Podcasts about state farm

Sean and Amanda open today's show by breaking down the weekend box office and highlighting the solid performance of ‘Coyote vs. Acme,' the continued bulldozing by ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day' and ‘The Odyssey,' and the big bomb by ‘The Dog Stars.' Then, they kick off their fall movie preview by each highlighting five movies they can't wait to see and three movies they've seen and would recommend. Finally, they create the "September Oscars” and select five “guaranteed” Oscar nominations from films that have already been released. (0:00) Intro (0:38) ‘Coyote vs. Acme' (6:08) ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day' and ‘The Odyssey' box office (9:32) ‘Buddy' (10:38) ‘The Dog Stars' bombs at the box office (12:20) Anne Hathaway joins the ‘Days of Thunder' sequel (15:44) Five movies we can't wait to see this fall (59:11) Three movies we've seen and would recommend (1:13:12) The September Oscars (five Oscar nomination guarantees from films that have already come out) Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Producer: Jack Sanders Production Support: Lucas Cavanagh Talk to a State Farm agent today to learn how you can choose to bundle and save with the Personal Price Plan®. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there®. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

L.A. County sues State Farm for its response to claims from the Eaton and Palisades fires. A harmful algal bloom hits Big Bear Lake. Universal's new roller coaster opens soon after opening was delayed to address noise complaints. Plus, more on the Evening Edition. Support The L.A. Report by donating at LAist.com/join and by visiting https://laist.comSupport the show: https://laist.com

P.M. Edition for Aug. 31. The second quarter was a good one for S&P 500 companies. Per-share earnings soared 53% and many companies have raised their guidance. WSJ reporter Theo Francis explains what's propelling those gains. Plus, the Federal Trade Commission sues Amazon for allegedly manipulating prices for ads on its site—and making billions from merchants. And the Supreme Court allows President Trump to keep building his White House ballroom. Pierre Bienaimé hosts. Sign up for the WSJ's free What's News newsletter. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

LA County is promising new info in its investigation into State Farm over Eaton and Palisades Fire claims. Closing arguments are expected in Tupac Shakir's murder trial in Vegas. Lineage has gotten all the rotting food out of Boyle Heights, and some say the neighborhood is already seeing a turnaround. Plus, more on Morning Edition. Support The L.A. Report by donating at LAist.com/join and by visiting https://laist.comSupport the show: https://laist.com

In episode 503 of The Reformed Brotherhood, Tony Arsenal and Jesse Schwamb conclude their deep dive into Luke 10:25–37 — the Parable of the Good Samaritan. Far from a simple morality tale about helping strangers, this episode unpacks the parable's confrontational legal context, its reversal of expectation, and its profound Christological undertones. Tony and Jesse examine why the lawyer's question about self-justification was always destined to be unanswerable on his own terms, how the priest and Levite serve as a damning mirror for religious professionals, and why the Samaritan's lavish, costly mercy points beyond mere ethics to the gospel itself. The episode also explores the Mary and Martha account that immediately follows, arguing it cannot be read in isolation. Closing with Matthew Henry, the hosts land the discussion squarely on gratitude for Christ, the supreme Good Neighbor. Key Takeaways The parable is fundamentally about self-justification, not mercy ministry. The lawyer's question — "Who is my neighbor?" — is a legal maneuver, and Jesus' answer exposes the impossibility of fulfilling the law through self-effort rather than merely defining the scope of neighborly obligation. Jesus reverses the expected identification of "the neighbor." The listener naturally assumes the beaten man is the neighbor to be loved, but the punchline identifies the Samaritan — the one who showed mercy — as the neighbor, redirecting the question from who must I love to what does love actually look like. The Samaritan's mercy is deliberately, impossibly lavish. His actions — binding wounds, providing transport, paying an open-ended debt for a stranger and likely an enemy — exceed anything a reasonable person would do, pointing to a mercy that transcends mere human virtue. The priest and Levite indict religious professionalism. Their failure is not incidental; it demonstrates that meticulous law observance and ceremonial religiosity can actually obstruct the very love the law commands, hollowing out its spirit while preserving its form. The parable functions under all three uses of the law. For the unregenerate, it terrifies and condemns. For the regenerate, it is a third-use call to Spirit-empowered, grateful obedience. As civil law, it commends a society of compassion over indifference. Christ is the typological Good Neighbor. The Samaritan's actions — pouring oil and wine, bearing the cost, promising to return and settle all debts — carry genuine Christological resonance without requiring a full allegorical reading of every detail. The immediately following Mary and Martha account is thematically inseparable. Luke's editorial placement of that narrative directly after the parable creates a deliberate counterpoint: the one thing necessary is not anxious service but sitting at the feet of Jesus. Key Concepts The Lawyer's Question Was Never Going to Work The lawyer who approaches Jesus in Luke 10 is not a neutral inquirer — he is, as Luke tells us, seeking to justify himself. Tony and Jesse explore what this means with precision: the desire to be justified is not inherently wrong, but the mechanism the lawyer employs — the law — is catastrophically insufficient for the task. When Jesus responds with the parable, he does not sidestep the legal framework; he weaponizes it. The Samaritan's mercy is so extravagant, so far beyond ordinary moral expectation, that it functions not as an achievable standard but as a devastating exposure of how far short every human attempt at law-keeping falls. The command "go and do likewise" is not an encouraging send-off — it is, for the self-justifying lawyer, a door slamming shut. The Samaritan's Mercy Is Intentionally Beyond Reach One of the most important contributions this episode makes is resisting the domestication of the Samaritan's actions into a feel-good story about helping those in need. Tony reframes the scenario in contemporary terms: finding a gravely injured stranger from a hostile ethnic group, providing emergency first aid, transporting them to care, and writing a blank check for all future medical expenses — with no personal obligation to do so. No reasonable person would do this, and that is exactly the point. The mercy described is not aspirationally difficult; it is humanly inconceivable at scale. This is what Christ-like love looks like, and it is precisely what the law demands. The gap between the demand and human capacity is the gospel's entry point. The Mary and Martha Account Cannot Be Separated from the Parable Tony raises a hermeneutical observation that deserves more attention than it typically receives: Luke chose to place the Mary and Martha account immediately after the Good Samaritan parable, and that editorial decision is not accidental. Martha — busy with hospitality and service — looks, on the surface, like the practical application of everything the Samaritan modeled. Yet she is gently rebuked, and Mary, who sits at Jesus' feet, is commended for choosing "the one thing necessary." This creates a stunning theological counterweight: the parable exposes the impossibility of self-justifying law-keeping, and the very next story shows that even well-intentioned merciful activity, when it crowds out receiving from Christ, misses the point. The one thing necessary is always Christ himself. Memorable Quotes If you think you're the good Samaritan, if you think you're the one that's gonna come and rescue people — you're much more likely to see this as a sort of law beat-down. Where those of us who are regenerated and in Christ, this is third-use law. This is us seeing what it means to be holy, and going and doing likewise, trying in our power, recognizing that we can't, and trusting the Lord to accept our feeble attempts. - Tony Arsenal This text is not really to be preached or applied as some kind of bare moral exhortation. It's not 'try harder to be like the Samaritan.' That's totally disconnected from the gospel. It should be preached in a manner that exposes the impossibility of self-justification... and then of course it does point us to Christ as the one whose perfect, costly, self-giving mercy alone satisfies the law's demand on our behalf. - Jesse Schwamb If this parable and our conversation about it does nothing except stirring you to gratitude for the fact that our supreme good neighbor threw us on his donkey and carried us to the public house, and bound up our wounds, and paid for our debt — if it does nothing but drive you to gratitude and thankfulness and wonder, then we've succeeded in our task and we've left you with the Gospel. - Tony Arsenal Full Transcript Jesse Schwamb: Welcome to episode 503 of the Reformed Brotherhood. I'm Jesse.  Tony Arsenal: And I'm Tony, and this is the podcast with ears to hear. Hey, brother.  Jesse Schwamb: Hey, brother. Well, at this point, there's one thing that we know for certain, and that is if you're gonna come at the law giver, the one who's composed and written the law, with a legal question to try to entrap the one who has given you the law, you better not miss. And it turns out, in Luke 10 where we've been hanging out, the lawyer who poses Jesus with the question of, "Who is my neighbor?" is a big swing and a miss. Yeah. And we're finally gonna get to all the characters that are part of this amazing parable in this conversation. But of course, there's something we gotta do first. Affirmations And Denials Jesse Schwamb: It, it's everybody's, what I'm led to believe everybody's favorite segment of this entire show. I mean, the crowds out there say, "Why even have a full podcast? Just do affirmations and denials for the entire time." And we, we hear you, because we're borrowing from that beautiful confessional format of the dead reformers to settle all the much not confessional [00:02:00] disputes. So in the great tradition of the Westminster Divines, who of course cannot just simply say, "We like grace," without also clarifying 17 things that grace is not- ... we're now again going to bring you our own binding, authoritative, and entirely unneeded but very official statement of affirmations and denials. It's affirming the things we love and denying things we don't. So Tony, as is our own custom, are you affirming with something or are you denying against something on this episode?  Tony Arsenal: Um, I'm denying something. Uh, it's a sort of a weird situation that has cropped up, uh, online. And I, I try not to use this segment too often to sort of wade into, um, I don't know, the, like, latest social controversy in the Reformed world. But every once in a while I come across something that I feel like you just need to sort of talk about. And, um, many of our listeners are probably already [00:03:00] aware of the situation that I'm gonna talk about, and it's very well-publicized and, and very public. Um, but I'm denying the sort of weirdness that has happened with the G3 Conference. Um, I'm not sure how familiar with G3 you are, Jesse, but for the, the listener who may not be, G3 is a conference, um, primarily run by Baptists, and is, in my understanding, is primarily attended by sort of Reformed-ish Baptists. And I don't, I don't say Reformed-ish to be pejorative necessarily. Um, but it, it's sort of like predominantly, um Non-confessional but not anti-confessional Calvinistic Baptists, sort of think more like covenant framework MacArthur-style Baptists maybe is, is a way to look at it. Um, and a few years ago, one of their main figures, I don't remember exactly what position he held, but it was a relatively high position in, in [00:04:00] the conference. Uh, his name was Josh Boyce. He, uh, w- was caught/confessed to maintaining, like, multiple anonymous or pseudonymous, uh, Twitter accounts and publishing several s- like pseudonym-based Substacks, um, that he used to basically attack the character of not only anyone online that seemed to cross him, but, like, people that he shared an office with. Like, anyone and everyone was targeted by him. And at the time it was a big hullabaloo. He, uh, he resigned. As far as I can tell, he's faded into obscurity and has not sought to come back, although that's always, you know, yet to be seen. But at the time there was very firm statements by the r- remaining sort of board members, leadership of G3, at how inappropriate this was, and how acting anonymously requi- you know, sort of evacuates accountability and, [00:05:00]and all these different things. And it's come out recently, um, just over the last week, that four of the members of the G3 board, um, who are all elders at the same church, had assembled a sort of anonymous dossier of accusations against, um, a- another pastor, uh, that he had been sort of serially plagiarizing sermons. Um, and when nothing really happened when they sent their anonymous dossier, they started distributing this to other, other, like, platforms and other church and m- parachurch ministries, kind of encouraging people to do their own investigation. Um, one such, uh, outlet was ... It's a, it's a, I don't know, sort of a news discernment blogger kind of a thing, um, has done some pretty decent reporting work I think in, in the recent past, although it has sort of a s- storied beginning, um, called Protestia They did just [00:06:00] that. They did an investigation, and in the course of their investigation, they identified who these anonymous, uh, the anonymous reporters were, and it was the same, the very same people who a few years ago, uh, pontificated, uh, at, at length about the importance of accountability and how anonymity has, uh, taken that away. Uh, people that accepted Josh Boyce's resi- resignation for acting anonymously have now done the same thing. They have since, uh, resigned from their church eldership, um, which is gonna be awkward because they haven't resigned from the board of G3, which, uh, the offices of G3 are in the same building as the church that they've now resigned at. Uh, and I guess where, where my denial comes in and the reason that I feel like it, it might be worthwhile for us just to Even reflect on it a little bit is there is an element in the Reformed world that seeks a platform and seeks an audience and seeks notoriety, and I, I was musing [00:07:00] today a little bit on my own Twitter that th- there was a time in my life where that was very much what I wanted. I wanted to be a, a very public, well-known theological voice, and, um, a- and I just have sort of like drifted away from that. And the, the reason I think it's worth mentioning on our show is that we do have an audience. We have a, a modest audience. It's not huge. It's not nothing. Um, but th- there is a real temptation to seek fame and notoriety that is absolutely destructive and really antithetical to, uh, to Christian principles of what it means to serve those around you, to serve with humility, to r- you know, redound any glory that might come to you for your actions to, to the fact that it is Christ who empowers all things and brings all good blessings. So I don't know that I have much more commentary on it. It's just a weird... It's a very weird situation, but it, it seems like it very much has come from a [00:08:00] place of feeling as though minor slights by people you associate with warrant sort of a, a nuclear option like this because, uh... and I don't wanna read too much into motives, but, but it seems like because your reputation and your notoriety is so great that any offense to it needs to be responded to in kind, and that's just not, that's just not the Christian way. So again, I don't know that I have any more commentary or thoughts on it. It just was a weird situation that I'm, I'm like, "Why do we gotta do this to each other, folks?" Like, why are we, why are we biting at each other all the time? Why are we doing these things except from a place of sinful pride? So I'm denying that. I'm denying sinful pride. I'm denying my own tendencies to seek glory in a spotlight. Um, I'm very thankful that God did not, uh, see fit to grant me that desire 'cause it probably would've been even more destructive for me than it has been for these guys. So I'm very happy to live in obscurity, [00:09:00] to serve the local church, to share our voices in this very modest, tiny platform that we have, and perhaps the Lord will see fit to change that one direction or the other, and I'll, I'll be happy to serve at His, uh, at His will. But I'm glad for now that, uh, the, the temptation of international fame has not been something that I even have the opportunity to lay hold of. Um, I'm very thankful for that, that, uh, grace from the Lord.  Jesse Schwamb: I had that light, sarcastic, some might say somewhat humorous opening and affirmations and denials, and you, you just brought the heaviness, which is okay. Sometimes that's, sometimes that's what happens.  Lament Devotional Spotlight Jesse Schwamb: And- Yeah ... I- fortunately, I have an affirmation, but it's, uh, of, like, a weird, heavy kind now that I think about it. So, um, I'm trying to, I'm trying to get everybody on the cusp of good books that I think are coming out. And so here's another one where it's not even gonna be released until September 30th, and so you have plenty of time to go out and find this thing. So P&R Publishing, many may be [00:10:00] familiar, does this whole series, topical series, which are called 31-Day Devotionals for Life, and there's a new one being released by Christine Chappell. It's called Lament: Crying Out in Faith. So I'm affirming with this piece because I've had the joy of been working through some of this stuff, and I think this is some of the best treatment I've ever read, been able to practice, been coached into for lamenting. We've talked before at length about how Christians, especially in the West, often because we just have great lives, we aren't familiar with lament. We don't practice it well. We hardly sing any songs of lament. We're unfamiliar with it. It's like a foreign land to us. And then sometimes when we're, we get convicted we should lament, we kind of interpret that as, "Well, yeah, I, I know I can blow up at God. I can get angry with him and, and that's okay." David does it too, and it's okay to express all your feelings with God. What I like about this work is it cultivates more of a prayer language. It gives voice to pain and grief so that there can be a real healing. It's not just a complaining. It's not just [00:11:00] throwing your voice out into the ether to, you know, wildly pontificate or self-aggrandize about how hurt or upset you are. It enables us to cry out to God in such a way that it promotes emotional authenticity, but at the same time maintains reverence. I think that is, uh, at least what I need. The beauty of this book is somebody you know or yourself need to lament something. Actually, I think we all have something to lament, even as it's getting older or things changing in our lives. So I highly, highly, highly affirm with this book. It's Lament: Crying Out in Faith. P&R does a lot of great publishing in this way. It's just the year of the devotionals, Tony. I don't know why. Yeah. I mean, I even hate to use devotional. It's the year of good resources for daily praise and worship- Yeah ... and lament should be part of our praise and worship. Yeah. So, but doing it in the right way is something I'm learning. I had mixed understanding of it. So this will clarify, encourage, edify in all the ways that I think we need.  Tony Arsenal: That sounds great. I, I do agree with you. I think, um- [00:12:00] Although I think it may be a little bit less so in, in the sort of confessional Reformed tradition just because the Psalms in general play such a prominent role in Reformed worship. Um, I do agree with you that broadly, like, we, we in the Western evangelical w- world don't, we don't know how to do laments. Um, I'm not one of those people that would say im- imprecatory prayers are inappropriate. I know there are some even within the Reformed world that would say im- imprecatory prayers are not appropriate for God's people in, in the new covenant. Um, I don't know that I agree with that, but, but that's another example of, like, that's in the prayer and hymnbook of our people- Right ... and we don't really know how to do it. Yes. So, and, and imprecation and lament are very closely related to each other. They're, they're very similar, um, ways of thinking and they're, they're both kind of modes of prayer that, uh, we don't, we don't really engage in. And so when we do have- when the occasion arises, we're, like, out of practice. So that's a great, uh, a great [00:13:00]affirmation and yeah, a little, a little weirdly heavy. Maybe this is gonna be a, a weirdly heavy episode. Who knows?  Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, it very well could be.  Good Samaritan Deep Dive Jesse Schwamb: I mean, listen, it was no doubt heavy for the lawyer who stood up- True who was  Tony Arsenal: like- Nicely done ...  Jesse Schwamb: I'd like to justify myself, so Jesus, let me ask you, we took our question, "Who is my neighbor?" I do all these things. I'm down with the law. Yeah. I know all this stuff. And I think we had some really great conversation last time. I'm biased, but I think we had some really fantastic unpacking of the first part of this, and if you haven't heard that yet, you should go back and listen to episode 502. But in this episode, we're really getting into all of these wonderful and somewhat colorful characters. So I'm gonna pick us back up in Luke chapter 10, starting in verse 25. So I'm going back a little bit just to set that proper context for this amazing parable that Jesus tells us. So he says, "And behold, a scholar of the law stood up and was putting him," that is Jesus, "to the test, saying, 'Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?' And he said to him, 'What is written in the law? How do you [00:14:00] read it?' And he answered and said, 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.' And he said to him, 'You have answered correctly. Do this and you will live.' But wishing to justify himself, he said to Jesus, 'And who is my neighbor?' And Jesus replied and said, 'A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell among robbers, and they stripped him and beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. And a priest happened to be going down on that road, and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. Likewise, a Levite also, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan, who was on a journey, came upon him, and when he saw him, he felt compassion.'" And he came to him and bandaged up his wounds, pouring oil and wine on them, and he put them on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. And on the [00:15:00] next day, he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper and said, "Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, when I return, I will repay you." Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell into the robbers' hands? And he said, "The one who showed mercy toward him." Then Jesus said to him, "Go and do the same."  Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah, this is one of those parables we, we mentioned, uh, I guess we've invented a new classification of parables called the Big Daddy parables. That's right. Um, uh, this is one of those parables that is so ubiquitous and well-known, uh, that word there, choice there was a little hat tip to my Lutheran friends. Um, so ubiquitous and well-known that I think we actually can, can rush into a common understanding and not, not be right at all about it. And I think the, the way this, uh, uh, the way I've seen this commonly done in, in circles I've run in in the past is this [00:16:00] becomes a parable about mercy ministry. Um, and, and the primary point is about how we serve our neighbors. And I think there certainly is, um, there certainly is an element of that that we can glean from this, that Christ is making a commentary on the fact that, um, the, the, the right way to not only serve your neighbor but to even identify your neighbor, uh, and it's funny because I think this is, this is where I think people go wrong. The, the Samar- or the, um, the, the lawyer is asking, "Who is my neighbor?" Right. And I think we commonly read this, and we read it to say, well, the Samaritan, uh, or the, the guy who got beat up is the neighbor. Right. And so we have to serve our neighbor like the Samaritan did. But the, the, the punchline, whatever, of the story is that the Samaritan is the g- is the neighbor, right? We, we call this the Parable of the Good Samaritan, but we might wanna call it the [00:17:00] Parable of the Good Neighbor. And so it says more about what it means to be a good neighbor than it does to, um, to say about who, who our neighbor necessarily is, right? The, the s- uh, the lawyer was asking, "Who's my neighbor?" And the answer was the one who shows mercy. And there's kind of a weird, there's kind of a weird paradox there, and this is something Jesus commonly does, where, like, He doesn't really answer the question. Um, the, the lawyer is like, "Well, who is it that I have to love," right? "The, I have to love my neighbor as myself, and who is it that I have to love?" And Jesus' answer basically is like, "Well, the good neighbor is the one who showed mercy." Well, that doesn't answer- Right ... His question. So I think we have to be careful when we, uh, we work through this not to just sort of default and jump to what might be called, like, the lowest common denominator interpretation, right? These are things that, yes, um, there is something to say about, uh, mercy ministry and how important it is to serve the, [00:18:00] serve those around us who are in need, right? That's, that's the command that comes out of this or the outcome that comes out of this is Christ is commanding this, um, this lawyer to go and be merciful to others. Um- But if we, if we move too quickly to that, we miss a lot of what this has to say about the nature of justification- Right ... the nature of Christ as, as the capital T good neighbor, right? The, the good neighbor who, who takes care of our sin and pays the debt for us to be restored, right? I don't, like I said last week, I don't think that that is too on the nose. Um, I think we miss the fact that the question, uh, the question is coming from a place, and we talked about this a little bit last week, but and maybe we'll get into it a little more. The question is coming from a place, um, whether you view this negatively, like I think most do, and there's warrant for that, or whether you view it a, a little bit more neutrally or maybe even positively, which is where I land, the desire to justify or to be [00:19:00] justified is not a bad desire. And the, the text doesn't seem to offer a lot of commentary on the fact that the, the, um, lawyer is desiring to justify himself, other than the implied commentary o- of what the parable says about salvation in that someone else needs to save you, so you can't do it yourself in the first place. So I'm excited to get through this. Um, I, I think we're probably gonna be here, we're gonna camp out here for at least another week after this, 'cause there's just so much to this parable. Who knows? Maybe we'll fly through it and it'll be a quick conversation, but I, I don't... That's not really our jam. Um- That's not really what we do But yeah, it, it's, it's a big daddy parable. There's a lot here to unpack.  Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. You're right about that. Interestingly, as always, Jesus flips the law, but here the law flipping, like, ends up smacking you in the face because it does start with this inquiry about just identify for me who my neighbors are. If you give me these discrete instructions like the law has given me to do all these things, which by the way, I mean, even that when we have this lawyer saying, [00:20:00] "I've done all these things. I've identified just for instance that the law includes loving the Lord God with everything, every part of who I am." He says like, "Yeah, I've done all these things." This is, I've already accomplished that. So now let me get, become self-justified in confirming I've done all these things. If you just tell me who the neighbors are, I'll be able to say to you, "Yep, I've already done that." Instead, what happens is Christ says, "Here's what neighborly love looks like. And what it's gonna look like is so dramatic and so shocking that you ought to take pity and have concern and show compassion for those not just who are unlike you, but are, like, abhorrent, those who you would even never identify with in the parable of the story I'm about to tell you." So I think there's all of that, like you said, to move away from just kind of categorizing this as a nice homily about how we ought to behave. However, there might be, like, some kind of moralistic theme in this that directs us toward actions of love and generosity, which by the way, could just be common grace. Those exist outside of strict belief and adherence to the gospel, and certainly can be far afield from actually loving Christ. [00:21:00] The other thing that I think sometimes happens with this, and I'm gonna be unpopular on this one, I'm afraid, but is that I think there is often a lot of allegorical excess. And certainly there are people more intelligent than I who really embrace that. So I'm looking at you, Patristic Fathers. Like, you know, if you wanna read some interesting stuff, everybody can go look up Origen or Augustine on this. Yeah. And they allegorize this parable in New England what we would call wicked fine detail. I mean, down, down to everything. So the oil and the- Yeah ... wine, the soil, each of the persons here representing something that in itself, like, everything. And I think that that is okay. What I struggle with on that is, and this is where I'm unpopular, I think, is that- There are a lot of other exegetes, I don't think I'm alone, that would look at this and say, "Yes, there is something about this that draws us into, like, just general typological resonance. I'm not gonna reject that." There are these, like, broader canonical themes of, like, helpless [00:22:00] humanity, like you said, and undeserved mercy. Those all legitimately, I think, echo the gospel truths. But I'm kind of resisting, or I'm prone to resist, treating every narrative detail in this as some kind of, like, independent cipher. Yeah. And so I think I want to come a little bit in criticizing, like, the allegorical method here, that instead what happens when we do that is we're, we're... I think we're obscuring a little bit Christ's actual didactic purpose, which is fundamentally ethical and legal, 'cause that's the question he's answering. He's trying to answer this question, "Who's my neighbor?" And he's gonna do it- Right ... with this definition-shattering example. And so I think, like, the most responsible hermeneutic here affirms that, like we said before, a parable should have a single main point, and it's determined in this context by that punchline, like you said. Um, at the same time, I think we can legitimately, like, permit some restrained theological reflection on, like, that broader resonance with the gospel. I'm not denying that. But without multiplying, like, allegorical [00:23:00] correspondences like the text itself doesn't even make. Even, even coming down to, like, who we see as Christ in the story, while that can be useful and helpful, it's not the same identification that we've seen in other parables. Yeah. So that's what makes this, like you're right, Tony, like, really unique and very interesting because we can draw lots and lots of parallels, and perhaps we should. But at the same time, it's always good to remember what is it that Jesus is on about here? What is it that the hearers were really being prone to understand and mull over and meditate on? And that's, like, this first principle of neighborly love, like you already called out.  Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah, and I, I agree with you, too, is I, I think, um- We can sort of fall into a trap or a pit of assuming that all of the parables are meant to explain the same thing. Sure. And I think, like, within Matthew maybe that's a little bit more, uh, accurate because m- I think all, if not [00:24:00] most of, of the Matthean parables, you know, the Kingdom of God is like, the Kingdom of God is like. So th- like, that repeated f- refrain of, like, the Kingdom of God is... In, in Matthew, Christ is using parables to teach about the mysterious hidden reality of the kingdom in a way that people can understand. Um, this is different, right? This is not a Kingdom of God is like. There is no, um, clear this is like that, uh, introduction to this parable. Right. I, I've actually even read some commentaries that would question the assignment of the title parable to this, because they want to restrict what a parable is to those sort of kingdom, like, explicit simile- Good point ... things. Yeah. So- Right ... but I, I do think, um, w- we, we have to be careful not to run down that road, because this parable is not really... Again, like, it's not explaining what the Kingdom of God is like. This is trying to, um, not trying to, Christ is [00:25:00]articulating a reality that is baked into the law, um, and he's flipping the question on its head, and this is what I think is so, um, so wrong about the allegorical approach, right? Is that the allegorical approach seeks to find symbolism in every discrete character or element of the, of the parable, or of the, the allegory if you wanna, we wanna distinguish it. This really is, is trying to just get at that one point. And what- Mm-hmm ... I think is so, what must have been really just infuriating for this lawyer, um, regardless of what happened after this, right? We don't, we don't get commentary like we do with the rich, young ruler, and the stories are in many ways are very much the same. Like, it's the same basic setup. But we don't get commentary that, like, he went away sad, like we do with the rich, young ruler. We don't know what happened with this guy. We don't know what his reaction... But I, I'm sitting there putting myself in his place, and I'm, I'm thinking through this, and this is one of those things that it's actually hard even to mentally get yourself there. The, [00:26:00] the, each character that is introduced here, um, is a candidate for the neighbor. Right. But the most obvious candidate based on, um, the way we commonly interpret this, is that the dude who gets beat up and left stripped naked is, is the neighbor that we're supposed to love Right? So the lawyer, as he's hearing this parable, as it's being told, and the, the people who are there listening, right, the, the other people that are around, there's this character introduced, "Who is my neighbor? Well, a man was going down to Jerusalem. He fell among roggers, Roger, robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead." Like, the obvious answer is that Christ is introducing this poor, destitute, beat-up, naked dude, uh, as the neighbor that needs to be loved. And so he goes through the whole parable, and you're like, oh, well, like, the, you know, the, the priest and the Levite, they didn't love this guy. Uh, the Samaritan, you know, I think an audience of Jews probably would've been thinking like, "Well, the Samaritan can't be..." You know, the Samaritan [00:27:00] is just a dude. Like, none of these people are loving the, the, the beat-up dude like a neighbor should. Right. And then all of a sudden, Christ flips the script, and the neighbor is not the dude who's laying there naked, half dead, who's been rescued and, and, you know, restored and is being healed. It's actually the Samaritan. And so there's this... We have to... Part of the reason, I think, I mean, I, I, I guess I don't know for sure, but part of the reason I think s- that parables have this, like, reversal of expectation baked into many of them is that it is there to challenge our assumptions, and th- that sort of whiplash effect when you get to the end of it, you're like, "Whoa, that was like he was talking about totally, something totally different than what it seemed like he was talking about." I think that's actually a teaching tool here as well. Right. That the, the whole time you're thinking like, "Oh, this dude is the neighbor, and I've gotta figure out how to love him best," and that's what plays into these mercy ministry interpretations, is thinking that the, the point of the parable is to show us how to take [00:28:00] care of the, the people who need help, when really the point of the parable is the good neighbor. And, uh, we might butt heads a little bit on this, 'cause I think I take probably more of a Christological, uh, topological, typological interpretation than you do. I, I think that the point of the parable is that you can't justify yourself, and the only one who can justify you is the one who's kept the law perfectly. And what does it mean to keep the law perfectly? Well, love the Lord your God, but also love your neighbor as yourself. Well, who's the only person in the story who's loved the neighbor as himself? The one who s- rescues and heals and pays for this poor man who's been, you know, waylaid by robbers. He's the good neighbor who fulfills the law. He's the one who's justified himself. Now, yes, "Go do likewise," there's some echoes there of, of the go and sin no more language that we see in other places, too. So I, I think this parable is more, is more about- A, and this is where it shares some affinity with the rich young ruler, [00:29:00] right? The rich young ruler is told to go and to, to sell everything he has and donate it to the poor and to come and follow Christ. And he says, you know, he, he can't do that. He walks away sad. In this instance, it's the same kind of situation. It's an, a question about how do I fulfill the law? What do I need to do to be saved, to inherit eternal life, to obtain eternal life, whatever the phrasing is. And the answer is, "Obey the law perfectly." And the guy goes, "Well, hey, I did that." And he said, "Well, let me show you how much you didn't do that." And the reality is the only one who did that is Christ, the good teacher, right? I mean, there, there's so many parallels between these two accounts. It, it's almost the same, it's almost the same story. This one just in sort of parable answer form versus a more direct form, which we see with the rich young ruler. Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, what I find really fascinating about these is that whereas, like you said, the, some of the other parables, they come under the volitional teaching of Christ. That is, He is presenting forward the topic at hand. So usually it's in the context of conversation, but He essentially makes [00:30:00] the segue. He presents and opens up this new kind of vista to explore. In this case, or in both those cases you talked about, the confrontation really comes from the outside. Of course, God, through Christ, predestined all of these things to pass, so I'm not saying that Christ was caught off guard, of course, by this line of questioning. And presumably He understands that when the lawyer asks this question, He knows that it's from a position of self-justification. So I don't disagree that that might be there, some of that at play, and that really the ultimate end of this would bring, to bring one's self to the realization that you can't do this. At the same time, though, I think almost, especially in this one, I think, uh, it's not that Jesus withholds that, but I read that do, go and do likewise is this is what you said you wanted. You asked me for an answer, and I gave you the answer. You asked for the law- Yeah ... I will give you the law. So I actually don't know how this ended. It doesn't strike me that it ended well, and I think, I don't know if there was some kind of massive realization there, but it's almost as if there is some [00:31:00] obscuring of this. This is like typical parable, parable language where I think if you're there and you're listening, and you're trying to just track with the question and track how that compounds and corresponds with the law, that you would leave more destitute, more confused, and perhaps more angry than before, and certainly not in a position of understanding, "Well, th- this one before me is the Christ." But that's exactly what parables do. So again, I, I think to me- Right ... I see this more as certainly, again, there are these wonderful themes These kind of overtures of the gospel within, but they are dark and very obscured because the man asks a question about the law, and Jesus comes with a message about the law. And like you said, that law is- Yeah ... like, there's almost no grace in his tone as I read it because, not that he is not graceful or full of grace and gracious, but this guy asks for justification under the law. And so it ends with saying, it ends with this really phenomenal phrase, of course, of the lawyer realizing he's got himself [00:32:00] caught in having to respond truthfully in answering the question of who is the neighbor, but of course doesn't identify the neighbor except to say, "Oh, the one who has compassion," as if like he himself couldn't bring himself- Right to say these words. And then for Jesus to say, "Yeah, go do it," is, is kind of like the ultimate nail in the coffin.  Tony Arsenal: Yeah, and to tell a first century Jew to go and do, to be- Yes ... like a Samaritan is- Yes ... you know, e- even, even though that's not, like, highlighted in the text, you're right. Like, the, the lawyer probably couldn't bring himself to say the Samaritan was, right? And I, I think, um, you know, whether you take, uh, and maybe I'm novel on this. I guess I haven't really read, read a lot of people that take a, a more optimistic approach of this. But whether you take a more optimistic outcome approach or a more pessimistic or neutral, whatever, the, the actual outcome is the same, right? The, the lawyer is asking about self-justification under the law, like you said. Right. And Christ gives him [00:33:00] that. He tells him exactly what that means and what that looks like. And I think the, the impossibility of being the good neighbor as is described in the parable is exactly the sort of beat down of the law that, that, you know, we've talked about in the past is it's not as though, um, the, the, the actions of the Samaritan are not, uh, outwardly impossible, right? We- Right ... it's not unreasonable to think that someone could rescue someone from the side of the road and bring them to ... And like, the scenario itself is not that crazy. But the, the overall complex of the scenario, right? The fact that this man, um, was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, right? The, the ... All of this points to sort of like an impossible circumstance, an impossible situation. And, and the idea that even [00:34:00] within that impossible situation you're still expected to take care of the person who is your enemy, right? The Samaritan seeing a Jewish man beaten by the side of the road- That's right ... and although the parable doesn't specifically call out that he's Jewish, if he's going from Jerusalem to Jericho, there's an implication that he may actually also have been a priest. Um, we, we don't need to get into all the details on that, but there's, there's some good, uh, some good research out there that would point to the fact that the road from Jerusalem to Jericho is, uh, was actually a very common pathway traveled by either priests or Levites. And further evidence is that a priest and a Levite are also on this same road. And so the idea that the Samaritan would, um, would- Sacrifice of himself to take care of someone who very likely considers him to be an enemy, and sacrifices in a pretty significant way. Um, I, I'll, I'll pause and now as you're [00:35:00]talking I'll do all the, the background scrambling to make it look like I know exactly how much- a denari is supposed to, to be, and I know we've talked about it before, it's just not there.  Lavish Impossible Mercy Tony Arsenal: But, but it's not a- Yeah ... it's not a trivial amount of money. That's right. We're not talking about checking this guy into, like, a Motel 6 and, and dropping a couple hundred dollars. We're, we're talking about a substantial amount of money and, and we're talking about a commitment to pay whatever is required. Okay. An unknown amount of money for this man who has been left for dead. We're not talking about a minor injury. The, the robbers beat him up, they took his clothes, and they expected him to die in the desert. He needed to be carried on a donkey. He needed to have immediate first aid attention. We're talking about a, a relatively long-term recovery. So the scenario would be more like, we think of it like, "Oh yeah, I dropped him off at the local hotel for him to sleep it off." The scenario would be more like, "I found a guy on the side of the road. I didn't know who he was. He's, he's of a group of people that would consider me to be their enemy, and he's been shot 100 times, and I'm gonna patch up his [00:36:00] wounds. I'm gonna take him to the hospital. I'm gonna not only pay and say, 'Here, I, I've already used some supplies. Let me pay for that,' but I'm gonna pay for all of his medical bills until he's healed." Like, that's the scenario we're talking about. So it's not, it's not just, like, a good deed that has been done that is maybe, like, a really, really good deed, like it's a really nice thing to do. It's a, it's an outlandishly almost impossible to conceive of doing good deed. N- I don't know anyone, um, who would... And, and I know a lot of really great people. This is not a slam. I don't know anyone who would find a stranger on the road and who is, who's gravely injured and commit to pay for all of their medical care until they're healed. I just don't know anybody who would do that. Right. Um, some might say there's actually some wisdom in that, and, uh, we've talked about how sometimes the parables present a situation where maybe, like, this isn't actually the best practical knowledge. It's there to prove a point. Right. But I don't know anybody who, I don't know anybody who would do that, who, who would even think about doing that. Um, so the, the scenario here is one [00:37:00] of impossible lavish goodness being extended to those who you have no reason to be good to, and probably have reason to not be good to. That's what we're talking about. And so the, when the, the lawyer is told to go and do likewise, he's being told to do something that is impossible to fulfill, or even to conceive of fulfilling. And so there is this element of, like, "You think you can obey the law? Well, let me tell you how much you can't  Jesse Schwamb: obey  Tony Arsenal: the law."  Jesse Schwamb: Right. By the way, this episode is brought to you by State Farm. Like a good Samaritan, State Farm is there. Every time we've been saying good neighbor, I've been just been trying to avoid thinking about- Yeah Jake from State Farm. That's what I've been doing most of this time.  Tony Arsenal: Jake from State Farm?  Jesse Schwamb: Um, I totally agree, of course.  Priest Levite And The Law Jesse Schwamb: Like, what strikes me here is that it's, like you said, there is all this emphasis on what it means to show neighborly love, but the setup is also in those who basically should be showing it but aren't, and that's where we get, can get into this lovely... It's, [00:38:00] it's okay to kinda think through some of these characters. You know, for this priest and the Levite here, and what we know about them is that they, at first it sounds like there, there's almost this sense in the language like the priest falls ab- upon this, this, you know, bloodied man by chance, and that kinda heightens the drama, I think. The priest's confrontation is a little bit unplanned, but it's immediate and unavoidable, and he chooses to cross on the other side of the road, which is of course a deliberate act of avoidance. It's not mere obliviousness. And then the Levi almost goes further, or he came to the place, he saw him closer inspection, you know, greater culpability, and yet he still passes by. I really do wish I could hear this, like, in real time, like be among, because I have to- Yeah ... wonder that there'd be this kind of sense of building in the story. And the people might be kind of getting the sense that the characters that they know and love or should love as the heroes are not gonna be performing that way. And so I think even they're curious. They might be hoping against hope that it's gonna turn out well, but knowing the question and maybe something about Jesus, [00:39:00] they might anticipate that he's gonna go in a different direction. And so again, I think we have to stick with the text here. Like, Jesus doesn't explicitly state the motives of these gentlemen, but it's truthful. What's true- Right ... is that, like, these boys should have known better. You know, a lot of people have speculated that it was for ritual purity concerns or the, another ambush or social distance or just callousness. And I think that ambiguity might be deliberate because, again, what cuts against the lawyer here is whatever the specific excuse, the point is that these, like this kind of professional religiosity and even, like, meticulous law observance are of course not identical with, and probably can even distract or obstruct the love of neighbor that the law itself commands, which is wild, right? Because we talked about how, again, this just shows the law doesn't empower you to do the thing, and in fact, here- Right ... you could essentially abuse the law so that you suck the spirit right out of it and therefore do not do the very thing that it was intended to accomplish. So even this by itself, you just stop the parable here, it's kind of condemning because it's really this [00:40:00] potent warning against some kind of merely external ceremonial, professionalized religiosity that fails to produce, I guess, what Matthew calls, like, the weightier matters of law, like justice and mercy and faithfulness. And, you know, we should understand this because I think those that are from tradition have a certain affinity for the third use of the law as a guide for the grateful Christian living, and that's, you know, kind of what we're talking about here. But it insists that true law keeping is never merely ritual or notional, but it must issue in love, like costly love. Love outside of being inconvenienced is not genuine. I, I guess we'll get there. But, you know, I don't wanna harp on the characters as some are prone to do, but that is, I think, why the characters are here. It's both to set up and show, like, you're about to see that you really do not wanna identify by your own persuasion, by your own presuppositions with the one who's gonna be the hero, that is the, the one that shows neighborly love. At the same time, I'm gonna show you by way of condemnation that those who should exercise the greater love, [00:41:00] that do know better, that should know better, that should emblem- be emblematic of the spirit of the law, have done the exact same thing. Which I can only, uh, hope but believe is what this lawyer heard as well was that he was hearing that he was being stuck into this place before he was even given the question, well, who was the neighbor here? Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah, and I, I think, um- There is a real sense in some of the parables that are sort of spoken against people. Um, this one doesn't specifically use that language, but it, it is a targeted, kind of a targeted response. There is a sense that throughout the course of the parable being told, they start to recognize midway through that they're like- Right you are the man. Like, this is one- Right, right ... of those Nathan and David kind of parables where, like, at some point the realization must have dawned on this guy that, like, "I've gotta be somebody in this parable." And I think that's where, where the, the challenging part is, is it's not clear, um, [00:42:00] it's not really clear even at the end of the parable who Christ is intending this guy to be, right? Right. Is he the lawyer or is he the, uh, is he the, the dead man on the side of the road, right? Is he... Or the dying man. Is, is he the l- the priest and Levite who pass by? Is he supposed to be the Samaritan, which would just be wildly offensive. Um, he's not necessarily, like, supposed to be anyone except for the fact that now at th- the punchline of the, the encounter here, Christ says, "Go and be like the Samaritan." And it's kind of like y- you know, if you were really following God's law, you would be the Samaritan in this one- Yeah, that's right ... but you're not. That's right. You're not and you can't be. Um, and so go, go ahead and do likewise.  Christ As True Neighbor Tony Arsenal: Um, I, I do think, too, there is some elements here where, um, I- Again, I, I think I take a little bit more of a typological, Christological-centered approach on this, but I, I don't think they're incompatible. But I do think there's an element here where Christ is also [00:43:00] unveiling, uh, sort of what he would do, like what, what his own plan of salvation is as the good, as the capital G, capital N good neighbor. Um, he is the one who does pour oil and wine on our wounds, right? A- and I don't wanna ... I don't think we need to fly off the allegorical deep end of reading oil and wine to be a reference to the Holy Spirit and t- Right but sometimes those things are evocative, indirect things that should, we should call our mind to those things. Like, I think, um, you know, when Melchizedek comes to bless Abraham and he, he presents him with bread and wine, right? I, I think, like, it's okay for us to go, "Wow, the Holy Spirit really made a point there that's subtle." And I think those little things within this parable drive me to look at this a little bit more along the lines of not only is there this sort of, like, law beat down, you [00:44:00] know, John Bunyan or not, um, Bunyan style, like the, "Moses just beat the crap out of me," kind of a- Right ... kind of a thing from Pilgrim's Progress. There's that, and I think it's really there. But it's also, uh, it's also sort of like this, uh, you know, "Blessed is the one who has ears to hear" side of it of, like, for those who are regenerated and can see the parable, can see the figures in the parable, it is now this beautiful picture of what it is that Christ does for those who cannot do it for themselves, right? And it's almost like the parable becomes a litmus test. If you look at the parable, and as you're reading through it, you sit there and you go, "Yeah, man, I'm like that guy who got beat up and left for dead. That, that really describes me," um, you're gonna get to the end of this and you're gonna be sort of, like, sitting in awe of, like, "Man, I have such a great savior who threw me on his donkey and, and promised to take care of all of my, all of my wounds, and promised to pay whatever it, whatever it cost." Um, y- you know, and all of these elements of, [00:45:00] like, oil and wine and, and all of these things be- kind of become alive to you in a way that someone who sees themselves as the, the good Samaritan, who thinks they're the one who's gonna come and rescue people, or I think increasingly in our day, and it's, it's weird to even say this, I think there are people who would look at this and resonate with the priest and lawyer and actually say, like, "Yeah, they shoulda, they shoulda crossed to the other side of the room." Mm-hmm. I've heard defenses of that in trying to argue that- The priest and the Levite, if they had, if this person was dead, they had touched the dead body, then, you know, they would've been ceremonially unclean. Uh, all of that is, I think, worth speculating about. But the reality is, um, who you see yourself in the parable actually says a lot, I think, about how you see Christ in light of either our ability to fulfill the law or our inability to fulfill the law, and therefore have our need for Christ. If you think you're the good Samaritan, if you think you're the one that's gonna come and [00:46:00] rescue people, that you're gonna be, you're gonna be the good neighbor, you're much more likely to see, uh, to, to be needing this as a sort of a law beat-down. Where those of us who, maybe this is the way you wanna parse it out, right? There's those of us who are, uh, regenerated and in Christ, and this is third-use law, right? This is, this is us- Right ... seeing what it means to be holy, and going and doing likewise, trying in our power, in our, our best to go and do likewise, empowered by the Holy Spirit, recognizing that we can't, and trusting the Lord to accept our feeble attempts- Right and be pleased by them. Right. Um, or maybe if you're not regenerated, this is f- this is first use, right? Right. And, and, and this is actually there to terrify you and to show you your condemnation and to serve as your condemnation. And, and there's even, and I didn't really intend to go all the way with this, but there's, there is also an element in here, and this is where, like, the mercy ministry interpretation comes in, where this is civil, this is civil law, where this is the, the, the, um, you know, the civil use of the law [00:47:00] to restrain evil, to show society what it is to be good, to, to restrain sin. Right. Yes, we want to be, uh, we, I would rather live in a society where people stop and help someone who's stranded or injured on the side of the road than, than a society where people pass by. Um, so I, I think all of those elements are in play here, and we do have to be careful not to take the full-on, like, never go full allegory approach to this, 'cause y- you can really... That's just a good general wisdom for all of, all of the Bible, but especially the parables and other figurative stuff. You can really just go totally far afield of what actually the point of the parable is- Right ... if you're not grounding it in the purpose that Christ is teaching it for, and, and the stated outcome of the parable, right? No one in the Bible makes c- I don't know that anyone in the Bible makes specific commentary on this within scripture, but the, the idea that, like, there's all these hidden meanings, well, if those are the hidden meanings, then why doesn't Christ talk about it? Why doesn't he come back- Right ... and [00:48:00] interpret those symbols later on like he does, like the Parable of the Sower or the Parable of the Seeds or Soils. Um, that one is much more directly allegorical in that the different seeds, the different soils represent specific people with specific s- scenarios. Christ comes and, and does that allegorical interpretation later on in the passage. There's nothing like that here. So I think we have to be really careful not to slip down that road. Jesse Schwamb: I think that it could be all those things. I, I totally agree with you on that. I think it could be all the use cases of the law. I think what makes this so wonderfully complex and a little bit tricky is that when I read this, I actually don't necessarily find myself gravitating toward putting myself in one place or the other. It almost depends on where I am or what's going on in my life. So for example, I think any time that any one of us, and we've all done this as Christians, have quenched the spirit, especially with respect to helping, serving, or loving others as my, our neighbor, then we're firmly in this parable in the place [00:49:00] of the priest and the Levite. Sometimes I think we are the one on the side of the road. We look to the church, to our brothers and sisters to help us, and what do they help us with? Like you were saying, Tony, they help us with that blood and oil. They help us with this, the power of the Holy Spirit, which is given to each one to help and to serve, to identify, to comfort with the comfort we ourselves have been received. And then I do think, and this might be unpopular, that, that sometimes by the grace of God, He empowers us to be the Samaritan, but only through His empowerment. Not, of course, because we're trying to just self-justify or because we're overtly generous in our own merit, but in fact, this is the way we ought to live, and that we ought to commend that kind of behavior to, again, acknowledge it as God-given and to promulgate it, especially among the body of believers. So I do think all three forms of the law are present there, but I do think I tend to, for whatever reason, right or wrong, I tend to tilt a little bit toward that third use here, just to see this as it's not wrong to, of course, to, I think, uh, lay over all of this, all these delightful variables and [00:50:00] details. Again, this idea of blood and oil, n- normative things, normal things, standard things that are being used to address- Yeah ... wounds. They're, they're... Of course, that would've been the practical way which you would've provided some kind of medicinal care to somebody in both that extreme circumstance, but also generally, because nobody's, like, keeping gauze or popping Advil to help this, this poor guy. And so it is- Right ... like this beautiful complexion of, I think, everything that we just talked about, that there is the law present, and depending on where you are, both in terms of your ingrafting into eternity, into the Kingdom of God, and then where you are in life, you- we should read ourselves probably, or l- let me say it this way, not so it's like eisegesis, but, like, that we should see ourselves often at different pli- times maybe playing or being tempted to play the parts of these different characters. And in that we find, I think, ultimately, of course, as you're saying, that Christ is over all, and that He is the one that, of course, perfectly emphasizes all of what it means to be the Savior, the [00:51:00] true loving neighbor who cares and binds and heals completely full stop. And yet there is something instructive here, I think, as well about going and bringing that compassion. I was just thinking, like, as we were talking, that there's such a difference, isn't there, like, in our world between these days, like, pity and compassion? Like, pity often is like, "Yeah, I feel sorry for you," but it strikes me as kind of like the James, is it James 1 or James 2, where it's kind of like, "Oh, you're... I, I'm so sorry that, like, you're, you're hungry and cold. You know what? Go, be warm, and be well-fed." You know, that's like pity. Like, "Yeah, I just- Yeah ... I feel a little bad. I identified with your emotions." Sending  Tony Arsenal: good vibes.  Jesse Schwamb: Yeah. I've got- Yeah. Yeah. That's right, right? Sending good thoughts and good vibes your way. I wanna say, like, keep those to yourself 'cause they're probably not all that- Yeah ... good. Um- I  Tony Arsenal: don't want your vibes.  Jesse Schwamb: I don't want your vibes. Get your vibes out of here. What I need is that power of God himself, uh, to bring compassion, and compassion is always wrapped in action. It identifies- Right ... and then goes. It, it's, it [00:52:00] is not self-promoting, it's self-sacrificing. And so that rule of law, which is like the good rule of law, the good teaching, the kind that brings life because it's the Decalogue wrapped in skin perfectly performed by the power of the Holy Spirit through the one who is perfect again in his passive obedience and active obedience. Yes, yes, we need, we need all of that. It's modeled here, I think, to a certain extent, but I think the go and do likewise is actually for all of us, but it's not the kind like we would say, "Well, like, good luck." It's more the- Yeah ... you know the one from whose side the blood flowed. You know the one who is pressed in the garden as if olives under the press leaking oil. You know who that one was, and that one is His spirit resides in you. So now go and do these acts- Yeah ... of mercy. Again, not s- for some kind of meritorious reward, but because you were made for good works, which were set apart for you to do, and part of those good works are [00:53:00] just always being a good neighbor. Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah, and, and maybe to, to close out, I, I, I think maybe we actually did it. I don't know that we're gonna have to do another episode on this. I guess we'll see after we do- Who would've guessed? ... our postmortem here.  Mary Martha And Final Charge Tony Arsenal: But I, I think part, part of, um, part of what we need to at least acknowledge is that what, what follows this parable, right? This, this goes from a parable of a lawyer seeking to justify himself to now the account of Mary and Martha, and the fact that, uh, that, um, M- Martha, you know, is busy with much work, and Mary is sitting and listening to, to Jesus and is said to have chosen the better part. And I think, like- Mm ... this is something that I think because of the way, like, Bibles are formatted, the way that certain things are sort of, like, extracted out as discrete teaching units, this parable is pulled out and separated from this next part. And I, I think we can [00:54:00] really run into problems when we do that because- You know, even if we, even if we were to sort of treat the scripture as, like, a purely human book, right? Luke chose to put this account of Mary and Martha after this, right? And, and- Right ... probably not just because, like, it happened chronologically. There's no real, um, there's no real necessity that this account of Mary and Martha in this particular story had to happen immediately afterwards. Like, there's no organic link in, in the chronology of the story to drive that, right? And the two aren't related in terms of, like, historical cause and effect or, uh, proximity. There's none of those things. So the only answer as to why this was selected to follow the parable of the Good Samaritan is that there's some thematic connection that drove Luke as an author to put this, put this right following that. And so I think even that should drive us to thinking about, all [00:55:00] right, we've got this statement of go and do likewise, show mercy. Now there's almost this foil that the, the, the person in, in the account in the, the narrative here, and a, a true narrative, right? We're not in parable land anymore, but the person in the narrative that seems to be showing mercy, seems to be taking care of people the most, is actually the one who's chastised a little bit for, for being- Right overly zealous about m- mercy ministry, hospitality ministry- Right ... is what you might call it. She's the one who's like, "Tell my sister to help me with this." And she said, like, "You know, you're always gonna have time to do this, but, like, I'

Indiana football is almost back, and CrimsonCast digs into the latest IU eligibility chaos, the growing Charlie Becker star turn, and why Curt Cignetti has somehow become one of the most memeable coaches in college football.Grace Ybarra and Galen Clavio open with move-in week, birthday technical difficulties, Homefield gear, and the return of football before turning to the latest legal uncertainty around Kellan Wyatt, Stephen Daley, Sam Alexis, and the NCAA's ongoing fight over Class of 2022 eligibility. They also talk through how difficult the issue is to explain, why SEC responses around LSU and Lane Kiffin add another layer of confusion, and why players may be stuck in limbo even after enrolling.The back half of the episode moves into IU fan culture and the new football reality: getting fans into Memorial Stadium earlier, possible game-day traditions, names for the Indiana-Ohio State matchup, local NIL food deals, Charlie Becker's rise, the Becker Double Decker, Carter Smith's Janko's order, Curt Cignetti's State Farm commercial, national expectations for Indiana as defending champions, and the debut of a new segment: CrimsonCast Dog of the Week.Subscribe to the Back Home Network for more CrimsonCast coverage of Indiana football, IU athletics, Curt Cignetti, the Hoosiers, Big Ten football, and the 2026 college football season.

How do you stop employees from constantly relying on you for the answers and start building a team of independent problem solvers? The secret is adopting a mentor mindset and treating leadership as coaching instead of answer-giving. In this episode of Boss Better Now, Joe Mull concludes a special four-part series adapted from his live workshops on accountability in leadership. He reveals the hidden cost of giving employees the answers and the exact coaching questions to ask instead, so you build critical thinking skills and stop creating employee dependency. Too many managers prioritize speed and end up doing the thinking for their team. Joe shares the coaching tips and scripts that reverse this, including one question that shifts how employees think, owns problems, and activates their capability. He also breaks down a simple, science-backed way to give feedback to employees that makes them dramatically more receptive to constructive criticism, using high standards paired with a statement of belief in their potential. What to Expect in This Episode: The Conclusion of the Accountability Tightrope: Two mentor mindset techniques you can use today. Why Giving Answers Creates Employee Dependency: How constantly solving problems robs your team of the chance to feel capable. The Ultimate Leadership Coaching Question: Why asking "What options do you see?" shifts the brain and activates ownership. The Real Definition of Workplace Coaching: Helping people sort through what they already know instead of telling them the right way to do it. The 19-Word Feedback Script: A science-backed technique that makes employees more receptive to constructive criticism. Applying Wise Feedback at Work: Real stories of leaders pairing high standards with belief statements to fix performance issues without defensiveness.Tune in to master the mentor mindset, get your time back, and build a team that thrives on ownership. If you want to become a better leader, this episode gives you the exact scripts to start with. To subscribe to Joe Mull's BossBetter Email newsletter, visit https://BossBetterNow.com For more info on working with Joe Mull, visit https://joemull.com For more info on Boss Hero School, visit https://bossheroschool.com To email the podcast, use bossbetternow@gmail.com #leadership #management #toxicworkculture #teambuilding #workplaceculture #conflictmanagement #employeeengagement #motivation Joe Mull is on a mission to help leaders and business owners create the conditions where commitment takes root and the entire workplace thrives. A dynamic and deeply relatable speaker, Joe combines compelling research, magnetic storytelling, and practical strategies to show exactly how to cultivate loyalty, ignite effort, and build people-first workplaces where both performance and morale flourish. His message is clear: when commitment is activated, engagement rises, teams gel, retention improves, and business outcomes soar. Joe is the founder of Boss Hero School™ and the creator of the acclaimed Employalty™ framework, a roadmap for creating thriving workplaces in a new era of work. He's the author of three books, including Employalty, named a top business book of the year by Publisher's Weekly, and his popular podcast, Boss Better Now, ranks in the top 1% of management shows globally. A former head of learning and development at one of the largest healthcare systems in the U.S., Joe has spent nearly two decades equipping leaders—from Fortune 500 companies like State Farm, Siemens, and Choice Hotels to hospitals, agencies, and small firms—with the tools to lead better, inspire commitment, and build more humane workplace cultures. His insights have been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Harvard Business Review, and more. In 2025, Joe was inducted into the Professional Speakers Hall of Fame (CPAE). This is the speaking profession's highest honor, a distinction granted to less than 1% of professional speakers worldwide. It's awarded to speakers who demonstrate exceptional talent, integrity, and influence in the speaking profession. For more information visit joemull.com. Timestamps 0:00 Don't Give the Answer 1:44 Part Four of the Accountability Tightrope 2:09 The First Technique: Coaching 2:57 A Clip from Boss Hero School 4:20 What to Do When an Employee Asks for the Answer 6:53 The True Definition of Coaching 9:12 A Real-World Coaching Success Story 10:20 The Second Technique: Supercharging Feedback 10:36 The Middle School Feedback Experiment 12:54 What is Wise Feedback? 13:20 Adam Grant and Jennifer Garner on Wise Feedback 14:52 How to Apply Wise Feedback at Work 17:12 The One Caveat for Wise Feedback

Sam Shriver and Suzie Bishop join Larry Olsen from the Center for Leadership Studies, the home of the original Situational Leadership model. Sam brings more than 45 years of experience and has designed and delivered over 200 leadership and coaching programs. Suzie is Vice President of Product Development at the Center and has spent more than a decade adapting the model for today's modern learner. Together they are co-authors of Situational Leadership: The Model for Leading Others, Navigating Change, and Unlocking Performance.   In this conversation, Larry sits down with Sam and Suzie to talk about why one-size-fits-all leadership fails, and how meeting people where they are unlocks trust, performance, and human potential.   What you'll hear: Why "it depends" is the mantra of situational leadership, not a fixed leadership style The behaviors that run from direction to empowerment, and when each one backfires Referent power: why trust outperforms position power or expertise How a leader's presence alone can stifle honest conversation   ABOUT SAM SHRIVER AND SUZIE BISHOP Sam Shriver has more than 45 years of experience in situational leadership and has designed and delivered over 200 leadership and coaching programs. Suzie Bishop is Vice President of Product Development at the Center for Leadership Studies. Together they are co-authors of Situational Leadership: The Model for Leading Others, Navigating Change, and Unlocking Performance. The Center for Leadership Studies is the global home of the original Situational Leadership model.   ABOUT LARRY OLSEN Larry Olsen is a Two-Time Vistage Speaker of the Year and Fortune 50/500 Executive Performance Advisor with 40+ years of client work at Toyota, PepsiCo, Starbucks, Harley-Davidson, Honda, American Airlines, State Farm, Frito Lay, Lexus, and Tropicana. He is the author of Get a Vision and Live It! and the founder of Performance Driven Neurology.   IF THIS LANDED FOR YOU Leadership isn't one style forced onto every person, it's reading the person in front of you and adjusting from there. That's exactly how Larry thinks through every leadership conversation he has.   How Leaders Think:  https://larry-olsen.kit.com/how-leaders-think   CONNECT WITH LARRY Email: success@larryolsen.com LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/larry-r-olsen   CONNECT WITH SAM SHRIVER AND SUZIE BISHOP Website: situational.com LinkedIn: Sam Shriver and Suzie Bishop Book: Situational Leadership: The Model for Leading Others, Navigating Change, and Unlocking Performance (Amazon and other major retailers)   SUBSCRIBE FOR MORE New episodes of the Brain Vault Podcast publish every other Wednesday.

State Farm is mailing $100 checks to auto customers — but scammers are already circling, so here's how to protect yourself. Plus: Trump declares the Strait of Hormuz "new US territory" (and what it means for gas prices), Mexican avocados are back but fear remains, new tire rules in California, and Costco wants to sell your grandparents Medicare. Then the simplest money lesson to teach your kids: needs vs. wants. (Audio en español, subtítulos en inglés.) Hoy en Échale: revisa tu buzón, porque State Farm anda mandando cheques de ~$100 a clientes de seguro de auto — pero los estafadores ya están al acecho y te digo cómo cuidarte. Además: Trump le puso letrero de "territorio de EE.UU." a un pedazo de mar de otro país (y cómo te pega en la gasolina), el aguacate vuelve de Michoacán pero con miedo, cambian las reglas de las llantas en California, y Costco quiere venderle Medicare a tus abuelos. Y en El Concepto: lo PRIMERO que todo niño debe aprender del dinero — necesidades vs. deseos. EN ESTE EPISODIO:

Jesse Mack Butler pleaded no contest to eleven felony counts in Payne County, Oklahoma in August 2025. A judge found a factual basis and entered convictions. Less than a year later, those convictions were gone.The dismissal landed on August 3, 2026, the day before his nineteenth birthday, which is the exact point Oklahoma law ends a court's power over a youthful offender. Juvenile affairs officials reported he met every condition without a violation.His penalty was counseling, a curfew, daily check-ins, no social media, 150 hours of community service, and roughly $3,300. He faced 78 years and never entered custody at any stage of the case.Two sixteen-year-old Stillwater High students reported him. Civil filings say one required surgery on her throat and that a doctor told her how close she had come. Those filings also allege a coordinated effort to pressure her into silence. Butler has never answered any of it under oath.The families fought the plea under Marsy's Law and lost in April 2026, when a judge found they had been properly notified and fairly treated. Protesters filled the courthouse steps in November 2025 demanding the judge and district attorney be removed. The district attorney later left office.Her replacement, sworn in three days before the final hearing, is sending the file to federal prosecutors and says double jeopardy leaves him nothing else. A former prosecutor put the odds bluntly: federal authorities rarely reopen a finished state case.State Farm has asked a federal judge to release it from defending Butler, arguing its policies cover accidents rather than intentional or criminal acts.The girl's parents have sued Butler, his parents, and the school district. A deposition is the one thing left that puts him under oath.END LINKSJoin Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/ Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1 Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod X Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePodDISCLAIMERThis publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.HASHTAGS#JesseButler #JesseMackButler #TrueCrimeToday #PayneCounty #StillwaterHigh #StateFarmLawsuit #CivilSuit #FederalReview #PleaDeal #Oklahoma

In this episode of The Marketing Rapport podcast, host Tim Finnigan sits down with Andrew Filar, Co-Founder and CEO of Next Call Club, to unpack what's really happening inside the insurance lead economy — and why the old "buy more leads" mindset is quietly costing agencies their profitability. Andrew traces his journey from cold-calling commercial auto prospects at a State Farm office to running one of the largest Allstate scratch agencies in the country, and finally to building Next Call Club, an aggregator-plus-consultative-partner model designed to help agents hit real cost-per-acquisition targets.The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed are those of the speaker and do not necessarily represent the views, thoughts, and opinions of ActiveProspect. The material and information presented here is for general information purposes only.This podcast is not intended to replace legal or other professional advice. The Lead Intelligence, Inc. (dba InfutorData) and ActiveProspect LLC names and all forms and abbreviations are the property of its owner and its use does not imply endorsement of or opposition to any specific organization, product, or service.ACTIVEPROSPECT DISCLAIMS ALL LIABILITY ARISING OUT OF ANY INDIVIDUAL'S USE OF, REFERENCE TO, RELIANCE ON, OR INABILITY TO USE THIS PODCAST OR THE INFORMATION PRESENTED IN THIS PODCAST.

Are you managing your team just for today's results, or are you investing in their long term career growth? The most effective leaders know how to do both by adopting a mentor mindset. In this episode of Boss Better Now, Joe Mull continues his special summer series on the accountability tightrope. Listen in as he breaks down part three of the framework, revealing how to perfectly balance high performance standards with high employee support. Many managers struggle with onboarding and feedback, often resorting to assigning grunt work or trying to prevent every mistake. Joe shares a powerful example of what a perfect first day conversation looks like to set the stage for success. He details exactly how to shift into a mentor mindset where you assign real work of consequence, reframe mistakes as growth, and build deep employee commitment through earned prestige. What to Expect in This Episode: What is the Accountability Tightrope?: Joe recaps the core challenge of balancing high standards with supportive workplace relationships. The Perfect First Day Conversation: How to script a welcome message that builds trust and sets a standard of excellence right from the start. Defining the Mentor Mindset at Work: Why the best managers see people for their potential and focus on long term career growth over daily tasks. Stop Giving New Hires Grunt Work: How assigning work of consequence builds skill, confidence, and early contribution. How to Reframe Mistakes and Failure: Why great leaders coach thinking and judgment instead of just handing out all the answers. The Script for Difficult Feedback: How to frame tough performance conversations around an employee's potential so they feel supported instead of attacked. Building Employee Commitment through Earned Prestige: The psychological building block that gives employees a sense of worth and turns a new hire into a highly committed team member. To subscribe to Joe Mull's BossBetter Email newsletter, visit https://BossBetterNow.com For more info on working with Joe Mull, visit https://joemull.com For more info on Boss Hero School, visit https://bossheroschool.com To email the podcast, use bossbetternow@gmail.com #leadership #management #toxicworkculture #teambuilding #workplaceculture #conflictmanagement #employeeengagement #motivation Joe Mull is on a mission to help leaders and business owners create the conditions where commitment takes root and the entire workplace thrives. A dynamic and deeply relatable speaker, Joe combines compelling research, magnetic storytelling, and practical strategies to show exactly how to cultivate loyalty, ignite effort, and build people-first workplaces where both performance and morale flourish. His message is clear: when commitment is activated, engagement rises, teams gel, retention improves, and business outcomes soar. Joe is the founder of Boss Hero School™ and the creator of the acclaimed Employalty™ framework, a roadmap for creating thriving workplaces in a new era of work. He's the author of three books, including Employalty, named a top business book of the year by Publisher's Weekly, and his popular podcast, Boss Better Now, ranks in the top 1% of management shows globally. A former head of learning and development at one of the largest healthcare systems in the U.S., Joe has spent nearly two decades equipping leaders—from Fortune 500 companies like State Farm, Siemens, and Choice Hotels to hospitals, agencies, and small firms—with the tools to lead better, inspire commitment, and build more humane workplace cultures. His insights have been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Harvard Business Review, and more. In 2025, Joe was inducted into the Professional Speakers Hall of Fame (CPAE). This is the speaking profession's highest honor, a distinction granted to less than 1% of professional speakers worldwide. It's awarded to speakers who demonstrate exceptional talent, integrity, and influence in the speaking profession. For more information visit joemull.com. Timestamps 0:00 The Employee Alliance 0:21 Welcome and Series Recap 1:35 The Perfect First-Day Boss Conversation 2:58 Setting a Standard of Excellence 3:52 Defining the Mentor Mindset 4:30 Stop Giving New Hires Grunt Work 5:05 The Script for Difficult Feedback 5:43 Managing for the Future and Working Alliances 6:40 Leadership as a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy 7:11 Building Commitment Through Earned Prestige 7:44 Why High Standards Need High Support

What if the biggest threat to your business right now is not moving too slowly? It is moving boldly in the wrong direction. Michael Hofer is a CFO, transformative executive, author, and advisor with 40 years in finance. He has led more than 30 mergers, acquisitions, and restructuring transactions worldwide, giving him a front-row seat to what happens when bold strategy works and when it turns into costly noise. He is the founder of the Thrive Network, where he connects business performance with human potential and health optimization. In this conversation, Larry Olsen sits down with Michael to talk about how leaders can tell whether their next move (AI, M&A, transformation) is creating value or just creating expensive complexity.   ABOUT MICHAEL HOFER Michael Hofer is a CFO, transformative executive, author, and advisor originally from Austria, now based in Denver, Colorado. With 40 years in finance and 30+ mergers, acquisitions, and restructuring transactions worldwide, he brings a rare combination of strategic finance depth and human optimization philosophy. He is currently CFO of a major energy company, MIT-certified in artificial intelligence, and the founder of the Thrive Network. His work spans thriving with diabetes, thriving in business, and thriving in life.   ABOUT LARRY OLSEN Larry Olsen is a Two-Time Vistage Speaker of the Year and Fortune 50/500 Executive Performance Advisor with 40+ years of client work at Toyota, PepsiCo, Starbucks, Harley-Davidson, Honda, American Airlines, State Farm, Frito Lay, Lexus, and Tropicana. He is the author of Get a Vision and Live It! and the founder of Performance Driven Neurology.   IF THIS LANDED FOR YOU The next step is Larry's Brain Hacks Intensive. It is a guided practice that walks you through the foundational mindset shifts Larry teaches Fortune 500 executives. Brain Hacks Intensive: https://neuromindedcollective.com/brain-hacks-challenge   FOR EXECUTIVE LEADERS If you want to find out which patterns are currently running your leadership, take Larry's free 5% Leadership Assessment. Less than 5 percent of leaders operate from the patterns it measures. 5% Leadership Assessment: https://tally.so/r/kde74r   CONNECT WITH LARRY Website: larryolsen.com LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/larry-r-olsen   CONNECT WITH MICHAEL HOFER Website: bymichaelhofer.com   SUBSCRIBE FOR MORE New episodes of the Brain Vault Podcast publish every other Wednesday.   Yours in growth, Larry  

This Bonus Episode is brought to YOU by our friends at State Farm! Weirdos!! Get ready to return to Forks for the epic conclusion of our MORBID recap of the Twilight franchise!  Today we're diving into Breaking Dawn (Part 2) and part 3 of the book, and what a gift it is! Bella is the BEST at everything, even though her selfishness gets the Cullens in hot water AGAIN! Jacob is the new creep on the block with his imprinting escapades. And the Volturi are walking... I guess? Prepare yourself for Alaina's masterful impression of Bella's singsong voice, worry with Ash about dear Charlie's heart health, and join us as we attempt to untangle the host of inconsistencies that had us angry, confused or howling with laughter! Grab the nearest tissue box and prepare to cry-laugh with us!   Cowritten by Alaina Urquhart, Ash Kelley & Dave White (Since 10/2022)Produced & Edited by Mikie Sirois (Since 2023)Research by Dave White (Since 10/2022), Alaina Urquhart & Ash KelleyListener Correspondence & Collaboration by Debra LallyListener Tale Video Edited by Aidan McElman (Since 6/2025) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Two Hot Takes host, Morgan, is joined by guest co-host Ashby aka Ashby Florence!! We are getting into the concept of irrevisble icks! In other words, what happens with someone you like/love acts in a way that makes you cringe inside. From an OP whose partner says 'I WUV you' way too soon, to an OP who took a party game too seriously, to someones husband that uses a blanket in an intimate way.. and more! As always, I'm ready to see your comments on these :)!! Ashby's Content:  https://www.instagram.com/ashby/?hl=en https://www.tiktok.com/@_ashbyflorence_?lang=en https://www.youtube.com/@ASHBY Partners:  Statefarm: Talk to a State Farm agent today to learn how you can choose to bundle and save with the Personal Price Plan®️. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there®️. UPCOMING LIVE SHOW: https://www.foryoufestival.com/tickets Patreon BONUS Content including FREE stories: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/TwoHotTakes ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ NEW MERCH:  ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://shop.twohottakes.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ WRITE IN TO US!! Our SubReddit! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.reddit.com/r/TwoHotTakes/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Full length Video episodes available on YouTube: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/c/TwoHotTakes⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Index: 00:00 -- Start Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

O Canada! For the first time in The Big Picture's history, we visited Toronto for a very special live show at the TIFF Lightbox. They open the show with some movie trivia about Canadian film, Christopher Nolan, and much more, before being joined by a wandering man named Chris searching for his girlfriend “Brie”. Then, they are joined by filmmaker Matt Johnson to discuss the current state of the Canadian film industry and answer what makes a movie Canadian. Finally, they are joined by mean pod guy Adam Nayman to draft some of their favorite “Canadian movies” across some very loose categories. (0:00) Intro (1:29) Movie trivia (17:28) What makes a movie Canadian with Matt Johnson (36:18) Adam Nayman joins the show! (44:26) The Canadian Movie Draft (1:43:35) Honorable mentions and draft recap Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guests: Matt Johnson, Adam Nayman, and Chris Ryan Producers: Jack Sanders, Elizabeth Fierman, and Helen Eichner Production Support: Lucas Cavanagh A State Farm agent can help you choose the coverage you need. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.®️ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

With great power comes great responsibility. That's why we brought in Van Lathan to discuss the fourth installment in the Tom Holland–era Spidey series: ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day.' They break down what worked for them and what didn't work and sort through what it could all mean for the future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Later, they debate how it stacks up against the rest of the franchise and rank all 11 Spider-Man movies. (0:00) Intro (1:08) We are returning to American Cinematheque's Friend of the Fest! (2:16) ‘The Thomas Crown Affair' trailer reaction (8:14) ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day' (SPOILER WARNING) (1:03:56) The future of the MCU and box office predictions (1:30:07) How our taste informs our relationship to different genres (1:41:28) The Spider-Man Movie Rankings Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guest: Van Lathan Producer: Jack Sanders Production Support: Lucas Cavanagh It's on Prime. A State Farm agent can help you choose the coverage you need. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.®️ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What if the reason your business cannot scale is not your team, your strategy, or your market. It is you. Rajesh Nagjee is a business physicist. Over more than 30 years, he has worked with over 350 CEOs across 15 countries to solve what he calls the founder bottleneck. That moment when a company is ready to scale but still depends on the founder for decisions, clarity, and stability. He is also the creator of CEO Freedom OS, a leadership architecture designed to help CEOs scale without losing control. In this conversation, Larry Olsen sits down with Rajesh to talk about how the very person who built the company becomes the one holding it back. Not because they are not capable, but because the way they think, decide, and operate has not evolved at the same speed as the business itself. What you'll hear: • Why Rajesh believes recognition produces a fixed way of being (and how it locks founders into identity traps) • The 1989 breakdown that reshaped Rajesh's entire methodology • The observer effect in quantum physics applied to founder-run businesses • The five default states of survival that keep leaders stuck (cynical, skeptical, resigned, cocky, arrogant) • The two intersections: where whining lives, and where possibilities live • Rajesh's father's line that shaped his life: the moment you decide, you will succeed • What Rajesh learned from meeting Mother Teresa about ruthless compassion ABOUT RAJESH NAGJEE Rajesh Nagjee is a CEO mentor and self-described business physicist with over 30 years of experience and work with more than 350 CEOs across 15 countries. He is the creator of CEO Freedom OS, a leadership architecture designed to help CEOs scale without losing control. His methodology was forged through personal breakdown in 1989 and refined over decades of working with founders and leaders. Based in Dubai. ABOUT LARRY OLSEN Larry Olsen is a Two-Time Vistage Speaker of the Year and Fortune 50/500 Executive Performance Advisor with 40+ years of client work at Toyota, PepsiCo, Starbucks, Harley-Davidson, Honda, American Airlines, State Farm, Frito Lay, Lexus, and Tropicana. He is the author of Get a Vision and Live It! and the founder of Performance Driven Neurology. IF THIS LANDED FOR YOU The next step is Larry's Brain Hacks Intensive. It is a guided practice that walks you through the foundational mindset shifts Larry teaches Fortune 500 executives. Brain Hacks Intensive: https://neuromindedcollective.com/brain-hacks-challenge FOR EXECUTIVE LEADERS AND FOUNDERS If you want to find out which patterns are currently running your leadership, take Larry's free 5% Leadership Assessment. Less than 5 percent of leaders operate from the patterns it measures. 5% Leadership Assessment: https://tally.so/r/kde74r CONNECT WITH LARRY Website: larryolsen.com LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/larry-r-olsen CONNECT WITH RAJESH NAGJEE LinkedIn: Rajesh Nagjee (posts regularly) Website: RajeshNagjee.com Email: Rajesh@RajeshNagjee.com SUBSCRIBE FOR MORE New episodes of the Brain Vault Podcast publish every other Wednesday. Yours in growth, Larry

What happens when your agency doesn't offer a retirement plan, a buyout, or an exit strategy? In this solo episode of the Insurance Producers Podcast, Cyrus Jaffery tackles one of the biggest conversations happening in the insurance industry today.As more State Farm agents begin exploring independent agency opportunities, Cyrus breaks down what's driving the shift and what it means for producers, agency owners, and anyone thinking about the next chapter of their career.He discusses the hidden cost of stepping away from the business, why waiting to make a move can be more expensive than you think, and how independent agencies are creating long-term value that captive agents often don't have access to. Cyrus also explains how agent transfers work, what client retention looks like during the transition, and why now may be one of the best opportunities in years to take control of your future.Whether you're a captive agent considering your options or an independent agency owner looking to grow, this episode offers practical insights into building a business that creates real equity and lasting freedom.

Two Hot Takes host, Morgan, is joined by guest co-host Michaela!! Ever heard the saying, "Don't judge a book by it's cover"? Well that's what these stories were giving. The titles were a little misleading, and gave us a PLOT TWISTS. From someone who thinks his girlfriend has an unhealthy obsession with her cat, to a guy that messed up a first date with his neighbor, to a dad who won't buy his daughter nice shampoo, to a jeep that's not a jeep, and more! Can't wait to hear your thoughts on these ones.. UPCOMING LIVE SHOW: https://www.foryoufestival.com/tickets Justins Latest Song: https://open.spotify.com/track/4LQg3bAOKl1o4sht8sSdrW?si=952d9c3d702f4fc0 Partners: Talk to a State Farm agent today to learn how you can choose to bundle and save with the Personal Price Plan®️. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there®️. Patreon BONUS Content including FREE stories: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/TwoHotTakes ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ NEW MERCH:  ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://shop.twohottakes.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ WRITE IN TO US!! Our SubReddit! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.reddit.com/r/TwoHotTakes/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Full length Video episodes available on YouTube: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/c/TwoHotTakes⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Index: 00:00 -- Start Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The days of automatically upgrading your phone or computer every time it slows down are officially over. Clark breaks down why inflation and rising component costs mean tech prices are going "up, up, and away." Tech giants like Apple are raising device prices to protect their profit margins. While Clark has advised against sinking money into old electronics, the math has changed. Clark shares his rule of thumb for deciding when to repair versus replace, why TVs remain the one truly disposable tech item, and how to avoid the "free phone trap" being pushed by the big three wireless carriers. Also, Clark dives into the massive shakeup happening in the insurance industry. State Farm is facing major backlash from its own agents after dropping a hammer on their compensation models—a desperate move to compete in a market where they are losing ground. Hear which company has taken the lead by embracing a hybrid model, and what to expect buying online vs. with an agent.Plus, Christa shares your #AskClark questions and Clark gives his take. All this and more on the July 22, 2026, episode of The Clark Howard Show. Submit your questions: Ask Clark. Electronics: Repair Or Replace?: Segment 1 Ask Clark: Segment 2 Buying Insurance: Segment 3 Ask Clark: Segment 4 Mentioned on the show: The ‘right to repair' movement has a point, but consumers should read the warranty fine print first — The Conversation Why You Should Avoid These Free Offers From Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile 5 Vacation Scams To Avoid This Travel Season - Clark Howard How to Shop for Lower Car Insurance - Clark Howard Best and Worst Homeowners Insurance Companies - Clark Howard Homeowners Insurance Archives - Clark Howard  State Farm's AI Plan for Sales Agents Sparks Uproar. ‘A Real Slap in the Face.' Is Accident Forgiveness Worth It? - Clark Howard  Clark.com resources: Episode transcripts Community.Clark.com  /  Ask Clark Clark.com daily money newsletter Consumer Action Center Free Helpline: 636-492-5275 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How do you hold employees to high standards of performance while being a supportive leader? The answer is walking the accountability tightrope.In this episode of Boss Better Now, Joe Mull continues a special series adapted directly from his live leadership workshops on accountability in leadership. Listen in as he explains why driving results without adequate support kills team morale, undermines employee motivation, and exactly what you need to do to fix it.Many managers fall into an enforcer mindset where they expect immediate performance with minimal ramp up. Joe shares how these leaders often focus entirely on outcomes and ignore the journey required to get there. He details exactly how to shift away from a harsh management style where people end up feeling incompetent, and instead provide the meaningful support necessary for real employee performance management and leadership development.What to Expect in This Episode:The Accountability Tightrope: Joe continues the series focused on balancing high standards with supportive relationships.Recognizing the Enforcer Mindset at Work: What happens when impatient expectations meet an over-reliance on employee self-sufficiency.Why High Accountability Without Support Fails: The real costs of leaving employees to figure things out alone, resulting in fear, low energy, and a lack of creativity. This is also one of the fastest ways to damage workplace culture and hurt employee retention.The Problem with Fully Formed Expectations: Why expecting employees to walk through the door completely knowledgeable sets everyone up for failure.How to Build an On-Ramp for Success: Steps to use collaborative language and stand alongside your team to troubleshoot problems. This is the kind of practical manager training that actually changes behavior.Moving Beyond Pass or Fail Feedback: How to use performance feedback to praise progress and effort, normalize struggles, and build the psychological safety employees need to learn and grow.The Open Door Policy Trap: Why relying on an open door policy transfers responsibility to employees and fails to account for real workplace power dynamics.Shifting to a Go and Ask Mentality: How getting up from your desk to do rounding creates the specific conditions your team needs to thrive, and why this habit is central to lasting employee engagement and leadership coaching that actually sticks. To subscribe to Joe Mull's BossBetter Email newsletter, visit https://BossBetterNow.com For more info on working with Joe Mull, visit https://joemull.com For more info on Boss Hero School, visit https://bossheroschool.com To email the podcast, use bossbetternow@gmail.com #leadership #management #toxicworkculture #teambuilding #workplaceculture #conflictmanagement #employeeengagement #motivation Joe Mull is on a mission to help leaders and business owners create the conditions where commitment takes root and the entire workplace thrives. A dynamic and deeply relatable speaker, Joe combines compelling research, magnetic storytelling, and practical strategies to show exactly how to cultivate loyalty, ignite effort, and build people-first workplaces where both performance and morale flourish. His message is clear: when commitment is activated, engagement rises, teams gel, retention improves, and business outcomes soar. Joe is the founder of Boss Hero School™ and the creator of the acclaimed Employalty™ framework, a roadmap for creating thriving workplaces in a new era of work. He's the author of three books, including Employalty, named a top business book of the year by Publisher's Weekly, and his popular podcast, Boss Better Now, ranks in the top 1% of management shows globally. A former head of learning and development at one of the largest healthcare systems in the U.S., Joe has spent nearly two decades equipping leaders—from Fortune 500 companies like State Farm, Siemens, and Choice Hotels to hospitals, agencies, and small firms—with the tools to lead better, inspire commitment, and build more humane workplace cultures. His insights have been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Harvard Business Review, and more. In 2025, Joe was inducted into the Professional Speakers Hall of Fame (CPAE). This is the speaking profession's highest honor, a distinction granted to less than 1% of professional speakers worldwide. It's awarded to speakers who demonstrate exceptional talent, integrity, and influence in the speaking profession For more information visit joemull.com. Timestamps 0:00 The Leadership "Open Door Policy" Trap 0:18 The Accountability Tightrope Summer Series 1:33 Are You an "Enforcer" Boss? 2:22 Defining the Enforcer Mindset in Leadership 3:46 The Danger of Accountability Without Support 4:15 How to Add Meaningful Employee Support 5:13 Collaborative Language for Better Leadership 6:22 How an Open Door Policy Can Fail Your Team 7:34 Shifting to a "Go and Ask" Management Strategy

Brandon Robinson opened Tipsy Putt's first location in downtown Sacramento on November 1, 2019. Four months later, the world shut down.He'd already built and sold a multi-state med spa chain. He'd discovered an indoor mini golf bar in Kirkland, Washington on a packed Monday night and written a $150,000 check for a one-page license agreement to bring it to California. Then COVID took the whole thing to zero overnight.This is the story of what he rebuilt — a four-location brand with its ownidentity, roughly 100,000 app downloads, and a fundraising model that turns investors into opening-day customers.Brandon and Mark get into the real numbers: why post-pandemic sites do $3-6M where they used to do $6-10M, why chasing Class A real estate was the expensive lesson, how to structure a raise as an SPV per market instead of selling equity in the parent, and the brutal honest math of angel investing.Then they close on fatherhood, mentorship, and the grandfather who went from 1930s Detroit foster care to one of the top 100 State Farm agents in the country — and why that story is the whole case for supporting veterans in transition.Website: https://tipsyputt.com/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TipsyPutt/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tipsyputt/YouTube:  @tipsyputt  ______________________________________________________________If this episode inspires you to be part of the movement, and you believe, like me, that entrepreneurs are the answer to our future, message me so we can join forces to support building truly great companies in our region. -Subscribe to my channel here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCom_​... -  Mark Haney is a serial entrepreneur that has experience growing companies worth hundreds of millions of dollars. He is currently the CEO and founder of HaneyBiz -  Instagram: http://instagram.com/themarkhaney​ Facebook: www.facebook.com/themarkhaney LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markehaney​ Website: http://haneybiz.com​ Audio Boom: https://audioboom.com/channels/5005273​  Twitter: http://twitter.com/themarkhaney-This video includes personal knowledge, experiences, and opinions about Angel Investing by seasoned angel investors.  This content is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as legal, tax, investment, or financial advice.  Nothing in this video constitutes a solicitation, recommendation, or endorsement.#thebackyardadvantage #themarkhaneyshow #entrepreneur #PowerOfWith #SacramentoEntrepreneur #Sacramento#SacramentoSmallBusiness #SmallBusiness #GrowthFactory #Investor#podcast

Micky Lawler, Commissioner for Unrivaled Basketball, the successful pro women's basketball 3 on 3 league, joins Sports Business Radio. Lawler is the former President of the WTA (Women's Tennis Association) and she worked for over two decades overseeing the tennis business at Octagon. Lawler shares how Unrivaled Basketball has attracted many of today's biggest women's basketball stars including Paige Bueckers, Angel Reese and Kelsey Plum. The league has attracted blue-chip sponsors such as Sephora and State Farm. Lawler provides unique insights about the future of Unrivaled Basketball, whether the league is complimentary or a competitor of the WNBA and the growth areas for women's sports. This is a fascinating conversation with one of the most seasoned executives in women's sports. LISTEN to Sports Business Radio on Apple podcasts or Spotify podcasts. Give Sports Business Radio a 5-star rating if you enjoy our podcast. Click on the plus sign on our Apple Podcasts page and follow the Sports Business Radio podcast. WATCH SBR interviews by going to the sports business hub on Yahoo Sports and Yahoo Finance at https://sports.yahoo.com/sports-business/ or our YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/@sportsbusinessradiopodcast. This week's edition of Sports Business Radio is presented by Boingo Wireless. Teams like the LA Clippers, Atlanta Hawks, Chicago Bears and San Diego Padres trust Boingo to connect their stadiums and arenas with cutting-edge 5G and Wi-Fi.From mobile ticketing to security cameras to kiosks, connect every piece of stadium technology with Boingo's converged wireless networks. As you plan for the future of your stadium, make 5G part of your gameplan and choose Boingo Wireless as your trusted connectivity partner. Learn more by downloading Boingo's free 5G Playbook for Stadiums & Arenas. Head to boingo.com/5Gstadium to get your copy. Sports Business Radio is produced by Bryan Griggs at Griggs Productions dot com #UnrivaledWBB #WNBA #WomensBasketball Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This past year Progressive usurped State Farm as the nation's biggest personal auto insurer, losing a throne State Farm had held since World War II. The shift sparked a dramatic overhaul at the company, including new agent contracts, sweeping benefit cuts and a big push into AI. WSJ's Jean Eaglesham reports on the fallout. Jessica Mendoza hosts. Further Listening: - Insuring a Home in California Is Getting Harder - Is Florida Just for Rich People Now? Sign up for WSJ's free What's News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Link Up w/The Morning Sickness Digitally All Over:Instagram: @hms_98_official, @bosskupd, @bretvesely, @dickToledoX/Twitter: @HMSon98, @DickToledo, @bretveselyFacebook: @HMSKUPDYouTube: @hmspodcast9320, @98kupdRequest/Call in/Wakeup Song line:(IN AZ) 602.585.9800More HMS: holmbergpodcast.com, 98kupd.comEmail: dtoledo@98kupd.com, bvesely@98kupd.com, bbogen@98kupd.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Link Up w/The Morning Sickness Digitally All Over:Instagram: @hms_98_official, @bosskupd, @bretvesely, @dickToledoX/Twitter: @HMSon98, @DickToledo, @bretveselyFacebook: @HMSKUPDYouTube: @hmspodcast9320, @98kupdRequest/Call in/Wakeup Song line:(IN AZ) 602.585.9800More HMS: holmbergpodcast.com, 98kupd.comEmail: dtoledo@98kupd.com, bvesely@98kupd.com, bbogen@98kupd.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Senior Associate Editor Renee Kiriluk-Hill breaks down the latest Best's Rankings of the nation's largest mutual property/casualty and life/health insurers, highlighting State Farm's commanding lead in P/C, New York Life's continued dominance in L/H, and notable shifts among the top writers.

Willie Spears, M. Ed., is a highly sought after speaker, critically acclaimed author, educator, and coach who has taken the country by storm with his passionate, energetic, and hilarious approach to teaching life management skills. Through a significant social media presence and an average of 20 presentations per month across multiple states, The Willie Spears Experience has become a trusted source of inspiration.As the lead servant of The Willie Spears Experience LLC, Coach Spears, along with his dedicated team, has added substantial value to hundreds of organizations, schools, colleges, universities and teams. Additionally, he has shared his expertise with several Fortune 500 companies, including State Farm, McDonald's and the Southern Company. Mr. Spears is captivating audiences globally through powerful and interactive presentations that are focused on motivation, leadership, and professional development.Welcome to the Pinkleton Pull-Aside Podcast. On this podcast, let's step aside from our busy lives to have fun, fascinating life-giving conversation with inspiring authors, pastors, sports personalities and other influencers, leaders and followers. Sit back, grab some coffee, or head down the road and let's get the good and the gold from today's guest. Our host is Jeff Pinkleton, Executive Director of the Gathering of the Miami Valley, where their mission is to connect men to men, and men to God. You can reach Jeff at GatheringMV.org or find him on Facebook at The Gathering of the Miami Valley.

What if the body you're living in right now is already sending you signals you've been trained to ignore? Dr. Sofia Din is a board-certified MD and anti-aging specialist who spent decades watching what happens when those signals go unanswered. Today she's doing something about it. In this episode, she breaks down the hormonal shifts most people never hear about, why aging is now being treated as a disease you can actually do something about, and why your skin and your brain have been soul mates since the very first cell of your life. Larry brings his own story into this one, sharing what taking ownership of his health at 78 has looked like and what he's discovered along the way. Together they dig into what it really means to age with agency. Once again, science meets success in The Brain Vault Podcast. ABOUT DR. SOFIA DIN Dr. Sofia Din is a board certified MD with over 25 years of clinical experience and decades in geriatrics and hospital care. She completed her medical training twice, once in Pakistan and again in the United States. Her practice sits at the intersection of longevity, aesthetics, health span, lifespan, and what she calls beauty span. She is the author of Do We Really Need Botox?, the host of the Bathroom Diaries podcast, and publishes on Substack under Dr. Sofia Din. Her physical practice is in Westchester, New York. ABOUT LARRY OLSEN Larry Olsen is a Two-Time Vistage Speaker of the Year and Fortune 50/500 Executive Performance Advisor with 40+ years of client work at Toyota, PepsiCo, Starbucks, Harley-Davidson, Honda, American Airlines, State Farm, Frito Lay, Lexus, and Tropicana. He is the author of Get a Vision and Live It! and the founder of Performance Driven Neurology. IF THIS LANDED FOR YOU The next step is Larry's Brain Hacks Intensive. It is a guided practice that walks you through the foundational mindset shifts Larry teaches Fortune 500 executives. Brain Hacks Intensive: https://neuromindedcollective.com/brain-hacks-challenge CONNECT WITH LARRY Website: larryolsen.com LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/larry-r-olsen SUBSCRIBE FOR MORE New episodes of the Brain Vault Podcast publish every other Wednesday. Yours in growth, Larry

Marketing insurance agents nationwide sounds like a contradiction, but Uptown Marketing founder Martina Barley built a thirteen person, all female agency doing exactly that. Martina joins Fitz at ROC Vox to talk about her path from an unlicensed State Farm sales assistant to the self described "Michael Jordan of sales," and why the confidence that built her business almost got in the way of leading her team.In this episode, you'll learn how Martina grew Uptown Marketing from three founders to thirteen employees, why she believes sales and leadership are two completely different skill sets, how she convinces insurance agents to actually invest in their online presence, and what she tells clients about AI replacing, or not replacing, their jobs. CHAPTERSCONNECTUptown Marketing → https://uptownmarketing.comThe Marketing Girl (book) → https://www.amazon.com/Marketing-Girl-Trusting-Intuition-Confidence/dp/1956464484ROC Vox → https://rocvox.comSalvatore's → https://salvatores.comNew episodes of Positive Blatherings drop every Tuesday.Recorded at ROC Vox Recording & Production in Bushnell's Basin, NY.Learn more at https://rocvox.com 

California homeowners are about to absorb the steepest home insurance rate increase of any state in the country — a 16% spike that isn't a rounding error but the compounding result of years of regulatory failure. Gavin Newsom's California Department of Insurance kept a stranglehold on rate approvals for so long that major carriers like State Farm and Allstate simply walked away. Residents were left relying on an underfunded state plan nobody wanted, and when the Palisades fire hit and billions in claims came due, the math finally caught up.Now the bill is landing inside escrow accounts and monthly mortgage payments that millions of California families cannot absorb. Overregulation didn't protect consumers — it guaranteed this crisis. The reinsurance market priced the risk that Sacramento refused to acknowledge, and every homeowner in the state is now paying for that bet.This is just one more notch on California's affordability belt. Insurance isn't optional when you carry a mortgage, and when the unavoidable cost of staying becomes unsustainable, people leave. They already are — and this 16% shock is going to accelerate it. The state is not getting cheaper. It is getting more expensive on every axis simultaneously, and the exits are wide open.Subscribe to @reasonablenews for daily news from a perspective the mainstream skips — no spin, no nonsense.#California #InsuranceCrisis #CostOfLivingGO PREMIUM WITH REASONABLE+ FOR UNCENSORED ACCESS

Senior Associate Editor Renee Kiriluk-Hill details her BestWire reporting showing Progressive strengthened its position as the nation's largest auto insurer in AM Best's latest rankings, increasing its market share while pulling further ahead of State Farm.

State Farm is overhauling the way it sells insurance as it embraces artificial intelligence. WSJ insurance reporter Jean Eaglesham explains why the changes have sparked backlash from agents and customers. Plus, WSJ columnist Christopher Mims explains why tech companies' water usage disclosures don't always tell the full story. Imani Moise hosts. Have you seen an AI-generated post you thought was real? We want to hear from you! Record a voice memo and send it to tnb@wsj.com or leave us a voicemail at (212) 416-2236. Sign up for the WSJ's free Technology newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How do you hold employees to high standards of performance while being a compassionate leader? The answer is walking the accountability tightrope. In this episode of Boss Better Now, Joe Mull kicks off a special four-part series adapted directly from his live leadership workshops on accountability in leadership. Listen in as he explains why equating caring with leniency leaves teams frustrated and exactly what you need to do to fix it. Many managers fall into a protector mindset where they prioritize comfort and underestimate employee capability. Joe shares real stories from his own career about being overly delicate and nervous about giving feedback to employees because he wanted to be liked. He details exactly how to shift away from rescuing struggling employees and instead provide the productive struggle necessary for growth. What to Expect in This Episode: Why Feedback is the Most Important Leadership Skill: Why vague, subjective language triggers defensiveness and how to avoid it. What is the Accountability Tightrope?: Joe introduces the summer series focused on balancing high standards with supportive relationships. Why "Soft" Leadership Causes Employee Frustration: The real costs of avoiding uncomfortable conversations and letting employees coast. Recognizing the Protector Mindset at Work: How avoiding meaningful work and lowering expectations prevents teams from reaching peak performance, and what the mentor mindset looks like instead. Overcoming the Need to be Liked as a Manager: Joe's personal story about walking on eggshells and how it harms team development. How to Raise Standards When You Already Offer High Support: Steps to articulate clear expectations rooted in culture and values. The Viral Teacher Hack for Correcting Behavior: Stop targeting the person and start naming the standard. Using the Feedback Stack Framework: How to give feedback to employees using objective, behavior-based language that lands without triggering defensiveness. To subscribe to Joe Mull's BossBetter Email newsletter, visit https://BossBetterNow.com For more info on working with Joe Mull, visit https://joemull.com For more info on Boss Hero School, visit https://bossheroschool.com To email the podcast, use bossbetternow@gmail.com #leadership #management #toxicworkculture #teambuilding #workplaceculture #conflictmanagement #employeeengagement #motivation Joe Mull is on a mission to help leaders and business owners create the conditions where commitment takes root and the entire workplace thrives. A dynamic and deeply relatable speaker, Joe combines compelling research, magnetic storytelling, and practical strategies to show exactly how to cultivate loyalty, ignite effort, and build people-first workplaces where both performance and morale flourish. His message is clear: when commitment is activated, engagement rises, teams gel, retention improves, and business outcomes soar. Joe is the founder of Boss Hero School™ and the creator of the acclaimed Employalty™ framework, a roadmap for creating thriving workplaces in a new era of work. He's the author of three books, including Employalty, named a top business book of the year by Publisher's Weekly, and his popular podcast, Boss Better Now, ranks in the top 1% of management shows globally. A former head of learning and development at one of the largest healthcare systems in the U.S., Joe has spent nearly two decades equipping leaders—from Fortune 500 companies like State Farm, Siemens, and Choice Hotels to hospitals, agencies, and small firms—with the tools to lead better, inspire commitment, and build more humane workplace cultures. His insights have been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Harvard Business Review, and more. In 2025, Joe was inducted into the Professional Speakers Hall of Fame (CPAE). This is the speaking profession's highest honor, a distinction granted to less than 1% of professional speakers worldwide. It's awarded to speakers who demonstrate exceptional talent, integrity, and influence in the speaking profession For more information visit joemull.com. Timestamps 0:00 Why do vague performance reviews trigger defensiveness? 0:30 How do you navigate the accountability tightrope? 1:54 Why does a soft leadership style backfire? 3:01 What is the protector mindset in management? 4:06 How to stop rescuing your struggling employees 5:39 Overcoming the manager's need to be liked 6:30 How do highly supportive leaders raise standards? 9:14 How to correct behavior by naming expectations 10:28 How to use the feedback stack methodology 11:36 How to bring accountability training to your team

Emilia Costa has spent nearly 20 years in media and advertising, watching the digital landscape transform from the earliest days of podcast sponsorships to the rise of AI-enabled platforms. She currently serves as Senior Manager of Member Engagement & Development at IAB, where she works with some of the biggest companies shaping the future of digital media and advertising including TikTok, Pinterest, Reddit, Beast Industries and OpenAI. An optimist at heart with a love for trend spotting, she serves as IAB's category lead for the Creator Economy and AI member companies, alongside influential publishers, and broadcasters, and has led strategic sponsorships and thought leadership at events like the NewFronts and IAB's Annual Leadership Meeting (ALM).Before IAB, Emilia spent six years at Vevo leading national integrated marketing and branded entertainment strategy, building campaigns for top advertisers like Apple, Disney, and State Farm with Shawn Mendes, Demi Lovato, and Billie Eilish. Earlier in her career, she was the first dedicated Online Marketing Manager at SPIN, the iconic music publication, and got her start at NPR working on sponsorships in the early days of podcasting.

What if the real threat of AI isn't that it replaces your job — but that it slowly replaces you? In this electrifying episode of The Brain Vault Podcast, Larry sits down with Derek Rydall — bestselling author, founder of the Whole New Human Movement, and host of the globally recognized Emergence podcast — for one of the most expansive conversations we've ever had about human potential, identity, and what we're really here to become. After a near-death experience shattered his understanding of success, Derek spent decades bridging ancient wisdom with modern neuroscience to answer one question: what makes us truly irreplaceable? In this episode, you'll hear: Why AI is the greatest existential crisis and the greatest evolutionary opportunity we've ever faced What the ancient Sanskrit meaning of "human" reveals about who you actually are How the Oracle of Delphi's "Know thyself" was never an affirmation — it was a warning Why your conditions don't determine your destiny, but your character does The race car driver principle that explains why you keep hitting the same walls Why knowledge is not power — and what to do with it instead This conversation isn't just about surviving the AI revolution. It's about finally becoming who you were always meant to be. Connect with Derek at derekrydall.com and grab his book A Whole New Human on Amazon. ABOUT DEREK RYDALL Derek Rydall is the bestselling author of A Whole New Human, The Abundance Project, and Emergence. He is the founder of the Whole New Human Movement and the host of the globally recognized Emergence podcast. Derek bridges ancient wisdom and modern science, drawing on decades of study in psychology, neuroscience, spirituality, and creativity. His work has been forged through profound personal transformation, not theory alone. ABOUT LARRY OLSEN Larry Olsen is a Two-Time Vistage Speaker of the Year and Fortune 50/500 Executive Performance Advisor with 40+ years of client work at Toyota, PepsiCo, Starbucks, Harley-Davidson, Honda, American Airlines, State Farm, Frito Lay, Lexus, and Tropicana. He is the author of Get a Vision and Live It! and the founder of Performance Driven Neurology. IF THIS LANDED FOR YOU The next step is Larry's Brain Hacks Intensive. It is a guided practice that walks you through the foundational mindset shifts Larry teaches Fortune 500 executives. Brain Hacks Intensive: https://neuromindedcollective.com/brain-hacks-challenge CONNECT WITH LARRY Website: larryolsen.com LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/larry-r-olsen CONNECT WITH DEREK RYDALL Website: DerekRydall.com YouTube: Legendary Life, Derek Rydall Podcast: Emergence Latest Book: A Whole New Human: 10 Ways We Must Evolve to Survive and Thrive in the AI Age SUBSCRIBE FOR MORE New episodes of the Brain Vault Podcast publish every other Wednesday. Yours in growth, Larry

State Farm recently made headlines by flying thousands of its agents to Las Vegas for what turned out to be a dramatic announcement. Behind the Pink concert and Jimmy Fallon selfies, CEO quietly told 19,000 agents he was tearing up their contracts. Anyone staying past 2027 would face lower commissions, lost deferred compensation, and eliminated health benefits. The move signals a massive shift in how one of America’s most storied insurance companies sees its future, and it raises serious questions about what happens when a legacy distribution model collides head-on with a technology-driven competitor. This is just one of the topics that Pirates Christopher Lochhead, Eddie Yoon and Bri Clark discuss on this episode of Pirate Street Journal. Each week, the Category Pirates pick three headlines worth paying attention to and break down the category underneath. You're listening to Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different. We are the real dialogue podcast for people with a different mind. So get your mind in a different place, and hey ho, let's go.   State Farm Built an Empire on Agents, Now It’s Cutting Them State Farm is a 104-year-old company built by one Illinois farmer and a network that grew to serve towns too small for anyone else to bother with. That agent network was the moat, the community trust, and the competitive advantage all rolled into one. For decades, agents generated millions in gross revenue through a subscription-like model where selling a homeowner’s policy meant locking in years of recurring premiums. This year, Progressive took the personal auto crown that State Farm had held since World War Two. Progressive sells more than half its auto policies direct, with no agent, powered by AI. State Farm’s response was to bolt an AI initiative onto the same announcement that gutted its agent program, which is a move that many see as too little, too late.   The Real Opportunity State Farm Is Missing Not all agents are created equal, and this is where State Farm’s leadership may be making its biggest error. There are proactive agents who see disruption as opportunity and reactive ones who are already a cost liability. The CEO’s sweeping contract changes treat both groups the same, when the smarter play would be identifying and doubling down on the proactive agents who are the true super consumers of the agent ecosystem. The same logic applies to policy holders. Insurance is a category that can be Money-balled. Some consumers genuinely love insurance, actively seek coverage, and represent enormous lifetime value. Cutting costs to chase switchers who only care about price is a race to the bottom. State Farm should instead be finding ways to use AI to make its best agents more effective and its best customers more loyal, not abandoning the human relationships that made it dominant in the first place.   The Jevons Paradox and What It Means for State Farm A critical lesson from the technology world applies directly to what State Farm is navigating. When AI began generating code, experts predicted the end of software engineering jobs. New data from Signal Fire, which tracked millions of employees across 80 million companies, shows engineers now represent 55% of all new hires at the biggest tech companies, up from 46% in 2019. AI did not kill the job. It made people who do the job more valuable. The same principle could apply to insurance agents. AI handling the routine, administrative, and analytical parts of an agent’s work should free those agents to do what humans do best, which is build trust. Humans love humans, and in a category as personal as insurance, that truth matters enormously. State Farm’s leadership would be wise to remember that the agent on Main Street is not just a cost line. That agent is often the only reason a customer stayed loyal through decades of competing offers. To hear about the other topics in this week’s The Pirate Street Journal, download and listen to this episode. You can also read more Pirate Street Journal entries in the Category Pirates newsletter.   We hope you enjoyed this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), LinkedIn, and subscribe on Apple Podcast / Spotify!

Nadia and Rob are back in the news (figuratively) as they break down how HB-1 visas and layoffs are impacting tech-heavy city real estate markets, AI-driven changes to State Farm agents' commissions, and the Meta layoffs and the rise of boomerang workers. Later, Nadia rants about rampant corruption as Rob tries to find a red, white, and blue lining in this year's Fourth of July celebrations.Learn more about the topics discussed in the episode today:https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/h-1b-visa-curbs-on-indians-slow-texas-real-estate-us-immigration-policy-11594879/amp/1https://www.wsj.com/finance/state-farms-ai-plan-for-sales-agents-sparks-uproar-a-real-slap-in-the-face-6453e2cbhttps://www.cnbc.com/amp/2026/05/28/michael-dell-trump-accounts-dod.htmlhttps://hrexecutive.com/metas-zuckerberg-weve-made-mistakes-in-ai-transformation/?oly_enc_id=6122G2643790C2ZFind season 6 episode transcripts here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1i5q2ALf97g1pNz1TdSC_OBOlnPcFhsXs?usp=drive_link Connect with us:Visit www.nazconsultants.com to learn more about Dr. Nadia Butt's work in leadership, culture, and organizational effectivenessVisit https://luma.com/trustbydesign for workshops and webinars to use data and AI to build organizational trustSend us your thoughts or topic ideas at inclusivecollectivepodcast@gmail.comFollow Inclusive Collective LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/inclusivecollective/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@inclusivecollectivepodcast Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/inclusivecollectivepodcast/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/InclusiveCollective/ Connect with Nadia: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nadianazbutt/ Connect with Rob: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rob-hadley-utah/

Sean and Amanda open the show by covering myriad movie news headlines, including the status of Luca Guadagnino's ‘Artificial', new footage released of Tom Cruise in his highly anticipated film, ‘Digger,' and the Academy inviting 529 members, including Jacob Elordi, Teyana Taylor, Josh O'Connor, and more. Then, Sean and Amanda use the new DC film, ‘Supergirl,' which they found creatively and technically empty, as a springboard to have a wide-ranging conversation about the decline in importance of  superhero movie culture. Finally, Chris Ryan joins the show to discuss the (potentially) final film of the ‘Jackass' franchise: ‘Jackass: Best and Last', a movie they all thoroughly enjoyed. (0:00) Intro (0:49) Movie news (23:42) ‘Supergirl' (45:12) What was the superhero movie era? (1:03:23) ‘Jackass: Best and Last' with Chris Ryan Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guest: Chris Ryan Producer: Jack Sanders Production Support: Lucas Cavanagh Talk to a State Farm agent today to learn how you can choose to bundle and save with the Personal Price Plan®️. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there®️. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Can AI really clean up messy bookkeeping—and what happens when firms trust it too much? Blake and David break down KPMG's error-filled AI report, the Pentagon's new “Agentic Auditor,” and State Farm's move to tie agent pay to AI. Blake also shares how he used Claude to complete two years of write-up work in hours, with practical lessons on where AI helps, where it fails, and why human review still matters.SponsorsCanopy - http://accountingpodcast.promo/canopyThe Value Builder System - http://accountingpodcast.promo/valueOnPay - http://accountingpodcast.promo/onpayChapters(00:00) - TAP 493 (02:20) - KPMG AI Report Scandal (04:01) - GPTZero Findings Breakdown (05:16) - Hallucinated Case Studies (07:18) - Pentagon Turns to AI Audits (08:33) - Microsoft Copilot Cowork Launch (10:09) - Claude Cowork Write Up Win (15:22) - Recon Fixes and Loan Discovery (20:48) - Future of Agentic Accounting (24:06) - Livestream Q and A TaxGPT (27:01) - AI Review and Human Loop (28:38) - QuickBooks AI Gripe Vibe Coding (31:15) - OnPay Payroll Pitch (32:10) - CPA Fees Rising (33:58) - State Farm AI Agents (37:09) - SpaceX IPO Accounting (39:31) - Musk Disclosure Shift (41:02) - Quarterly Reporting Debate (46:31) - Celebrity Accountant Fraud (50:52) - KPMG Summer Perk Cut (52:24) - Intuit Humanizing AI (55:22) - IRS Data Shared With ICE (57:56) - CPE And Farewell  Show NotesChasing the Hallucinations: KPMG's AI-Powered Attempt at "Redefining Excellence"https://gptzero.me/news/investigations-kpmg/KPMG's AI report becomes an accidental demo of AI hallucinationshttps://www.theregister.com/ai-and-ml/2026/06/12/kpmgs-ai-report-turns-into-a-demo-of-ai-hallucinations/5255029Pentagon turns to AI in push for clean financial audit by 2028https://www.stripes.com/theaters/us/2026-06-11/pentagon-audit-ai-contract-21941885.htmlCopilot Cowork is now generally availablehttps://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2026/06/16/copilot-cowork-is-now-generally-available/Tax Prep Billing Rates Lift Busy Season 2026https://cpatrendlines.com/2026/04/14/tax-prep-emerges-from-busy-season-2026-as-the-new-engine-for-billing-rates/State Farm overhauls agent contracts, mandates AI usehttps://finance.yahoo.com/technology/ai/articles/state-farm-overhauls-agent-contracts-115756712.htmlSpaceX CFO Bret Johnsen quietly engineered its historic IPO and became an overnight billionairehttps://fortune.com/2026/06/13/spacex-cfo-bret-johnsen-overnight-billionaire-ipo/SpaceX CFO Bret Johnsen joins billionaire ranks after $75B IPO: Trial Balancehttps://www.cfo.com/news/spacex-cfo-bret-johnsen-joins-billionaire-ranks-after-ipo-trial-balance/822848/Investors oppose semiannual reporting, says pollhttps://www.accountingtoday.com/news/investors-oppose-semiannual-reporting-says-pollCFA Institute Investor Perspectives: Quarterly Reporting 2026https://rpc.cfainstitute.org/sites/default/files/docs/research-reports/investor-perspectives-quarterly-reporting-2026.pdfThe Global Freelancer Pay Gap Reporthttps://www.remitly.com/us/en/landing/global-freelancer-pay-gapNick Cannon's Business Accountant Allegedly Embezzles $2 Million, Flees U.S.https://www.tmz.com/2026/05/08/nick-cannon-business-manager-embezzled-millions/KPMG scraps summer early Friday finish for staffhttps://www.cityam.com/kpmg-scraps-summer-early-friday-finish-for-staff/Intuit hires Mother to humanize the QuickBooks maker's AI pitchhttps://adage.com/agencies/accounts-in-review/aa-intuit-hires-mother-as-creative-strategy-partner/After issuing more than $20 billion in tariff refunds, the Trump administration is now pursuing legal action to bring the process to a standstillhttps://fortune.com/2026/06/01/trump-administration-plan-appeal-illegal-ieepa-tariff-universal-refunds/IRS gave 47,000 taxpayers' addresses to ICEhttps://www.accountingtoday.com/news/irs-gave-47-000-taxpayers-addresses-to-iceNeed CPE?Get CPE for listening to podcasts with Earmark: https://earmarkcpe.comSubscribe to the Earmark Podcast: https://podcast.earmarkcpe.comGet in TouchThanks for listening and the great reviews! We appreciate you! Follow and tweet @BlakeTOliver and @DavidLeary. Find us on Facebook and Instagram. If you like what you hear, please do us a favor and write a review on Apple Podcasts or Podchaser. Call us and leave a voicemail; maybe we'll play it on the show. DIAL (202) 695-1040.SponsorshipsAre you interested in sponsoring The Accounting Podcast? For details, read the prospectus.Need Accounting Conference Info? Check out our new website - accountingconferences.comLimited edition shirts, stickers, and o...

Execs blame it for mass layoffs and students blame it for lack of job opportunities. Polymarket BS, SpaceX valuation and Kevin Warsh is a man of few words. Plus a revolt at State Farm, LT care for municipal workers in Washington state and do Grandkids have a claim on Grandma's estate?

In today's hybrid and digital workplaces, the instinct for many busy managers is to rely on quick tech tools like AI or generic emails to communicate care. Henna Pryor argues this approach is actually backfiring. She challenges leaders to recognize that we are living in an "age of doubt" where skepticism is the default posture, urging them to close their "signal gaps" by aligning what they say with how they actually show up. Joe Mull sits down with Henna for a conversation about workplace trust and leadership skills. As a workplace performance expert, speaker, and author of Good Awkward and the upcoming book The Signal Gap, Henna brings a wide-ranging career background. From surviving the grueling hours of Big Four public accounting to spending fourteen years in executive search, she uses her front-row seat to team dynamics to help leaders build trust at work and become more believable and impactful. Henna breaks down the difference between cheap and costly signals, explaining why simply expressing gratitude is no longer enough to make employees feel valued. She shares stories from her own career (including her first job at a diner and the sting of being ignored as a high-achieving employee) to illustrate the importance of leadership communication. She also warns against "intent smuggling" and the dangers of public microclaims in the digital age. In this episode, you'll learn:

On today's MJ Morning Show:Psychic predicts mass alien abductions at the World CupMorons in the newsAre you suspicious of your phone updates?Trying to sell fake drugs to copsA guy stole a police K9 truck... with dog and firearmsBailey story 1: The drunk-texting roommateBailey story 2: Uber guy storyReport of shark bite off Davis IslandsMJ received (another) State Farm solicitation letterA classic video game sold for a record $3 millionIce cream shop owners confront guy who left 1 star reviewMark Zuckerberg orders employees to have funChick-fil-A bumped from top spot: 15 top quick-service restaurantsDiddy's release date changed againTaylor Swift wedding stage being built James Franco... is he crazy or is he promoting something with his new Tiktok pageJelly Roll divorceCorey Feldman got seriously ill on a flight... We spoke to Goonies castmate Robert DaviTop pickleball tournament comes to St. PeteRestaurant puts a sign on the door about tippingState enacts new laws restricting nitrous oxide/whippetsForget the rich husband... woman says this is who you should marrySee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Two Hot Takes host, Morgan, is joined by guest co-host Sarah Sherman! Sarah knows a thing or two about squirm inducing experiences, so she's the perfect co-host to tackle these unique stories. Like a boyfriend who wants to close the open relationship after unsatisfactory results, someone who can't figure out why her boyfriend wants to feed her, someone who accidentally purchased ashes and then sold the urn, a guy who asked his friend's mom out.. and more! Can't wait to hear your thoughts on these ones. Checkout Sarah's Special & Content: https://www.hbomax.com/movies/sarah-squirm-live-in-the-flesh/5d79e162-5a0a-4177-9021-79bac1836b07 https://www.instagram.com/sarahsquirm/?hl=en Partners: Credit Karma: Download Credit Karma today and get the credit you deserve. State Farm: This episode is sponsored by State Farm. A State Farm agent can help you choose the coverage you need. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Patreon BONUS Content including FREE stories: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/TwoHotTakes ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ NEW MERCH:  ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://shop.twohottakes.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ WRITE IN TO US!! Our SubReddit! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.reddit.com/r/TwoHotTakes/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Full length Video episodes available on YouTube: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/c/TwoHotTakes⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Index: 00:00 -- Start 05:17 -- Story 1 AITA for not removing my doormat because it scares my neighbor's kid? 13:56 -- Story 2 AITA for ending things and ghosting after finding out she lied about her husband being dead? 23:58 -- Story 3 Fiancé (27m) wanted to try an open relationships, not my first choice but I agreed. Now he's throwing a tantrum that my "bodycount" is 20x his and wants to add rules... 31:14 -- Story 4 I bought a box at goodwill for $5 and i need some advice on a situation that has developed 37:29 -- Story 5 My boyfriend loves to feed me my meals everyday 53:02 -- Story 6 I (25f) have a secret kink that I haven't told my partner (27m) about 1:01:18 -- Story 7 TIFU by asking my friend's mum out Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Two Hot Takes host, Morgan, is joined by guest co-host Hannah Berner of Giggly Squad! Hannah is back and helping us determining if the people in these stories should have minded their business or not. Like do you tell your DIL she's wrong about the earth being flat? Do you change your outfit because your ex told you to? Or what do you do when your husband's mistress is stalking you?! Speaking of business get ready for her new special on Hulu -- None of my Business!! Can't wait to hear your thoughts on these ones. Checkout Hannah's Special & Content: https://www.hulu.com/movie/hannah-berner-none-of-my-business-dcf075e6-79ce-4cbe-b6a4-153f0970fa88 https://www.instagram.com/HANNAHBERNER/ Partners: Credit Karma: Download Credit Karma today and get the credit you deserve. State Farm: This episode is sponsored by State Farm. A State Farm agent can help you choose the coverage you need. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Patreon BONUS Content including FREE stories: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/TwoHotTakes ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ NEW MERCH:  ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://shop.twohottakes.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ WRITE IN TO US!! Our SubReddit! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.reddit.com/r/TwoHotTakes/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Full length Video episodes available on YouTube: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/c/TwoHotTakes⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Index: 00:00 -- Start Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Two Hot Takes host, Morgan, is joined by guest co-host Joshua Taylor Bassett! Josh just released his first memoir, Rookie, where he shares some vulnerable truths. So it's perfect timing for him to shed some light on if these Reddit stories were a bit too honest or if the truth, however painful, was necessary. From a fiancé that gets a matching tattoo with his girl best friend, to an open mic night gone wrong, to an OP who finds a journal where her husband trashes her, and more! Need your takes on these ones! Checkout Rookie & Joshua's Content: https://www.instagram.com/joshuatbassett/?hl=en https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Rookie/Joshua-Bassett/9798893311846 https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkWPW_qkJ2b0a26spv-ymFQ Partners: State Farm: Talk to a State Farm agent today to learn how you can choose to bundle and save with the Personal Price Plan®. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there®. Prime Video: Obsession is in session. Watch only on Prime. Patreon BONUS Content including FREE stories: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/TwoHotTakes ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ NEW MERCH:  ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://shop.twohottakes.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ WRITE IN TO US!! Our SubReddit! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.reddit.com/r/TwoHotTakes/⁠⁠⁠⁠ Full length Video episodes available on YouTube: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/c/TwoHotTakes⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Index: 00:00 -- Start Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Two Hot Takes host, Morgan, is joined by guest co-host Michaela! We're getting back into stories about some RARE breeds. People that are just a bit out there, wild, or so outrageous we can't even begin to understand. Like a guy who hid his fiancé's engagement ring, a MIL who hates her daughter-in-laws art, a guy who pulled a horrible litter box prank, and more! Can't wait to hear your thoughts on these! Partners: State Farm: Talk to a State Farm agent today to learn how you can choose to bundle and save with the Personal Price Plan®. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there®. Skims: skims.com/tht What brands are you into lately :) help a girl out with a 2 question survey: https://forms.gle/UxWw3RxGAPRoiYRg8 Patreon BONUS Content including FREE stories: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/TwoHotTakes ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ NEW MERCH:  ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://shop.twohottakes.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ WRITE IN TO US!! Our SubReddit! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.reddit.com/r/TwoHotTakes/⁠⁠⁠ Full length Video episodes available on YouTube: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/c/TwoHotTakes⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Index: 00:00 -- Start Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Ringer's Bill Simmons give his thoughts on various topics around the NBA with Round 2 of the playoffs well underway (3:06). Then, David Letterman comes on to talk about his upbringing, the evolution of talk shows, sports, and much, much more! (38:51). Host: Bill Simmons Guest: David Letterman Producers: Chia Hao Tat and Eduardo Ocampo This episode is sponsored by State Farm®. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.® The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit https://fanduel.com/playwithaplan to learn more about the resources and helplines Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Drew Lynch is a stand-up comedian known for his self-deprecating humor and sharp storytelling. He rose to fame as a finalist on America's Got Talent, where his performances about living with a stutter earned widespread attention. Beyond stand-up, he has built a strong online following with viral videos and continues to tour nationally. Check out his website DrewLynch.com for dates. IN THE NEWS: Sarah Paulson's “tone-deaf” Met Gala look draws backlash, RFK Jr. targets Zoloft and Prozac in his latest MAHA push to curb America's reliance on prescription drugs, State Farm faces scrutiny over hundreds of alleged violations while experts say Californians won't lose coverage, and Kamala Harris endorses Karen Bass for LA mayor, claiming progress on crime and homelessness.Get it on.Join Dave Rubin and Ron DeSantis live on June 11 at The Fillmore Miami Beach for a rare, unfiltered conversation on Florida's rise and what comes next. Featuring Adam Carolla, Ben Shapiro, and Jillian Michaels, this is a one-night-only event you won't want to miss. Get tickets now: Daverubin.com/eventsFOR MORE WITH DREW LYNCH:SPECIAL: The Stuttering Comedian (Youtube) INSTAGRAM/TIKTOK/YOUTUBE: @thedrewlynchFOR MORE WITH RUDY PAVICH:WEBSITE: RudyPavichComedy.comINSTAGRAM: @ Rudy_Pavich PUNCH UP LIVE: https://punchup.live/rudypavichLIVE SHOWS: May 8 - Las Vegas, NV (2 Shows)May 9 - Las Vegas, NV (2 Shows)May 14 - Covina, CA (Live Podcast)May 15 - Visalia, CAMay 16 - Modesto, CAMay 24 - Costa Mesa, CA (2 Shows)Thank you for supporting our sponsors:BetOnlineCardiff.co/AdamMarathonRewards.comoreillyauto.com/ADAMPluto.tvSHOPIFY.COM/carollaSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.