and the real-time trade-offs made during the world's largest product launches. Featuring Sulman Choudhry (Head of ChatGPT Engineering) and Samir Ahmed (Technical Lead), moderated by Lawrence Bruhmeller (Eng Management @ Sigma). ABOUT SULMAN CHOUDHRYSulman leads ChatGPT Engineering at OpenAI, driving the development and scaling of one of the world's most impactful AI products. He pushes the boundaries of innovation by turning cutting‑edge research into practical, accessible tools that transform how people interact with technology. Previously at Meta, Sulman founded and scaled Instagram Reels, IGTV, and Instagram Labs, and helped lead the early development of Instagram Stories.He also brought MetaAI to Instagram and Messenger, integrating generative AI into experiences used by billions. Earlier in his career, Sulman was on the founding team that built and launched UberEATS from the ground up, helping turn it into a global food delivery platform. With a track record of marrying technical vision, product strategy, and large‑scale execution, Sulman focuses on building products that meaningfully change how people live, work, and connect.ABOUT SAMIR AHMEDSamir is the Technical Lead for ChatGPT at OpenAI, where he currently leads the Personalization and Memory efforts to scale adaptive, useful, and human-centered product experiences to over 700 million users. He works broadly across the OpenAI stack—including mobile, web, services, systems, inference, and product research infrastructure.Previously, Samir spent nine years at Snap, working across Ads, AR, Content, and Growth. He led some of the company's most critical technical initiatives, including founding and scaling the machine learning platform that powered nearly all Ads, Content, and AR workloads, handling tens of billions of requests and trillions of inferences daily.ABOUT LAWRENCE BRUHMELLERLawrence Bruhmuller has over 20 years of experience in engineering management, much of it as an overall head of engineering. Previous roles include CTO/VPE roles at Great Expectations, Pave, Optimizely, and WeWork. He is currently leading the core query compiler and serving teams at Sigma Computing, the industry leading business analytics company.Lawrence is passionate about the intersection of engineering management and the growth stage of startups. He has written extensively on engineering leadership (https://lbruhmuller.medium.com/), including how to best evolve and mature engineering organizations before, during and after these growth phases. He enjoys advising and mentoring other engineering leaders in his spare time.Lawrence holds a Bachelors and Masters in Mathematics and Engineering from Harvey Mudd College. He lives in Oakland, California, with his wife and their three daughters. This episode is brought to you by Span!Span is the AI-native developer intelligence platform bringing clarity to engineering organizations with a holistic, human-centered approach to developer productivity.If you want a complete picture of your engineering impact and health, drive high performance, and make smarter business decisions…Go to Span.app to learn more! SHOW NOTES:From research lab to record-breaking product: Navigating the fastest growth in history (4:03)Unpredictable scaling: Handling growth spurts of one million users every hour (5:20)Cross-stack collaboration: How Android, systems, and GPU engineers solve crises together (7:06)The magic of trade-offs: Aligning the team on outcomes like service uptime vs. broad availability (7:57)Why throwing models "over the wall" failed and how OpenAI structures virtual teams (11:17)Lessons from OpenAI's first intern class: Why AI-native new grads are crushing expectations (13:41)Non-hierarchical culture: Using the "Member of Technical Staff" title to blur the lines of expertise (15:37)AI-native engineering: When massive code generation starts breaking traditional CI/CD systems (16:21)Asynchronous workflows: Using coding agents to reduce two-hour investigations to 15 minutes (17:35)The mindset shift: How rapid model improvements changed how leaders audit and trust code (19:00)Predicting success: "Vibes-based" decision making and iterative low-key research previews (20:43)Hiring for high variance: Why unconventional backgrounds lead to high-potential engineering hires (22:09) LINKS AND RESOURCESLink to the video for this sessionLink to all ELC Annual 2025 sessions This episode wouldn't have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-HostJerry Li - Co-HostNoah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan's also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In this episode, Brian Balfour (Founder & CEO @ Reforge) deconstructs the two core, interconnected challenges leaders face in the AI age: deciding what to build and evolving the Engineering, Product, Design workflow to deliver it. We cover why you should avoid “the local maxima trap” and siphon off "skunkworks" teams to take high-risk, AI-native bets. Brian provides the blueprint for the "Great Distribution Shift," detailing how to reshape your product from the ground up to avoid being left behind as platforms close, and how to emerge as a winner in the new AI landscape. Plus, learn how to rethink what to build, avoid commoditization, compress product discovery from weeks to hours, scale feature variations & prototypes, evolve products to solve harder classes of problems and shift specialist roles from "inboxes" to system builders. ABOUT BRIAN BALFOURBrian Balfour is the Founder & CEO of Reforge, which provides expert training and tools for AI-native product teams. Previously, he served as VP of Growth at HubSpot, spearheading launches like HubSpot CRM and building the growth team that propelled the company's next chapter. This episode is brought to you by Span!Span is the AI-native developer intelligence platform bringing clarity to engineering organizations with a holistic, human-centered approach to developer productivity.If you want a complete picture of your engineering impact and health, drive high performance, and make smarter business decisions…Go to Span.app to learn more! SHOW NOTES:Brian's reaction to the 5:1 gap between AI coding usage and actual product quality challenges (1:57)Why your system only goes as fast as the slowest part, and how hyper-optimizing engineering moves bottlenecks elsewhere (4:53)The "Local Maxima" trap: Why turning designers and PMs into mediocre developers is a waste of opportunity cost (6:04)Siphoning off "Skunkworks" Teams for AI-Native Innovation (7:53)Moving from exploring two solution paths to ten by simulating "product reps" through AI prototyping (13:24)Reforge's AI-native suite (Build + Research): Scaling prototypes, feature variations and compressing product discovery & validation from weeks to hours (15:43)Case Study: How Captions evolved to solve harder classes of problems, using a creator-tool wedge to fund custom AI emotion-models for the media studio market (19:54)Case Study: How Shopify reframed support agents as multimodal "Business Advisors" to provide outsized value (22:24)Navigating the great distribution shift: Understanding the lifecycle from open platforms to closed ecosystems (25:10)The lifecycle of distribution shifts: Navigating the "Open Phase" growth to "Closed Phase" monetization w/ examples from Facebook, Google, and Apple (29:30)OpenAI, memory & context as moat, and why you need to reshape your product from the ground up to win in this distribution shift (31:16)Strategic de-risking for EPD leaders: Building proprietary moats through memory, context, and specialized workflows (32:51)Optimizing EPD workflows and structures: Separate high-risk "skunkworks" from core product optimization, lean cross-functional teams for faster iteration / decisions, and avoiding too many specialized roles (35:25)Dissolving the "Octagon of Specialists": Shifting researchers and PMMs from "inboxes" to builders of self-serve systems (36:57)The five types of product work and why there is no "one-size-fits-all" system for EPD (41:25)Rapid fire questions (43:25)LINKS AND RESOURCESAbout Reforge: Expert training & AI-powered tools for product teamsReforge Build: The prototyping tool discussed for exploring multiple feature variations without designer constraints.Reforge Research: The AI-interviewer tool used to compress user discovery and validation from weeks to hours.Reforge Insights: The platform that aggregates qualitative customer feedback into a self-serve system for EPD teams.Brian Balfour's Research & FrameworksBrianBalfour.com: Brian's personal blog featuring deep dives into growth and product strategy.The Next Great Distribution Shift: The foundational article explaining the lifecycle of open vs. closed platforms.The Four Fits Framework: A refresher on the system of Product-Market Fit, Product-Channel Fit, Channel-Model Fit, and Model-Market Fit.Reforge Strategic Deep DivesAI Disruption Risk Assessment: A guide for engineering leaders to determine if their product is at risk of being commoditized.Product-Market Fit (PMF) Collapse: How to identify and avoid the risk of your core product losing relevance in the AI era.MentionsInvest Like the Best podcastThis episode wouldn't have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-HostJerry Li - Co-HostNoah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan's also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

brianturnershow.com, eastvillageradio.comTHE GORDONS - Spik and Span - 1st Album (Gordons, 1981)BAILTER SPACE - Tanker - Radio London EP (BC)MEDUSA -  Genes De Maldad - Medusa (1972, re: Guerssen, 2025)WIGAN'S OVATION - Northern Soul Dancer - Northern Soul Dancer (Spark, 1975)CARTOON - Sewer Boss - Theater of the Absoid (cs, Human Headstone Presents, 2025)MAX EIDER - My Other Life - The Best Kisser In the World (Big Time, 1987)HUNDEFUTTER - Höhle - Flacher Teller (Ichi Ichi, 2025)WOLFGANG SEIDEL - #7 - Modulisme Session 135 (Modulisme, 2025)PLASTICMAN - Live at Plastic People 8/18/05 - Forward Live Vol 02 (Tempa, 2005)JLZ & GG - Medio Grave - Medio Grace (Nyege Nyege Tapes, 2025)T.S. MCPHEE - The Hunt -The Two Sides Of Tony (T.S.) McPhee (WWA, 1973)FLEX CODEX - Flex Codex - Flex Codex (Topot, 2025)JOEY & DEE DEE RAMONE VS. UK TV HOST, 1986DEMO-MOE - I Owe My Dream - Demolish NYC (Maldoror, 1988)PAPER OWLS - 100,000,000 Hallelujahs -  Nothing, Except 100,000,000 Candles (cs, NL, 2025)HUMAN HAIR - Lights at Night - Human Hair (2025)TAKESHI TERAUCHI & THE BUNNYS - Ganroku Hanami Odori - Nippon Guitars (Ace, 2011)WINGED WHEEL - Speed Table - Desert So Green (12XU, 2025)KING CRIMSON - 21st Century Schizoid Man (live 1974) - Schizoid Man (Virgin, 1996)ALIEN STRANGE - Switchcraft - V/A: The Alien Territory Archives: A Collection of Radical, Experimental & Irrelevant Music from 1970s San Diego (Nyahh, 2025)WARREN BURT - For Charlemagne Palestine - The Alien Territory Archives: A Collection of Radical, Experimental & Irrelevant Music from 1970s San Diego (Nyahh, 2025)

Duitsland se Robert Koch-instituut werk saam met die gesondheidsministerie om die gereedheid en kliniese reaksie op M-pokke en Kongokoors te verbeter. 'n Span kundiges van Duitsland en Namibië het gespesialiseerde opleiding ontwikkel oor die kliniese bestuur van beide siektes, insluitend infeksievoorkoming en -beheer. Die Duitse ambassadeur in Namibië, Thorsten Hutter, het met Kosmos 94.1 Nuus gepraat:

My Honey Cousin: Part 2. Darren's Morning Shag. Based on a post by Guzzler 21. Listen to the Podcast at My First Time. All was dark. Darren felt his mouth was dry, he was waking up in a warm and sweaty cave. It took some seconds before his brain caught up to his senses. Last night's happenings slowly dawned on him. Apart from the darkness and the sweaty warm body he was pressed up against, his face was also feeling itself surrounded by Amy’s tangled hair. His body was slowly doing sensory checks and sending them back to his brain. As he slowly started sensing his own body, pressed tightly against his cousin’s back he quickly became aware of other things pressing against him. If he had blacked out, fainted, or just fallen asleep from exhaustion; was unclear. But that his cock was still impaled and bound tight into Cousin Amy, from behind; was now very clear. He felt himself only semi-hard. But the realization of having spent the whole night with his cock inside of the sweet, sexy cousin, got his blood rushing; and his meat twitching. Darren didn’t dare to move a muscle, apart from his cock muscles; but they were pulsing on their own accord. He could feel his cousin breathing slowly and calmly. She must still be asleep. Although he was still covered by her blankets and still wedged between the wall and his cousin, he could hear faint bird chirps from outside. He used his fingers to carefully peek out from under the blanket and could see that Amy’s bedroom was growing lighter from the morning twilight. All was still. Darren dared to pull the covering blanket away a little more and lift his head to look out. To his fright he saw aunt Lily there, still lying in the bed. Her large, luscious tits were exposed and Amy was still latched on to the closest of them. Amy was humming softly, and slowly suckling in her sleep. Every few seconds, she sucked at the nipple hidden in her wide open mouth. Only the very outer rim of aunt’s areola could be observed, outside of Amy’s wet lips. It was an extremely sensual sight. Darren’s cock was quickly turning into a raging boner. As it grew in length, it pressed deeper and deeper into Amy, who started to stir in her sleep. Her body was surely taking notice of the increasing impalement of her most secret, wet cave. As she stirred some, the suckling of her mother’s tits increased, in pace and force; so Darren snuck his head back under the covers and prayed to any gods out there, that he wouldn’t be detected when his aunt finally woke up. It had been hot under the blankets when he woke up, but now the heat was building even more under the covers where he was deeply embedded in his cousin Amy. His face was full of her wild, sandy blonde hair. It smelled like sex. Memory flashes from last night were coming back to him. Although their bodies weren’t moving, Darren could feel the pressure inside of his balls was building up. All his turgid cock now wanted to do, was to start moving; in and out of that glorious wet crevice, which it had spent the night in. He could easily feel that there would be no friction whatsoever. Amy’s cunt had acclimated to his cock during the night and she was filled with fluids. Both her own and his. It would be a dream to just pull out a little and slowly push himself back in. He fought the urge for a long time. There was no room whatsoever for him to pull back. The wall was pressed tightly against his back and ass, so instead he carefully moved a hand down to Amy’s nicely rounded ass and ever so slowly tried to push it away from himself. Half an inch; one inch; one and a half; Amy moved! Her body started the process of waking up. His pushing of her hips forward, had woken her enough to move. She instinctively pushed her ass back to where it had first been, and Darren's cock sunk back deep into her slippery, steaming hole. He now heard aunt Lily mumble, in her own fleeting sleep. Darren felt the tidal wave course through his thighs and up towards his rock hard phallus. He came, hard! He didn’t dare to move at all. Darren even held his breath and strangled a scream of lust, deep in his lungs. The only thing that moved was his pulsating cock, sending stream after stream, deep into the waking Amy impaled on his cock! Before Amy was even aware of it herself, her pussy contracted and opened in unison with Darren's cock pumping into her. Her womb was effectively milking his cock, trying to absorb every little ounce of semen shooting out from its swollen crown! Through his silent climax, Darren could feel Amy’s hand, in panic, probing for what was behind her! He felt her hand finally land on his hip, so close to where their young bodies were connected; and had been through all of the night. As Amy became clearly awake, Darren could feel her cunt, tightening around his rocket. As if to push him out. But he was stuck in, deep; and the wall behind him kept his cock deep inside of his wet cousin! He now heard aunt Lily waking up. At first, sleepy murmurs, then a shocked gasp! Probably as a kind of distraction, he heard Amy start to loudly suckle on her mothers tit! “Oh; I’m sorry honey! I must’ve fallen asleep!” she whispered in a rather hoarse voice. Amy just moaned and kept on suckling. Darren could only lay there under the covers, listening and imagining the images of Amy’s cute lips holding on to aunt Lily’s large, heavy tit. The bed jostled as aunt Lily stood up from it. Amy’s lips let go of her tit with a wet ‘plopp’ and Darrens, still pulsating, cock bounced ever so slightly in and out of his cousin's warm entrance! He bit his lip and worked hard to not let any sound slip from his lips. Amy on the other hand, let out a weary gasp as their sexes bounced into each other. But Lily was probably too newly awakened to notice anything strange. “I’ll just go and freshen up. Then I’ll check on Darren and make breakfast for you” she whispered and gave Amy what sounded like a kiss on the cheek before her footsteps could be heard on the rug as she left Amy’s bedroom. Amy pushed her behind hard against Darren's hips, sinking his leaking boner in even deeper! She buried her head in her pillow and let out a muffled groan! “Damn; have you been in me all night?” she then whispered in a baffled tone, still seeming to wake up from the deepest of sleeps. “I’m sorry;” was all that Darren could reply in a meek tone. Amy suddenly became very still. Darren could feel her entrance gripping and relaxing a few times; it felt excruciatingly erotic, but he himself didn’t dare to move at all. “Are you still coming into me right now; ?” she asked slowly, her body trying to feel all of his staff stuck inside of her. “I couldn’t help it; it came by itself;” was the weak excuse he could muster. Amy turned her head to him, she was smiling. She rocked her hips a little, her hole squeezing along his cock. “This is so hot;” she whispered and her tongue involuntarily licked her lips. Then she sprung into action! Morning Dash. “Quick! Mom is going to come and check on you! You have to get back to your room; NOW!” she hissed, panic in her voice. She moved forward from him, his still hard cock slipping out of its wet, nightly folds! He heard the faucet from the bathroom. Aunt Lily was in there. He didn’t have much time. He didn’t even have time to be embarrassed about Amy seeing his glistening hard-on, flailing about as he scurried out of bed. The back of his mind did manage to take a sneak peek at her gorgeous boobs as the blanket was tossed aside. But no time for any prolonged stares. Without a word, and as silent as a mouse he snuck out into the hallway, past the bathroom door, from where he could still hear the faucet running; and into his own room. With a move that would’ve made any ninja envious he flung himself into his untouched bed and under the covers just as he heard the faucet turn off and the bathroom door out in the hallway open. Darren was laying flat on his back in the most unnatural sleeping position to be imagined, and just the split second between the soft knock on his door, and his aunt opening it and coming in, he realized that his hard-on would be making a tent out of the covers. Too late now! He already heard his aunt's footsteps on the floor, entering his room. With closed eyes he again prayed to any gods, that his boner was not too visible in the morning dawn, flowing through the curtains in the room. Aunt Lily’s footsteps paused for a moment then he felt her sitting down softly on his bedside, her curvy hip pressing up against his own. He could feel the blanket pulling at its tent pole. She leaned in on him as he lay there, pretending to be fast asleep. He could feel her heavy tit softly land on his chest and her erect nipple was easily noticeable through the bedsheet over his chest. “Darren? It’s time to wake up” she whispered in the softest of motherly voices. Darren could feel her breath on his cheek, she was that close. She smelled of mint. It also dawned on him that the nipple now pressing against his chest was the one that Amy had been sucking on all through the night. This made his boner twitch. Hopefully aunt Lily wouldn’t see that from her position of leaning in over his face. Linton slowly opened one eye, playing groggy and sleepy. He saw Lily’s lovely brown eyes meeting his as she leaned in to kiss him on the forehead. Her lips were warm and soft. She held them to his forehead long enough for him to feel it thoroughly. His cock twitched again under the covers but he made sure to move his knee up and hopefully that would disguise his manly tent pole under the blanket. Aunt Lily sat up again, her firm tit leaving Darren's chest and gave him a loving look. “Come down for some breakfast when you’re ready;” and then she left. Darren couldn’t help but to watch her hips rolling under that flimsy robe she had on. As soon as the door closed, he wished that she had stayed longer. He took his time before coming downstairs. First he had to wait for his boner to soften. He thought about stroking one out, amazed that it was still hard after coming both last night and also this morning. But, again, this room gave him nowhere to hide tissue paper. So if he was to jerk off, it would have to be in the bathroom. He listened to Amy, up and washing in the bathroom. Then, when he was sure both his aunt and cousin were downstairs, he dared to sneak out to the bathroom, himself. His cock had now gone back to normal size. He was actually surprised to see it looking quite normal, after all it had been put through. But he washed it off quickly, under cold water and then changed to go downstairs where he could hear Amy and aunt Lily chatting in the kitchen. He had chosen his baggy, grey sweatpants and a worn out tee-shirt with some soft drink logo on it. He was suspecting that he might get hard again during the day, and the sweatpants were thick enough to hopefully hide any such stiffness from sight. Breakfast Protein Drinks. Down in the kitchen, the girls were in full swing, having breakfast. Amy sat at the table, munching on an egg sandwich and aunt Lily was busy by the sink. It was when Aunt Lily swung around to greet him that he was happy about his plan, wearing the sweatpants. Aunt Lily was wearing a thin white shirt dress. The long kind that looked like a common blouse, but went all the way down to her knees. It had buttons down to her front, but the top four buttons were left open, so her full tits swung enticingly under the thin fabric and the shirt opening showed almost the whole length of her cleavage. Her nipples were plainly visible, poking at the textile; and the darker areola around them could be distinguished through the thin white cotton. “Good morning handsome!” she said and Darren got embarrassed immediately! Partly because he couldn’t think of a single word to give back as a greeting; and partly because he felt how his stare and widening eyes must’ve been noticed by both Amy and Lily. Darren just mumbled and averted his eyes. Aunt Lily, of course, didn’t let him get off that easily. She hurled herself towards him and embraced him in a warm full body hug! It was pure bliss to be hugged by aunt Lily. At 6 foot 2, she was nearly 8 inches taller than him, and getting her boobs pressed against one’s face and her thighs pressed against his groin was unbearably arousing! He couldn't help but to close his eyes and revel in the feeling of being held to her bosom. His arm even caught one of her stiff nipples as he hugged her back. But when he opened his eyes they met Amy's, who was sitting at the table with a wide grin. He disengaged and felt his cheeks redden. He quickly sat himself down at the table, across from Amy who hadn’t left his gaze for a moment. It felt like she very well knew that his cock must’ve stiffened from that embrace. Or, he was just imagining things. Aunt Lily served up some sandwiches and juice for him. Only now, did Darren discovered how hungry he was! He stuffed his face and asked for more, always making sure to catch a glimpse of his aunt’s cleavage every time she turned around. Darren and Amy ate in silence, the radio playing in the background. Amy was all the time trying to catch Darren's eye. He had to work hard to not let her lock on. Darren was afraid that he’d blush, or stutter, or something else awkward; if he let her focus her eyes into his. It was clear she had mischievous thoughts. Images of how he’d been embedded deep into her wet folds, kept creeping up to the front of his mind. He was glad there was a kitchen table to hide his bulge under, now. Aunt Lily stood herself beside Amy across the table from Darren, “Amy, dear, your hair is a mess, darling. Let me sort that out for you” she said and started untangling Amy’s wild and unruly strands. As Darren looked up from the remains of his fourth sandwich, Amy caught his eye. She had a broad smile on her lips and slowly raised her hand towards her mothers tit. Darren wanted to look away, but couldn’t. He was hypnotized. Aunt Lily's tits jiggled and swayed, as she was pulling and shifting Amy’s hair, trying to get a braid started. Her large tits were just in face height of Amy as she was sat by the table. The big pokey nipples twice slid across Amy's nose. Very deliberately Amy took hold of Lily’s shirt cleavage and almost too slowly pulled it to the side, revealing her mother’s stiff nipple and dark areola. All the time her eyes held fast into Darren's glare at what was unfolding in front of him. “Ahmee, noht nuw..” Lily said, her mouth full of Amy’s hair, she was trying to organize. Lily had to let go of one of the chunks of hair to pull back the shirt, and cover her tit again. Amy was still keeping her eyes on Darren as she again, slowly let her hand come up to Lily’s jiggling boob. Once again, Darren got to see his aunt's full tit and succulent nipple bounce out from its cleavage. Lily spat out the hairs she had between her lips and sounded a bit annoyed. “Please love! Not now!” Lily pulled her shirt back over her enticing mound of boob flesh. “But mom; I want some;” Amy pleaded, still not taking her eyes off Listson's. “Please, Darren doesn't want to see this;” Lily sighed; but this time she let her tits stay exposed. Swaying just right by her daughter’s cute face. “You don’t mind, do you Darren?” Amy said in a beckoning, sad tone whilst she squeezed at her mother’s tit, pushing the nipple closer to her mouth. “Uhm.. no. No! I don’t.. ehm, mind..” Darren croaked, trying to sound blasé . Amy let go of Darren's eyes and turned her face to the huge tit just beside her face. She closed her eyes and planted her mouth lewdly over aunt Lily’s prominent nipple. Lily let out a small gasp, but quickly found herself and continued doing Amy’s hair. Darren was in awe. He found it impossible to look away! Amy had her lips around almost all of Lily’s areola, her fingers squeezing at the massive flesh around it. She looked like she’d never tasted anything as good as this, ever! Still focused on braiding Amy’s hair, Lily explained, “You know Darren, I’ve always given Amy of my milk. Most mothers stop early, but I never did. It's nourishing, and she’s almost never been sick in her life.” Amy turned her face to Darren, still holding Lily’s tit against her mouth, “And itsch schoo good;” she said with her mouth half full of white milk. A trickle of the milk streamed down her chin as she spoke. Amy quickly let her lips surround Lily’s nipple again and continued sucking, eyes closed. Darren was just sitting and nodding as a dumbfounded response to Lily’s explanation. He couldn’t think of having seen anything more sensual than this scene, that was now playing out in front of him. Even though time stood still, Lily somehow finished with Amy’s hair. She had made two braids on her. Each one on the top sides of her head. Like two pigtails, but in braid form. Amy looked so incredibly cute, and aunt Lily was now just caressing the back of her head as she kept on nursing from her. Darren wasn’t sure what to do. Inside of his sweatpants he had a hard-on so stiff, it it mimicked a mast of a British man o' war. He had already finished his sandwiches, and was just sipping slowly at his orange juice; wanting it never to end. He was afraid to break up this spectacular scene with any sudden moves. To his sorrow, but also relief, Amy finally let go of Lily’s tit and licked her lips. Aunt Lily's engorged nipple looked as big as a whole thumb! Amy smiled at Darren, and her eyes gave him the kind of look siblings give each other, when the other one didn’t get as nice of a christmas present as the first. Lily bent down and gave Amy a kiss on the lips before she pulled her shirt over her tit again, indicating that this moment was over. Tree House Tryst. “So, what are you guys gonna do today?” Lily asked, as she took some plates from the table over to the sink. Amy was looking intently as Darren; with that ever alluring smile of hers. “Maybe we’ll go and check out the old tree house” Amy said, still staring Darren in the eye. “Oh, that’s nice. You haven’t been up there in forever;” Lily replied, whilst pouring dishwater over the plates, a wet stain could be seen darkening the fabric over her nipple, which Amy had just been sucking on. “Come on Darren!” Amy grabbed his hand and yanked him with her. At 5 foot 10; She was bigger and heavier than him. Her curves gave her the weight and strength advantage over his own slender body, and he had no say in the matter. He trotted after her like a rag doll. Darren hadn’t noticed earlier, but Amy had a very short polka dotted skirt on. As she was running in front of him now, to the old tree house out back; he glimpsed her ass cheeks now and then, as her skirt flapped up and down. Either she was wearing minimal string panties, or nothing at all, underneath. Up top; she had a tight, yellow tee-shirt, that did nothing to disguise her lovely bra-less tits. At the base of the old oak, in which the tree house was set, Darren got the answer to what Amy was wearing underneath; or rather, what she was not wearing. She climbed up before him, and he got a full view of her nakedness under that little skirt. His cock had been hard since the breakfast table and was not feeling like softening any time soon. He was only a little worried about climbing, and had to tear his gaze away from Amy’s nude pussy, to check that he wouldn't snag his boner on the old wooden planks that were nailed to the tree as a kind of ladder. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been up in that tree house. It must’ve been many years ago. Then, he and Amy would pretend they were in a crows nest on a pirate ship, looking for land or fighting off other pirates, trying to get at them. Although the nails in the planks were much more rusty than he remembered, it was still a sturdy build. The walls were made out of all kinds of planks from some barn house nearby, there was a square hole in the floor of it that you climbed up through from the plank-ladder nailed to the tree trunk. The excitement he remembered when climbing up to this tree house, was just as prominent now as then, but for totally different reasons. As he got close to the entrance in the tree house floor he looked up again and saw Amy’s strong, naked legs slip through the hole and to the side. Darren had no idea of what would happen up there, but he knew it would be exciting! It was secluded and high up. It would only be the two of them. He kind of regretted that he had chosen to wear his boxer briefs under his sweat pants now. Amy had clearly planned ahead and chosen ‘easy access’, instead. But, she didn’t have a raging boner to hide away. Girls have it so easy. They can easily get away with being horny in front of others and no one would know, unless you got to feel them between their legs. Darren's mind was racing! Visions of his naked cousin on the bed last night, floated past his mind's eye as he finally managed to crawl up and into the tree house. Amy sat in the corner of the small space, leaning against the wooden boards serving as a wall behind her. She had her knees up and legs slightly parted, but was holding her skirt down over her crotch so her nakedness under there couldn’t be seen. She had her mischievous smile on again. Since there was a plank roof on top of the tree house, she was a bit shadowed, which made her blue eyes look gleaming. “We haven’t been up here in a long time;” Amy said. “Yeah, I can’t remember the last time even” Darren lied. “You were very good with your tongue last night;” It was subtle, but Darren noticed how the hand she was pressing down her skirt with was also slowly moving around, pressing against her crotch. Both the sight of her hand and the words, got him stumped again, “Ehm.” “I know we’ve just had breakfast, and I didn’t bring any honey; but; maybe you’d like to taste me without?” Amy said and almost looked a bit shy for once. This was really not Darren’s area of expertise, and he had no plan or tactic. But his libido answered for him, “Of course!” Whatever he did last night seemed to work, so he was confident that he could make it work again. His luscious cousin was sitting on an old, ragged seat cushion, which she scooted herself forward on, towards Darren who was kneeling in front of her. As she slid forward she let go of her skirt and let her knees shift apart more. It was an incredible sight! Last night he’d not really been able to get a good look. Amy’s bedroom had been dim. Only her bed lamp had been shining softly. And to be honest, Darren had been way too aroused, shocked and excited to imbibe any details his eyes might have had a chance to see. But now; Although the planks shaded her a bit, it was daylight. She was right in front of him. It was right in front of him. It was strange and immensely erotic at the same time. “I’ve shaven it bare;” Amy said softly, as if to get his approval. Being a guy in his late teens, his reference of understanding was of course always infused with a lot of those kinds of ‘sex ads in the back of trashy news stand publications. But here he was; right in front of a real pussy. Her pussy was like a small swollen mound, with a thin slit going down the middle of it. Her slit was clearly wet and between her outer pussy lips, a hint of more folds could be seen. Her wetness showed, even on the sides of her slit. It was all the same cute pinkish skin color as the beautiful, smooth thighs framing it in. After the first amazement had been overcome, Darren’s eyes desperately searched for her clitoris. He didn’t know much about women, but this he knew! And since he was momentarily going to put his mouth and tongue into that alluring crevice, he really wanted to find her most sensitive spot. He got a bit nervous when he couldn’t easily spot it. On erotic stories he’d read, there was always a little bulb at the top of the slit, but Amy had none. Maybe the claims weren’t all that realistic, after all. He caught himself staring too intently, and when he looked up at Amy he could see that she was nervous too. She was biting her lower lip in anticipation. Her eyes’ looked bigger and were begging for appreciation. Darren made himself brave and leaned in on his elbows. Had he not been totally preoccupied by his own horniness, he would have understood that this was an extremely uncomfortable position for him. But that was nothing that his body was able to convince his mind of, right now. As he lowered his head, towards her lusty cunt lips ;Amy saw that he wouldn’t really reach all the way down while still sitting crouched on his knees. So, instead she shifted, folding her legs in under her and also now kneeling wide on the bench, making her pussy come up a bit higher towards his face. Darren was transfixed watching her little pussy writhe as she moved. Her pussy lips sliding against each other and some more wetness being pressed out of the soaking, pink slit between them. As she settled, his mouth was now just lined up with her cunt. He could feel the warmth of it radiating on his lips. He felt himself breathing heavily; Tentatively his tongue probed, he felt her fresh womanly taste in all of his body, even though only the tip of his tongue had touched her skin. Amy inhaled sharply, which gave Darren new courage. Again he let his tongue touch her. More of it this time. He could feel her thighs stiffen up. Darren quickly learned what effect his tongue had on Amy. He licked her; in longer and longer strokes, very much enjoying the effect it had on his horny cousin. She tasted heavenly! He had no idea of how a woman should taste, but he was sure he liked the taste of Amy’s wet pussy! Somehow it tasted fresh, even though it was so warm! Darren soon got into a rhythm, lapping at Amy like a dog in heat. Longer and longer licks. As his confidence grew, he started mixing it up a little. Sometimes, long and fast strokes with his tongue, sometimes short and slow. As his own arousal grew, he pressed his tongue deeper and deeper into her folds. His nose and chin, were now also part of the connection to her slippery, smooth skin. Amy’s lower body was now trembling, and no coherent sounds were coming from her. Her inner thighs sometimes spasmed and pressed against his ears, only to again spread out wide, letting his mouth and tongue come deeper into her slit. Now and then his tongue would find, what he assumed, to be Amy's clit. Somewhere at the top of her slit was an illusive little part of stiffer flesh that really sent her off, whenever his tongue would pass over it. But just as he thought he knew where it was, his tongue failed to thrash at it again. But Amy seemed to love it, no matter where he was licking at, so Darren just continued to explore her as much as he could. “Amy? Are you up there?” The sound of aunt Lily’s voice from below the tree house rang out like a bell whistle in a library! Amy’s body froze and went still as night! Darren still had his face pressed in between her legs and stopped in mid-lick. His tongue still in-bedded in her folds: “Yeah?” Amy croaked with the voice of someone who’s not used her voice for speaking in a long time. “Are you alright? Is Darren up there with you?” Darren felt that the very tip of his tongue was placed tight at the entrance of Amy’s twitching hole in there. Her fluids pooling on his tongue. Amy grabbed the hair on the back of Darren's head. “I’m fine. Darren went to the pond;” she said. Her voice was still a bit shaky and flustered. Darren let the tip of his tongue make its way in through Amy’s, now twitching, hole. “Should I come up?” Lily asked with the worried tone of a mother who wants to investigate. “No!” Amy answered and then hissed a whispering ‘no’ also to Darren. “I can’t talk to you when you’re hiding;” Lily complained from down there at the bottom of the tree. Amy had a firm grip of Darren’s head and pressed it tight against her pussy as she rose up on her knees, forcing his head to follow along. To keep his balance, and not get his hair torn off, Darren grabbed Amy’s thighs and let himself fall backwards as she moved forward on her knees. With his mouth still connected to her sopping pussy, and his head pressed hard between her legs, Amy moved forward to where the wall had a sawed up opening, like a window and poked her head out. She let go of Darren's hair, but he did not let go of her thighs and kept his face planted on her wet sex. “Ah, there you are;” Lily said with true relief. Darren started licking again; “What do you, ugh; want mom?” Amy tried to sound normal, but when Darren's eager tongue teased the right spots she didn’t seem to be able to control her voice in full. Darren of course didn’t want to be found out by his shapely aunt, but he had never seen her climb up to the tree house and felt quite confident that she wouldn’t come up. Also, Amy had already said he wasn’t up there, so; he felt well hidden. But seeing how much effect his tongue had on Amy made him feel powerful. She was the older of them and had always been the dominant one. Now she was at his mercy for once. Darren was intensely aroused at the situation she was in now. Him eating her out whilst she had to play it cool in front of her mother. He got back to his rhythm of licking and even added some sucking here and there. He would get as much of her swollen pussy in his mouth as possible and suck it into his mouth, while his tongue flicked at wherever that clit was hiding at the moment. “Well; I was wondering; “ aunt Lily was in no rush. Amy was breathing heavily and whimpering softly. There was no way Lily could hear her, but Darren did! “Do you think Darren was weirded out by; you drinking from me this morning?” “No mom. You know how guys are. He probably loved to see your boob;” Amy went up an octave in both sound and frequency on that last word. Darren had made another lunge upward with his tongue. Again trying to press it as far up into her as humanly possible. He felt her wetness now running down his cheeks. Her hips and thighs were quivering. “I know, but;” Darren had found his pace now. His tongue pressing into Amy’s tight pussy hole, sliding back out and pressing in again. He was actually tongue fucking her. A faint sloshing sound could be heard by anyone inside of the tree house. “He’s not used to stuff like that;” Lily continued, “I think I’ll talk to him about it. Maybe explain it better.” “Uh umm.” Amy nodded down the hole, but her eyes were closed and her lips were hanging open. She felt herself building up to something now. Darren’s relentless tongue, forming a spearhead and penetrating her over and over again, his hands tightly gripping around her thighs. She felt his chin pressing against her ass hole. It was too much! Amy climaxed violently. Well, her face and arms were perched on the sawed out window, she kept them quiet still. She gritted her teeth and her eyes were pressed shut from the energy it took to not let it show to Lily and at the same time having her body throw her into the best orgasm she’d ever had! A gush of hot fluids sprayed Darren’s mouth as Amy’s hole tightened around his intruding tongue! Her lower body shuddered and Darren pulled his face away from her pussy in pure surprise! Another gush splashed against his face and still open mouth! Darren’s grip of her thighs loosened and his head fell back against the wooden floor! With the third out-pour from Amy’s cunt, she couldn’t help but to let out a licentious groan from between her clenched teeth. Darren just laid there, drenched a third time. His eyes blinking in amazement at what he had managed to do to his sexy cousin! She had actually squirted! He had made her cum so hard that she squirted! This was something he’d only ever heard about in exaggerated porn stories. Darren’s thought was, that squirting is something that only happens to a handful of women, ever. And even then, it just happens when the full moon coincides with a leap year! Now he was an actual part of that odd fantasy! He felt like the star of an Asian porn flick. He felt so exceptionally proud! He made Amy come to that highest degree! “Hey! Are you listening? Amy!” Lily’s voice was only a background disturbance in the world Darren was now in. He was lying on the hard wooden floor with Amy above his face. She was raised up on her knees and he had a clear view right up her dotted skirt. Her pussy literally dripping. The taste and smell of her all over his face. He felt her juices still trickling down his cheeks and onto his neck. He saw her pussy contracting and relaxing at a fast pace and her wet thighs twitch in unison. With very contraction her nethers made a stream of more fluids roll down along the inside of her thigh! Damn! Amy was still coming! Darren was so hypnotized that he didn’t even think about his own throbbing meat. “Sorry; what were you saying mom?” Aunt Lily started again, with the annoyed tone of someone who has to repeat themselves, “I said; there is an old matinee showing soon on the tv. The old musical, State Fair; will be on in about 30 minutes. Maybe you can find Darren and I’ll make you some milkshakes?” It was now not a question; as it might have been the first time around. “Oh, that; that sounds great, mom;” Amy replied with the tone of someone who had just slept after a marathon. “Okay, then. See you inside.” Lily left back towards the house. Amy’s thighs had now relaxed, but her pussy was still making involuntary movements up there, over Darren's drenched and astounded face. As her mother left, Amy leaned back in from the tree house entrance. She slowly sat herself down on Darren’s chest. He felt his shirt getting thoroughly soaked as she let her weight press her ravished pussy lips onto him. As she looked down on him she gave him a tired smile. Her eyes only half open. “God damn; cuz! That was; that was amazing!” Amy wiped a strand of his wet hair from his forehead. Darren now felt a bit awkward. The earlier feeling of being in control, and a true sex god; drained away from him as he was now held down by Amy sitting on his chest. Looking down, her skirt was crunched up around her waist and he could see the top of her slit against his tee-shirt, her wet thighs down his sides and her body towering over him. Her nipples were threatening to poke holes in her thin tee. “Sorry if I made you squirt.” Darren tried. He wasn’t, of course. But it felt better to be humble and get praise instead of the opposite. Also, he was again the younger of the two; and Amy was the one who seemed to be in charge. “Oh. no, no, no; don’t be! That was the best; ever. I didn’t even know I was a squirter; Until now.” She sat there, on him, and steadied her breathing for a while before she spoke again. “Mom said the musical, State Fair, will be on TV. We should see; ” Darren had just been reveling at the feeling of Amy’s wet snatch, pressing down on his chest and nodded. He would’ve agreed to anything Amy had said, anyway. Amy climbed off of him and started straightening out her clothes. Darren sat up and could now feel really how wet she’d made him. His tee-shirt was clinging to him. The whole front of it was soaked and he felt a trickle of Amy’s juices down his neck as he rose to a sitting position. Amy laughed, “Look at you! We really need to dry you off.” After Amy had peeked out, making sure that Lily wouldn’t happen to see them, they climbed down from the tree house and made their way over to the barn. The excited rush there, made it feel almost like the times they’d snuck around when they were little, and hiding from aunt Lily. Barn Tryst. The barn was pretty big, but now only housed a few chickens and two cows. This time of day, all the animals were out and about, somewhere on the lands, so it was quiet. Amy helped Darren to wrangle his wet shirt off and wiped him down with a towel she’d found on a hook. “Man, I came a lot;” she said, with a hint of pride as she demonstratively rung out his shirt between her hands. Some drops actually came out of it, flowing over her knuckles. “Do I taste good?” she asked, as she licked the upper part of her hand with a sexy grin? “Very;” Darren nodded, and felt his cheeks blush. It felt like a dream he'd just had, and now that they were out in the daylight, it felt like it might have just been a fantasy. Now he felt a bit out of place. He was standing there, shirtless, with a hard on, in his pants as his super hot cousin was licking her own juices off her hand, and asking him what she tastes like! 'You couldn’t even write stuff like this,' he thought to himself. But that thought also took away from the fact, of what he’d just experienced. How could this ever be true?! And what now? He didn’t have to wonder for long, about that last thought; as Amy grabbed his crotch. There was no hiding that he was hard. Hard as hell. “Poor you! You didn’t get anything from me;” Amy said, with puppy dog eyes and playful sorrow, “Well. Maybe now I can get to see what you taste like?” Darren’s head was spinning! In reality, he knew exactly what she meant and insinuated. But this was far beyond his wildest dreams! Having his luscious, sweet Amy suck him off?! That would be so; “It’s starting!” Lily’s shout broke his soaring thought! The Matinee Movie. Aunt Lily was standing on the porch calling out to them, that the movie was starting. Amy made a sad face, but then smiled and rushed down to the house. Darren made a much slower walk, trying to walk in a way so that his hard-on wouldn’t show. Having his hands in his pockets helped. Of course, his 'crotch rocket' was very sensitive to the touch, and it did not let him relax. While he was still a bit away from the farm house, he saw Amy hug aunt Lily, as they went into the house. Darren realized he was still bare-chested and as he came to the open door, he heard that aunt Lily was in the kitchen. So he made a dash upstairs, and changed into a dry tee-shirt, before making his way down to the living room from where he could hear the movie playing. It was an old classic. He and Amy had watched it nearly 10 years ago. Amy was on the sofa under the huge quilt that was usually draped over it. She gave Darren a sly smile and beckoned him to join her under the quilt. Darren sat down on her left, close to the sofa's armrest. Amy scooted herself close to him and put the quilt over them both, so only their heads were uncovered. Amy slouched low, and had her feet up, on the ottoman Feeling her curvy body pressing into his side was very cozy, and Darren had trouble focusing on the film. He had, of course; seen this movie a million times, so it was much more enjoyable to relish in the feeling of Amy’s body so close beside him. The classic movie did little to distract his arousal, Even the lead actress, Vivian Blaine, looked very much like cousin Amy, if Amy's hair wasn't in braids. Darren held his breath, gathered some courage, and caressed her arm under the quilt. Amy identified with the young Emily Edwards in the movie. A debutante, Emily desires the affections of the strapping young man who comes to town. But Cousin Amy is bolder and more daring than the heroine of the musical. Spurred on by Darren's compliance, she let out a soft sigh, while still watching the TV. This felt so good. Like if they were boyfriend and girlfriend, cuddling up to a movie together. It was really quite romantic. The romance quickly changed to sensuality, as Amy took hold of his hand and forcefully steered it over to her tit. It was an awkward angle for his hand when Amy pressed his palm over her luscious boob. But Darren was not about to complain. She slowly rubbed his hand against her tit. Darren could feel her hardened nipple through the fabric of her tee-shirt. She still had her gaze fixed on the television, like nothing special was happening under their blanket. This was so much better than the film. Amy would taunt the movie's heroine for her lack of courage and assertiveness to initiate a heated interlude. Then Darren felt her moving his hand downward, over her belly. He tried to breathe normally, but all of his insides were quivering with sex-infused joy! Just as he had hoped, in silence, she led his palm down to between her legs. She had already flipped up her skirt beforehand so Darren could feel the smooth, shaven skin of her mound slowly pass under his palm. His fingers reached her slit and there she planted his hand firmly. Not that Darren wanted to pull it away, but if he had wanted to, he was not sure he would’ve been able to. Amy was pretty strong, actually. His middle finger was placed right over Amy’s slit. He felt the wetness in there, as she pressed his finger in between her slippery labia. They were both using all their energy to breathe calmly, but Darren could feel the tenseness of her body. She dragged his hand slowly up and down along her soaked cunt, and Darren let her guide him. He could hear her almost silent, sudden inhalations, when his finger hit ‘the spot’. Her thighs stiffened under the quilt and around his hand. It was heavenly to feel her most secret place, all while the old familiar movie played in the background. Not that Darren needed any more excitement, but it came anyway; when he felt Amy’s left hand make its way over his hip and down to the hem of his sweatpants! He felt her fingers tugging at the knot on them. The back of her hand brushed against his rock hard cock tenting his pants below. Darren felt his nostrils flaring and he could hear his own heartbeat inside of his ears! With his free left hand under the quilt, he helped Amy loosen the knot and her hand soon slid in under his sweatpants. A short sting as her fingernail was the first to find his hard cock, but that quickly shifted to the very exciting feeling of her fingertips slowly exploring him around the base of his erection. Darren was now no longer breathing calmly anymore. Having his hand over Amy’s pussy mound with one finger deeply embedded between her folds, and her nimble fingers now slowly caressing his rock hard cock was sending erotic chills all through his spine. Above the big quilt, both of them were still ‘just’ looking at the tv-screen. As Darren snuck a glance, he was impressed at how Amy was keeping such a straight face. Wasn’t she also enjoying this? But every once in a while he could see the tiniest of her face muscles twitch a little as his finger slowly pressed and slipped around in her slit. He tried to mimic her coolness and made it so his face would show as little reaction as possible. Unexpectedly her right hand quickly left his where it was holding down his right hand over her pussy. It was aunt Lily who had entered the room. “Here you go;” she chimed, carrying two strawberry milkshakes for them. Aunt Lily was proud of her milkshakes, as she well should be. They were always perfectly smooth and just the right amount of sweetness. They were a lot better than the ones you get in any restaurant Darren had ever been to. Darren didn’t really keep his hand on Amy’s pussy on purpose. He was just too surprised to react normally. He felt Amy’s thighs shuffle a little and she pulled the quilt up more over herself, as if to cover the outline of his right arm, which was laying down over her belly. There was of course, no way aunt Lily could’ve seen any of the lewd things that were going on under there, but her reaction was understandable. Amy received the milkshake with her now free hand and Lily leaned in and gave her a short hug, still holding Darren’s milkshake. He felt Amy’s hand now taking a grip around the base of his cock. He gritted his teeth in pleasure, but let nothing show on his face. Aunt Lily then made her way over to Darren with the other glass of milkshake. Darren pulled his left hand out from under the protective covering and took it. The glass was cold and heavy. It was adorned with whipped cream on top and a straw with that classical red and white swirl pattern around it. Lily leaned in on him and gave him a kiss on the cheek, “It’s so nice to have you here;” she whispered warmly. As she leaned in, her heavy tits pressed up against his chest. Even through the quilt he could feel her stiff nipples. The nipples Amy had been sucking on, only this morning. He also felt Amy’s grip around his cock tighten, but managed not to give himself away! As aunt Lily stood back up, he could feel Amy’s hand slowly sliding its way up the length of his pole. He gave Lily a polite smile, hoping his blushing cheeks wouldn’t give him away. The events in the tree house had made his precum pretty prominent the last hour. He had been worried it might even soak through his sweat pants. His underwear was stained, but the sweat pants were thick enough to not let anything seep through. But his swollen crown was, of course drenched in the slippery stuff, and Amy’s thumb made good use of that. She let it circle over and around his glans, ever so slowly. Luckily, aunt Lily turned away from him; otherwise she’d surely see his head jerk back, from the incredible feeling of Amy’s fingers massaging the top of his pulsating cock! A quick glance at Amy, told him that she was displaying an evil smirk. She knew what she was doing, and putting him through; in front of his aunt, her own mother! Did she want to get caught? A streak of vengefulness ran through him, and he quickly let his middle finger plunge deep into Amy’s wet cunt hole! It was so slippery that there was almost no resistance. Probably, she wasn’t ready for it, because her mouth opened wide and she let out a silent gasp. He could feel her entrance tighten around his finger. But it was too late, it was already deeply inserted in her! The feeling of his finger inside of his hot cousin, almost made him forget the pleasure of her hand on his own love parts, but Amy’s thumb movements now became more deliberate. As she spread out his precum more and more over his shaft, she also started stroking it in longer and longer motions. Still in slow motion though, so no movement could be seen from outside of the quilt. Darren thought that aunt Lily would leave and go back out into the kitchen, or something. To his horror she moved over to Amy’s other side, and made herself comfortable on the sofa, instead! The big sofa was for three people, but pretty large. Darren and Amy were scrunched up to one side so Lily decided that she could lay down on the 1 1⁄2 seats that were left over, a little closer to the television. To his dread, and in some kind of slow motion he could only watch as his sexy aunt took a big soft sofa pillow, then laid it over Amy’s lap, and his arm. Lily laid her head down on it. His arm was now locked in place under her pillow, his finger still inserted into Amy! He froze his movements for a bit, then bravely pressed his impaling middle finger hard against Amy's G-spot. Amy's mouth again opened wide, but she held her breathe until the urge to scream had become controllable. Darren thought it would compel Amy to retreat from her torrid assault on his cock tip. Amy did not. In a slow unrelenting pace, she kept on stroking his cock, ever so slowly. Darren could not believe what was happening! He finally decided to pause his torturing of Amy's G-spot. Would Cousin Amy honor the truce? Aunt Lily pretended to be engaged in the film, asking questions about whatever was on the screen, “Is that the prize pig they're entering in the contest?” or “Has the scene of the state fair beauty pageant been already?” Every time she talked, her head moved and Darren's finger in Amy moved also! Amy tried to answer as casually as she could, but Darren could easily hear that her voice sounded strained and trembling. With Amy still stroking him slowly, he felt like he was losing control again. Her message was clear. The ceasefire was rejected. It was on! He found that he could move his middle finger a little; and bend it inside her cunt! This way his arm could be totally still and Aunt Lily wouldn’t notice. Amy noticed though! Her breathing was heavier and when faint sloshing sounds from between her legs could be heard, she started slurping loudly on her milkshake. It became like some kind of silent competition between them now. Who could make the other one cum first! Darren was at a disadvantage. He had no idea there even was such a thing as a G-spot! And he could only move his middle finger, and not very much. He tried different ways. Pushing it in and out of her, moving it from side to side; But from what he could tell on Amy´s breathing, the best effect was when he curled it upwards and sort of pressed against the roof of her tunnel! Amy had more freedom to move though. She still kept her stroking slow, but firm and steady. Amy was also lacking insight on Darren's most sensitive zones. But when her thumb gently stroked the underside of his cock tip, Darren gritted his teeth. Darren felt things well up inside of him. He nudged Amy with his shoulder and tried to make a face that would make her understand that he couldn’t hold it anymore! Amy just grinned, slurping loudly on the straw in her mouth! Darren let his head fall back and stopped fighting it! He couldn’t. The geyser in him was stronger! He felt Amy pull her hand up over the top of his cock as he came. Again, and again. His mind groaned in pleasure. He could only hope that his mouth didn’t do the same. Amy was cupping her hand around the head of his throbbing cock, trying to catch as much of his seed as possible, in it. When he calmed down, she snuck her hand out from under the blanket. Darren tried to read her expression as she looked at the fluids, collected in her palm, was it astoundment, he detected? Hard to say. Lily stirred on the pillow, on Amy's lap; again pressing down on Darren's hand, which was pressed on Amy's cunt, with his middle finger impaled inside of her. She quickly wiped her hand against the top rim of her milkshake glass, to get as much of it off as possible. Thick globules of Darren’s cum ran down on the inside of the glass. Lily sat up and turned to Amy, “It seems you're not going to finish your milkshake darling.” “Oh? Eh;” Amy stuttered. She felt Darren's finger in her move, as Lily shifted from her position on the sofa. “That’s alright,” Aunt Lily assured her. “I’ll finish the rest;” she said, and took the glass from her daughter. Darren was dumbstruck as he watched his aunt open her red lips and see her pink, sexy tongue lick the rim of the glass, scooping up the chilled thick cum collected there. Then she sucked in the straw between her lips, and slurped up some of the milkshake; as she rose up from the sofa. Both Amy and Darren just stared at her, with blank faces; as she turned and went to the kitchen; happily slurping up the rest of Amy’s milkshake and all of the cum in it. “Damn, Darren! Mom got to taste you before I did!” Amy whispered when aunt Lily was out of earshot. She licked her palm and started sucking on her fingers. Darren could still only sit there, mouth wide open, not believing what his eyes saw! When Amy had licked her hand clean, she again snuck it in under the quilt and found Darren’s now softening cock. She held it in a soft grip and leaned her head on his shoulder, turning her eyes back to the movie. Darren leaned back, forgetting that his hand was still on her pussy and his finger inside of that wet, warm canal. When he remembered, and moved his finger a little, Amy whispered, “Shush; just leave it still. Otherwise I’m gonna soak all of mom’s sofa cushions. She snuck her other hand under and laid it firmly on his hand, between her thighs. Darren did as he was told, and just let it be there, motionless. It was incredibly cozy, in an erotic way. They both held on to each other's heated sexes, peacefully breathing and just letting the wonderful glow burn slowly inside of them. When the film finally finished, they let each other go. Darren couldn’t help but to put his middle finger in his mouth and give off a satisfied ‘Hmm..’. Amy smiled, “There is more where that came from;” and gave him a wink. As she was straightening out the quilt that had protected them throughout, they both saw a large wet stain, shaped like Amy’s ass cheeks and thighs on the sofa cushion she’d been sitting on! Amy gave off a worried curse word and quickly turned the cushion over and then covered the sofa with the quilt. “Maybe we should both change some clothes;” she smiled, and tugged down on her short skirt hem. It was clearly also wet from her fluids; and Darren agreed. As they went upstairs to their rooms, Lily called to them from the kitchen, “Lunch will be ready shortly!” Darren rummaged through his bag of clothes. His sweatpants needed changing. They were drenched with his own jizz. Although Amy had caught a lot of it with her hand, just as much had run down along his cock and was then soaked up by his think fleece sweatpants. It again dawned on him that his buxom aunt had actually licked and drank his cum! She didn’t know it, but just the thought of some of him entering her mouth; him being swallowed by his buxom sexy milf auntie. He felt his cock twitching again, and had to fight the thoughts! Instead of throwing his sweatpants in the hamper, he hung them on the lampshade to dry and decided to go commando with a clean pair of pants. To be continued. Based on a post by Guzzler 21, for Sex Stories.

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This week at Skip Paige's Little Bar, Patrick Evans & Randy Florence welcome acclaimed entertainer Lucie Arnaz for a deeply personal, lively, and often hilarious conversation. Lucie opens up about her new book, Lucy and Desi: The Love Letters, a poignant collection of her parents' intimate wartime correspondence, digitized and preserved over decades. She shares candid stories about family life behind the scenes, including the joys and heartbreaks of growing up in a legendary household. From early Hollywood history to the creation of the documentary Lucy and Desi, Lucie describes what it means to safeguard her parents' legacy while forging her own remarkable career. She also reflects on marriage, motherhood, performing in top venues, near-misses like Grease, unforgettable moments on the Oscars stage, and her upcoming performances in Palm Springs. Heartfelt, funny, and full of rich storytelling, this episode is a must-hear for fans of theatre, TV history, and genuine human connection.Takeaways:How Lucie discovered, preserved, and curated 47 intimate letters between her parentsThe surprising emotional tone and “love language” within Lucy and Desi's early relationshipNever-before-heard insights about their marriage, divorce, and co-parentingThe multi-decade journey that led to creating Lucy and Desi: The Love LettersThe myths and misinformation fans often spread online—plus Lucie's humorous reactionsCareer stories from Broadway to game shows, including near-casting in GreasePersonal reflections on marriage, parenting, and balancing a creative lifeDetails about Lucie's upcoming concerts, book events, and her ties to Palm Springs#BigConversationsLittleBarPodcast #PatrickEvans #RandyFlorence #SkipsLittleBar #MutualBroadcastingSystem #CoachellaValleyResidents #SkipPaige #McCallumTheatre #LucieArnaz #LucilleBall #DesiArnaz #LucyAndDesiLoveLetters #PalmSpringsArts #ClassicHollywood #CelebrityInterviews #PurpleRoomPalmSprings #PlazaTheatrePalmSprings #BroadwayStories #DocumentaryFilm #EntertainmentPodcast

UNDRAFTED ALLSTARZ SPORTS SHOW LIVE ON HOT7025FM.COM!- NFL Thanksgiving Day/Black Friday ReCap - Cowboys DEFEAT Eagles & Chiefs B2B- Is this the END of the Chiefs Dynasty? - Packers DEFEAT Lions.... AGAIN.- Is Dan Campbell's 4th Down decisions costing the Lions' WINS?- Burrow RETURNS; Bengals UPSET Ravens - Lamar Jackson named NFL's Most Overrated QB by Bleacher Report. - 1st Ever Black Friday Game ReCap; Bears BULLY Eagles for 5th straight WIN- Shedeur WINS in his 1st Start vs. Raiders- Raiders FIRED OC Chip Kelly after 11 gms- Steph Curry signs $780mil deal with NIKE .- NFL Week 13 Predictions - More Sports & Entertainment NewsUNDRAFTED ALLSTARZ SPORTS SHOW LIVE ON HOT7025FM.COM!

Joe Cortright outlines why the Coast Guard is unlikely to approve the IBR's proposed low fixed span, citing navigation requirements, a century of legal precedent, past disputes over Columbia River clearance, and concerns about ignoring future river uses. https://www.clarkcountytoday.com/opinion/opinion-why-you-cant-bribe-your-way-to-a-low-fixed-span-bridge/ #Opinion #IBR #CoastGuard #ColumbiaRiver #Transportation #Infrastructure #PacificNorthwest

Dr. Erich Bock, besturende direkteur vir die hospitaalafdeling by Netcare, gesels oor die groep se finansiële resultate. Volg RSG Geldsake op Twitter

New agreements with four river users have advanced the 116-foot fixed-span I-5 Bridge proposal to Coast Guard review, raising questions about safety, river access, and long-term costs as voters weigh in on this week's poll. https://www.clarkcountytoday.com/opinion/poll-is-a-116-foot-fixed-span-bridge-the-right-choice-for-the-i-5-replacement/ #I5BridgeReplacement #Transportation #VancouverWA #ClarkCounty #FixedSpanBridge #RiverAccess #Infrastructure #PublicInput #Poll #CoastGuardReview

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This week on Everybody in the Pool, we're examining the seemingly humble—but absolutely critical—piece of hardware that could accelerate electrification, unlock virtual power plants, and save homeowners thousands of dollars: the electrical panel.My guest is Arch Rao, founder and CEO of Span, a company building smart electrical panels that replace your old breaker box with real-time power management, whole-home circuit-level visibility, and the ability to electrify without a costly service upgrade.If you've ever been told you need a new 200-amp panel before installing a heat pump, EV charger, induction stove, or home battery… Span thinks you don't. And utilities are starting to agree.We get into:Why most of America's 100-amp homes don't actually need expensive utility upgradesHow Span's digital panel manages loads in real time—throttling certain appliances for a few minutes a year to avoid tripping limitsWhat changes when every circuit in your house is visible and controllable (down to the second)Span as grid infrastructure: how utilities like PG&E see smart panels as a cheaper alternative to billions in grid upgradesLinks:Span: https://www.span.io/All episodes: https://www.everybodyinthepool.com/Subscribe to the Everybody in the Pool newsletter: https://www.mollywood.co/Become a member for the ad-free version of the show: https://everybodyinthepool.supercast.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the late 1700s, Indigenous peoples in the Spanish colonies of the Andes were forced to work for the Spanish. They tilled the land, worked in the textile mills and the mines. Those that didn't faced heavy taxes. But in early November 1780, Indigenous Incan leader Tupac Amaru II led an uprising against the Spanish that he hoped would end it all.It was the largest revolt against colonial Spain. Thousands would join the months-long rebellion. It would inspire uprisings elsewhere across the continent, and independence leaders. South America would gain its freedom from Spain just 40 years later.BIG NEWS! This podcast has won Gold in this year's Signal Awards for best history podcast! It's a huge honor. Thank you so much to everyone who voted and supported. And please consider signing up for the Stories of Resistance podcast feed on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Spreaker, or wherever you listen. And please take a moment to rate and review the podcast. A little help goes a long way.The Real News's legendary host Marc Steiner has also been in the running for best episode host. And he also won a Gold Signal Award. We are so excited. You can listen and subscribe to the Marc Steiner Show here on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.Please consider supporting this podcast and Michael Fox's reporting on his Patreon account: patreon.com/mfox. There you can also see exclusive pictures, video, and interviews. Written and produced by Michael Fox.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.Follow us on:Bluesky: @therealnews.comFacebook: The Real News NetworkTwitter: @TheRealNewsYouTube: @therealnewsInstagram: @therealnewsnetworkBecome a member and join the Supporters Club for The Real News Podcast today!

Suid-Afrika se kaptein, Laura Wolvaardt, sê sy is baie trots op die span se vertoning in die Eendagreeks-Wêreldbeker vir vroue. Wolvaardt se onverskrokke 101 was egter verniet en die Protea-vroue het met 52 lopies teen Indië verloor in die eindstryd in Mumbai. Die Indiese vrouespan het met hul derde poging geseëvier nadat hulle in 2005 en 2017 naaswenners was. Wolvaardt sê dis nie lekker om aan die verloorkant te wees nie, maar sy is vol vertroue die ervaring sal die span sterker maak:

How does your school support new students? Do your students lead the way as transition ambassadors? And wouldn't it be great to have help with this process?In this second episode, Lina and Amy unpacked SPAN's Student Ambassador Guide, which you can access to help incorporate the program into your current transition support efforts!Amy worked for 17 years in Venezuela and Malaysia. She is currently the SPAN Resource Lead. She is passionate about schools caring for the needs of the full community and has integrated transitions care into her various roles. She has a B.A. in Youth Ministry, an MEd. in Curriculum and Instruction and is a Youth Mental Health First Aider. Amy enjoys meeting people, cooking, and spending time with her family.Lina previously served as a Counselor and Wellness Coordinator in Chile. She is now working on her PhD in Psychology, focusing on suicide prevention in international education. Lina likes to explore the outdoors, stay active, and spend time with friends, family and her dog. She believes in the power of embracing our full humanity through life's inevitable changes, which are also an opportunity for growth.Guiding Question: “How can schools build or enhance a Student Ambassador Program rooted in positive transitions-care?”Recorded: July 13, 2025.Resources:Safe Passage Across Networks - SPANSafe Passage (Book) by Dr. Doug OtaInternational School Counselor Association - ISCALife Without Nico by Andrea MaturanaAmy: Finding My Voice, LinkedInLina: linapaumgarten.com, Instagram, LinkedIn, LINDEN Global Learning & Support, Categories: Transitions | School Lif Remember to access our Educators Going Global website for more information and consider joining our Patreon community at patreon/educatorsgoingglobal!Email us with comments or suggestions at educatorsgoingglobal@gmail.com Follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram or YouTube.Listen on your favorite podcast app: connect from our share page.Music: YouTube. (2022). Acoustic Guitar | Folk | No copyright | 2022❤️. YouTube. Retrieved October 11, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOEmg_6i7jA.

The Skavs of The Last Drop have lined up a lucrative job that will not only set them up for life, but make them infamous throughout the Span, but first they need to seek out a new recruit, rendezvous with an elusive gang and meet an Oligarch. Crowd funding begins for Mork Sol on November 1st! Bookmark the Kickstarter!⁠ ⁠Try the demo! Support the show on Patreon! Music Credits: "Brain Implant" by soundbay "Triumphant" by Ovani Sounds "Spacious Odyssey" by Ovani Sounds "Above the Clouds" by Ovani Sounds "Marble Falls" by Ovani Sounds "Asphalt" by Ovani Sounds "Crescent Moon" by Ovani Sounds "Violet Skies" by Ovani Sounds "Wayside" by Ovani Sounds "Koto" by Ovani Sounds "Longing" by Ovani Sounds "Eyes Everywhere" by Ovani Sounds Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this episode of HomeKit Insider, host Andrew welcomes Cole Ashman, founder and CEO of Pela, to discuss the future of smart home power integrations. They delve into the innovative solutions offered by Pela, including a plug-and-play battery system designed for every home and business. Cole shares insights from his experience at Tesla and Span, highlighting the importance of energy independence and the convergence of smart home technology with power management. Tune in to explore how these advancements are reshaping the way we think about home energy solutions.Send us your HomeKit questions and recommendations with the hashtag homekitinsider. Tweet and follow our hosts at:@andrew_osu on Twitter@andrewohara941 on ThreadsEmail me hereSponsored by:Shopify: Sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period at: shopify.com/homekitZapier: Get started for free by visiting zapier.com/homekitFunction Health: Learn more and join using my link. The first 1,000 users get $100 credit. Visit www.functionhealth.com/HOMEKIT or use code HOMEKIT at checkoutHomeKit Insider YouTube ChannelSubscribe to the HomeKit Insider YouTube Channel and watch our episodes every week! Click here to subscribe.Links from the showKohler DekodaWalmart Onn Streamer IssueWhisker Litter Robot 5Lux TQX Smart Matter ThermostatPila EnergyThose interested in sponsoring the show can reach out to us at: andrew@appleinsider.com

Rugby: Die All Blacks se hulp-afrigter, Jason Holland, gaan die span verlaat aan die einde van die seisoen wanneer sy huidige tweejaar-kontrak verstryk. Hy het verlede jaar by Nieu-Seeland se afrigtingspan aangesluit. Die 53-jarige is die tweede lid van Scott Robertson se afrigtingspan wat vertrek nadat Leon MacDonald verlede jaar halfpad deur die Rugbykampioenskap bedank het. Holland sê hy sal waarskynlik in afrigting bly, maar sal die moontlikhede oorweeg:

Brother Norris gives us a sober reminder that our life's span is limited, and it is known only to God. May we be like the psalmist, who said, “Teach us to number our days.” And Brother Kazi shared further thoughts from Psalm 91 on this topic.

In this episode, we discuss mentors and how a wide variety of ages and backgrounds can be very beneficial for brainstorming challenges in your life.https://pghdreamerproductions.com/2025/10/20/mentors-should-span-a-wide-age-group-and-have-a-variety-of-backgrounds-question-17-how-can-i-get-help-making-a-tough-decision/

We all seek to belong. It's a human need. If you've moved schools, you know transitions can be tough. Thankfully, the Safe Passage Across Networks (SPAN) program, created by Dr. Doug Ota, provides a transitions care framework for schools. In this episode, we spoke with Amy Shuflin and Lina Paumgarten, developers of resources for SPAN.Amy worked for 17 years in Venezuela and Malaysia. She is currently the SPAN Resource Lead. She is passionate about schools caring for the needs of the full community and has integrated transitions care into her work in various roles. She has a B.A. in Youth Ministry, an MEd. in Curriculum and Instruction and is a Youth Mental Health First Aider. Amy enjoys meeting people, cooking, and spending time with her family.Lina previously served as Counselor and Wellness Coordinator at Nido de Aguilas in Santiago, Chile. She is now working on her PhD in psychology, focusing on suicide prevention in international education. Lina likes to explore the outdoors, stay active, and spend time with friends, family and her dog. She believes in the power of embracing our full humanity through life's changes, which are inevitable -- and an opportunity for growth.The guiding question was: “How can schools build or enhance a program rooted in positive transitions-care?”Topics covered:An overview of SPAN Supporting arrivers, leavers, and stayersReasons why schools need transitions care programs and practical strategies Recorded: July 13, 2025.Resources mentioned:International School Counselor Association - ISCALife Without Nico by Andrea MaturanaLINDEN Global Learning & SupportSafe Passage Across NetworksLina's LinkedIn, Instagram, linapaumgarten.comAmy's LinkedInCategories: Transitions | School Life  Remember to access our Educators Going Global website for more information and consider joining our Patreon community at patreon/educatorsgoingglobal!Email us with comments or suggestions at educatorsgoingglobal@gmail.com Follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram or YouTube.Listen on your favorite podcast app: connect from our share page.Music: YouTube. (2022). Acoustic Guitar | Folk | No copyright | 2022❤️. YouTube. Retrieved October 11, 2022, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOEmg_6i7jA.

Welcome to the Span, scav! Dive into the new, unreleased dark sci-fi world of Mork Sol where entropy threatens to consume the universe with each passing day. We preview the system, outline the lore and mechanics and also show you how quick and easy it is to build your character and your home in the ever darkening galaxy... your Skip. Bookmark the Kickstarter! Try the demo! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What does it really take to build great leaders? In this episode of the Inspire Podcast, Bart Egnal sits down with Rob Buckingham, Executive VP at Quest Window Systems Inc and retired Canadian Forces Captain, to unpack how leadership is intentionally developed in both the military and business. Rob shares powerful lessons from his time in uniform when he was first exposed to foundational leadership and how the Canadian Forces empowers junior leaders to step up from day one. He explains how that experience taught him the value of feedback, the importance of resilience under pressure, and why empowering people early creates lasting strength in any organization. He then reveals how those same principles shaped his corporate career and what he learned as a management consultant and, more recently, in his current role as Executive VP of a global manufacturing company. He closes by sharing perspectives from his work with Treble Victor, an organization that matches veterans with civilian organizations, and shows why companies that tap into military leadership talent gain a powerful edge. If you've ever wondered what foundational leadership looks like in practice and how you can cultivate it in your own organization, this conversation is for you.   Show Notes 00:15 Show intro 00:52 Introducing Robert Buckingham 03:12 What is foundational leadership and why is it important? 03:18 Fostering a leadership culture  03:42 Empower junior leaders 04:07 What orgs get right and wrong about leadership development 04:53 Military officers have responsibility right away 06:12 Give junior leaders tools to lead early on  07:00 Why did you enlist in the army 09:42 What is Mission-command 10:28 Military gets planning and execution of tasks 12:57 Forecast Plan Control Review 13:29 Resilience 13:33 Key values: loyalty, integrity, mission first 13:49 Can you teach these leadership traits or are they innate? 15:09 High fallout rate in the military 18:35 Continuous training 19:41 Instantaneous coaching feedback 20:06 Growing a culture of feedback 20:18 What's the toughest feedback you got in your career? 21:19 Like sports team culture 21:35 The worst thing is complacency 24:04 One of my proudest achievements in the military 24:43 Transitioning from military to the corporate world, was it a shock? 25:59 Translating to civilian speak 28:01 What maps and what doesn't? 29:11 Put things in place, succeeded! 30:47 Span of control 32:35 Corporate environment never plan 33:29 50 50 leadership vs tasks 34:00 Joined Quest 35:01 Set your team up with a structure where information flows up and down 36:15 How to know how an org is doing with leadership? 36:49 Does the front line mission line up with the org's mission? 38:18 The Back Brief  39:55 Treble Victor 45:38 Thank yous 46:00 Outro  

after a long, long hiatus, zoologic finally returns for another round of deep (how deep?) house music selections to soothe our minds into the weekend.

Kyle Spicka is a professional paintball player for team… We are not sure yet, or maybe we are, maybe we drop the news! Kyle is a professional paintball player and one of the best divisional coaches around. Full of knowledge and here to share it all. Do not miss this special episode with the co-host from our recently acquired sister show, The Spick & Span show! JOIN THE DISCORD:https://www.patreon.com/bePatron?u=34554029SHOW SPONSORS:https://www.lonewolfpaintball.com/Support the showJoin the PTG community by clicking the orange