Podcasts about there've

Sarah Hurwitz underscores how much context matters in remembering a great line—and the degree to which there's an element of randomness. Michelle Obama had used the line “when they go low, you go high” in previous speeches but it was in the context of the 2016 convention—that moment in time, that magical speech—that the phrase struck and stuck. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/nextgenpolitics/message

The Brazilian president, Jair Bolsonaro, says he has tested positive for the coronavirus. Mr Bolsonaro has repeatedly dismissed the severity of Covid-19, having previously described the virus as the sniffles, and been very publically reluctant to wear a facemask. More than 65,000 Brazilians have died having tested positive for Covid 19. There've been more than 1.6 million confirmed cases in-country. Also in the programme: A sneak preview of Mary Trump's new book, not on sale until next week; and a Pennsylvania distillery that has been producing hand sanitizer, the head distiller's grandmother having previously used her home-distilled whiskey as a disinfectant during the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918. (Photo: Brazilian President, Jair Bolsonaro. Credit: EPA/Joedson Alves)

Bonus song: Through it all (Lynda Randle) I've been in a lot of places,I've seen a lot of faces,There've been times I felt so all alone.But in my lonely hours,those precious lonely hours,Jesus let me know I was His ownThrough it all,Through it all,I've learned to trust in Jesus,I've learned to trust in God.Through it all,Through it all,I've learned to depend upon His WordI thank God for the mountains,And I thank Him for the valleys,I thank Him for the storms He brought me through.For if I'd never had a problem,How would I know God could solve them,How would I know what faith in God could doLet me tell you now: Through it all,Through it all,I've learned to trust in Jesus,I've learned to trust in God.Through it all,Through it all,I've learned to depend upon His Word.Source: MusixmatchSongwriters: Andrae E Crouch Through It All lyrics © Manna Music Inc

On the show this week:  It's a rerun.  There've been a few of those lately...but trust me, it's all worth while.  Big things are happening!!! If you want the inside track on what's going on, you gotta connect with us on facebook and the website.   www.crankedupcountryradio.com www.facebook.com/crankedupcountryradio   

Welcome, Good Monday morning, everybody. Craig Peterson here. I was on with Jack Heath this morning discussing the security implications that businesses are facing in the post-COVID environment. Here we go with Jack. These and more tech tips, news, and updates visit - CraigPeterson.com ---  Automated Machine Generated Transcript: Craig Peterson: We are way more likely to tell our IT team that we do not want to abide by not that COVID restrictions here, but the security restrictions, particularly when it comes to mobile devices as we're moving around. [00:00:18] Hi everybody. Craig Peterson here. And that was me on with Mr. Jack Heath and New Hampshire today talking a little bit about the problems we're having right now with post-COVID-19. I don't know if you've seen the stats. I just got a notice this morning, but they are showing that over 35 percent of the people who have been working from home are now infected, talking about a really kind of a nasty stat, one you just don't want to see. Here we go with Jack. [00:00:52] Jack Heath: All right. Want to go to one of our regular contributors for a quick update on the tech talk side and prior to what we're seeing in a lot of the cities, companies were having a hard time trying to protect their data and all that as things got more virtual and remote. Craig Peterson with Tech Talk joins us. Craig, Good morning. [00:01:08] Craig Peterson: Hey, good morning now. You're absolutely right. There've been some real upticks here not just data and data loss. Part of the problem is Jack that businesses are allowing their employees to take the company data home. [00:01:24] People are using USB drives and putting the data on it and bringing it home and are leaving some of it behind when they're out and about. It's really kind of a scary time here. Another thing that we have to watch for as business owners and C-level people, we are way more likely to tell our IT team that we do not want to abide by, not the COVID restrictions here, but the security restrictions, particularly when it comes to mobile devices as we're moving around. [00:01:59]In fact, the stat I'm looking at right now says that about 75% of C-level people, business owners ask their IT teams to make security exceptions for themselves.  With all of the hacking and stuff that's going on right now, Jack, we can't afford to do this. [00:02:17] Don't take the data home. Don't have it on insecure devices. And we, as leaders of the businesses have to set examples and not ask to have security exceptions made for us. [00:02:31] Jack Heath: Interesting. All right, Craig, the best way to learn more. Craig Peterson with an O N.com. [00:02:36] Craig Peterson: Absolutely. [00:02:37] Jack Heath: All right, Craig. Thank you very much. I appreciate the update. [00:02:40] Craig Peterson: Bye-bye. ---  More stories and tech updates at: www.craigpeterson.com Don't miss an episode from Craig. Subscribe and give us a rating: www.craigpeterson.com/itunes Message Input: Message #techtalk Follow me on Twitter for the latest in tech at: www.twitter.com/craigpeterson For questions, call or text: 855-385-5553

In today’s episode, Dr Carolyn Lam discusses the prevalence of familial hypercholesterolemia among the general population and patients with atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease with Dr Kausik Ray (KOSH) and Dr Amit Khera. Dr Carolyn Lam: Welcome to Circulation On the Run, your weekly podcast summary and backstage pass to the journal and its editors. I'm Carolyn Lam, associate editor from the National Heart Center and Duke National University of Singapore. Dr Greg Hundley: And I'm Greg. I'm the associate editor from the Pauley Heart Center at VCU health in Richmond, Virginia. Dr Carolyn Lam: Greg, ever wondered what's the prevalence of familial hypercholesterolemia in the general population? It's an important question, but we're going to wait to discuss that with our feature discussion coming right up. First, I want to tell you all about valvular heart disease. In a preclinical model, would you believe, but first let me just remind us all that primary valvular heart disease is a really prevalent cause of morbidity and mortality. And although the primary consequence of valvular heart disease is myocardial dysfunction, treatment of valvular heart disease has always centered around valve repair or replacement, rather than the prevention or reversal of myocardial dysfunction. In fact, have you thought about this? We know very little about the mechanisms, the actual preclinical underlying mechanisms of left ventricular dysfunction and primary severe mitral regurgitation. Well, in the first paper I want to talk about today, Dr Li from First Affiliated Hospital, Sun Yat-sen, University Guangzhou, and Dr Sadek, from UT Southwestern Medical Center and their colleagues develop the first mouse model of severe mitral regurgitation. And they did this by severing the mitral valve leaflets and chords using iridectomy scissors. Similar to the human condition, induction of mitral regurgitation was followed by gradual left ventricular dilatation and dysfunction resulting in severe systolic dysfunction. Further analysis revealed that severe mitral regurgitation resulted in a marked increase in cardiac mass, increased cardiomyocyte length, but not with, and electron microscopy evidence of sarcomere disarray and the development of sarcomere disruption. From a mechanistic standpoint, severe mitral regurgitation resulted in activation of multiple components of both the mTOR and Kelson urine pathways. Now intriguingly, inhibition of mTOR signaling even preserved sarcomeric structure and prevented left ventricular remodeling and systolic dysfunction. Finally, immunohistochemical analysis uncovered a differential pattern of expression of the cell polarity regulator CRB2, along the longitudinal axis of cardiomyocytes and close to the intercalated discs, with a similar pattern of polysome localization. And all of this suggests a potential new mechanism of longitudinal cardiomyocyte growth. Dr Greg Hundley: Well, Carolyn, there is a lot of basic science and a lot going on both histopathologically, but also mechanically with this model. What's our take home message? Dr Carolyn Lam: Well, Greg, this mitral regurgitation mouse models suggest that cardiomyocyte hypertrophy in response to mitral regurgitation is a maladaptive process that may be pharmacologically targeted by mTOR inhibitors. Dr Greg Hundley: Oh my, very nice Carolyn. Well, I'm going to bring you another kind of basic science paper as well. And it's from Dr Jin Li from the Institute of Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine at the University of Bern. And it really involves auto antibody signatures in cardiac arrests. So Carolyn, a quiz of what percentage of individuals sustaining out of hospital cardiac arrest have no known cause? Dr Carolyn Lam: You said, “Oh oh!” I’m on the spot here, Greg. Okay. What about if I start with what I do know? Coronary artery disease is the most common cause. I think that may be, I don't know, large majority, 80% of it. And then we get inherited cardiomyopathy, channelopathies. So I'm going to guess less than 10%. Dr Greg Hundley: Wow. That is why you're just the stellar extraordinaire. So it's exactly about 5% to 10%. So Carolyn this study sought to address the etiology for this out of hospital arrests in this 5% to 10% of individuals, using a peptide micro-ray designed to screen for IgG targeting epitopes from all known cardiac ion channels with extracellular domains. So plasma samples from 23 patients with unexplained cardiac arrest were compared to 22 cardiac arrest cases of ischemic origin and a group of 29 age, sex, and BMI matched healthy subjects. Dr Carolyn Lam: Wow. What did they find, Greg? Dr Greg Hundley: The auto antibody against the poor domain of the L tight voltage gated calcium channel or Cav 1.2 was consistently identified as a biomarker of idiopathic cardiac arrest and functional studies on human induced pluripotent STEM cell derived cardiomyocytes demonstrated that the anti Cav 1.2 IgG purified from patients with idiopathic cardiac arrest is pro-arrhythmogenic by reducing the action potential duration through calcium channel inhibition. Dr Carolyn Lam: Wow, that seems huge. Clinical implications? Dr Greg Hundley: I thought you'd asked me that. So the present report addresses the concept of autoimmunity and cardiac arrest and hitherto unknown auto antibodies targeting extra cellular sequences of cardiac ion channels were detected. And so moreover, this study identifies an auto antibody signature to specific patients with cardiac arrest, thereby explaining perhaps a potential etiology for this 5% to 10% of individuals that here to for, we were uncertain of that particular ideology. Dr Carolyn Lam: Wow. That clearly needs follow-up, but you know what? What also needs follow-up is a quiz question for you. What do you say to a young adult with stage one hypertension about his or her future health risks? Dr Greg Hundley: Well, how about A, see a physician, B, listen to that physician and follow their recommendations? Dr Carolyn Lam: Oh, you are brilliant. Well, guess what? I'm going to tell you a little bit more about this in the next paper from Dr Kim from Yonsei University College of Medicine and Colleagues who looked at almost six and a half million participants aged 20 to 39 years. So young, and without taking any antihypertensive medication in 2003 to 2007 in a nationwide health screening database. Now participants were categorized according to the 2017 ACCAHA guidelines as having a normal blood pressure. That is an untreated systolic blood pressure, less than 120 and diastolic blood pressure less than 80. Or stage one, isolated diastolic hypertension. So that's when systolic is less than 130 and diastolic between 80 and 89. Or stage one isolated systolic hypertension. So that's when systolic blood pressure is between 130-139 and diastolic is less than 80. Or finally, stage one systolic and diastolic hypertension. So that's when systolic is between 130-139 and diastolic is between 80 and 89. And these were followed up for the primary outcome of composite cardiovascular disease events, including myocardial infarction, stroke, heart failure, and cardiovascular related death. Dr Greg Hundley: Caroline, I am dying to hear what did they find? Dr Carolyn Lam: So over a median follow-up of 13.2 years, more than 44,000 new cardiovascular disease events occurred. Among these young adults who had a median age of only 30 years stage one, isolated systolic hypertension, isolated diastolic hypertension, and systolic and diastolic hypertension were each associated with higher cardiovascular risks compared to normal blood pressure. Cardiovascular risk of stage one systolic and diastolic hypertension was higher than the risks of stage one isolated systolic and isolated diastolic hypertension.   Dr Greg Hundley: Very good. That was an outstanding presentation and very pertinent to our younger listeners as well as young patients with hypertension. In the rest of this journal, we are jammed packed with more articles. Let me tell you about a few. First, I've got a research letter by Professor G. Kees Hovingh from Amsterdam UMC discussing Inclisiran and how that durably lowers LDLC and PCSK-9 expression in homozygous familial hypercholesterolemia. Next there's an ECG challenge from Dr Miguel Arías from Complejo Hospitalario Universitario de Toledo involving syncope and alternating QRS morphologies. Next Professor Qing Yang from Tianjin Medical University General Hospital has a perspective piece regarding anti-platelet therapy following percutaneous coronary interventions in patients complicated by COVID-19. One of our own associate editors, Dr Nicholas Mills, has a very nice on my mind piece related to the use of serum troponin and biomarkers, as well as their utility in managing patients with COVID-19. Next, Dr Courtney Campbell from Ohio State University and Wexner Medical Center has a perspective piece regarding will compliment inhibition be the new target in treating COVID-19 related systemic thrombosis. And then finally, Carolyn, there's a nice exchange of research letters regarding Orai 1 channel inhibition, preserving left ventricular systolic function, and normal calcium handling after pressure overload. And the contributing authors that provided these letters are Dr Muddassir Mehmood from University of Tennessee Medical Center and Dr Jessica Sabourin from INSERM UMR S1180. Dr Carolyn Lam: And that's not all, Greg. There's also an in-depth article on the implications of altered ketone metabolism and therapeutic ketosis in heart failure by Dr Salvaraj, Kelly, and Margulies. Now this review is a must read. It summarizes the current evidence supporting a role for ketones in heart failure and covers normal myocardial ketone utilization, alterations, and ketone metabolism in a failing heart and effects of therapeutic ketosis in both animals and humans with heart failure. There's also a research letter by Dr Susanna Larson who used the UK Biobank Cohort to perform a Mendalian Randomization investigation into the causal effects of circulating LPA levels on atherosclerotic, cerebral vascular thrombotic, and valvular disease. There's another research letter by Dr Eliseo Guallar and that's on mitochondrial DNA copy number, which is an indirect biomarker of mitochondrial dysfunction and its association with incident heart failure in the Eric study. Wow, such a full issue, but now let's go on to our feature discussion. Shall we, Greg? Dr Greg Hundley: You bet. Dr Carolyn Lam: Today's feature discussion is all about familial hypercholesterolemia. Now, recent study suggests it is more frequent than previously reported. And in fact, increasingly recognized as affecting individuals of all ethnicities and across many regions of the world. Well, today's feature paper really represents one of the most comprehensive assessments of the prevalence of familial hypercholesterolemia. More than 7.3 million individuals from 62 studies. So pleased to have with us the corresponding author of this beautiful paper, Dr Ray Kosh from Imperial College London, as well as our editor of digital strategies, Dr Amit Khera from UT Southwestern. Kosh, if I may call you that, congratulations again on another just really important paper. This systematic review and meta-analysis is really revealing. So could you tell us a little bit more of the details of what you did and just really tell us the take home messages. Dr Kausik Ray: We've been getting signals that familial hypercholesterolemia... So this is where essentially individuals inherited an abnormality that results in lifelong elevations of LDL cholesterol birth, increases risk of cardiovascular disease. The previous prevalence was believed to be about one in 500 and suggestions... It's actually not just a suggestion, there's a lot of data suggesting that it's a lot more prevalent than that. And one of the queries that we often have, if you think about global health is does it affect all regions of the world? And if we don't go out looking for it, you're not going to find it. So this is really why this was done. And we basically synthesize the global data and there was basically over 7 million people approximately from general population primary care settings, if you will. And the global prevalence for FH is one in 311. Confidence interval is between about one and 250 to one in 397. If you look at WHO regions of the world, it's equally prevalent across all regions of the world. And we know there are many regions of the world where they're not going out looking for this. So if you don't look for it, you won't find it. And we think that that should inform public health policies. The other key things about this or that because this is a condition that results in premature cardiovascular disease, there's been emerging data that actually in people with early myocardial infarction, for example, the possibility of FH may be higher. So in proportion of studies where we had participants with established cardiovascular disease, the possibility of this being present is about one in 17. Now they're not all going to be FH, but it means that actually the coronary care unit where the vast majority of these patients arose from, that's a great starting place. If you see somebody with premature MI before the age of 55, high LDL cholesterol above 190, start thinking about it. If you find one, you can think about cascade testing and finding family members because each effected individual potentially the likelihood in a first degree relative is 50%, 1 in 2. So that becomes really important. And I think those are probably where I'd stop now and maybe take a few more questions, but I think that's the take home message. Dr Carolyn Lam: Very, very important and practical take home messages. So thanks for that, Kosh. But could I just go back with one basic question? For those of us who don't think of it every day, what is the definition of familial hypercholesterolemia? There are so many definitions out there. Could you simplify it for us? Dr Kausik Ray: Yeah, so basically all the definitions, the common ones that have been used in making an early diagnosis. So met that criteria, looking at family history, looking at elevated cholesterol levels. There's the Simon-Broome criteria with some clinical signs, as well as family history and genetic mutations. And then there's the Dutch lipid criteria. That's probably the most used in the world, looking at the physical signs, LDL cholesterol levels, and also family history. And they give you essentially a score of the likelihood of this. And if you like, the gold standard really is probably genetic testing. That's not available in all regions of the world. There may be cost and other issues with that, but essentially that is giving you a diagnosis of a known variant of monogenic disorder and there's over 1,800 or so variants identified. So those are the ways that you can essentially do this. Dr Carolyn Lam: Thanks, Kosh. Amit, I have to bring you in here. Thank you so much for managing this beautiful paper and recognizing how important it is. You invited an editorial as well. Could you share some of your thoughts? Dr Amit Khera: Sure. The one thing, Kosh, as we look at this, which is so important to understand the prevalence worldwide and really glad that your group took on this project. But if you look at your figure, what's striking is how many areas are essentially white where there's no data. I mean, huge proportions of countries around the world. Why do you think that is? And how do we close that gap? Dr Kausik Ray: That becomes really important. So what I would say is this was looking at prevalence and those are areas of the world where prevalence has not been reported. So if I were to overlap that with countries, for example, where we are starting to get definitive diagnosis through gene mutations, for example, there would be fewer gaps. We don't yet have enough data in terms of prevalence in those areas. But if you look, there's a huge gap, for example, in Africa. You've got a few countries that we know that haven't reported prevalent but have published on FH. So we do know it's there. And then you've got South Africa at the bottom and you've got Nigeria now also collecting data. But part of it is, I guess, one important thing is misclassification. So if somebody dies in those regions of the world, often it's attributed to other causes. And because there is little public health information, because there hasn't been investments on thinking about cholesterol, for example, is it common in our population? If you were in sub Saharan Africa, maybe you think about infectious disease or other things, right? So it's not on the agenda. So there hasn't been that investment and therefore data is then lacking. We starting to see shifts in that, and hopefully this will move the needle a little bit more. And I think once that is done, what will then happen is we will get more reliable estimates from that part of the world. I think we've all got patients from that part of the world. And when I think about my clinical practice, I have patients from the middle of Africa, West, East, Sri Lanka, none of which is represented on that map. Dr Amit Khera: I think that's a great point. And you know, there's no reason to think that the prevalence is much different. We just have a gap in knowledge there. And I guess the next part comes to implications. As you rightfully discussed many times in your paper, less than 1% of people are diagnosed. And even if someone publishes prevalence data, a diagnosis could involve genetic testing, it could involve broad limpid screening, a combination of both. What do you think is the next step? Dr Kausik Ray: That's incredibly important. And I think you have to think about two different approaches. They're are the populations already out there living with this condition. So how do we picture those? It's going to be very difficult to think about universal screening in everybody 40-60, for example. So one way is to look at those people, the index case who comes in premature myocardial infarction in particular and use that as a source for cascade testing. We know that that is cost-effective. There've been formal evaluations of that approach. I do think with the cost of genetic testing, for example, that will make life a lot easier. And I think that that point in CCU, the elevated LDL premature MI should be the start of that thought process. What we tend to do is we have a whole list of medications. We start people on that and it's an afterthought, depending upon the post-treatment cholesterol levels. It shouldn't be. The other thing I think that you could do, there are lots of opportunities for screening. If you think about those people now, who are under the age of 10, 11, and you think about vaccination programs, you think about pre-college, pre-university health assessments that are often done in many parts of the world. Those offer opportunities to get a blood sample. David Wall did a lovely piece several years ago, looking at child parents screening, reverse cascade, if you will. And that showed that it could be cost effective. You don't need a small sample of blood. You can use DNA. And each of those interactions gives you an opportunity for screening. What I'd love to see is we all think that there will be or there could be an update of the WHO recommendations for cholesterol management. And that might advocate, for example, universal screening for cholesterol before the age of 29. If that is done, then if you think of low middle-income countries, a lot of those white gap, we will start to see those things being or this condition being picked up and potentially huge numbers of lives being saved. And because this is a genetic condition which is ultimately dominant, you find one, you can either exclude or find other people early and early diagnosis changes prognosis as you well know. Dr Amit Khera: Thank you for that, the implications and the potential profound if one could implement that broad screening. And as you pointed out early treatment, and I have one last question for you and it has to do with other part of the coin, which you touched on, which is the ASCBD. You know, your estimates of one and 17 were really helpful. I think many people aren't appreciative of how relatively common FH is in patients with coronary artery disease. And you talked about the implications being cascade screening of family members, but I know you work in therapeutics as well. There've been some data about maybe even earlier intervention or more aggressive intervention once someone's diagnosed with FH and after cardiovascular disease. What are your thoughts on that part of the investigation? Dr Kausik Ray: Yeah, no, that's a really important question. So most of the studies that have actually looked at ACVD, they didn't utilize, for example, a genetic diagnosis. So it's largely the clinical phenotype. And remember, you have an A priority bias in terms of scoring on the Dutch Lipid Network Criteria, by virtue of the fact that you've had premature disease. Some of these people will probably have elevations in LP(a) and others it could be polygenic hypercholesterolemia, which does carry an increased risk, but not as much as FA. If you could separate those three out the implications really are if you think about the ACVD patient population with true FA, you basically missed 40 years of unexposed exposure. And so in these people, I think those are people that we should be thinking about mainly more aggressive intervention with either lower LDL targets, because the absolute benefit is likely to be much, much greater. So I think that's the key implication I think of these findings. Dr Carolyn Lam: Thanks so much, Amit. Thanks so much, Kosh. As someone living in an area where there is... It's white on that map as well, but no available data in Southeast Asia, I've learned a lot. Thank you, listeners, for joining us this week. You've been listening to Circulation On the Run. Please tune in again next week. Dr Greg Hundley: This program is copyright the American Heart Association 2020.  

  - Barry Hoyer All of my friends have kind of treated this is like the loss of a husband or a wife, like it has the exact same gravity. Yeah. Work, it's. It's an interesting conversation at work. My my V.P. is also gay, and we're roughly the same age and we've started an LGBTQ employee resource group. So my name is very out there in the company as being the leader of this group. And so it's definitely not an aspect of myself that I've ever felt the need to hide at work. Quite a few people showed up to his memorial service from work and so was a bit of a validation where people they didn't even necessarily consider myself that close to. Still felt compelled to show up and recognized how profound the loss was   INTRO   Today, I am talking with Barry Hoyer.  Barry works for DISH Network and lives in Denver with his two dogs, who have grown rather needy due to his constant, COVID-19 presence.    - Barry Hoyer I've I've been with them all day, which I think is part of the part of the problem that they're getting accustom and they're like, we're just so used to having you here.   Last year, Barry was also living with AJ, the love of his life who was killed, suddenly, by a drunk driver.  We will explore his love and his loss in today’s episode.  But first, a brief word from our sponsors.    We are sponsored today by Fullstack PEO.  Fullstack provides turnkey benefits for entrepreneurs and small businesses.  They have a top-notch staff that I genuinely enjoy interacting with.   We are also sponsored by Handl with Care consulting, offering targeted, impactful sessions to help your staff survive, stabilize, and thrive in the midst of COVID-19.    I met Barry during my second year of my MBA in Bloomington.  He was as first year, part of the GLOBASE program where we traveled to Accra, Ghana to consult with emerging entrepreneurs.  We went on morning runs through the streets of Accra together.  Barry is warm and witty with a quick laugh.     - Liesel Mertes So tell me a little bit more about A.J., what were some of your absolutely favorite, most delightful things about him?   - Barry Hoyer Oh, my God. The way he laughed when he was truly I don't know what the right word is touched by something or found something particularly funny.   - Barry Hoyer He had this different laugh that would come out that just let you know that it wasn't a reaction for the sake of a reaction. It was true.   - Barry Hoyer I'm never going to forget that laugh. He also had this way of like when things were stressful at work or when I'd had a bad day, like he would just kind of put his arms around me and I could put my head on the shoulder. And he had just this way of saying, oh, I know. I'm sorry. Yeah, it was very, very comforting.   - Liesel Mertes Did he have any particularly endearing, quirky things that he did?   - Barry Hoyer Oh, my goodness. This is. He's gonna hate that I mentioned this, especially in a recorded situation when he was growing up. He grew up. He was born and raised.   - Barry Hoyer Well, grew up for the first eight years in Southern California. Then his family moved to Indiana. And somewhere along the way, he had befriended a Puerto Rican family. And he'd be learning Spanish, and so he just continued studying Spanish in college. And next thing you know, him being Puerto Rican became part of his ancestry.   - Barry Hoyer So, so much of the point that when I met him, I thought he was Puerto Rican because he told me he was Puerto Rican.   - Barry Hoyer All of our friends thought he was Puerto Rican. And even when he spoke Spanish, it was with a very, very heavy Puerto Rican accent. There was nothing Puerto Rican about him. Dean assumed Puerto Rican identity. It's kind of like the thing that, like people are still like, I can't believe he wasn't Puerto Rican.   - Barry Hoyer Shortly after the exit happened, like two days later, his mom and stepdad came out to help with arrangements and just to, you know, handle everything with me.   - Barry Hoyer And I had a bunch of friends over one night just kind of needing a sense of community. And his mom and stepdad were there and his biological father was there. And there might have been a little bit of wine consumed over the course of the night. But his mom basically outed him as not being Puerto Rican.   - Barry Hoyer She told us this story that she had gone to softball practice to watch his younger sister play softball. And one of the other moms of one of the girls on the team came up and was like, Oh, your ages, mom.   - Barry Hoyer I didn't know your husband was Puerto Rican. She was just like. Neither did I. And that's what she that everyone in the room.   - Barry Hoyer And she was like, I don't care how mad he gets at me for this. He wasn't Puerto Rican. He was a white boy.   - Liesel Mertes May it be known.   - Barry Hoyer Yeah, it was going it was one of those moments of levity that was severely needed. Yes. In the midst of all of that.   - Liesel Mertes And how long ago did you and A.J. first meet?   - Barry Hoyer We met a little over six years ago.   - Liesel Mertes And were you drawn to each other quickly and did you know it was fairly intense?   - Barry Hoyer We met and we met the old fashioned way. We met at a party. A party almost didn't go to I was relatively new to Denver, I'd been in Denver for five months. And I didn't. I almost didn’t go to this party. I didn't. I don't generally enjoy showing up places by myself. And I knew there were going to be a lot of people and, you know, brand new, loud social situation. I almost stayed home, but I end up going and had a great time.   - Barry Hoyer And about two hours after I got there, I might have had a little bit to drink that night. And I shouted at one of our other friends in Spanish to make me a drink. And then this handsome stranger walked up to me. And in Spanish aska, Oh, so you speak Spanish. And then we just started talking for the rest of the night. And you would have never known that there was anybody else in the room. It was just very intense.   - Barry Hoyer A grew very quickly. It was just one those things they had never felt so sure about. And so, you know, the next morning, I would like everybody, a bunch of you will end up staying at the house just because it was that kind of party and those kind of friends. So this morning, AJ's waking up and helping clean up an. I was still relatively new. So, like one of my friends, I was like, man, what's your phone number again?   - Barry Hoyer So I was telling him my phone number. And then AJ pulls out his phone and basically said, wait. You start over again. I was like, oh, I see where this is going. And we're pretty much inseparable after that.   Last year, Barry and AJ traveled to Europe for 11 days.  They got a great deal on airfare and went to Spain.    - Liesel Mertes Yeah. Was there a city that particularly stood out? They said this was just like the best day.   - Barry Hoyer Oh, man, I'm glad you asked. He had been kind of obsessed with Spanish culture, and he really wanted to see the city of Granada. It's in the south of Spain. And so I figured out a way to fit it in and make it work. And that was probably was definitely his most memorable stop on the trip. So much so that he felt that we should move there. Mm hmm.   - Barry Hoyer But we had this really great AirBnB that was literally right across there's a little river. And we were right across this little river from the Colomba. So we had a little Juliet balcony off of the apartment that we rented. And it had just the most incredible view of the Illawarra, a daytime. And then that night, we had found a bottle of wine and sat on a little balcony and had a glass of wine and watch the kind of sunset behind.   - Barry Hoyer And D'Alemberte lit up at night. Mm hmm. And it was just kind of really I don't know. I didn't realize it at the time. How profound of a moment it would be. But it was just kind of incredible to be in this ancient setting, in this beautiful space and just be able to get to share such a view of an incredible piece of history with the person that I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with.   - Liesel Mertes And. What was that? Was it even when you got the news?   - Barry Hoyer It was the next morning I had I had to work on that. And so I stayed up late that night and. I got home from my work event somewhere between 10 and 11. And then around one o'clock in the morning, I woke up and he wasn't home. And so I texted him and. Didn't hear anything. And but the tax, because we both have iPhones.   - Barry Hoyer I can see the, the message was being delivered. So I knew that it was going through, but I knew that he wasn't responding, so I kind of texted for an hour, try to figure out what to do next. And then when that didn't happen. We need to respond. I started calling and I probably called 70 something times and it went straight to voicemail. That's when I started to get really concerned.   - Barry Hoyer Yeah. And then I started calling every emergency room in the Denver metro area. I started calling every police station to see if anybody could tell me anything and nobody could tell me anything that had happened.   - Barry Hoyer So I had kind of this false sense of security. Like if nobody is telling me anything, then everything must be OK. And then the next morning, we know and later that morning, I guess I hadn't heard anything by 10 o'clock and nobody was telling me anything and I was extremely panicked. I went to the local police station to file a missing persons report. And then after about forty five minutes of waiting, a police officer told me what had happened.   - Liesel Mertes What, what a horrible stretch of time. I mean, I just imagine that felt maddening that this cascade of not knowing what had happened.   - Barry Hoyer There's a lot I don't remember after getting the news, but from the moment when I first was worried, when I found out what happened, I can tell you what every minute was like.   - Liesel Mertes Yeah. And what was the news that you received about what had happened to AJ?   - Barry Hoyer An officer took me into a separate room and told me that there had been an accident involving an under the influence driver. And that he didn't survive. The AJC did interview A.J. did not survive.   - Liesel Mertes What I mean, you mentioned that there's a lot that you don't remember. What are some of the emotions that accompany that sort of unexpected and devastating news?   - Barry Hoyer To be completely honest, I kind of went to business mode. Yeah, and it was such a shock that I didn't have time to really process what had happened. It was more I need to get a hold of his mom. I need to talk to his family. I need to let our close friends know what happened. Where do I start? How do I figure this out? And they got pretty overwhelmed. And then they called two of our closest friends.   - Barry Hoyer And told them what happened, and then they drove to the police station immediately to to come get me. Yeah, and they got home and it was just really weird walking into the space they had shared with somebody for so many years. Is everything felt different when I walked in? Mm hmm. And. That was kind of the moment where I ended up, I stayed with friends for the first couple nights. And it was just it was kind of a mix of disbelief because it was so sudden.   All right.   - Barry Hoyer Our last real conversation that we had that day was about when the air conditioning unit was going to be repaired. Such trivial conversation on one hand, like I would have loved for our last conversation to have been something meaningful where, you know, we talked about all of our future plans and how much we loved each other and how great life was and all the sunshine and roses aspect. But on the other hand, our last conversation, the last time that we spoke was about something so, just, everyday life, the stuff that every couple deals with and. I had no way of knowing that, you know.   - Barry Hoyer Like, I beat myself up a little bit more sometimes about that, if I had known, if I had any way of knowing that that was going to be our last conversation. I camera if I said I love you before I hung up. I'm sure I did. But it would be nice to really remember for sure if those were my last actual words to him.   - Liesel Mertes Right. Well, it just highlights exactly what you've said, that this was such an unexpected shock. You know, I am, I think. The immediacy of grief. You know, you talked about kind of switching in business mode. I can resonate with that. Because for me, when I receive hard news, I feel like I feel like where my mind and emotions very naturally go is OK. What is the next thing that needs to be done as a result of this?   - Liesel Mertes For me, oftentimes afterwards I can find that my emotions can catch up to me quite suddenly and unexpectedly. Whether that is a day or two or a week later. Did you find that something similar happened for you?   - Liesel Mertes Is there a point where the emotional weight of the moment you felt like caught up with you?   - Barry Hoyer They're. Gosh, What’s the best way to answer that? My mom, my brother and my sister in law came out immediately. To be with me and to be there for the service, and I kind of felt that as long as I had somebody there to take care of, you know, here were people that were guests in my home, even though they're family.   - Barry Hoyer But I still had an obligation to take care of people and I still had responsibilities to others in that kind of. Helped me stay in business mode and get through what I needed to get through in Denver.   - Barry Hoyer And so there wasn't a real. I feel like I was just kind of numb. I either had something to do or I had nothing to do with it when I had nothing to do. I just didn't want to think about anything.   - Barry Hoyer I took some time off from work, and so my brother had to fly home to get back to work. But my sister in law and mom and I drove out back to California with the dogs. And so I kind of felt like I was responsible for my brother's wife. I was responsible for my mom. I was responsible for getting all of us back to California safely. And then so I just stayed in that mindset that I had a job to do and I could not experience anything other than the responsibility of that job until I got to where we were going. Right.   - Barry Hoyer And then once I got to my parents house. I'm pretty sure I turned into some combination of a five year old and a 13 year old and a 30 something diva, depending on kind of what moment of the day it was.   - Liesel Mertes Right. And they did. I'm sorry. What did that what did the five year old version look like for people who have not encountered traumatic grief? What did you find yourself feeling or doing?   - Barry Hoyer My mom and I have always been extremely close. And I've got probably the most caring mother in the world. I know everybody should probably through it isn't feel that everybody should feel that, but I hope everybody experiences some level of that. But as much as I love my mom, she wanted to check on me and she was being too much of a mother.   - Barry Hoyer To the point where I basically was just like, go away. I don't want to talk to you. I want to be by myself. Leave me alone. And just having reactions that after I'd had a little the time to process them, realize that maybe that's not the way you're supposed to talk to your mom. Like, remember that she wants to do what she can. And. But you don't necessarily think about other people's feelings in those moments, you kind of like reverted to a very kind of like primal reaction to where I was overwhelmed.   - Barry Hoyer And I knew that the if I yelled at somebody or something, then that was my quickest way to let somebody know that I was overwhelmed. Yeah.   - Liesel Mertes What did how did people respond to you in that in a way that was important, either like, wow, people missed me and they were really harsh with me when I was just expressing myself. Or on the other hand, you know, people did a really great job of weathering that with me.   - Liesel Mertes What did you find felt important for you?   - Barry Hoyer In the first couple days, I had some words for my mom that kept resonating in my head. My mom suffered a stillbirth before I was born. And she said one of the things that was most impactful that people had told her. Was simply just, you know, for fear of saying the wrong thing. Just know that you're in my thoughts. And I had a lot of people express very similar sentiments. And that meant the most to me, because I know that everybody wants to feel like they're helping, everybody wants to.   - Barry Hoyer It feels good to be there for people. It feels good to support people. And everybody wants to contribute to that. But there were just some moments, whereas like, you know what? Great. Thank you. And just had those more like simple. Expressions like that allowed me a chance to not have to talk about what happened, to dwell on what happened, just simply to know that somebody was thinking of me. Yeah.   - Barry Hoyer When I got back to work, the first couple days were tough and. Somebody on my team told me. Oh, well, you're handling this so well, you're you're holding up so well. And my first reaction was. Involving an expletive. Yeah. That I won't mention here. It just came across as incredibly callous. Mm hmm.   – Liesel Mertes And I had to remind myself a little bit more about that, because I can picture some people thinking, well, why was that callous?   Barry Hoyer – It was. It implies that there's some expectation of how you're supposed to kind of readjust to life. And it was like in my head, I was thinking, you know, you have no idea how I'm feeling. I'm trying to hold it together because I'm at work and I don't necessarily want to display a ton of emotions at work.   - Barry Hoyer And it's all I can do to hold it together. And you're pointing out the fact that I'm holding it together.   - Barry Hoyer Yeah. It just a day came across as very disingenuous. Mm hmm, yeah. It almost felt like one of those things that you say to somebody in a situation like that when you don't really have anything substantive to say.   - Barry Hoyer I tried to remind myself that, you know, people meet people where they're at. And this is where this individual happened to be at. And they were trying to say something nice would be encouraging. And they had to just kind of remind myself of that fact and move on before I let myself get frustrated.   - Liesel Mertes Oh, man. I hear that it can be that global awareness can be this added like mental burden, because not only are you processing your own stuff in your own grief, but suddenly you're having to try to put yourself in somebody else's shoes and think about how they're feeling. And I imagine that can have its own degree of exhaustion when you're just trying to get through a day.   - Barry Hoyer It can be a lot in that particular sentiment came across as like. This is how you're coming across to me, like it didn't necessarily remove the person from the thought that they wanted to get across.   - Barry Hoyer I got very much was around their perception of the event.   - Barry Hoyer I don't know that one still feels a little raw. To be honest, four and a half months later.   - Liesel Mertes Yeah. Well, I've. I have heard from other people who have been on the receiving end of that comment that sometimes they can place a particular expectation as well, like, oh, you're doing so well. And one could miss your reality. What if you're not actually doing that well? And two, I can set this, I don't know, kind of high bar of like I don't expect to see any weakness from you or to have any bad day because then you suddenly wouldn't be doing quote unquote. Well. And what would that mean? I've spoken with some people that feel like it. Yeah. It just sets a a really unrealistic bar of expectation also.   - Barry Hoyer Now, that's actually an incredible observation. I hadn't even really stopped to think about that. But soon as you said that, the first part that you hit on was like, no, like, in fact, I'm not doing that well. This is just a show. But the thing that didn't even stop to think about until now is there was some. It makes perfect sense. There's some underlying expectation. Like, oh, OK. So this is what your expectation of me is. And so this is how I have to maintain going forward.   - Liesel Mertes Yeah. Maybe in a strange sort of way, like, you know, a hundred years ago as women were in corsets and high heels and all of these like kind of ridiculous garments to just hold everything in for appearances sake and be like, oh, you just look so charming and beautiful. And the woman is thinking like, oh, my gosh, I can barely keep this up. And it's just a normal media like non course added in just my normal feet. Like going to just be such a disappointment. So strange parallel. But I could picture something like that. I'd be like, are you kidding me?   - Barry Hoyer This is no, that's a great analogy.   MUSICAL TRANSITION   - Barry Hoyer One of the more interesting reactions was when I got back to work. And a colleague who I'm not particularly close with outside of the office, saw me the first day I was back and ran up to me in the middle of the floor and gave me this huge hug and it's kind of loud. I'm so sorry. And I didn't really want that kind of attention drawn to me. Yeah. Again, I think this person had great intentions. I don't think that they were coming from a disingenuous place. It was just a bit more than I cared for at work. Yeah.   - Liesel Mertes Because when that happened, what were you thinking in real time?   - Barry Hoyer I was thinking, we can talk later, but please make this stop. Because she basically wanted to have a conversation that I did not want to have in that moment. Yeah.   - Liesel Mertes I think that you mentioned and not everyone is able to say this, but that actually there's some things that your workplaces done really well. What were some of those things that felt meaningful to you?   - Barry Hoyer I'm very, very fortunate in that. I have both of my my first level manager and my V.P.. Are just incredible people to start with. I have a closer relationship with both of them than I have with any other manager in the past. So as soon as I called my mom and a few close friends, the next person I called was my manager just to let her know what had happened. And it's funny looking back at it now, it's actually asked if it was OK if I didn't come into work the following Monday and this was a Saturday that I'd found everything out.   - Barry Hoyer And. I think she was in shock and she was fairly blown away. And. When she basically told me to worry about anything, we're going to handle everything you just focus on, like what you need to focus on.   - Barry Hoyer And there were a handful of times where she actually cried with me on the phone and I could tell that she truly could empathize with what I was dealing with and definitely had her own level of sadness for the situation that I was experiencing.   - Barry Hoyer So my no, my work kind of went above and beyond. A friend of mine at work that works in H.R. was trying to be helpful and had sent me a phone number to call for a direct line. Basically saying that after bereavements up, if I need more time out of the office, you know, just like here's a phone number, you can call our leaves team.   - Barry Hoyer And then my head was my immediate thought was OK. So I just lost the love of my life. And now I probably don't wanna go back to work. That's probably best for everybody. They don't go back to work right now. But on top of that, I potentially misunderstood what my managers had said. And so now, like just letting the practicalities of everything sit in, half of our income is gone, but our fixed expenses have stayed the same. And now I'm going to not have a paycheck for a little while unless I just go back to work and suck this up.   - Barry Hoyer And I truly believe that the person that sent me the text was coming from a very caring place. But my manager stepped in and she was like, no, I don't regret that. We're gonna handle everything. I'll bring you your laptop. As far as H.R. is concerned, you're working remotely for the indefinite future. And as far as we are concerned, you're not working at all until you're ready to. So she really extended herself to be able to be creative and not bound by kind of process and bureaucracy in a way that was attuned to you.   - Liesel Mertes This seemed really important.   - Barry Hoyer Yeah. It's one of those moments where I'm really extremely grateful that I have such a great relationship with my manager. But they truly believe that management in my department cares so much. That this offer, good offer offers not the right word, but that the same situation would have been extended to anybody.   - Liesel Mertes Yeah. Go ahead. Sorry. Oh, you're going to just affirm. That's a great testament to, you know, things like that one offs. They are testifying to a culture that has been built in lots of other moments and that in a time of crisis that becomes the overflow like that, the natural overflow is support. So, yeah, I hear how important that is.   - Barry Hoyer It was great. I even got an e-mail from my CFO telling me to worry about myself and focus on myself first, and that work should be the absolute last thought until it felt like the right time to think about work again.   Yeah, OK.   - Barry Hoyer One of the more thoughtful responses from work. My company tends to be pretty social, especially around the holiday times, and a few years ago we had a new chief marketing officer that started an agent. We're at a holiday party at another VPC house that night. And our CMO had the opportunity to meet A.J. and chatted with us for a little bit and was very warm and welcoming and truly inquisitive about like, you know, getting to know A.J. and I in turn, got to have a wonderful conversation with his wife. And it was just a fun night. And then after news, it work had spread about what had happened. Our CMO sent me just a really kind email with a few touching notes about, you know, basically acknowledging I didn't know AJ well, but I remember talking with you guys that night.   - Barry Hoyer It seems like you guys enjoyed a Wonderful Life together and had many adventures. And I'm so sorry that this has happened. You will be in my thoughts and prayers. And it was just very touching in that he remembered specific things that you know about his conversation with AJ and knew more than just his name and that, you know, he and I were together.   - Liesel Mertes Right. That although he didn't know him deeply. He had taken the time to reflect and remember. And, yeah. Give back to you what he had known and observed.   - Barry Hoyer Yeah. It was just a very touching moment. Yeah.   - Liesel Mertes So for someone who has not lost a life partner, what are some of the unexpected challenges or the things that you would say in the months afterwards? Like this was so hard? I never would have known that this would be as hard as it was. Did things catch you off guard?   - Barry Hoyer The biggest the biggest surprise to me and I don't know if this speaks to my own naivete or if it just truly is one of the things that you don't know until you have to experience it. But I always imagined the stages of grief to be linear. First, you start with anger and then, you know, you kind of progressed through the next five or seven stages. One's a natural progression of the next. And or of the previous, I'm not quite sure how to say that, but I was honestly expecting to move through the stages, kind of like.   - Barry Hoyer And the straight line. Yes. And even still, there are days where, like. I know what happened. I know they can't change what happened. And I just have to do my best to move forward carrying this new aspect of my life with me.   - Barry Hoyer And then there are other days where I get so completely angry that I can't focus on anything and have to take a walk to before I can get back to work and be productive. Then I don't know if the anger comes from just given the situation of how his death happened.   - Barry Hoyer Guys get really mad. And then there are moments where, you know, the next day things feel more calm and I feel like I'm equipped to go through life again. And then all of a sudden you get more information and then you're back to being angry and you're back to being filled with a relative amount of rage. And it just it bounces all over the place.   - Liesel Mertes There is a particular nuance to your loss in that you're a homosexual man who has lost a partner and society doesn't quite have the same sort of established place for if you lost your head, a heterosexual partner or someone that you had been married to. What has it been like to navigate that dynamic?   - Barry Hoyer To be completely honest, it hasn't really. Try to find the right words to talk about this. All of it speaks to my friends or if it speaks to kind of where society has gotten to in general.   - Barry Hoyer But they feel that all of my friends have kind of treated this is like the loss of a husband or a wife, like it has the exact same gravity.   - Barry Hoyer Yeah. Work, it's. It's an interesting conversation at work. My, my V.P. is also gay, and we're roughly the same age and we've started an LGBTQ employee resource group. So my name is very out there in the company as being the leader of this group. And so it's definitely not an aspect of myself that I've ever felt the need to hide at work.   - Barry Hoyer Quite a few people showed up to his memorial service from work and so was a bit of a validation where people they didn't even necessarily consider myself that close to. Still felt compelled to show up and recognized how profound the loss was and then didn't really assign like, oh, this could have been, you know, if you were a straight married couple. My sympathy might be deeper. Right.   - Barry Hoyer I haven't really experienced any of that, but I know that's not necessarily a common perspective that gets told when it comes to loss.   - Liesel Mertes Right. Well, it sounds like in some ways, again, an overflow of the sort of company culture you were a part of. And the friend and support system that was there, that that didn't have to be an added trauma or pain on top of what was an already incredibly painful experience.   - Barry Hoyer It's been. They definitely have made it. It's been an easier transition back to work. I kind of have the leeway even still to if I'm having a bad day. You know, just pack up. Take my laptop, go work from somewhere else if I need to. There've been a couple times where I've done that. Where does feel being at work and being around people was just overwhelming. And you can't necessarily predict when this wave of emotions is going to hit.   - Barry Hoyer And when it happens, my my team has been pretty gracious with its kind of acknowledging, like we're gonna get done. We're not necessarily worried about that, but it's, you know, take care of yourself and feel free to, you know, figure work out how it fits into your life.   - Liesel Mertes Yeah, you are. You are more important than just the tasks you might accomplish in this given afternoon.   - Barry Hoyer It's nice to feel that, though, it's nice to feel a validation about.   - Liesel Mertes Yeah. If you were speaking to listeners who would say I've never had a traumatic loss like that. Is there anything that you would want people to understand about what that's like to go through?   - Barry Hoyer I would say. Gosh, a lot. But the person experiencing the loss. There'll be moments where they seem relatively composed that they've got to plan for life and you know, that they still have, you know, things to do in a life to live and they're ready to get back out there. But what comes across on the surface is not always a good indication of what lies beneath.   - Barry Hoyer Mm hmm. And another thing I would encourage listeners to to take away is just kind of I was talking about earlier about how the stages of grief aren't linear and you don't progressed naturally from one to the next. I went out for drinks for trivia night with some friends. About two weeks after I'd gotten back to Denver. And I felt myself having a really good time. To the point where I was laughing Charolette like carefree. And then I started to feel guilty about how great of a time I was having.   - Barry Hoyer That I shouldn't be allowed to have that much fun this close to such a traumatic event. And then I shut down again. And then for the rest of the night, I kind of like slipped into a place of guilt about being out with people and enjoying life. When A.J. can't. Nia.   - Barry Hoyer And that's kind of one of the things that just happens, and I'm sure it looks a little bit crazy to the people around you. But just remember to have the compassion that those moments are going to come and they're going to head out of nowhere and. Just, I don't know, offer a kind word and just be be patient.   - Liesel Mertes Yeah, well, and it's also probably a word to anyone who is going through something like that in their own lives of the importance of patience with oneself in the midst of the journey, which can be its own challenge.   - Barry Hoyer That's a huge challenge. There are times where that night at the brewery with friends, where I was giving myself a hard time for enjoying the company of my friends, and in retrospect, you know, my gosh, I really shouldn't have been so hard on myself and I should have been a little bit more mindful of giving myself some some leeway, some grace to not always have to have the right thing to say or the right thing to do or, you know, have somebody else's expectations of grief placed upon you.   - Barry Hoyer Yeah, then you can keep it. Keep going, please. No, they say no, there have been moments where I feel like. I should be. More depressed and I am I should be sadder than I am, I should be crying all the time. And. But I also feel like those are expectations that other people put on somebody that have had a traumatic event like this happen.   – Liesel Mertes And what happens in private is usually kind of much of a bigger emotional response to what happened than anything I would want to show in public.   - Barry Hoyer Totally. I mean, I tend to be a pretty private person and I want to have like I was making breakfast one morning as it was five forty five in the morning and I was making scrambled eggs and I was listening to the ninety station and a song by The Cranberries came on and I lost it. Yeah, and I had a solid 30 minutes where I couldn't do anything other than, like, remind myself I had to go through a Wayburn decks and.   - Barry Hoyer So those things happen. But just because you're not showing it to everybody all the time doesn't mean that they don't happen.   - Liesel Mertes Are there other things I feel like you've had a lot of really helpful insights and obviously have, you know, for months, isn't isn't that long in there in the scheme of things, but have really been reflective of yourself and of grief in the process. Are there other things that you feel like would be important to add that you didn't get a chance to say?   - Barry Hoyer I think it's important to find something that makes you happy in life again. I've always enjoyed cycling. And I remember the first time that I went for a ride after I got back to Denver, we had this day in January that hit 72. And it felt like the perfect day to leave work early and go for a long bike ride.   - Barry Hoyer And it was, you know, off season. I hadn't been riding very much. I only got, I think, twenty five miles in that day. It was a very therapeutic experience. I was able to just shut my brain off and enjoy the scenery around me and enjoy the experience of being on a bike and doing something that I love. That felt good.   - Barry Hoyer And there's also say. This entire experience has made me kind of very contemplate of my own mortality. And after the accident happened, people were very quick to comment on how A.J. always offered them a smile and was always willing to help out. And so many people came forward, the stories of just saying how when they needed something, whether it was a short term loan or help moving or somebody to go talk with him about what had happened. A.J. was always there and it was just always ready to be a support system for so many people. And I feel like that kind of gave me a sense of purpose to try to carry that forward.   - Barry Hoyer And just to make sure that I am kind of honoring his legacy by. Being more compassionate, being more willing to help, being, you know, less frequent, to say no. And just always kind of like rethinking if I have a sharp comment to make. Taking an extra second to pause to make sure, is it really worth seeing? Or is this better held inside? All right. I just want to always make sure that positive energy goes out into the world and I don't want to do anything that contributes anything negative to it.   - Liesel Mertes It is a beautiful movement to carry forward. Yeah, as you honor someone who you love very deeply. Thank you, Barry. I really appreciate the time and being willing to go on to something that's been hard. So thank you. I appreciate it.   - Barry Hoyer I'm happy to. To talk about what happened in. Hopefully will have an impact on somebody.   MUSICAL TRANSITION   Here are three take-aways from my conversation with Barry…   Displays of support in the workplace are so important.An email sharing a memory, easing the path with HR, or having spaces to take off early if the days gets too overwhelming.  All of these things were deeply impactful for Barry.  As was his overall work context, where his presence as a homosexual man was not something that was an aberration or changes how people showed comfort during his time of loss.  When someone returns to work after a loss, be conservative about big, public shows of comfort.Barry described how uncomfortable it made him to have a casual coworker publicly draw attention to him and to his loss.  Grief is unpredictable.Barry describes feeling sad and then happy and then guilty for feeling happy.  If this is you, know that tumultuous emotions are normal.    Thanks to our sponsors, FullStack PEO and Handle with Care Consulting.    OUTRO  

PHP Internals News: Episode 52: Floats and Locales London, UK Thursday, May 7th 2020, 09:15 BST In this episode of "PHP Internals News" I talk with George Banyard (Website, Twitter, GitHub, GitLab) about an RFC that he has proposed together with Máté Kocsis (Twitter, GitHub, LinkedIn) to make PHP's float to string logic no longer use locales. The RSS feed for this podcast is https://derickrethans.nl/feed-phpinternalsnews.xml, you can download this episode's MP3 file, and it's available on Spotify and iTunes. There is a dedicated website: https://phpinternals.news Transcript Derick Rethans 0:16 Hi, I'm Derick. And this is PHP internals news, a weekly podcast dedicated to demystifying the development of the PHP language. This is Episode 52. Today I'm talking with George Banyard about an RFC that he's made together with Mate Kocsis. This RFC is titled locale independent floats to string. Hello, George, would you please introduce yourself? George Banyard 0:39 Hello, I'm George Peter Banyard. I'm a student at Imperial College and I work on PHP in my free time. Derick Rethans 0:47 All right, so we're talking about local independent floats. What is the problem here? George Banyard 0:52 Currently when you do a float to string conversion, so all casting or displaying a float, the conversion will depend on like the current local. So instead of always using like the decimal dot separator. For example, if you have like a German or the French locale enabled, it will use like a comma to separate like the decimals. Derick Rethans 1:14 Okay, I can understand that that could be a bit confusing. What are these locales exactly? George Banyard 1:20 So locales, which are more or less C locales, which PHP exposes to user land is a way how to change a bunch of rules on how string and like stuff gets displayed on the C level. One of the issues with it is that like it's global. For example, if you use like a thread safe API, if you use the thread safe PHP version, then set_locale() is not thread safe, so we'll just like impact other threads where you're using it. Derick Rethans 1:50 So a locale is a set of rules to format specific things with floating point numbers being one of them in which situations does the locale influence the display a floating point numbers in every situation in PHP or only in some? George Banyard 2:06 Yes, it only impacts like certain aspects, which is quite surprising. So a string cast will affect it the strval() function, vardump(), and debug_zval_dump() will all affect the decimal locator and also printf() with the percentage lowercase F, but that's expected because it's locale aware compared to the capital F modifier. Derick Rethans 2:32 But it doesn't, for example, have the same problem in the serialised function or say var_export(). George Banyard 2:37 Yeah, and json_encode() also doesn't do that. PDO has special code which handles also this so that like all the PDO drivers get like a constant treat like float string, because that could like impact on the databases. Derick Rethans 2:53 How is it a problem that with some locales enabled and then uses a comma instead of the decimal point. How can this cause bugs and PHP applications? George Banyard 3:02 One trivial example is if you do, you take a float, you convert it, you cast it to string, and then you cast it back to float. If you're on a locale, which is the dot decimal separator, you will get back the original float. However, if you have like locale which com... which changes the decimal separator, like the German one, you'll get a string; you'll get like three dash, three comma 14, and then when you convert it back to float, you will only get three because PHP doesn't recognise the comma as a decimal separator in its string to float conversion and so it will loses the decimal information. Derick Rethans 3:39 That doesn't seem particularly very useful as a feature. So my question here is we talked about floating point numbers and, and I think floating point numbers have other issues as well. Not sure whether we want to go into the details of how floating point numbers and computers work, but we can if you want to. George Banyard 3:56 The easy way to explain floating points is to use like exponential notation, or to use the scientific exponential notation, which most people will know from engineering or physics, where you usually have like, one significant like the number, like a comma, a couple of numbers, and then you have like an exponent which raises it to usually, so to your power 10 to the something, which then gives you an order of magnitude. Floating points, basically that but in base two. Derick Rethans 4:26 Positions have magnitudes attached to them. They're all powers of two. George Banyard 4:30 Yeah. Derick Rethans 4:31 And of course, when we use numbers an decimal, like pi being a bad example. George Banyard 4:36 Once said. Derick Rethans 4:37 I was going to say if you divide 10 by three, you get 3.33333 that never ends, right. And I reckon if you have a specific number in decimal like three point 14, then you can't necessarily always exactly represent it in binary. George Banyard 4:55 Yeah, one common example would say it's like one 10th which has like a perfect representation in decimal. But like in binary is a never ending repeating sequence. When you try to like display naught point one, like how it's saved in floating point, it's really weird and everything to get like these rounding errors which can propagate. Derick Rethans 5:15 And hence you often hear people recommend to never use float for things like monetary values, but then as you said that you sentence that right? George Banyard 5:23 Yeah, put everything in integers and work with integers and just like format it afterwards. Derick Rethans 5:29 So let's get back to what you and Mate are actually suggesting to change. What are the changes that you want to make through this RFC? George Banyard 5:36 The change's more or less to always make the conversion from float to string the same, so locale independent, so it always uses the dot decimal separator, with the exception of printf() was like the F modifier, because that one is, as previously said, locale aware, and it's explicitly said so. Derick Rethans 5:56 Doesn't printf also have other floating related format specifiers? I believe there's an E and a G as well. And uppercase F. What is the difference between these? George Banyard 6:06 Lowercase F is just floating point printing with locale awareness. Capital F is the same as lowercase, but it's not locale aware. So it always uses the dot decimal separator. Lowercase E is, what I've learned recently also locale aware, and uses the exponential notation, like with a lowercase e. Uppercase E is the same as lowercase E, but instead of having a small like a lowercase e in the printing format, it's a uppercase E, and lowercase G has some complicated rules onto when it decides which format to choose between lowercase F and lowercase E, depending on like how big like the number of significant digits are after the comma, or like the dot. And uppercase G is the same but using uppercase F and uppercase E instead of lowercase E and lowercase F. Derick Rethans 6:58 And all of them can be locale dependent then except for uppercase F. George Banyard 7:02 Yeah. Derick Rethans 7:02 Do you think this is going to impact people's applications, if you change the default of normal casts to be locale independent? George Banyard 7:10 I would have expected it to not be that significant. And only that would affect displaying floating point. So if you're like in Germany, instead of like seeing a comma, you would now see a dot, which can be annoying, but I wouldn't imagine is the most, the biggest problem for you like end users. But apparently, people made tooling to work around the locale awareness of it. And so they could maybe break with passing stuff, which I suppose that happens because it's been, PHP's 25 years old. And that behaviour has been there for like ever. So people worked around it or work with it. Derick Rethans 7:49 Is this going to be purely a displaying change or something else as well? George Banyard 7:54 For example, if you would send like a float to like an API via HTTP, you would usually already need to have like code around to like work around like the locale awareness, or like all by resetting set locale or by using number_format or like sprintf or something like that. Because most other APIs or like you would like contact would expect like the float to use like a decimal point. PHP. If you do the string to float conversion again, which was not a point, then you get only an integer basically. Derick Rethans 8:27 Because PHP's parser, strips it out once it stops recognising digits, which is in this case, the comma. George Banyard 8:33 Yeah, that would make the code nicer. The main reason why me and Mate like decided to propose this RFC is because like most APIs, and also databases and everything, expect strings to be formatted in like a standard way. Currently, like if you for whatever reason, use a locale, then it's not, but yeah, like apparently people worked around that when they were maybe stripping stuff from like HTML whatever displayed and try to work around it because that got raised in the list quite recently. Derick Rethans 9:06 This change does not necessarily remove the ability of using locales for formatting numbers, because PHP still has the lowercase F as format specifier for printf. And sprintf and friends. Does PHP have other ways of rendering numbers according to locales? George Banyard 9:24 According to locales? I don't think so. You can format it something like manually, or the number format a class from the Intl extension. Derick Rethans 9:35 Yeah, from what I understand, number_format, you have to do it all by yourself. And the intl extension doesn't support the posix or C locales from the operating system, right. It uses its own locale rule set from the Unicode project. The RFC lists some alternative approaches. Would you mind touching a little bit on these as well? George Banyard 9:58 One of the alternatives approaches is to deprecate setlocale altogether. Because as a byproduct, this just fixes the issue because you can't define any locale anymore. So, there will always be locale independent. This has been discussed like in back in 2016, mostly because of the non thread safe behaviour. Because it affects global states and everything. But at the time, the conclusion was, because HHVM, like did a patch, making a thread safe, setlocale function was to mimic this patch and like implement it into PHP, which hasn't been done yet. Another one that we thought about was to deprecate kind of the behaviour and like raise a notice, like a deprecation notice, because that would happen like basically on every float to string conversion. The penalty, like the performance penalty, seemed pretty like strong. One other thing we considered was with Mate was to deprecate the current behaviour in some way. However, emitting a deprecation notice on basically every float to string conversion seemed not to be ideal. And just like flood, the log, the log output, and like also bring like a performance penalty because like outputting warnings isn't like most friendly thing to do performance wise. Derick Rethans 11:21 What has the feedback been so far? George Banyard 11:24 Feedback currently has been that like most people, well, one person because there hasn't been that much feedback. Derick Rethans 11:30 There hasn't been that much feedback because you've only just proposed? George Banyard 11:33 some of the feedback we got officiates the change However, they have concerns about like the modification of like, in every case for locales without having any upgrade paths. In some sense. It's just, oh, you have the change, and then you need to execute it and see what breaks. We may be currently considering like ways to figure that out, maybe by adding a temporary ini setting which would kind of be like a debug mode, where when you use that it would like emit notices when like this conversion would happen before and they would notice: Oh, this is not happening anymore. You need to like be aware of this change in behaviour Derick Rethans 12:17 Did we not used to have E_STRICT for this at some point or E_DEPRECATED? George Banyard 12:24 E_DEPRECATED is still a thing. E_STRICT got mostly removed with PHP seven. There've been like a couple of remaining notices which I got rid off or put back to normal E_WARNINGS or E_NOTICES in PHP seven point four. There were like two or three remaining. But yeah, like so that's one way to maybe approach it of like implementing a debug ini setting which would only be used for like dev because then where if you get like warnings and everything, you don't really care about the performance impact. And then in production, you would like disable that and the warnings wouldn't pop up. Derick Rethans 12:56 How would that setting be any different from just putting it behind an E_DEPRECATED warning? George Banyard 13:00 So with an E_DEPRECATED warning, we would need to show this behaviour, and we would need, and we could only change the behaviour in like PHP nine. Currently if we do that with like debug setting, we could change it with PHP 8. Derick Rethans 13:13 That's a bit cheating isn't that? George Banyard 13:15 Could say so. Derick Rethans 13:16 I'm interested to see how this ends up going. Do you have any timeframe of when you want to put it for a vote? George Banyard 13:23 Currently, we've only started this discussion. And I think until we figure it out, if we get like an upgrade pass, or multiple upgrade passes that we could then put into a secondary vote. I wouldn't expect it to go to voting that soon. Maybe end of April would be nice. Derick Rethans 13:41 So around the time when this podcast comes out? George Banyard 13:44 Ah! For once! Derick Rethans 13:46 For once I got my timing right. George Banyard 13:49 Yes. Don't you have like the string contain one which just got out. Derick Rethans 13:53 Yes. George Banyard 13:54 Then that vote close like last week. Derick Rethans 13:57 Yeah, it's really tricky because there's so many, so many small now that I can't keep up. George Banyard 14:02 Yeah, Mark also did like his debug. Derick Rethans 14:04 Yeah. And there's like two or three tiny ones more that I would quite like to talk about. But by the time there's an opening in the schedule, it's pretty much irrelevant. So I'm trying to see whether I can wrap a few of the smaller ones just in one episode because there's the throw expression, the is literal check, and typecasting in array destructuring expressions, and all showed up in the last three days. George Banyard 14:26 I suppose people have like, lots of time now. Now, it's a taint checker, basically, like I know, there's been like this paper by Facebook like six or eight years ago, which talks about how they kind of tried to implement in their static analyzer, but like, a static analyzer doesn't need to be something in the engine. That's what I don't really get. Derick Rethans 14:45 Thank you, George, for taking the time this afternoon to talk to me about a locale independent float to string RFC. George Banyard 14:53 Thanks for having me on the podcast again. Derick. Derick Rethans 14:55 You're most welcome. Thanks for listening to this installment of PHP internals news, the weekly podcast dedicated to demystifying the development of the PHP language. I maintain a Patreon account for supporters of this podcast, as well as the Xdebug debugging tool. You can sign up for Patreon at https://drck.me/patreon. If you have comments or suggestions, feel free to email them to derick@phpinternals.news. Thank you for listening, and I'll see you next week. Show Notes RFC: Locale-independent float to string cast Floating Point Numbers Credits Music: Chipper Doodle v2 — Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) — Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0

Story: There've Been Good Things, Too Author: storybycorey Rating: MA Site link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16507559 Read by: storybycorey Summary: It’s witnessed a lot for a couch. A lot, a lot, a lot. Depravity, desperation, death. Much more than a typical piece of value-priced furniture would expect from a lifetime. But there’ve been good things, too. Tenderness and trust. Passion. Used by the author's permission. The characters in these works are not the property of the Audio Fanfic Podcast or the author and are not being posted for profit.

BE SURE TO SEE THE SHOWNOTES AND LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE HERE. Eve Picker: [00:00:08] Hi there. Thanks so much for joining me today for the latest episode of Impact Real Estate Investing.   [00:00:15] My guest today is Brandon Dennison, a young creative powerhouse working to bring an economy to mid-Appalachia. As a young adult, Brandon noticed the poverty and lack of jobs in the town he grew up in. That early memory stayed with him through his college years. While still at school, he launched Coalfield Development, which is focused on workforce development to counter the generational poverty and lack of economic opportunities in Western Virginia. While workforce development is the center of Brandon's focus, that has also spilled over into creative, sustainable and community-centric real estate development. Brandon's work has been recognized with a Heinz Award, and a $1 million grant from the Rockefeller Foundation/Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. You are going to want to hear all about it.   [00:01:24] Be sure to go to EvePicker.com to find out more about Brandon on the show notes page for this episode. And be sure to sign up for my newsletter so you can access information about impact real estate investing and get the latest news about the exciting projects on my crowdfunding platform, Small Change.   Eve: [00:01:58] Thanks so much for joining me today, Brandon.   Brandon Dennison: [00:02:01] Happy to be here. Thanks for having me.   Eve: [00:02:03] So, we are rebuilding the Appalachian economy from the ground up. That statement is front and center on the home page of Coalfield Development, the organization you founded and lead. Well, I'd love you to tell me exactly what that means.   Brandon: [00:02:20] Well, it is a bold statement. There's no doubt about that. And we are trying to model and pioneer what a whole new and better and fairer and more sustainable economy can look like for our region. This is a region that's been overdependent on coal for far too long and that overdependence has left us economically vulnerable. It's also left our environment in a difficult situation, not as clean as it should be and it's hurt, it's ultimately hurt the fabric of our societies and our communities, as you can see with the growing opioid and addiction crisis that we're in. So, at Coalfield, we know that we can't re-employ every single unemployed person that's out there in Appalachia, but we can model what a newer and better way of doing things can look like.   Eve: [00:03:13] So, you know, what does that modeling look like? Have you developed programs? What are you working on?   Brandon: [00:03:18] Yeah. So, we incubate, mostly from scratch, but also in partnership with other entrepreneurs, we incubate what we call social enterprises. These are business models that blend the compassion of the nonprofit world with the efficiencies of the for-profit world. And the enterprises are in new sectors of the economy where we can innovate and show what a more sustainable economy can look like. So, for example, we've helped start the first solar installation company in southern West Virginia. We have an organic agriculture company. We make t-shirts out of recycled plastics. We make wood furniture out of reclaimed lumber from dilapidated buildings, some very innovative businesses. And we use those businesses to put people back to work, and then to support their lifelong learning and development.   Eve: [00:04:06] And so how many businesses like that have you developed to date?   Brandon: [00:04:09] From scratch, we've helped start 11 new social enterprises that we own and operate. And then we've also invested in more than 50 other social enterprises throughout the region.   Eve: [00:04:21] That's a lot. That's over 60, already.   Brandon: [00:04:25] Yeah.   Eve: [00:04:26] And so that creates a lot of jobs. How many jobs have those enterprises created?   Brandon: [00:04:32] We've created more than 250 new jobs. And those are permanent positions. And we've trained over 1,000 people through our training programs.   Eve: [00:04:41] That's that's pretty amazing. So, tell me a little bit about the programs that you've developed, as well.   Brandon: [00:04:47] When we hire a person onto these social enterprises, we hire them according to what we call our 33, 6 and 3 model. This is how we organize the work week, 33 hours of paid work each week, six hours of classroom time. All of our crew members are working towards an associates degree at the local community college. And three hours a week of personal development, which is, essentially, it's life stuff ...   Eve: [00:05:15] Yeh.   Brandon: [00:05:15] ... to help our people overcome the challenges that are getting in the way of their quality of life. So, it's a very holistic model. And what we found is, whether it's in agriculture or construction or manufacturing, the model's replicable across different sectors of the economy.   Eve: [00:05:31] So, you're also providing, I think, a lot of support services in a variety of programs, like you, you say you train people. How do you do that? What resources you provide them with?   Brandon: [00:05:43] So, this is a paid experience. The 33 hours, it's paid work, it's a real job. And then we do a scholarship for the "6" and the "3," so none of our college students have student debt. And then we layer on some additional life support. We have a zero interest emergency loan program that folks can tap if they have an unexpected emergency. And we facilitate a personal development program, which is really its reflection, where part of those three hours we're creating time for folks to really evaluate where they're at in life, and sometimes for the first time, assess a future and how to attain that future.   Eve: [00:06:22] So, it sounds like you have a huge amount of support, I think you're just probably telling me little pieces of it, for a lot of people. And what impact has that had? I mean, how are you measuring success? What does that look like to you?   Brandon: [00:06:40] Well, there are some easy ways to do that. And then there are some deeper ways to do that. What excites us is really the deep human development. When we see a person who's been able to calm chaos in their life, and they're now able to develop a life plan and goals and start to achieve those goals, and start to have a quality of life they never thought attainable. That's why this organization really exists. So, we measure our success by jobs created, and businesses created, and people trained. But then we also, internally, every crew member has a monthly evaluation by which we track their professional development. And then every week we also have a personal reflection which actually monitors and tracks the improvements in the well-being of the person themselves. So, we can measure this through peer-reviewed surveys on things such as optimism and self-confidence and sense of self-agency and self-worth. And that's harder to measure. but that's really the magic of this organization, I think, are those deeper human, really, transformation is not too strong a word for what we see happen in people's lives. We've seen people go from struggling with addiction to, all the way to becoming entrepreneurs. Folks who have been couch surfing and homeless to first time homeowners and opening savings accounts. So, I don't think transformation would be too dramatic a word.   Eve: [00:08:10] No, absolutely not. That's pretty remarkable. Tell me, how does real estate development fit into your model?   Brandon: [00:08:19] Yep. So, we have a niche with real estate where we take on older historic buildings. We use our locally hired construction crews to revitalize those buildings into mixed use, mixed income hubs for economic development. So, what I mean by mixed use, there's usually an affordable housing component. We do the housing green and sustainable upstairs, and then downstairs there's usually a small business component where we're creating new space for new businesses to come into the communities. New social enterprises to open up shop. And then by mixed income, you know, we're creating assets that are really accessible for people of all different incomes. And so, the real estate component really supports the personal development and the enterprise development strategies that we've already talked about. And it's important for gaining community trust because it's so tangible. I think sometimes there is a lot of cynicism down in southern West Virginia. There've been so many government programs and mission trips and charitable efforts that folks have become really skeptical about what it actually means for their lives. I think part of the reason our real estate component is so popular is it's tangible. People see an empty building coming back to life. They see their neighbors moving in there, having a great place to live. They see new businesses opening and putting people to work. And it's hard to deny that positive momentum.   Eve: [00:09:44] Yeah, that's true. I think real estate is pretty fabulous that way. It's sort of visible proof of change, right?   Brandon: [00:09:50] Yup, exactly.   Eve: [00:09:51] Yeah. How many projects have you completed?   Brandon: [00:09:55] I would have to add that up, exactly, but I'd say at least about a dozen. We have another three or four in our in our pipeline, right now.   Eve: [00:10:03] And your role in these projects, are you the developer, or do you help someone else who's developing the project?   Brandon: [00:10:11] We are almost always the developer. So, we have the competency as an organization to put the finances together, to lead the community engagement, the community visioning. We're usually the contractor. We're a licensed general contractor. So, that creates local jobs through which we can use that 33, 6 and 3 model that I referenced earlier. Sometimes we're the owner and manager, but not always.   Eve: [00:10:35] So, I have to ask if there's something you don't do?   Brandon: [00:10:40] (Laughter) That's a fair question.   Eve: [00:10:41] Because you're rattling off, like, an extraordinary number of accomplishments, and I'm sure there's more tucked away that you're not talking about.   Brandon: [00:10:48] So, I studied nonprofit management in graduate school, so I know the term "mission drift" and it's always a concern. But kind of our theory of change for southern West Virginia is that things had gotten so stagnant and so, sometimes hopeless feeling, that what was needed were really were some bold experiments. And that it wasn't enough to just pick one area and say, this is what we do and this is all we do. And so, we are into a lot of different things, but it's actually kind of on purpose.   Eve: [00:11:19] Yeah, it sounds like you're pretty happy about it, too, Brandon.   Brandon: [00:11:23] Yes. Because of those transformations, that I realize, it's hard not to wake up excited about what we're doing. This is where I'm born and raised. So, I love this place. I'm committed to this place. And to get to see people transform their lives and communities transform, you know, literally empty buildings transformed into new places of business. It's inspiring to be a part of it.   Eve: [00:11:46] So, let me let me ask you, are you working in one town, city, or are you working all over the state?   Brandon: [00:11:55] We have partnerships all over the state now, and even a few outside of our state borders. But most of our work is focused in southern West Virginia, kind of near the Kentucky border.   Eve: [00:12:07] Okay. And tell me again what sort of problems? You, I know, there's an opioid crisis, I mean, what sort of unemployment are you dealing with there? What's happening economically in that part of the state?   Brandon: [00:12:21] Well, I've had to learn the hard way the difference between generational poverty and circumstantial poverty.   Eve: [00:12:28] Yeh.   Brandon: [00:12:28] Circumstantial poverty, you have folks who have had stable income, have had good jobs and lose those jobs, and it is very scary. But there's kind of a base or a foundation for them to rebuild off of. Whereas, with generational poverty, you've got several generations gone by without wealth and assets accumulating. And it's just a deeper, more complex sort of challenge. And that's the kind of challenge we're facing in Central Appalachia and have been for generations. And so, that's why our work goes so deep and long. You know, we're creating actual jobs. These are two and a half year contracts. We're sticking with people all the way through the end of their associates degree, which is, usually takes two and a half years. So, it's more expensive, it takes longer, but it's what's required, given the complex generational challenges we're staring down.   Eve: [00:13:20] What is unemployment like there?   Brandon: [00:13:23] Unemployment is, it's always above the national average. But what actually stresses me out even more is the labor participation rate. Unemployment measures people who are out of the workforce, but are actively trying to get back into it.   Eve: [00:13:36] Right.   Brandon: [00:13:36] Whereas labor participation, that measures the number of folks who are trying to be in the workforce versus those who have totally given up. And we have a lot of counties where less than 50 percent of the working age population is in, actively in the workforce. And that, frightening. You can't build a modern, healthy economy with a number like that.   Eve: [00:13:56] No. So, then what is your and your organization's long term goal? What do you hope things will look like in 10 years?   Brandon: [00:14:03] This is why we're so committed to starting new businesses ourselves. It's not enough to just train a workforce for the businesses that exist because there's just not enough economic activity happening right now to really build an economy for the future. And so, this is why the startup component of our work is so important.   Eve: [00:14:24] Yes. So, out of everything you've done, what do you think's been most successful and perhaps what's been least successful?   Brandon: [00:14:32] Well, one of our social enterprises was a coffee shop in a small town in southern West Virginia that we were very proud of. It was in a formerly vacant building. It was a beautiful project. It filled a need and a gap that wasn't being met in the community. The idea for the coffee shop came out of community charrettes, But ultimately the coffee shop, it just didn't make it financially. And I think what that reinforced for me, you know, retail businesses are going to struggle until we've rebuilt that economy to have outside investment coming in, to have businesses, like manufacturers or construction companies that really generate a multiplier effect, it's gonna be tough for a retailer-type businesses to take hold. So, it was so sad to close the coffee shop, but we learned so much from that. And on the success side, I mean, I think of the human beings whose lives have transformed, the 250 new jobs that we've created. And ultimately, what those people as part of social enterprises have achieved, is they've modeled what a whole new and better economy can look like, especially when you think about that solar company.   Eve: [00:15:41] Yes.   Brandon: [00:15:41] To think that we've grown a solar installation company. It's totally for-profit now. No grant money needed. We did that right in the heart of coal country. That's a pretty bold accomplishment.   Eve: [00:15:51] That's pretty bold. Yeah. Just going back to real estate a little bit.   Brandon: [00:15:56] Sure.   Eve: [00:15:57] I've done this sort of real estate project myself, and I'm wondering how you fund your projects.   Brandon: [00:16:03] It's always a mix. We never like to do a project that can't sustain at least some debt. You know, we feel like if it has to be 100 percent grant-funded, that's probably not a good sign that it's viable. And yet in our distressed communities, to expect a property to handle 100 percent debt service is not fair either.   Eve: [00:16:23] I don't think you can expect that in too many places anymore, so, especially if you're trying to build affordable housing where, you know, affordability depends on keeping debt down. So, it's very tough. Yeah.   Brandon: [00:16:36] So, we almost always have a bank loan that, anywhere between 10 to 20 percent of the projects, sometimes more. And then we fundraise. And for the housing piece, the Federal Home Loan Bank of Pittsburgh has been a fantastic funding partner for us. And on the commercial side, we've had some good luck with the United States Economic Development Administration.   Eve: [00:16:59] Ok, creeping up to 40 percent would be a good thing, right?   Brandon: [00:17:03] Yeah.   Eve: [00:17:04] Yeah. I think given in Pittsburgh, projects that are in underserved neighborhoods typically need, maybe 40 percent of subsidy, and the market's gotten pretty strong here. So, it's very difficult. What you're doing is very, very difficult. And what role does the community around you play in the funding of these projects?   Brandon: [00:17:24] Part of the problem with the generational breakdowns that I was referencing earlier, that means there's not been an accumulation of wealth over the generations. And so we do not have a philanthropic base like what many urban areas have.   Eve: [00:17:40] Right.   Brandon: [00:17:41] Our local community foundation can really only do grants of five to ten thousand a pop. One in Charleston that can do a little bit better. So, we are really forced to look to the public sector for funding help and we're forced to look outside of our region for folks who understand the oppression and the divestment that's happened here, and are willing to help us try and rebuild a stronger base.   Eve: [00:18:06] Yes. So, that brings me to the question. You know, I have an equity crowdfunding platform. Do you think that could play a role in building communities for everyone where you work?   Brandon: [00:18:16] I think so. I think it's a brilliant model. And I think, you know, to answer your question more directly from before, about the role of the community, what makes our projects really go is this the sense of community ownership. So, we start every project with multiple community town halls, and charrettes, and the community members actually sit down with the architects and help design these projects. So, we often times, even though Coalfield is technically the owner and the developer, there is a wide sense of connection and ownership to these buildings from community members themselves. And so I think that sort of approach that we take might very well make us a good fit for your crowdfunding approach.   Eve: [00:19:00] What community engagement tools have you use that have worked best?   Brandon: [00:19:05] We used to start with a charrette right out of the gate. We realized the charrettes go better when there's more knowledge built up of the history of the building, and what's possible and what's not, given the funding source. And so, we start with the town hall, sometimes two or three, just to build the awareness of the history of the building and the funding sources at play.   Brandon: [00:19:26] Then we have a charrette, and sometimes more than one charrette, to actually let the community members sit down with the architects and have their fingerprints on the actual blueprints for these projects. And then we continue to engage the community once the properties are up and running. We hire local community members to staff these facilities. And we continue to lead community engagement efforts well into the future operations of the buildings.   Eve: [00:19:52] So, community engagement from beginning to end, right?   Brandon: [00:19:56] Yeah, absolutely.   Eve: [00:19:58] Going back to you. I'm just wondering what your background has been that's led you down this path, creating this pretty amazing organization.   Brandon: [00:20:06] I was born and raised in southern West Virginia. I had a happy middle-class upbringing, but I knew all around me there was a lot of pain and suffering. I went away to school about six hours east of here, and I got very involved with a progressive Presbyterian church. I loved the youth group and I would take the group on service trips, all over, mainly to learn and to do a little bit of service. And I had some amazing experiences, but everywhere I went, I felt like, where I belong was back home in my own backyard because I knew that's where I could probably have the biggest impact. I understood that place the most. And then the very last service trip I led was to Mingo County right back in southern West Virginia. And we had this experience where we were doing service work on a house. And these two young guys approached us and they had tool belts slung over their shoulders, and they asked us if we have work available. And I explained we were volunteers, and they went on their way, and it was just a brief, brief interaction. But I felt like that brief moment really summed up the situation in southern West Virginia, which is, we have people who want to work and want to learn and want to be a part of something, but our economies stagnated so badly that there's nowhere for that gumption to really be applied. So, that was the seed that really started me thinking about Coalfield Development.   Eve: [00:21:30] And then after that, how did you get it off the ground?   Brandon: [00:21:33] I went to graduate school to study nonprofit management with the Indiana University. I knew that I wanted to move back home but Indiana had a great program. And while I was there, the business school actually was helping start this new program in social entrepreneurship. And that was a phrase I'd never heard before, but it really caught my attention. The more I learned, the more I felt like, here was something different, and new and potentially more effective than some of the other public and nonprofit programs that have been tried back home. I had an internship in the summer of 2010 to kind of listen and learn. And then I took the whole second year of graduate school and just threw myself into the business plan for Coalfield Development. And then I, when I was done with school, I moved back in with Mom and Dad and they gave me financial cover and shelter to make a try at this thing.   Eve: [00:22:26] (Laughter) Very good. Have you moved out? I have to ask.   Brandon: [00:22:30] (Laughter) I did finally make it out. I'm married and we have two boys now.   Eve: [00:22:34] Thank goodness. Your parents are probably saying thank goodness too. Right?   Brandon: [00:22:38] Yeah, probably so. It's kind of, like, the millennial thing to do, you know. (Laughter)   Eve: [00:22:42] It's a very millennial thing to do. Really. It's been a tough 10 years, right?   Brandon: [00:22:49] It has been.   Eve: [00:22:49] So, then, do you think socially responsible real estate is necessary in today's development landscape?   Brandon: [00:22:56] I think it's critical and I think it's too often overlooked. You know, we organize our organization by what we call three core capabilities. It's the personal professional development. It's the incubating of the social enterprises. And then it's the community based real estate. And the community based real estate in many instances is what's making the first two possible. You know, it can be complex. There's many different funding sources. It takes years for these projects to get pulled off. And so sometimes it's not the easiest ... kind of sexiest piece of our work to talk about. But it's a critical component.   Eve: [00:23:31] Yes. Yep. And are there any current trends in real estate development that interest you the most that you think could be relevant, too?   Brandon: [00:23:39] Well, I think the American small town is poised for a comeback. Rural has challenges, but I think more and more, people are looking for a good quality of life. They're looking for outdoor recreation opportunities and clean air and clean water and peace and quiet. And with some historic buildings. When you think about sustainability, I think, historic preservation gets overlooked. But one of the best things we can do to build new housing in a sustainable manner is to preserve our current building stock rather than knock it over and put it all in a landfill. So, I think there, the future of the market might be good for rural small towns. I hope so.   Eve: [00:24:18] Yeah, I think you're probably right. I was in Australia recently and I travelled to Hobart, which is in Tasmania, to the south of it. And it was fascinating because Melbourne is the closest city to the north and it's one of the most expensive cities in the world and growing really, really quickly. But it was this tiny little city. I hesitate to call it a city, it's very small. And it had really had a huge influx of young people who were experimenting, and building businesses in exactly the way you've described. Just trying to, kind of, build up a new place for themselves where they could afford it. It was pretty dramatic.   Brandon: [00:24:59] Very cool.   Eve: [00:24:59] Yeah, very cool. Yeah.   Brandon: [00:25:00] I think that's the future.   Eve: [00:25:01] Yeah. I think, you know, people have to find their way out of some of our cities which have become just too expensive for most people. How do we think about our cities, towns and neighborhoods so that we can build better places for everyone?   Brandon: [00:25:17] I think historic preservation, again, is a key part of that conversation. I think that mixed use, mixed income projects are important. The reason the mixed income, you know, if you look at affordable housing development in years past, it's often, it's taken low-income people and shoved them in a corner of the city and kind of consolidated all the challenges that come with poverty. It really cut people out of pathways and avenues and access to opportunity. The mixed income is important, and the mixed use is important as well, so that we're not just creating affordable housing, but really, we're building up communities that include small businesses and recreation opportunities and community engagement opportunities that contribute to a whole quality of life.   Eve: [00:26:07] So, I think basically you're saying we should just keep mixing it up, right?   Brandon: [00:26:11] I think so.   Eve: [00:26:12] Just mix it up. Well, thank you very, very much for your time. I really enjoyed talking with you and all the best for this pretty fabulous organization that you've built.   Brandon: [00:26:22] This was a great conversation. I love the work that you're doing as well. And I hope we can find a way to work together.   Eve: [00:26:28] Absolutely.   That was Brandon Dennison of Coalfield Development. Brandon measures success in the lives he helps to transform, from poverty stricken and jobless to optimistic and confident. Each participant in the 33-6-3 program that he developed works for 33 hours, studies towards an educational degree for six hours, and works on personal development for three hours, each and every week. While workforce development is the center of Brandon's focus, that has spilled over into creative, sustainable and community-centric real estate development as well. Historic preservation, community engagement and job creation all come together in a very holistic real estate development program.   Eve: [00:27:30] You can find out more about impact real estate investing and access the show notes for today's episode at my website, Eve.Picker.com. While you're there, sign up for my newsletter to find out more about how to make money in real estate while building better cities. Thank you so much for spending your time with me today. And thank you, Brandon, for sharing your thoughts with me. We'll talk again soon, but for now, this is Eve Picker signing off to go make some change.

Dr. Melissa K. Miller, 2019 ICS Faculty Fellow and Associate Professor of Political Science at BGSU, discusses her research on women in politics. Dr. Miller shares her findings from her analysis of media coverage of the unprecedented number of women running for office during the 2018 election cycle. Dr. Miller explores how media coverage influences voter perception of mothers running for office. Transcript: Introduction: From Bowling Green State University and the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society. This is BG Ideas. Musical Intro: I'm going to show you this with a wonderful experiment. Jolie S.: To the BG Ideas podcast. A collaboration between the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society and the School of Media and Communication at Bowling Green State University. I'm Jolie Sheffer, an associate professor of English and American culture studies and the director of ICS. Today I'm joined by one of ICS' faculty fellows, Dr. Melissa K. Miller. She's an associate professor of political science and affiliated faculty in the department of women's gender and sexuality studies here at BGSU. Her current research is focused on women who are mothers who ran congressional campaigns in the 2018 midterm elections. This is the first extensive bi-partisan study of mother candidates and we're thrilled to be here to discuss her research. Thanks for joining me, Melissa. Melissa M.: Thanks for having me. Jolie S.: The 2018 midterm elections really put the spotlight on women running for political office. Can you talk to us about what initially drew you to focus on candidates who were also mothers? Melissa M.: I really have always been interested in the intersection of women, media, voters, campaigning. Gender and politics is a study of my research and I'm an expert on American politics. What happened? I go all the way back to 2008. A friend and colleague of mine, Dr. Jeff Peak, he's a presidency scholar. I'm a gender scholar within the political science department and we decided to do a collaborative project where we content coded press coverage of the presidential candidates back in 2008 and we thought what a great slew of candidates to look at. I of course was most interested in looking at how Hillary Clinton was covered by the press in her 2008 attempt to get the democratic nomination. Melissa M.: He was interested in all the candidates as a presidency scholar and so we did a press coverage study of Hillary Clinton and it was amazing to do. We published our results in the journal called Politics and Gender and there were some real gendered aspects of her coverage that really jumped out. In the midst of that campaign, from my perspective as a gender scholar, I was so pleased to be able to study Hillary Clinton's press coverage. We content coded 6,000 news articles about the democratic race specifically to look at her coverage and then come around August, John McCain, the Republican nominee named Sarah Palin, the Alaska governor as his running mate. And so suddenly our study is underway and it was like we'd won the lottery. Melissa M.: At least it felt that way for me. Holy cow, now I can study a Republican woman also competing not for president but as a vice presidential running mate. So we also, Jeff Peak and I, did a study of how Sarah Palin was covered and in both Clinton's coverage and Palin's coverage back in 2008 there were real gendered coverage markers. Their gender was mentioned at a disproportionate rate. Their marital status was mentioned at a disproportionate rate. In Hillary Clinton's case, her press coverage was much more negative than her male rivals and the content of that negative coverage was highly personal. Really personal descriptives that were very negative about her. Melissa M.: For Sarah Palin, her coverage was very distinguished by the fact that she was objectified. Her appearance and clothing was mentioned off the charts relative to Joe Biden who was the democratic counterpart on the democratic ticket. So fast forward, we published these two studies, one about Clinton, one about Palin and a couple of years go by and I get an email from a couple of scholars who are interested in publishing a book on the intersection of motherhood and politics. And they reached out to me knowing my work on the 2008 campaign and the two Clinton and Palin studies I'd published. And they said, "Would you be willing to write our chapter on mothers running for political office and their media coverage?" Melissa M.: I said, "Absolutely." So I did a deep dive back into that 2008 data and I wrote a book chapter really dissecting going back into all the articles and looking about how their motherhood status was portrayed in 2008 and it was fascinating and it suggested to me right away that motherhood can be both an asset and a liability on the campaign trail. So for Hillary Clinton in 2008 her daughter Chelsea was an adult. Chelsea was out on the campaign trail. Chelsea was viewed positively. The coverage in the media was that she was sort of an asset to her mother, really effective on the stump. For Palin, it was scandal, scandal, scandal with her kids and it was a different, she had young children. The youngest was a special need infant. She had five kids. There were three separate scandals that the press really sort of harped on. Melissa M.: One was the pregnancy of her teenage daughter. One was the use of state funds as governor of Alaska to take her kids with her to official events. And the third was the use of Republican campaign funds to pay for clothing for her kids. It was a real negative in her coverage. Over the course of that research too, of course, I'm soaking up and reading everything. There's very little scholarly work on mothers and how they're treated on the campaign trail, so what I'm finding is more press coverage accounts and what I find is that for instance, Lisa Madigan, the Illinois attorney general was badgered by the Chicago Sun Times when she was considering running for governor. Already elected to statewide office by the way but badgered by the press for how could she raise young kids while being governor. Jane Swift, this is going back to 2001 so a little bit further back, was Lieutenant governor ascended. Melissa M.: She was next in line. The governor leaves office mid term. She ascends. She's vilified in the press because she's eight months pregnant with two twins. One set of twins. I said that wrong. You go back a little further. Patty Murray was derided as just a mom in tennis shoes by a Washington state legislator when she was not yet running for office but she was lobbying her state legislature to save an important preschool program in the state of Washington. While she went on and took that derisive comment by a male state legislator and made it a campaign slogan and ended up running for office and eventually won a seat in the US Senate. So as I'm reading all of this for this motherhood chapter in the book that was published recently, it's called Mothers and Others, I just thought, oh my goodness, more work has to be done. Melissa M.: There've been so many strides that have been made frankly in terms of women's press coverage but it seemed to me that it's still problematic. I think the media and possibly voters have not yet grappled with, is it okay for a mom to run for high office if she has young kids and questions would be raised about the appropriateness of this. In a way that in my own view and studying press coverage, those kinds of questions are not typically raised about men with young children. So I wanted to do a project. Jolie S.: And with that project, what are the kinds of women you're talking about when you are following candidates on the campaign trail? Do they share similar demographics, political affiliations or other characteristics? Melissa M.: I'm actively trying to interview both Republicans and Democrats. It's a little bit harder to find Republicans because there were not as many women who ran in 2018. The big surge of women's candidacies were among Democrats but I still nevertheless have already interviewed two Republican women. Melissa M.: They tend to be in their late 30s, early to mid 40s. There are women of color. I've interviewed one already in my sample so far and it is important to me to try to get as many different types of women amongst this group that I get their stories from. I mean I'm looking for where I think the challenge is greatest. So I'm really looking for mothers who have kids that are anywhere from infant stage till around 12, 13 years old. So I have women who've raised as little as $40,000 for their campaign to as much as $8 million. So there's also a range in how viable their candidacies were. The mother who only raised $40,000, I will tell you was the nominee of the Republican party. She did not raise a lot of money. She was running in what we call a blue district and she was very candid about saying that she felt she didn't get a lot of hostile questions about the raising of her kids. She said, "I don't think anyone thought I could win so it wasn't an issue." Melissa M.: I've heard that from a couple of women. At the other end of the spectrum, I have candidates who raised hundreds of thousands, millions of dollars all the way up to around $8 million, women who came very, very close to winning. And so I think so far I've got a good mix. It's not the kind of large end statistical study where I'm trying to get a representative sample but I am purposely trying to get a variety of mothers who come from different backgrounds and experiences and also from different parts of the country. So already I have women candidates from the South, the Northeast, the Midwest, and the West. So it is nationwide. And what I'm finding so far is what appear to be some regional differences and what appear to be some generational differences in terms of whose concerned about their ability to serve as mothers. Jolie S.: On that question of the generational differences, I mean one of the things that seems really striking about the 2018 midterms and what's been happening since then, is that a wave of younger candidates won and so the face of the woman in politics has now a generation younger than maybe what most voters were thinking of. And do you have a sense either through your teaching or through some of your other outreach activities of what effect that is having on young voters? Maybe folks who this is their first time able to vote that they're in their late teens or early 20s. Melissa M.: So in 2018 there was a surge of women candidates who ran and a lot of them were younger. This was a huge exception to the rule. So what we know from the gender and politics literature is that women tend to wait longer to launch their first campaign. Why? Precisely because they're having families. They're having their kids and it's not until the kids are raised, grown up, much older that they start to entertain the idea of running for elective office. Men don't do it that way. So there are plenty of examples for generations of men with young little children, babies who nevertheless run for public office and get elected. Melissa M.: So the fact that sort of the face of people running changed is part because of gender, part because of age and at the intersection of that is motherhood. So suddenly you have women who were socialized. If they're in their 30s and 40s I mean, these are women who were raised at a time their mothers were working perhaps full time. Also, perhaps involved in civic activities and other things so they are noticing. And I think the 2016 election, particularly for the democratic women that I've interviewed, it was an eyeopener. Melissa M.: And one of the things I ask every one of my interviewees, and in part it's sort of an icebreaker to start the interview at the general level, what motivated you to run? A lot of these women, particularly the Democrats, it was the 2016 election. It was the big disappointment they felt and it was the sense that I need to do something. They were so disappointed and concerned about the outcome of the election. They felt I need to do something and what will I tell my kids when they're older if I didn't step up. So motherhood I'm learning is really an impetus for a number of these women. It's because I'm a mother that I felt I needed to do something to better my country. Going back to your question, I think I've gone astray Jolie, so remind me if I haven't. Jolie S.: How do you see young people today who are in their late teens or early 20s sort of responding to that 2018 surge? Melissa M.: First of all, I think young people are beginning to much more readily envision politics as an important sphere in which they can be involved almost without question. The women that I've interviewed, those who were able, who ran campaigns that were quite competitive, they raised hundreds of thousands, even millions of dollars. They had staff. Well guess what? Political staff, whether you're male or female running your campaign tends to be staffed by younger people. I'll never forget what one of these democratic women told me. She was a mother candidate and I ask as I do each of them, did you decide to sort of broadcast that you were a mother? Did you decide to showcase that in your advertising, on your website, in your speeches and so forth? And this particular mother had. She ran, as several of them had as a "working mom." Working mom is the phrase that's in the advertising at the website and so forth. Melissa M.: And I said, "What did your staff think about that?" And she just laughed. She said, "I'm not sure I quite understand why." She said, "Because I've got all these 20 something millennials, they're single, they don't have kids. They totally wanted me to run as a mom." she said. So they felt that broadcasting their motherhood softened them a little bit. Look, I'm a mom. Look at my happy family. I think they found it helpful and certainly their millennials staffers encouraged them to broadcast their motherhood. Jolie S.: Part of this research study involved you being on the trail and sort of having close interaction with some of the campaigns. So can you talk about sort of what that experience was like and how that has shaped this research maybe differently than some of those more macro level studies you've done in the past? Melissa M.: Absolutely. So I ended up only doing one campaign observation. It was phenomenal. It was fascinating. In brief, I was embedded for three days on a campaign, a congressional campaign on the West coast. I was with the candidate. This candidate had raised several hundred thousand dollars at that point, went on to raise several hundred thousand dollars more and I had set up the observation weeks ahead. It involved airfare of course so you do this kind of thing. And listeners, maybe as dismayed as I was when I arrived, the campaign was out of the home at that point and that's common by the way. In the interviews I've done subsequently, that's very common that the campaign is the office is at home. I arrived at the door on the appointed morning. The candidate was very gracious and meeting me at the door, but apologetic. Apologetic because they had canceled all of the scheduled activities, events with voters for the next couple of days. Melissa M.: Why? Because, she was considering dropping out. Why? Because, she was facing intense pressure from the party. She happened to be a Democrat. The party had held its endorsement meeting and she had not gotten the endorsement of the democratic party and she was getting intense pressure to drop out and she apologized. "I know we set this up in advance. I didn't want to cancel. You're not going to get to see me with voters as much." So of course as the scholar, my heart sinks initially. In a way Jolie, how valuable was that for me to be still invited in. I observed, listened in on every meeting with campaign manager, spouse, outside paid consultants over speaker phone. We did go to a couple of meetings with local elected democratic politicians as she was trying to decide whether to stay in or not. Melissa M.: Do you know what's interesting? She is one of two candidates that I have interviewed, and this happened to be an observation for whom her motherhood status as a mother of three young kids was a huge problem. She faced so many thinly veiled critical questions about who will raise your kids and the candidate that the party endorsed was a single woman with no children. Now I know having studied politics for so long that the reason a party chooses to endorse one candidate over the other those reasons are complex. But it is interesting that she told me that her opponent... She was literally being told by Democrats that your opponent, Republican voters, if one of you is going to become the nominee and we're worried if it's you with your little kids, Republican voters will never vote for you because of their traditional values and so forth. Melissa M.: So it's hard to pinpoint exactly how much that entered into the party's endorsement decision. She ended up not being endorsed. It was a grueling scene to watch the decision. She ultimately decided to stay in the race. She ultimately did not win the nomination so she did not go on to the general election. But that campaign observation was absolutely eyeopening for me. First of all, to see what it's like to run a campaign out of a private home when you have three little kids. I'll never forget they had devoted a room on the second floor, obviously a bedroom rather oversized so that was nice, into an office with kind of office Ikea office furniture. But you could hear the comings and goings of the part time nanny that they had. You could hear dad who had fortunately a flexible work schedule changing the diaper, possibly a pull up for those of you who know the difference amongst our listeners, singing old McDonald. Melissa M.: There we are sitting in the war room, not me, I'm just listening, but the candidate's having difficult conversations about whether to stay in the race and all of this is going on. One of the factors that entered in her decision to stay in the race was, I'll stay in, but we have to get an office outside of the home. This is too much conflict to have inside the home. So in addition to the observation, I interviewed her at the end of the observation as sort of a separate matter and I asked her about that. I said, "You mentioned conflict in the home. What do you mean by that?" That could be shouting matches. She said, "No, just people involved on campaigns are type A personalities. It's hard driving. Quick decisions have to be made. We have to hash out strategy. Staffers can disagree over what neighborhood we ought to canvas in and the like." So it was more it was important for her who had three small children under the age of five to get an office and about a week after the observation they did get an office. Jolie S.: Can you elaborate a little bit more on how this research then can be put into the hands of potential candidates and campaign workers to maybe help them think differently about what some of those options are? Melissa M.: Yes. It's a great question because I've always been about doing research that has public implications and trying to get the important findings of this kind of research out to the public. And first I think is just to publicize mothers of young children are now running. They are running. This may be new in many districts in many places but it's happening. It will eventually begin to normalize. The more women with young children run the more it will become normal. So, that's one thing. I'll also say, I alluded to this earlier that the stereotypes about a woman's proper place when her children are young is at home with maybe a regular job but certainly not Congress. What I'm finding in my interviews is that those kinds of stereotypes being raised by voters tend to be projected by older voters so not younger voters. Cultural change is slow unfortunately. We like to speed it along and I think my research can speed it along. Melissa M.: So part of the plan is of course it's not journalism. I mean I'm not on a 24 hour deadline. As I continue to do my interviews and then begin to write and publish in academic outlets, I'm definitely planning to do outreach. There's a group that I have discovered called Vote Mama. This is a fascinating group. It has just been established, I believe early 2019 by a mother of young children who ran in the state of New York. She ran out on Long Island. Her name's Luba Shirley and she actually asked the FEC, the Federal Elections Commission to approve her use of campaign funds to pay for childcare for her children so that she could run. Melissa M.: Nobody had done this before and in fact, when I was observing my candidate on the West coast in that three day embedded experience I had, she lamented that the understanding was the FEC won't allow you to use your campaign donations to pay for childcare, which she thought was outrageous because she said, "Running is a full time job and I had to take a leave of absence from my job." she said, "So that I could run and now I can't possibly run effectively without childcare." And she was advised by her male campaign manager not to make a request to the FEC because if word got out in her district that she was asking the FEC to use the campaign funds, it would come back to bite her. Melissa M.: Little did she know that on the other coast out on Long Island, there was a similar mother in a similar position who for whatever reason did decide to ask the FEC and she got permission. And so I think about a dozen candidates in 2018 both women and men, interestingly enough, using the new FEC ruling began to use their campaign funds to pay for childcare. That is a huge breakthrough. That the woman who filed the case with the FEC and won that case has since founded this Vote Mama organization. It is specifically designed for democratic women mind you, so it's not bi-partisan, but it's to elect democratic women who are mothers of young children up and down the ballot. Melissa M.: She believes this founder of Vote Mama as well as the women I've talked to, they say we need government to represent us. This is true for Democrats and Republicans. Why can't mothers of young children. They have a unique perspective. They should be at the table. It's been absolutely fascinating to hear about their lived experiences and learn from them. And I absolutely hope and plan for my moms on the run study to be educational and informative to campaign professionals, to politicians and party members. I do think 2018 with the record number of women elected, I think that women now have the attention of the parties. So I do think both parties will realize that putting women on the ballot can be a win. Putting women with young children on the ballot can also be a win as we've seen from the 10, 12 women who are mothers of young children who were elected to the US House of Representatives in 2018. Jolie S.: Thanks so much, Melissa. We're going to take a quick break now. Thank you for listening to the BG Ideas podcast. Introduction: If, you are passionate about big ideas consider sponsoring this program. To have your name or organization mentioned here please contact us at ics@bgsu.edu. Jolie S.: Today I'm talking with Dr. Melissa K. Miller about her research on mothers who ran for Congress in the 2018 midterms. We have a student who has a couple of questions. Would you say your name first and then your first question? Christina: Yes. Hello. My name is Christina and I am an MPA student at BGSU. My first question for you, Dr. Miller is, have you talked to the spouses of these women to see how they have supported them? Melissa M.: That is a great question. I talked to the spouse of one woman. The woman that I embedded in her campaign for three days. So I literally met the spouse on day one. I saw the spouse every day. I mentioned earlier in the podcast, this was a campaign where this particular mom candidate was being kind of pushed out. There were activists trying to push her out, so I got to observe the brain trust trying to make a final decision. Was she going to stay in the race or not? Her spouse participated in that. At the end of the observation period, I asked him, having met him, "Can I interview you?" Melissa M.: And he had me do that. He let me do that. I was so pleased. His interview as well was about 60 to 90 minutes long. I did it a few days after returning to campus and his insights were amazing in part because you heard from his perspective what the discussions he had with his wife were like when they were trying to decide how would they make this work. I mean they had real decisions to make about their jobs, their schedules, if either of them could go part time, whether they could afford a nanny and the like. It was because I had the opportunity to talk to him that in every subsequent interview I've done, I am only interviewing the mom candidates, but I always ask, "What is the role of your spouse on this campaign?" And I've seen a real variety of roles, Christina. Everywhere from full blown partner advising me at every turn. Melissa M.: My husband's taken over everything in terms of household and childcare and all that. This by the way, was from a mom who, what she described prior to the campaign was they really had a partnership thing going. It wasn't she was fulfilling a traditional role of doing the majority of housework. They were partnering. And at the other end I had a mom in a very traditional marriage who her husband was very supportive and he would do additional school pickups and that kind of thing but she literally complained to me. Did not do any extra dishes. Didn't do any meal preparation and you could tell, I mean, she told me in a discouraging sort of disappointed tone, she said, "I doubt there are a lot of men out there who are running for Congress who get home at the end of a very busy day to a sink stacked full of dirty dishes and laundry all over the place. Melissa M.: So I found that fascinating because her husband fully supported her running, but she was in a household where she still had to do all of the regular chores, those gendered domestic chores that traditionally women have done. So we saw a real difference. And I do think in every case though, it was a negotiation between mom, candidate and spouse. How were they going to make it work? And several of these women also indicated to me that they perceived at least that dad candidates out there didn't have to have these same kinds of negotiations. So, that's been very illuminating. Speaker 6: How have the narrative surrounding children on the presidential campaign for say, Clinton, Bush and the Obama's compared? Melissa M.: It's a great question because really if we just as individual voters, listeners we think to ourselves, what do we know about campaigns? Well, what your average American knows about campaigns is what they see every four years in the most high profile campaign in the country. So your average voter, that's what they know of campaigns is what they see. And unfortunately, for reasons that I gave at the outset, what they see may discourage women of young children from running. For instance, Sarah Palin and the treatment of her children and how she was really put under the microscope and her parenting was really subjected to just, oh, tons of criticism. And we can debate some of that, the scandals. Some of that press coverage may have been warranted and important. Melissa M.: But what's interesting to me is in that very same election, Barack Obama, just a candidate back then a US Senator from Illinois, had young children. I think they were aged maybe seven and six, six and nine or something along those lines. And because I studied his press coverage alongside Hillary Clinton's, I can tell you there was very little mention of his kids in his press coverage far more for Clinton, way more for Palin. The fact that he had young kids and was running for president was not an issue for him in the way it was for Palin or frankly in the way I've learned it was for women who ran for Congress in 2018 simply because society has different expectations about women's role in the household when there are young children versus men's. Another thing you mentioned the Bushes. I might also bring in President Trump and his young son Barron. Occasionally and fortunately it doesn't happen very often, but occasionally the children of these high profile politicians, elected officials will really be attacked. Melissa M.: I think this happened in a couple isolated cases for the Bush girls when George W. was in the White House. It's happened a few times for Barron, President Trump's son. That's most recent. Also, perhaps most visible because now we're in the Twitterverse so all over social media and one nice thing I see is that there's always a big backlash when the children of a politician get attacked or criticized. Another example that comes to mind toward the end of the Obama administration, his daughters now teenagers appearing at some public events with their father, the way they dressed was criticized. And the good news is, at least in the mainstream media, there's a real backlash where you have reporters saying... Jolie S.: That's off limits. Melissa M.: Absolutely off limits. What worries me though is when there are these high profile examples of presidents' kids who get dragged into the media or made fun of or victimized somehow online. There are mothers out there and fathers as well, I would imagine, who don't want to get into it. They don't want to subject their kids to that kind of scrutiny. So I do hope that the project that moms on the run will at least elevate awareness that women with young children can run. They do run, they are running, they're winning. And again, as I said earlier, women running with small kids for office, whether it's US House of Representatives or lower level office, it's just what women do just like men with young children do. Again, however, cultural change is slow, which is why I think it's an important study. It's an important time to be studying this, to push cultural change along a little bit, I guess would be my broad goal. Jolie S.: Thank you so much for being here with us today. I really enjoyed talking with you about your research. If you're interested in learning more about the issues that Dr. Miller's work raises, you can visit our website at www.bgsu.edu/ics. Our producers for this podcast are Chris Covera and Marco Mendoza. Research support for this podcast was provided by the following, ICS undergraduate interns, Olivia Davis, Melanie Miller, Strati Mustikus and Sarah Schaller.  

The world has been abuzz with the "shocking" news that England's Prince Harry and wife Meghan Markle are turning in their keys to the kingdom. First, this shouldn't be shocking to anyone. There've been rumblings of discord and discontent for several months. Dr. Wendy is here to explain how this all actually makes perfect evolutionary sense. On one hand they're doing what our hunter-gatherer ancestors did. On the other hand they are also living on the forefront of the evolution of marriage itself. Marriage is no longer about social survival or strict gender roles. A modern marriage is way more than that. Harry and Meghan are living a thoroughly modern marriage.Mating Matters Message Line: 323-207-8277

"Without the crucifixion, there would have been no resurrection. And without the resurrection there would be no Christian faith. Folks, there are so many factors. You know, nonbelievers, they talk, they doubt they jeer at the resurrection of Jesus. But I'm going to tell you, it happened." Family Discussions: Why did Jesus have to die?  Win the tombs is crazy, and then how can they explain a way of Jesus' resurrection? What thoughts and feelings come through to you? Transcription: 00:13          You may not be a gigantic fan of history, but I'll tell you today you will be, because today we're going to look at the most provable event in all of ancient history. According to the libraries of the world, the most provable event in all of human history. It's after the crucifixion of Jesus. We'll pick up the action in Mark chapter 15 in verse 44 and scripture says this, "Pilate wondered if he, Jesus, was dead by this time. And summoning the Centurion, he questioned the Centurion as to whether he was already dead. And ascertaining this from the century, he granted the body of Jesus to Joseph. So Joseph bought a linen cloth and took him down, wrapped him in the linen cloth and laid him a tomb which had already been hewn out of the rock. And he rolled a stone against the entrance of the tomb. Mary Magdalene and Mary, the mother of Joses, were looking on to see where he was laid."   01:12          You know, without the crucifixion, there would have been no resurrection. And without the resurrection there would be no Christian faith. Folks, there are so many factors. You know, nonbelievers, they talk, they doubt they jeer at the resurrection of Jesus. But I'm going to tell you, it happened. First of all, you have a dead Messiah. Two Roman coroners signed his death certificate after he died, and if they were incorrect in their assessment of his death, they would have been crucified for their mistake. Eye witnesses say that a spear was driven into his side and blood and water came out. Any coroner will tell you it's a sign of a man's death. Then he was laid in a borrowed tomb in a private burial yard. He was wrapped in cloth and spices, probably about a hundred pounds of spices according to the Jewish burial from the top of his head to the soles of his feet.   02:05          A very large stone estimates that it raid between a one and a half to two tons will rolled against the door of the tomb. There've been estimates that said a stone so big that would take 20 men to move. The seal of Rome was put over the tomb. Two leather strips with a pack with a seal of Rome on the pack, threatening anyone. If you break this seal, you'll be crucified yourself for defying the order of Rome. Then a Roman guard was placed in front of the tomb and the Roman Kaleo, probably a group of 12 to 16 men trained to defeat a piece of ground against attire invading army. The tomb was guarded. Jesus was dead. But something happened on the third day. Something happened that changed the course of history. Jesus was alive. He was the resurrected savior. And so your faith is not in vain.   03:01          My questions for you today are this, why did Jesus have to die? And then secondly, why in the world or how can critics try to explain a way, Jesus' death? And to say that he was just asleep in the tombs is crazy, and then how can they explain a way of Jesus' resurrection? And then here's the third question, and this is a greatest question. True love was spoken on the day of the cross. What thoughts and feelings come through to you? And the lifeline is this. He wore the crown of thorns so that you and I someday could wear the crown of life.

Listen in to episode 10 as the guys discuss David Stern, the injuries to Luka Doncic, Eric Bledsoe, and Blake Griffin, the third suspension of Dion Waiters, update you on Jusuf Nurkic, as well as go over our MVP Ladder, answer your questions and more! Don't miss it!

Rekka: 00:00 Welcome back to We Make Books, a podcast about writing, publishing and everything, everything, everything in between. And sometimes after. Kaelyn: 00:07 Sometimes after. I'm Kaelyn Considine. I am the acquisitions editor for Parvus Press. Rekka: 00:12 And I'm Rekka, I write science fiction and fantasy as RJ Theodore. Kaelyn: 00:16 And today we're talking about that after. Rekka: 00:17 Huh. Whoa. Yeah. So folks, Kaelyn: 00:21 Yeah, just... This is a little bit of a heavy episode. Rekka: 00:23 Sliiiiightly. Kaelyn: 00:26 Um, we're talking today about money, but not in the way we talked about money in our previous money episode. Which was episode nine, uh, if you want to go back and check that out. Rekka: 00:36 Yep. Um, that's the other half of the, well, the other third, I don't know, there's probably many more pieces of this conversation. Kaelyn: 00:40 There's a lot of pieces. Yeah. Rekka: 00:42 But you can, you can brush up on that episode if you're thinking about money for your writing career lately. Um, this episode will cover a lot of other stuff, so they don't really overlap that much. Kaelyn: 00:53 Yeah. This is the episode... So before we talked about how you get your money, this is after you get your money... Rekka: 01:01 How to not lose it all. Kaelyn: 01:02 And... Rekka: 01:04 Unless you want to! Kaelyn: 01:05 Unless you want to. Rekka: 01:06 Blow chunks of money, all you want. Kaelyn: 01:09 Yeah. Um, so we talk a lot in this episode about, you know, when you hear numbers, what those then actually come down to and setting realistic goals and expectations for yourself and you know, just some general things to know about how money works in publishing, especially if this is going to be your primary or only source of income. Rekka: 01:31 Right. And I think the biggest takeaway from this episode, um, is clearly the attitude that we come at our money with in the writing industry. Kaelyn: 01:42 Yeah. So, um, you know, it is, it is a little bit of a heavy episode. Um, it's a lot. We... Rekka: 01:46 It's a lot, but I mean, it's not like we get into specific— Kaelyn: 01:50 No, no. Rekka: 01:51 We did some rough math at the beginning. Kaelyn: 01:53 Just for an example. Rekka: 01:54 But we're not talking about like, OK, and then you move this amount of money over here into these— Kaelyn: 02:00 Yeah do not take advice from us on that. Rekka: 02:03 We're not offering specific investment advice. What we are trying to offer is like the mindset by which you, uh, pay attention to your writing income and how that can build into your life in whatever way you dream your life taking shape. Kaelyn: 02:20 Yup. So, um, you know, we hope you find this episode helpful. Rekka: 02:24 Yeah, we really, we debated doing this topic, but the fact is that Kaelyn came up with this podcast as all the things we didn't know about publishing and didn't know who to ask. And so this is definitely in that category. Kaelyn: 02:41 And you know, as we talked about, like in the first money episode we did, there is this taboo around it. And this is a different kind of taboo because this isn't talking about, you know, how much money they agreed to give you. This is talking about now dealing with the money they agreed to give you. So, um, you know, take a listen. Like I said, it's a little, it's, it's a lot in this episode, but it's important. So, um, yeah, we hope you enjoy, we hope you find it informational. Rekka: 03:08 Yeah. I mean you may not enjoy this so much per se, but yeah, this one is important, I think. If... You may want to set aside, if you're just like, you know, doing something where you're only half listening, I honestly would say come back a little bit later and give this one your full attention. And I'm not just saying that because we were the ones talking. Kaelyn: 03:27 No, no. Rekka: 03:28 But that's a very good reason. All right everybody take a listen to this episode and you know, hit us up online if you have any questions after. 03:50 Piano Music. Rekka: 03:52 Today's episode is kind of a follow up sort of second part sister, cousin thing to Episode 9: "I get paid for this, right? The money episode." Kaelyn: 04:05 We're talking about a completely different aspect of money today. So in episode nine we kind of went through like how you get money essentially. Um, you know, the process, how you get paid and who's taking it along the way. Today we're talking about kind of when you get that money, when you already have it. And this is again, you know, it's... Money is a taboo topic, especially in publishing, I think. Rekka: 04:34 Yeah. I'm not sure how this shame around money came up in society, but people definitely don't want to talk about how much they're making. Um, how equal or less equal they are to other people. Um, it might be in your contract that you can't even disclose how much you make as a, you know, as a sale. Kaelyn: 04:54 Yeah. Which by the way, that's, that's pretty illegal in most states. So what we're talking about in this episode is money that you've earned and in, as a writer, and I'm not going to say what to do with it because obviously it's your decision to come up with what to do with it. Rekka: 05:16 Right. And you, you have specific needs and expenses in your life that are going to be different from even your neighbor. So when we talk about money coming in, we talk about your author income, we're referring to the advances and the royalties. Kaelyn: 05:33 Yes. And again, these are two separate things. So I think the question on a lot of people's minds when, you know, they've sold their first book, they get a decent advance, very excited, is, okay, well I can do this full time now, Right? And— Rekka: 05:53 Oh, that's whew. Okay. So you've got the American dream and then you have the dream. You know, the American dream is hold down a job until you retire and make a salary and have predictable income. The writer's dream is "I'm going to make writing my only source of income and that is going to support me through the rest of my life," essentially. Kaelyn: 06:15 Yeah. And I'm going to say something that I'd like everyone to keep in mind when listening through this episode. A lot of people, even people who have sold multiple novels, who have had successful book series, this is not their only job. Rekka: 06:33 Their only source of income. Kaelyn: 06:34 Their only source of income. Yes. Um, well, I would even say their only job. I know, you know, a lot of people who write do not write full time. They're teachers. They're, you know, they're working in office. It's— Rekka: 06:47 Right. And the reason I rephrased it was because for some writers their life support income comes from someone else, some other source and not through them putting through physical labor. So this could be a spouse, they could be supported by a parent or other family member, they could be on some kind of structured income that is not related to the writing. Kaelyn: 07:14 Yes. Um, yes. So a lot of people who have had successful books, this is not their only source of money. Um, and like Rekka said, the writer's dream, "I've done this and now, I'm going to quit everything else and be a writer full time." Rekka: 07:34 Often it includes things like "move to this fabulous city." Kaelyn: 07:38 Yeah. Um, yeah. Rekka: 07:41 So I mean that's, that's an extra point then we'll get to later is like the cost of living. Kaelyn: 07:46 Yes. Rekka: 07:46 As part of your writer's dream, the way you envision it might be very different for the cost of living where you are now. Kaelyn: 07:51 Yeah. So we were, you know, we were talking at length before this episode about how to kind of walk through this because it is, it is a sensitive subject and this is different because it's not factual, like the other— Rekka: 08:02 Right. Unfortunately we have to make a lot of assumptions to even have this conversation. Kaelyn: 08:08 So one of the things, and we talked at, we mentioned this briefly in in episode nine, but it's much more appropriate here is to manage your expectations of what's going to be happening now that you've sold a book. Um, a lot of authors, especially debut authors, you're not going to sign for a book and then get handed a check for $1 million. Rekka: 08:31 Right. Kaelyn: 08:32 That— Rekka: 08:33 Would be lovely. Kaelyn: 08:33 That would be amazing. But you would basically have to be the first person to touch down on Mars or something, you know, like you, you know, you, you rescued one of the Royal babies, you know, something like you've got to have like THE book. Rekka: 08:48 And notice, those are autobiographies, those are not genre fiction. Kaelyn: 08:53 Exactly. And so, and you know what, that's a very good point, genre fiction, it's even going to be, you know, especially for debut authors, it's going to be even a harder sell, so to speak. Okay. So let's say for just the sake of round numbers, you've written a good solid book. Uh, one of the Big Five has picked it up and you've gotten a $30,000 advance. Rekka: 09:14 Okay. Is this for one book or a trilogy? Kaelyn: 09:16 Let's go with one book. Rekka: 09:17 Okay. Kaelyn: 09:17 Let's say this is, you know, they're really solidly behind this. Rekka: 09:21 Okay. Kaelyn: 09:23 Well, first of all, right off the bat, you're not getting handed a check for $30,000. You're probably going to be getting handed a check for 15. Rekka: 09:30 Right. So what you're assuming there is that it's going to be paid in two installments, one upon signing and one upon publication. Kaelyn: 09:37 Yes. Rekka: 09:39 If the Big Five publishes your book, chances are you also had an agent that was helping you submit to those Big Five publishers because Big Five don't tend to take unsolicited. Um, or even if they have open calls for them, it's, it's a very, very— Kaelyn: 09:54 They're gonna make you go get an agent regardless. Rekka: 09:56 Yeah. Kaelyn: 09:57 Um, so the $15,000 check is going first to your agent. Rekka: 10:02 Right. Kaelyn: 10:02 They're going to take their cut of it, then you're going to get a check. Then you've gotta pay taxes on that. Rekka: 10:08 Right. So say you have 15,000. Kaelyn: 10:10 Yeah. Rekka: 10:11 Say your agent takes 15% the check that the agent sends you is 12,750. So you've, you've lost a chunk already. Now you have to pay. Kaelyn: 10:22 Now you've gotta pay, probably about 30%— Rekka: 10:24 Yes, so— Kaelyn: 10:24 —on that. So that's going to take it down to 8. Rekka: 10:27 30/33, depends on the size of the check. So now you're at $8,925. Yes, everyone, I have a calculator out. You've heard my math before. I was not going to mess around with this one, but you've gone from $15,000 to just under $9,000, which is probably not what you had in mind when you heard that first number. Kaelyn: 10:45 Yeah. So, okay, so now you're going all right. Well I mean I still have nine grand. That's great. That's fantastic. Rekka: 10:51 It is fantastic. Kaelyn: 10:52 Can you live off of that? For a year? Rekka: 10:53 How long? Yeah. And, you know, you still have probably 18 months maybe before this book is going to come out and you'll see the other nine thousand. Kaelyn: 11:03 So when we say managing your expectations is yes, this may seem like a lot of money. Yes. I've got a $30,000 advance, I'm gonna walk into my day job and you know, flip off my boss, march out and, you know, go do a victory dance on the street outside. Rekka: 11:20 If your boss was going to fire you in January anyway and you were only going to make $9,000 have at it, sure do that. That's unlikely. Kaelyn: 11:31 But so when we say manage your expectations, is that first thing figuring out how much money you're actually going to be getting with your advance and when you're going to be getting it. Rekka: 11:41 Yep. Kaelyn: 11:42 Then figure out how much money you need to live off of, say for a year and then figure it's going to be even longer than that. Rekka: 11:52 Yeah. So this scenario and the reason I asked about how many books were in this contract was because in this contract the book is already written. So you are being paid 9,000 now and 9,000 in say 16 months for work you've already done. And at this point you may have to do a round or two of revisions and go over line edits and copy edits and then you're mostly done with the book itself. Kaelyn: 12:19 Yes. Rekka: 12:19 This does not include marketing and and uh, any touring or anything that you might, events that you might have to do. So at this point you are receiving money for work you've already done, which is different if you get a three-book deal based on one book. Now you've got two more books to write. Kaelyn: 12:41 Yeah. So now let's use the same scenario. And this time you're getting $30,000 for each book as an advance. Rekka: 12:50 Okay. So assuming that this is a three-book deal? Kaelyn: 12:55 Three-book deal, let's go with the three-book deal. Rekka: 12:59 For 90,000 total. You're getting paid 9,000 and 9,000 for a book that's already written. And I would recommend you start writing book two right now. Kaelyn: 13:10 Yes. Rekka: 13:10 Because you're not going to get the next 9,000 until you hand in the manuscript. Kaelyn: 13:16 Book two. Rekka: 13:16 Yeah. Kaelyn: 13:17 So you're going to be getting $9,000 six times over the course of probably about four years. Yeah. So quick math, that's $54,000. Can you live for four years off $54,000? Now those of you at home screaming at your, into your headphones, we'll have royalties. Rekka: 13:39 Right, so if this is a jointly accounted three book deal... Kaelyn: 13:43 Well yeah and we can get to that. But then on top of this, you first have to earn out the $30,000 advance. They don't care about taxes and your agent's cut. So it's not like you earn out the money that you received. You have to earn out the entire advance. Rekka: 13:59 Right. So you have to earn out $30,000 as opposed to earning out $18,000 that you actually got. Yes. And that's assuming that these aren't jointly accounted. Kaelyn: 14:09 Yes. And so if they are jointly accounted, you are earning out $90,000. Rekka: 14:15 Before you see a penny of royalties. Kaelyn: 14:17 Yes. And in your contract (read the contract), it will say, you know, it depends on if you know your first book sells and sells really, really well and they haven't paid you the next part of your royalty yet. There'll be stipulations and you know that's tough agents work out and. Rekka: 14:33 yeah, you can have some input there too. Kaelyn: 14:35 Yeah, exactly. But you have to keep in mind a lot of books do not earn out their advances. And obviously the hope for every author is that their book sells and is very successful and everybody makes money off of it and readers get to love and enjoy the book, but. Rekka: 14:57 and the publisher is happy and comes back for another trilogy. Kaelyn: 14:59 And publisher's happy and comes back and wants more for you. A lot of books do not earn out their advances. Um, so banking on, well then I'll have royalties is not necessarily a sound decision to me. Rekka: 15:17 Plus, think about how long it would take to earn out that advance. By then your book sales are probably on a downward slope because of the nature of it not being a new release anymore. So your royalties for a book are very unlikely to ever feel anything like those advanced payments. Kaelyn: 15:38 Yeah. Um, now again, this is not always, Rekka: 15:45 This is not always the case there. There's a reason we call it the writer's dream. There are people who do exceed expectations and make money off a series for a very long time. Kaelyn: 15:55 Yeah. Um, so the, the whole point of this is just manage your expectations. Go out there and do some research. There's all kinds of websites and um, you know, even communities that will give you like statistics and information about this stuff. And the thing is that it's scary because it's very hard to quantify because this moves into the next point we're making, which this is sales. Rekka: 16:18 Yup. Kaelyn: 16:18 You are essentially working in sales. Rekka: 16:22 And from the moment that you find an agent and start working on that book with that agent, you are working on a product. Kaelyn: 16:29 Yes, you are. And this is a product that you have to invest time into without being paid for. And you have to make something that other people are going to want to buy in order for you to live off of it. Rekka: 16:46 This is the little bit, this was your, um, metaphor that you said earlier. It's a little bit like software development. Kaelyn: 16:52 Yes. It's, if you're making an app that people are going to use and spend money on, that's great. But you still have to build the app. Rekka: 17:04 and not every app becomes the killer app. Kaelyn: 17:06 Not every app becomes, you know, Snapchat. Um, I think we kind of fall into this mentality in any sort of creative process. And that could be from writing a book to developing an app that "I made this, this thing and it's great, and everyone should give me money for it," but that's not what actually happens. What happens is you need to sell this to them. So if you want to write, you know, this book that you just love this story and it's just great but no one wants to buy it, that's not going to work out for you with your career as a writer then. So you are working in sales and like any other person working in sales, be they, you know, for instance like a medical device salesperson or you know, a purveyor of bulk coffees and spices. You have to manage your money in a way that allows you to live off of it. Rekka: 18:07 If you think about this more like you are not an employee at a company with this money, you are the company itself. Kaelyn: 18:15 And you have to pay yourself. Rekka and I were talking about this, um, beforehand and you know, I am not a writer. I am on the business side of things. Um, you know, Rekka: 18:26 You happen to cut some checks every now and then. Kaelyn: 18:27 Yes. And as you know, I've mentioned a few times on this. I also work in finance. So I come at all of this with a little bit of a different mentality and approach. The way writers get paid and the way writers earn money. And by the way, I don't mean writing, I mean how they are paid is not the same for a lot of other people in the world. For most of the other people in the world who do work and then receive a paycheck. Rekka: 18:57 For an agreed amount for per either item or hour. Kaelyn: 19:02 Yes. That they did. And I am, you know, focusing on writers. But this is, you know, this is creators a lot of times, and I'm not talking about, you know, somebody who's a graphic designer for a company that goes in and gets a salary to show up, to do work every day. I'm talking about people who make things and then have to hope that other people buy them. Rekka: 19:21 Right. Kaelyn: 19:23 I think writers especially fall into a little bit of a trap because let's, there's a difference between a writer and say a craftsman because in order for the craftsman to have something to sell, they need to buy things beforehand to make that. They have to maybe get a business loan and invest time into this. And, you know, take this enormous risk. Rekka: 19:47 So the closest parallel would be the time the writer has to, you know, make for their writing in order to create a product. Kaelyn: 19:55 Yeah. And I think we can fall into this thing where, because it is, yes, you're not making money, but this is not costing you anything to do either. Rekka: 20:05 The upfront investment is all time. Kaelyn: 20:09 Yes. Rekka: 20:09 And effort and energy. Kaelyn: 20:10 Yes. So you don't have any money coming in, but you also didn't have to take out $100,000 business loan that now you also have to pay back. Rekka: 20:20 Which by the way, as a writer, you're not going to get a business loan. Kaelyn: 20:23 No, you're not. Um, so I think sometimes writers especially can fall into this trap of going, well, this isn't costing me anything. Don't think that it is costing you something because your time is valuable and your effort. Rekka: 20:43 And your energy. Kaelyn: 20:44 And your energy that you put into this where you're going, well I don't, it's just my time and my time is free. Rekka: 20:53 Well, that's what our country wants you to believe. However, you should put some value on your time. Kaelyn: 20:57 Put some value on your time and, but because of that, it's like, well, I can just write another book. I can just write another book. It's not going to cost me anything to write another book and then that will be my job. And that's for a lot of people, that's not how that works. So when I say I'm coming from, you know, like the business background of this and how for a lot of the people in the world that, you know, uh, earn money for themselves to live off of or have income coming in from somewhere, I think they would be very shocked by how writers live this way. Rekka: 21:40 Shocked and discouraged. Kaelyn: 21:41 Discouraged. But also the thing is that within this community, this seems normal because this is what everyone around you is doing. And I'm, I'm painting with a broad brush there, but like, it's something that you encounter more on a regular basis. So it's like, Oh, okay, well that's just, you know— Rekka: 22:00 Right. Yeah. If most of your exposure is to other writers versus people who go in to work at a gas station, at a doctor's office, at a, you know, a factory or something like that. Your experience and the experiences you see are going to be very different from what I think we were brought up at least in this country to expect from money. We have a very strange relationship with money in this country too. Kaelyn: 22:28 Well, so now why am I saying this? The point that I'm trying to make here is that mentally, I think it can be damaging to disconnect yourself from the quote-unquote rest of the world and how they manage their money. At the end of the day, it's no different than yours. You still need money to live off of. You still have living expenses. You still want, need money to retire, money set aside for, you know, emergencies and catastrophic events, money for things that you want in your life. Rekka: 23:01 Right. So you still need a budget. Kaelyn: 23:03 Yeah. And I think there is this disconnect almost between somebody who goes and, you know, works at an automobile plant for eight hours a day and is paid X amount of money for that hourly thing, and somebody who for instance say sells a book and gets a $30,000 advance because windfall money is a tricky, scary thing. Rekka: 23:31 And I think even calling it windfall money here is, is the opposite of what you're trying to convey. Kaelyn: 23:36 Exactly. Yes. But that's what it is. Rekka: 23:39 Right. It is, it is as if your employer paid you once a year for all the work you did for that year. Kaelyn: 23:51 Yep. Rekka: 23:52 And if that were the case, you'd be doing a heck of a lot more in, in intensive budgeting. Kaelyn: 23:56 Okay. So I'm going to use, uh, a personal example here and this is, this is an interesting story and um, req is going to hear this as you hear this because I didn't tell her about this beforehand. Rekka: 24:06 Oooh, juicy. Kaelyn: 24:08 We have family friends that won the lottery, but they won the $1,000 a week for life Lottery. Um, I learned a lot of very interesting things about how lotteries work when this happened. Um, so you know, it's married couple, they have one daughter. Here's something interesting. I didn't know when you, when especially like the lottery like that where it's an ongoing payment, um, you can percentage it out to people. Rekka: 24:40 Okay. Kaelyn: 24:40 It's just an interesting fun fact. So like, you know, their daughter gets X percent of it. Each of them have X percent in their name, even though they're married, you know, but every year there's a day of the year where they get the lump sum of money for that year. Rekka: 24:58 Okay. So even though it's a thousand per week, they're not, it's not, being direct deposited every week. Kaelyn: 25:03 They don't get a check of $1,000 every week. They get a lump sum payment once a year. Rekka: 25:07 So instead of having to budget what's left after taxes of their $1,000 a week, they have what's left after taxes of 52 weeks each year. Kaelyn: 25:15 Yes. Now they both are still working. I mean, they're getting to retirement age, but that's actually, you know, very smart of them. I think they're just, you know, kind of setting all this money aside. But even if they weren't, they're being handed their money for a year all at once. Rekka: 25:32 And that is a windfall. Kaelyn: 25:33 And that is a windfall. And they knew this. So what did they do? They went to a financial planner. Now again, this was, it's a different situation, but it's kind of not, because if you're, you know, let's say you have like a really big great advance and that's supposed to last you for whatever, going to talk, even if you get, you know, the $30,000 advance and you're just going to get like six installments of $9,000, iit's a not a bad idea to talk to someone about this. And you know, I think we hear financial planner and we get scared. It's a little intimidating. Rekka: 26:08 Well, you know, just like tax professional and all this kind of stuff, the first thing you think is, "I'm going to lose money to this person. I'm going to have less if I go get help." Kaelyn: 26:17 Yeah. But there's a reason that these people exist. It's because managing money is scary. Yes. And, Rekka: 26:25 And just like submitting to a publisher is scary and you feel that that agent earns are 15%... Kaelyn: 26:31 Financial planners also earn their 15%. And look, I'm not talking about, you know, giving it all to a brokerage firm to invest. Just, you know, saying like, I have this much money, um, I can, and they'll say, you can put it into this accountant how much, you know, if you continue doing this, this is how much you'll make and when do you want to retire? Do you want to retire? Um, but where I'm coming around to in sort of a little bit of a roundabout way here is windfall money can be very dangerous and... Just punch "lottery winners" into Google. And it will just give you story after story of people who won a good amounts of money. Rekka: 27:14 Enough to call a gob. Kaelyn: 27:15 Yeah. And it was gone in two years. Yeah. I'm gonna say this and it's not a judgment or anything. If you, especially if you are not used to having extra money and suddenly you've got a lot, it's going to seem like, wow, this is amazing. I've got all of this extra money. It is probably not as much as you think it is. Um. Rekka: 27:42 And when you think you have a lot, you might be less careful in how you budget it. Kaelyn: 27:46 Exactly. And that's exactly what I'm... The point I'm trying to get to here is that you need to be realistic about how far that money will get yet. Rekka: 27:55 And you brought up something earlier that we didn't discuss when we were planning this episode, but is another perhaps good way to think of it, not just as your salary, but think of it as your retirement savings. You get access to your retirement savings when you retire. You know, there's different kinds of accounts, there's different ways you get access to it, but you have a finite amount there. Kaelyn: 28:18 Yup. Rekka: 28:18 And you know, when you retire that you are going to be living off this amount for as long as possible, hopefully. Um, and I think there's a little bit more of a sense of reality of what that means in that framing than there is of like this is your advance until you get another advance for another book. Kaelyn: 28:39 You know, this is... We said at the beginning of the episode. No one can tell you how to spend your money on this. Everybody's going to have different needs and priorities, but if you're looking to make a living off of this, if this is what you want your regular full time job to be, being realistic about how much you're going to be making and how far it's going to get you is important when then deciding the lifestyle you want to lead. If you're very happy making whatever you make and you can just exist off of that, then you know, fantastic do that. But you've got to decide what your goals are, what you're aspiring to, what is going to say I consider myself a successful full time writer now. Rekka: 29:23 Mm-hmm. Yeah, what does that look like to you? Kaelyn: 29:25 And there's no answer. It's going to look different for everyone. Rekka: 29:28 And it's going to be very based in what you want, what you see as your vision of success. One thing you can do before you get that giant windfall is start to plan what it would cost for what you see as your vision of success so that you know, obviously every year, that cost will go up a little bit, but you'll have a really good baseline for what that means and take into account things like the cost of groceries. Take into account... If your vision of success is living in New York city, you need to put a, you need to account for the cost of groceries in New York city. The cost of getting to the grocery store because they are not usually nearby and owning a car may not seem practical. I mean like there are so many things to consider. Kaelyn: 30:12 Yeah. Rekka: 30:13 For something like that. You know, really budget this out. Like it's really happening so that you get real numbers. Kaelyn: 30:19 Just be realistic. I'm not saying don't aspire to things. You absolutely should. Rekka: 30:23 No, this is, this is building the budget for the life you want and that's great, but it will tell you how much you need to have that life. And it's not meant to be discouraging, but just to temper your enthusiasm when a big check comes in as to whether that big check gets you there. Kaelyn: 30:38 A lot of people who you know want to be full time writers are going to have to spend a lot of time confronted with the reality of how their money is going. But again, I'm gonna stress it's no different from anyone else in the world, in terms of... Rekka: 30:53 Right. The difference comes in terms of the frequency of these payments, but the dollar is still worth a dollar. It's not a sparkly gummy dollar that, you know, is, you know it has no extra magic than regular currency. Kaelyn: 31:07 Don't disassociate yourself from the rest of the population in terms of how your money works. How you get it may be very different, but how it works and how you have to plan for it is exactly the same as everyone else. Rekka: 31:19 Once it's in your bank account. Those dollars function the same as everyone else's. Kaelyn: 31:23 So don't fall into this trap where, "well I'm a writer, it's different." Rekka: 31:29 Okay. It is. It may be slightly different but not in the way you think it is. Kaelyn: 31:36 Well yeah. What I mean is like, "I'm a writer. How my, how I manage my money is different," because everyone still needs the same things. You know, regardless of where you're living, you are presumably part of a society that has certain norms and standards in the way that it functions and you need money in order to adhere to those. Rekka: 31:53 Right. Kaelyn: 31:54 So none of this was meant to be discouraging. None of this is meant to, you know, Rekka: 31:59 if anything, this is to empower you to have, you know, a plan before you get to the point where you cause your own financial collapse because you are overwhelmed. And the idea of coming up with a plan sounds scary. So you avoid coming up with a plan and then the money doesn't last. Kaelyn: 32:19 When I was working on my MA, you know, I was a, I was a graduate assistant and one of my jobs was to run the graduate student events series. Most of them were academic based, except one of them was what we called the PhD scare session. And a lot of, you know the people that I was with that we were all working on this graduate degree, were all planning to go get a PhD and once a semester we had the PhD scare session, which was, we went and got a pizza and a few beers and we brought all of the professors in and they sat there for two hours and told horror stories about getting their PhD and how hard it was, and how you're just basically not going to have money for five to seven years, and how they didn't sleep, how, you know, all of this terrible stuff. And they always finished it by saying, "we would not have taken you into this program if we didn't think that, you know, you were capable, everyone was capable of going to do this. But you need to understand that this is how it is. It's, there are times that it's going to be very unpleasant. It's not going to be fun. It's not going to be easy. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't do it." Rekka: 33:40 Right. Kaelyn: 33:41 Now, that said, I didn't, do it. Rekka: 33:42 I was just about to say. Kaelyn: 33:45 For a whole bunch of different reasons. But, um, when I was in grad school school, uh, that was the, the great recession started in the middle of that. And um, a lot of people were losing funding. Things were changing. But then that's another thing to consider is sometimes the economy changes. Things can change in your financial future. So in my case, I made the conscious, like I had to sit down one day and work all of this out and go, well, I'm not going to get a PhD because to me, it wasn't worth it. I didn't want to spend, you know, all of these years when the financial situation of the world was just so bad, you know? So I decided not to do it. And that's why I am not Dr. Kaelyn. Rekka: 34:30 I was literally about to say that. Get out of my brain. Kaelyn: 34:33 So yeah. So I mean, the point of this episode is not to make it sound like you've chosen so poorly, but to give you the information to prepare you for when those these circumstances arise. And the maybe a voice in the back of your head will say, Oh, Kaelyn warned me about this, that you should not go buy those very expensive shoes that are so on brand from my book title. Kaelyn: 35:01 I have a bad shoe habit. Rekka: 35:04 I was not trying to point fingers. Kaelyn: 35:05 No, It's fine. It's, I, I've, I've accepted it. It's, you know, there are a lot of things about writing a book that are very hard in all different aspects. One of the harder ones is going to be the money issue. It's just, I mean, it's just how it is. It's not, you know, it's something that we don't want to think about. We want to, you know, say like, Oh well I'm going to write this book and then it's going to be, you know, my life is going to be exactly where I want it to be. The money side of the writing process is, I won't say the hardest because I don't think that's it, but it's definitely up there. And while it may not be the hardest, I think it's the most difficult to deal with. Rekka: 35:50 Yeah. And there are a lot of difficult steps. I mean, like if writing was easy, everyone would do it. It's the phrase and—. Kaelyn: 35:56 Well, that's the thing is everyone, everyone can do it. Just not everyone necessarily should. Rekka: 36:01 well, okay. So if being successful at writing easy, then everyone would be, um, yeah. And as I said, like going in with the, for knowledge of what your actual needs are to have the writing life that you envision and there is no correct answer to what you should envision. Some people are happy to make writing their side gig, Kaelyn: 36:27 Decide what success looks like for you. Rekka: 36:30 Yeah. Kaelyn: 36:31 And that can change by the way. Rekka: 36:32 Yeah. Yeah. And you can reevaluate every few years. Kaelyn: 36:34 No one's going to tattoo it across your back and say like, Oh well sorry, Rekka: 36:39 Look at you, you failed cause this is what's written on your back. And ya changed your mind. But you know, no the um, you know, you can reevaluate it every couple of years. You can change your mind and say, you know what, I thought I was happy writing on the side, but like writing gives me passion and my day job doesn't. And I would really like to figure out what it would take. Suddenly, I am curious what it would take to write full time. Yeah. And that's the thing is, research it before you attempt it. Kaelyn: 37:05 and just think about money. And I won't go so far as to say, be careful with it because that's not my business. But think about it and consider these things. And if you're unsure, reach out to someone. It doesn't have to be a financial planner. You know, like this is, I mean, my mom is really good at handling money and if I, to this day, if I have a question about something I call her and go like, "I dunno, what do you think? Like what should I do here?" Or in some cases, "what is this?" Um, you know, if you have someone in your life or reach out to other authors and ask them if they did anything special or talk to you know, your agent, your, you know, ask questions. Don't expect people to tell you things. Rekka: 37:52 Right. It never hurts to ask and it never hurts to get multiple opinions cause one person's experience, like we said, is not going to match another's. You can ask these questions, don't expect that someone is going to volunteer everything you need to know. Kaelyn: 38:08 Yeah. And don't feel silly asking the questions. It's okay not to know things. Rekka: 38:13 And everybody deals with these things. Kaelyn: 38:15 And it is much better to ask someone than to just remain ignorant of something that's important for you to know. Rekka: 38:24 Because then you're not only afraid of the money or afraid of being broke. You're also afraid of looking like you made a horrible mistake or that you can't manage money or what, I mean, there's like— Kaelyn: 38:34 —any number of things—. Rekka: 38:34 —like I said there's a lot of shame surrounding money in our, in our society. The people who don't have it are, um, shamed for not working hard enough, et cetera. When there's a whole lot more to it and the more you look into it. And plan and, you know, keep dreaming. It's just... Kaelyn: 38:50 Look, I'll use a personal example here. Um, you know, when I came in and Parvis and I have these business partners and I had to sit down and go through my finances with them and it was a very, like, jarring experience. Rekka: 39:04 You feel very vulnerable. Kaelyn: 39:05 Yeah. I felt very exposed. And at the same time I'm kinda like, there's nothing, you know, there's no reason this shouldn't, this should be something that, you know, especially with people that I'm invested with, to talk about. Rekka: 39:18 Yup. Kaelyn: 39:19 And now, you know, and this is coming from someone who, like I've mentioned in other episodes, I work in finance where we talk about money all the time, but we don't talk about our personal money, Rekka: 39:31 Right. Yes. It's a little bit like flashing your underwear at somebody. There's just a, um, a whole social, uh, parfait of— Kaelyn: 39:39 There's a social dynamic to it definitely. Rekka: 39:40 Yeah. I'm talking about money. And so there's... People are afraid of, of being heard, talking about money in the wrong way around the wrong people. Kaelyn: 39:49 Exactly. Yeah. And all of that said, you know, that's, you know, your own personal, what you're comfortable with, but don't be afraid to ask questions about money and don't be afraid to be frank about it because at the end of the day, it's your money and you need to make it do what you want it to do for your life. Rekka: 40:05 Yeah. Kaelyn: 40:06 On that note, we'll end with the same sentiment as the previous money episode, don't be afraid to ask questions. Don't be afraid to talk to people about it and be realistic. Rekka: 40:15 Yeah. Kaelyn: 40:16 Windfall money can be a very dangerous thing. Rekka: 40:20 Right. Because it feels like a lottery dividend or something like that. Kaelyn: 40:25 Yeah. If nothing else, just seriously look up stories about lottery winners. Look at that. There've been studies, Rekka: 40:31 This is your PhD scare session. Kaelyn: 40:34 Yes. Um, look up stories about lottery winners. They've done studies on, you know, people getting windfall amounts of money in all different denominations and what's happened to it. And a lot of times the mismanagement comes down to people not realizing how much money they actually had. Right. How far it goes in what you can do with it. Yes. So, you know, look, I really hope that everyone listening to this goes out there and gets a $500,000 advance for a book that becomes a national bestseller and. Rekka: 41:06 Earns out and keeps earning. Kaelyn: 41:08 And just, you know, and then you get to go live in your, you know, Rekka: 41:12 Whatever your definition of dream author life is. Kaelyn: 41:15 I think I want like, I like being in New York, but like I want a castle in New York. Rekka: 41:24 You gotta write something first, Kaelyn. Kaelyn: 41:25 Yeah. Well, yes. Okay. Fair. But, Rekka: 41:29 So that's part of what you're planning. Kaelyn: 41:32 Yeah. Um, so yeah, I, you know, be realistic. Yeah. Manage your expectations. Rekka: 41:35 And we hope, you know, and we are not trying to scare anyone. Kaelyn: 41:39 No, no, definitely not. Rekka: 41:40 This episode is not your PhD scare session. That lotto Google search, Kaelyn: 41:44 That's your, that's your PhD scare session. Rekka: 41:47 Um, but we do just want to bring it up because that's what this podcast is for. We want to talk about the things that people don't understand about publishing. And one of the things is how strangely your income would be structured if you relied on this income to live. Kaelyn: 42:03 Yeah. It's, um, quarterly at best. Rekka: 42:07 At best. And that's royalties. Kaelyn: 42:09 Yes. Rekka: 42:10 And not even advances. Kaelyn: 42:10 Yes. So do your research, manage your expectations, but also, you know, aspire to what you want to do with it. Rekka: 42:18 Don't be afraid to dream. Just also know what goes into that to make it functional. Kaelyn: 42:21 Just wake up every now and then. Rekka: 42:22 No! And like that's the thing, it's like there is nothing wrong with wanting. Kaelyn: 42:28 yeah. Rekka: 42:28 But you need to understand what's under the chassis of that dream and how it's going to function. Kaelyn: 42:35 Yeah. And don't fall into the trap of just wanting and not doing anything about it. So anyway, that's the episode. That was a bit of a while. I won't say a bummer, but Rekka: 42:44 no, but we, we tackled that one. We grabbed it by the throat and we shook it a lot. So Kaelyn: 42:50 No, we did, we did really spend a lot of time beforehand talking about this and kind of deciding what we wanted to do and say, so, Rekka: 42:57 and we understand that our audience has a very wide experience of, you know, finances and life and abilities. Um, so we wanted to make sure that what we said was not the bright and sunny best case scenario for everybody. Kaelyn: 43:14 I would be very curious and I'm going to do some digging on this and if I come up with anything, I'll post an update authors and writers who, you know, are internationally known and that's, you know, what they do. Um, and be curious to see what their advances were Rekka: 43:31 and also, are they receiving royalties as most of their income? Are they receiving, I'm speaking fees as their income? Are they receiving, you know, dividends from investments that they made with a large advance that the advance went straight in and now they're being paid out on money market money. Kaelyn: 43:52 Exactly. Rekka: 43:52 So that's, um, you know, that's all very likely in many of those cases. Kaelyn: 43:59 Yeah. Okay. Well, um, yeah, thank you for listening. That was, you know, we know this was, this was a lot. Rekka: 44:04 Yeah, it was a heck of a lot. Kaelyn: 44:05 This was a lot. So, um, but you know, as always questions, comments... Rekka: 44:09 You can find us on Twitter and Instagram @WMBcast. You can find our older episodes wmbcast.com. If you found this—we hope you found this—episode very helpful, and if you have a few of those magical gummy dollars to throw our way, we'd love your support patreon.com/WMBcast. If you are still waiting for those gummy dollars to come in, you can, uh, share the podcast with a friend who would find the information useful. Or you can leave us a rating and review on iTunes to help random strangers find us through searches. And we'll talk to you next time everyone. Kaelyn: 44:45 Thanks everyone. 44:45 Outtro Music

"The resurrection of Jesus men and women is the crown jewel of history. It is the most written about the most provable, the most factual, the most life changing event in all of classical literature and in all of history. The resurrection of Jesus indeed sets Jesus apart from every other figure of religion or belief that ever lived." Family Discussions: What difference do you see the resurrection as it has made in the history of the world? What difference does the resurrection of Jesus make in your heart as a follower of Christ today? Transcription: 00:14          Have you ever wondered why Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth and life. No one comes to the father except by me?" Have you ever wondered what separates Jesus apart from every other religious figure who ever lived? Luke chapter 24 one through nine tells you why, and it says this, according to the eye witness accounts, Luke writes this, "but on the first day of the week at early Dawn, they came to the tomb bringing the spices which they had prepared and they found the stone rolled away from the tomb. But when they had entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were perplexed about this, behold two men suddenly stood near them in dazzling clothing. And as the women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, the men said to them, why do you seek the living one among the dead? He is not here, but he is risen. Remember how he spoke to you while he was still in Galilee saying that the son of man must be delivered into the hands of criminal men, sinful men, and then be crucified. And on the third day rise again and they remembered his words and they returned from the tomb and reported all these things to the 11 and to all of the rest."   01:26          The resurrection of Jesus men and women is the crown jewel of history. It is the most written about the most provable, the most factual, the most life changing event in all of classical literature and in all of history. The resurrection of Jesus indeed sets Jesus apart from every other figure of religion or belief that ever lived. And here's why. Number one, when Jesus was crucified, he was crucified under the Roman government. It was a crucifixion unto death. It always meant a crucifixion unto death. Two Roman coroners would examine the lifeless body after he'd been dragged down from the cross, and they would sign his death certificate according to the Roman law. And if they were incorrect in their assessment of his death, then they would be crucified for their mistake. Number two, he was prepared according to the Jewish custom of burial, which meant that he was wrapped with a hundred pounds of spices and wrapped with linen cloth when he was laid in the tomb. Number three, a very large stone and historians have classified that stone that was put in front of his tomb as a stone that would weigh about one and a half to two tons. A stone was put in front of this tomb. Number three it says a Roman guard was placed in front of his tomb and some would say it was a Jewish guard, and whether it was a Roman guard or whether it was a Jewish guard, it was a gourd that was taught to die on duty.   02:51          The Roman guard was a group of 12 to 16 highly trained men trained to defend a piece of ground against an entire invading army. The Jewish guard who some would say was guarding Jesus' tomb was a guard that was dispatched in groups and if one of the men under Jewish law went to sleep on duty, the entire guard was burned alive with the fire started with the guard's own clothing. Next, Jesus was buried in a private tomb. He was buried in a place that everyone knew where it was. It was the private grave of Joseph of Arimathea. He was flogged before crucifixion, a torture. They would render a man within an inch of his own death. Somehow he carried the cross up the Hill. Somehow he took the crucifixion. He was died, he was buried, but on the third day, something happened. Something happened on the third day that changed the world. Something happened on the third day that took 11 men who were cowards. 11 disciples who fled for their lives. Something happened on the third day that changed those men's lives and those men became the testimony of Christ of the world. 10 of those 11 men went out and died martyrs' deaths.   04:02          According to history and tradition. The other one died in exile. But because of that day, there had been more hospitals built in his name. There've been more orphanages built in his name. There've been more hungry mouths fed in his name in third world countries throughout this world. He not only ended slavery in his name in America, but slavery in the entire free world. There has been more life change in the name of that one man. More goodness done more people's lives and hearts change. More families healed, more marriages put back together than the name of any other man that ever lived. That man's name was Jesus Christ. And the faith on which you build your belief system is the faith in that day that that man rose from the dead. Just as he said he would. And here's my question for you today. What difference do you see the resurrection as it has made in the history of the world? And more importantly, what difference does the resurrection of Jesus make in your heart as a follower of Christ today?  

  Don West and Shawn Vincent explore a tragic road-rage case that resulted in the unnecessary deaths of both the defender and the aggressor. The case illustrates how, for concealed carriers, road-rage is a no-win scenario.   TRANSCRIPT:  Shawn Vincent: Hey there, Don. How's it going? Don West: Great, Shawn. Good to see you again. Shawn Vincent: It's good to see you. So often, we record these things when we're in our own nomadic offices. What do we call this thing that we're doing, where we can work out of our home sometimes, or we work out of a hotel room, we work out our rental car? Don West: Isn't technology remarkable in that sense for us who need to travel as part of the way we make a living, have the luxury of traveling as well so that when we're not traveling for work, but otherwise enjoying life, we can still do the things that are important from a professional standpoint, we can still have conversations with each other and others. We're no longer tethered to the desk. Shawn Vincent: Tethered to the desk, which is case in point. I don't have an office that I go to every day. I work from my home. I work from a hotel. Yeah. I work where I need to work, sometimes from the back porch of my house, and the weather's good enough. But today, we're in a library in Winter Park, Florida. I have to say I'm surprised at how noisy librarians are. Don West: We actually had to move the room. Shawn Vincent: We moved the room here next to the employee break lounge. The librarians wouldn't shut up. They're too noisy. But here we are. Don West: That's the beauty of it. Here we are in the same part of the country for the first time in quite a while. Shawn Vincent: It's been  months anyway. Yeah. Don West: We can find a local spot. We have portable equipment, and we have laptops and cell phones and lovelier microphones. Now, we have a broadcast studio. Shawn Vincent: That's right. Even if it's a slightly echoey room. But yeah. Here's what I want to talk about with you today. You've mentioned last time we spoke that you tried your first case that involved a violent crime before a jury about 30 years ago. Don West: Yeah. I've been thinking now probably early '80s. So we're talking probably '82, '83, in that range. I was working at the public defender's office in Seminole County, Florida, which turned out to be the same venue more than 30 years later for the George Zimmerman, Trayvon Martin trial, which is kind of the backyard for Mark O'Mara and me for such a long, long time. My first self-defense case, lethal self-defense case to a jury was a local Seminole County prosecuted case. It was domestic in nature. My client was a woman who stabbed and killed her husband in self-defense, and it goes back that long ago. There've been a number of them since. They're all unique, even though there are common threads of course and common legal issues. Don West: Interestingly enough, in that case, there was a reversal on appeal because she was convicted of a lesser offense because of jury instructions. The court denied her the opportunity of the castle doctrine. Then on appeal, the appellate court said, no, she was in a home that she lived in. Even though they were estranged, and she was just there temporarily, it was still her house. So she had no duty to retreat, and then reversed, got a new trial, and the case resolved. Shawn Vincent: That's really interesting. So castle doctrine doesn't have to refer to only your primary residence if it's a home where you have a right to be. Don West: They were equal occupants. Shawn Vincent: Equal occupants. Yeah. Don West: That's right. Shawn Vincent: That's interesting. You're just as protected by castle doctrine at your beach house if you're lucky enough to have one as you are in your primary residence then. Don West: Yeah. It was interesting because one of the factual issues that led to that was that she had an opportunity to leave without re-engaging him and chose not to. The confrontation turned lethal, and she had been denied the defense basically of the castle doctrine. The jury was instructed she had a duty to retreat under the circumstances. Even though they didn't buy the prosecution argument that it was murder, she was still convicted of a lesser offense and sentenced to a prison sentence. So the case was appealed. We won on appeal, and the whole thing worked out in her favor at that point. But it was a good example of how one... We talk about so often how one- Shawn Vincent: About the nuances. Don West: ... little thing makes such a huge difference. Frankly, let's fast forward, how many years to the Marissa Alexander Case in Jacksonville? Shawn Vincent: You were talking about that. It made me think of Marissa Alexander situation. Don West: I hope we do a deep dive in that case at some point. But long story short is she was prosecuted for essentially firing a warning shot at an estranged... I don't know if they were still married, but it was an ex-relationship of sorts. She felt threatened and fired a gun, had lost, I believe, the self-defense immunity hearing, went to trial, was convicted and initially sentenced to I think 20 years in prison. Shawn Vincent: 20 years. Three 20-year sentences to be served consecutively because there was the husband or the estranged father, some children, and two children were present. So she fires one shot, which she called a warning shot that struck nobody, went into the wall and then to the ceiling and the room next to her. Angela Corey and her crew, who we've had experience with, decided that they'd charged her with attempted murder times three. Don West: Yeah. Not to get too far off-track, but in that case, she was convicted and sentenced to a lengthy prison term and won a reversal. I think out of all of that stuff that was so controversial and was so divisive, even within the legal community, she winds up I think getting a new trial because of a jury instruction issue. Don West: So she comes back. She gets a redo and gets some new lawyers and some maybe new prosecutors. But in any event, there's a resolution of the case that's favorable. But she spent at least some time in prison. I believe is a convicted felon even as a result of what turned out to be negotiated outside. Shawn Vincent: So I promise you we are going to do a deep dive into that case relatively soon. I also have some bad news for you, Don. 1982, '83 was way more than 30 years ago. Don West: Oh, Shawn. Say it isn't so. Shawn Vincent: So they get closer and then- Don West: Oh my goodness. I guess you're right. Shawn Vincent: 37, some years ago. You and I were talking one time, and he said, "A few years ago something happened." I said, "Is that an actual a few years ago, Don, or is that like the old man, 15 years ago actually, but it feels like just a few years ago?" Don West: That does feel just like a few years ago to me. I say 30 thinking that- Shawn Vincent: That's long enough. How could anything have happened 30 years ago that I can remember, right? I'm middle-aged now, which I'm starting to get into my head that... When I climb stairs, it becomes apparent to me that I'm middle-aged now. Or when I tell the same stories over and over again, which I'm prone to do. My kids know, I apologize. I'd probably told you this story before, and like, "Yeah, Daddy. You have a lot of stories that you tell over and over again. Mommy has one story that she tells over and over again." That's the difference that my kids have determined. Shawn Vincent: So I bring that up only because I think you've told this story before, and some avid listeners may have heard it. But because we're getting older and it's our prerogative, we're going to tell this story again. Because today we'll be talking about a road rage case. You told me about a self-defense case, a road rage case where you're quizzing potential jurors during jury selection and got a surprising answer. Don West: That's exactly right. I remember it clearly as well as I can remember anything, clearly. Shawn Vincent: Was it 30 years ago? Don West: At my advanced age. Yeah. It wasn't 30 because it was clearly... I think it was after the first one I was telling you. [inaudible 00:09:30] has long since gone beyond the public defender's office and full-time practice criminal defense laws, state and federal in private practice and the Orlando area and places beyond. But in any event, I had this jury trial, was a case that could not be resolved. My client was charged with second-degree murder, with the use of a firearm, which would have likely resulted in either a life sentence or such a long sentence that it would have effectively been the rest of his life. Don West: We picked a jury. We're picking a jury. The overview of the case, and I don't name names in these cases because these are people that are with us right now, somewhere maybe even in this community who as a result of this event were prosecuted, were facing lengthy prison sentence. By good luck, and I'd like to think some good lawyering and some favorable facts are no longer facing that, that they were acquitted. They got to live the rest of their life, and I see no reason to bring them back into it now. Don West: I can certainly swear to you that none of this is made up. It's part of the life experience of individuals that we know personally because we've been involved in their lives and the life of criminal defense lawyers and litigation consultants. But we were picking a jury, and obviously, one of the issues we want to know and explore with jurors is their attitude about firearms, the use of firearms, self-defense, even generally attitude about the second amendment and their views. Firearms, the use of firearms, licensed, unlicensed, possession of firearms has always been controversial. Don West: Fortunately, in Florida the lawyers have wide berth in personally questioning the jurors during the voir dire, some people pronounce it, the jury selection process. I was kind of humming along, talking to jurors, kind of in my own mind, selecting the ones I would like to keep if I could and mentally getting ready to challenge the ones I didn't think would be good for this case. The overview of the facts that my client and some friends had gone to a nightclub. My client had a gun. He left it in the car, as he should have, to go into the club and inside the club was being hassled by somebody. I never understood exactly why someone who may have had a connection to one of the other friends, but no big deal. Don West: Then they leave at the end of the night, go out into the parking area, and this guy shows up and starts harassing my client again. It gets a little bit physical. My client retreats to the car thinking that it's safe there, purposely trying not to engage them, and the guy's not content with letting it go and essentially attacks the car, start slamming into it, kicking the windows. Eventually, it got so frightening to my client. He felt so threatened and vulnerable. There was no place for him to go that, as he smashed the car one last time, he shot the gun, and tragically, it killed him. He was being prosecuted for second-degree murder. Don West: From a legal standpoint, my client was the passenger in the rear seat, could not control the car. The driver of the car wound up testifying that he was stuck in traffic. Everybody was leaving at that point. There was nowhere he could go- Shawn Vincent: Sure. Pinned in. Don West: ... to try to go away, pinned in. Whether it was good luck again or brilliant lawyering, I don't know. But before the trial was over, the driver actually testified that he was scared, and had he been my client, he would have done the same thing. Shawn Vincent: Sure. Out of reasonableness standard. Don West: Yeah. So back to the jury selection issue. I'm questioning jurors about their knowledge of firearms, whether they have guns at home or in their cars and how they feel about self-defense in general. I was talking to a juror who was very pro-gun. He had a lot of firearms. He was proud of it too, was an advocate for the Second Amendment and outspoken about it. I'm initially thinking this is pretty good stuff for me. This is a guy who starts for me defending my client from the right perspective. Then I wanted to get a little bit more information about his practice and views, especially when it comes to cars. Don West: So I'm talking with him, and I say, "Well, I know you have firearms at home, and you believe in the right to protect yourself and others. Do you have a gun in your car?" In Florida, you can have a gun in your car without a concealed carry permit if it's under certain circumstances. So people can have guns in their cars that don't otherwise not allowed to carry them concealed. I just assumed it would be true, and I said, "So when you're out in your car, do you have a gun? Do you keep it in your glove box or somewhere?" He goes, "Oh my goodness. No." Shawn Vincent: No. Don West: It threw me back. I couldn't believe. Here's the guy. I thought it was a softball question. I never expected “no.” So in jury selection, you actually should ask why or why not, questions you would never ask on cross-examination because you really- Shawn Vincent: Sure. But those sorts of conversations, you really bring up other people's opinions, right? Don West: You want to know what they think, right? Whether it's good or bad, you need to know what it is. So I say, "Why not?" He goes, "I can't trust myself. I have a quick fuse when I am in a difficult traffic situation, and somebody cuts me off or flips me off. I don't think I can keep myself from reaching for that gun and waving it around. God forbid that I should ever take it to the next step, but I purposely don't have a gun in my car because I can't trust myself not to use it when I'm so pissed as I get when I'm driving a car and some idiot cuts me off." Shawn Vincent: Wow. That's some remarkable self-awareness, right? Don West: It is. It is. To his credit, I guess, whatever works for you because we have encountered our own series of road rage cases, whether it's doing this kind of work or just in the cases that we've touched and in legal work to know how volatile and how deadly that stuff becomes sometimes for apparently no reason, at least no good reason. Shawn Vincent: We see these cases where inside the course of a minute, you can go from running errands to being in a gunfight. Don West: Yeah. People that have never known each other, never expected, never would have known each other, but for the circumstance that brings them together. Shawn Vincent: Yeah. Now, aside from more than 30 years as a criminal defense lawyer, you're at your national trial counsel for CCW Safe? Don West: Yes. Shawn Vincent: What does that mean? Don West: As national trial counsel for CCW safe, I see in some way or another, all of the cases involving our members that come to the company, all of the claims, I see them at some point. Most of the time, I take the phone call from the member who has just experienced or is currently even involved in a self-defense scenario to help identify the resources they need. I identify and retain counsel on their behalf. Oftentimes I'll go to the location where the incident took place, attend court proceedings and become involved in marshaling and monitoring and helping fund their defense. I even consult with their local counsel for strategy. In some cases I've had a lot of contact with the member through the process, discussing the case and even doing mock examinations, practice cross-examinations, this sort of trial preparation stuff that helps the members feel confident that they're able to communicate effectively with the court and with the jury. Shawn Vincent: Sure. There's a lot of other podcasts in the CCW Safe family of podcasts. Specifically, I'm a litigation consultant. I've had the great privilege to work with a lot of great attorneys on very interesting cases. I get to help pick juries from time to time. You and I have picked juries together before. I've been able to help you in voir dire. The focus of our podcast is to talk about the legal ramifications to a use of force incident, when somebody feels they need to use their weapon in justifiable self-defense, that next fight that we talk about. They've survived the first fight with the aggression that they faced, and now, there's this potential legal challenge to whether they're justified or not. So we look at these- Don West: We look at the broad spectrum of that from post-incident when the smoke has cleared. Shawn Vincent: Yeah. Now, how does the law look at that? Don West: Now, what happens? Yes. We hope by providing this kind of information and written stuff and communicating with the members even one-on-one, the first interaction with law enforcement, for example, and from that point forward, what to expect if the case is referred for prosecution? What happens if you're arrested? What to expect in court. How much it would cost, frankly, if you were funding it yourself. Fortunately, CCW Safe members don't pay anything for the cost of the legal defense should they be involved in a self-defense incident. Shawn Vincent: So now, as you're in your role as... trying because you've had a chance to talk to a lot of members. Don West: Yes. Shawn Vincent: Yeah. You've told me before that when we look at these road rage incidents, those are one of the most likely scenarios where concealed carriers could find themselves in a very difficult whole situation very quickly. Don West: I've been involved in road rage cases on behalf of CCW Safe where shots were fired, where people were prosecuted for that, again, to people that never knew each other, that somehow get involved in something that escalates to potential lethal violence. But a lot of it is the loss of emotional control that ends up from a legal standpoint in a brandishing or an assault, somebody that displays a weapon under circumstances that are as considered reckless or threatening and winds up in somebody getting arrested and being prosecuted. We see that, frankly, all too often. In my experience, it's the easiest way for people to wind up that are otherwise living normal lives in a potential lethal situation and often in a legal situation that results in being prosecuted for something. Shawn Vincent: Right. You're trying to specifically just about brandishing a weapon. You're in your car, things have gotten heated with somebody else. Maybe you feel threatened, maybe you're just angry, and you have a gun in the dashboard or in the center console, and you pull it out and show that you have it. Don West: Yes. Exactly. Right. We see more of those in a road rage context than under any other fact pattern that I can think of. Shawn Vincent: Kind of just lose their minds on the road. Don West: That's a great way of saying it. They just become crazy, don't they? Shawn Vincent: Yeah. Don West: Everyone listening, and I know I can give you half a dozen incidents myself that I remember that moment when something happened that took just driving down the road to the next level where I wanted to react. I did react emotionally, maybe by yelling or perhaps more gesturing. But to think how quickly that can go when two people are willing to engage, both people then feel offended and violated, and then it just climbs the ladder to the point that somebody takes- Shawn Vincent: They introduced a gun, and to the situation, they can get violent. Yeah. I'm pretty sure the first time my children ever heard the term “douchebag” was because of some sort of traffic incident that I was involved with. So let's look at our road rage case, right? This is going to be unique in the cases that we've looked at, in that, in this case, nobody was charged because everybody involved ended up dead. A lot of the cases- Don West: This is as tragic as any case we've talked about and is unnecessary as any case we ever talked about. Shawn Vincent: Right. A lot of the times, the worst case scenario in a case is that somebody is dead, and the shooter's determined to be unjustified even when there seemed to be some reason for them to have reasonable fear. So this case, we're going to go... This is Davie, Florida, so famous in Florida for being the first stage of ground state. We have a guy named Keith Byrne. He's a 40-year-old father of three. He's a Marine veteran, and he's driving a utility truck. He's on the phone with a friend, probably shouldn't be, and inadvertently cuts off another guy who's driving a blue BMW. It's 22-year-old Andre Sinclair. He's also a father. In fact, he's got the mother of his child and his child in his BMW. Shawn Vincent: They come to a red light. Now, Byrne reportedly rolled down his window and said, "My bad." This is what the friend of his who was on the phone with him testified to. So he says he hears, "My bad." So we think that Byrne's trying to apologize for cutting the guy off, and then he hears shots fired. What we learned from local reporting and from the law enforcement agency that investigated is that Sinclair gets out of his BMW. He's armed with a gun, and he approaches Byrne's truck. I think I remember hearing some suggestion that Sinclair fired first. Don West: Here's where I was confused, just for a second, as you were outlining those facts, because I had read at least one article on this. I think maybe Sinclair might even have been a passenger in the BMW. Shawn Vincent: That might be true. Don West: I think maybe his girlfriend was driving the car, and their child was in the car. Clearly, that Byrne cut him off and was apparently ready to acknowledge fault, I guess whatever traffic incident there was. So this even becomes a little more confusing and complicated. But let's assume all of that to be true, that Sinclair is the passenger in the BMW, his girlfriend drives, stops the car. Even under that scenario, Sinclair gets out of the vehicle to approach Byrne's utility truck. Byrne rolls the window down and by the account of the friend who overhears some of it on the phone call was preparing to or had already begun apologizing and accepting responsibility for whatever traffic incident took place. Shawn Vincent: Right. But what happens instead is there's an exchange of gunfire. Perhaps Sinclair fires first. Byrne returns fire. Byrne is struck in the chest. He dies in the seat of his utility vehicle. Sinclair is struck less critically, but nonetheless fatally. He's taken to the hospital, and he dies later. Now, the police come immediately, and they investigate this. One of the officers who does the PR for the law enforcement agency said that they would have, after a brief investigation, arrested Sinclair had he not died of his injuries. So from what we know, he's clearly the aggressor here and by that account, Byrne justified in returning fire. You get someone pulling a gun and approaching your vehicle, especially if they're shooting, that's as justified as you can get, right? Don West: Yeah. It may not even matter legally at that point who shot first. If Byrne is there in his truck, and he sees Sinclair approaching him, sees a weapon and sees Sinclair prepared to use it, you put all of that stuff together, and looks to me like an imminent threat of great bodily harm or death, the ability to use deadly force. I don't know what may have been said. This is another one. We don't know what happened. We only know the roughest outline because we don't know if Byrne saw Sinclair with the gun and reacted to that right or who fired first or whether Sinclair got the gun with the purpose of shooting Byrne as he got out of his car and approached him or if Byrne sees the gun, reacts to that, Sinclair reacts to Byrne's gun, who had reacted just . . . Shawn Vincent: Those are all those nuances that you've talked about, the fact that. . . We've looked at nine different cases where we followed them all the way through the court case right up to verdict and sometimes into appeal, and during that process, lots of details come out. Some of this stuff, we're only able to talk about what reporters who were there in the courtroom talked about. You and I know there's all sorts of other stuff that jurors saw and beyond that stuff that the lawyers fought to keep out from the case, right? Don West: Of course, yeah. Shawn Vincent: So you can thin slice these things to the most minute degree. So we're talking in broad terms here about these cases. But in this case, what I see is here's a guy who, in all accounts, was justified, this is Byrne, in using deadly force. What little good that does him now because he's dead. There's something that Sergeant Leone from the law enforcement agency said about road rage scenarios. If you find yourself in one, just leave the area, even if you have to turn on a different street, right? I think one of the four elements of self-defense that we talked about in those nine cases that went to trial that we examined, one of those elements is deescalation, right, and that when you're a concealed carrier, and you have the weapon that can end all confrontations, that you have a responsibility to avoid confrontations whenever you can. Shawn Vincent: We're talking about how angry people get in traffic and how quickly you said that these road rage instances are the only things we can go from zero to 100 in seconds, right? Don West: You lose your mind. Yeah. This is the first time that we're really talking about some of those actual nuances. But let's take a minute, even if it doesn't get us anywhere at the end. Let's take a minute just in our human experience and our human experience with road rage and our experience understanding human nature and stuff and just imagine a couple of ways that this could have played out. We know the end was tragic. Both people died. We can assume the worst, especially on Sinclair's part because he got out of the car with the gun. He clearly started it. But can't you imagine that Sinclair is angry because he got cut off? We don't know what Byrne may have done, whether there was other stuff said or done or what have you. Don West: Let's say Sinclair gets out with the gun being a jerk with the idea of just scaring the hell out of Byrne and saying, he gets out the gun and he wants to wave it at him and point him. He wants to brandish it. Not that he intends to shoot him at that point, but let's say he wants in his mind to teach him a lesson. Shawn Vincent: He doesn't know that this guy is a gun packing Marine veteran. He thinks he's only one with a gun, and- Don West: So he wants- Shawn Vincent: ... "I'm going to show him." Don West: Right. "I'll show him." So he gets out with the gun. He walks up to the car. Now Byrne's pretty confused. Here's a guy that he wants to apologize to for the traffic violation, and now he's coming at him with a gun. What is Byrne's natural response going to be to that? He has to think. He just has to think that Sinclair got out of the car with the gun to come up there and shoot him. It isn't likely statistically that that would happen. It's probably much more likely that he intended to scare him or just be a jerk. Shawn Vincent: But that's not a gamble anyone wants to take. Don West: No. He has to assume at that point. He got out of the gun for the purpose of walking up there and as stupid and ridiculous and as criminal as that is that that's a very possible outcome. So he has to get his gun, doesn't he, at that point to defend himself? Who knows that at that point Byrne doesn't see... I'm sorry, that Sinclair doesn't see Byrne's gun, and now it's two guys within a few feet of each other with guns, both of them feeling the other one's going to shoot them. In fact, that's what happened. Both guys are shooting, both guys die. Don West: I think all of that because Sinclair got out of the car with a gun under circumstances that could never ever warrant that kind of response. It was stupid to get out of the car even if he wanted to give Byrne a piece of his mind. He walks up there and yells at him and walks away. But as soon as he escalates it to the point that- Shawn Vincent: Sinclair, that is, brings the gun out. Yeah. Don West: Yeah. Sinclair escalates it to the point that Byrne thinks he's in a life-threatening situation. There's no place to go. Shawn Vincent: So essentially, it's mutually assured destruction, right? That you've got two people who are armed in a confrontation that happened with low context, right? They're not communicating. All of a sudden, the first attempt to communicate may have been seen as an escalation. You roll down your window. Maybe he's planning to get into it. That's a complication. Don West: That's a terrific point that, from Sinclair's perspective, as he approaches the vehicle, the window goes down, and he may very well have interpreted that as a willingness for Byrne to engage. Shawn Vincent: To increase the engagement. Don West: Right. Why would he think that, all of a sudden, Byrne was going to apologize, right? Shawn Vincent: Right. That doesn't seem the most likely. Don West: So that is a recipe for disaster. Shawn Vincent: Well, yeah. So as soon as the guns are introduced in that scenario, if both people are armed, you've just lit a fuse, right? It's almost- Don West: It's like the- Shawn Vincent: ... a point of no return here. Don West: It's like the two guys standing in a pool of gasoline each holding a match. I'm sure you've seen that poster somewhere, right? It's assured mutual destruction. Shawn Vincent: Yeah. So nobody's going to argue in this case that Byrne did anything wrong, right? Necessarily. He's certainly justified, and even the police are going to put all of the blame on Sinclair. If they both lived, Sinclair is the one that gets arrested and charged with murder or attempted murder if they both lived, right? Don West: Sure. Shawn Vincent: But that doesn't change the reality for Byrne that now that he's in this situation that this horrific result is most likely the one that's going to come across. Don West: Absolutely. Shawn Vincent: So what that means is if you're a concealed carrier, if you have a gun in your vehicle, then you want to avoid at all costs the confrontation that could potentially light that fuse and get you in a no-win shootout over whatever minor traffic violation that happened. Don West: You can in hindsight look back and try to pick some points in time where something different could have happened. This is maybe a once in 100 million scenario. At the same time, the only way that would have stopped it for sure was for Byrne not to engage even in an attempt to be pleasant about it. Shawn Vincent: Right. Even to go into a step further and just change course just to get away from the guy. Right? Even if he's going to a couple blocks in the wrong direction, just get disengaged completely because there's no way to apologize in that situation. Don West: I think if Byrne sees Sinclair get out of the car, I'm going to assume for a moment that they were both at the red light, so that Sinclair's car was legitimately behind. They weren't both pulled off the side of the road, stop, but that Byrne stopped at a red light and that Sinclair's girlfriend stopped behind him. But as soon as Byrne realizes Sinclair gets out, he has to run the light. He has to do something to physically get away because there is no good outcome at that point. He can't take the chance to engage for fear of exactly what happened. Shawn Vincent: Now, we talked about all the interactions that you have with CCW Safe members. I recall you talking about a member who shared a story with you about a road rage incident where he was able to disengage. Now, we're not going to use names or anything. But you remember the story where they ended up at a stop sign in a relatively rural place? Don West: Yes, yes. I do remember. I'll just kind of paint a very big overview of it. But there was the potential for a serious road rage incident. I don't know if it started with someone being cut off or some perceived injustice. As often happens, one person starts following the other closely. You've seen those people that run up, and tailgates are real close, or they pull out around and slow down in front of you. Shawn Vincent: Sure. I've heard about that. Don West: Just being aggravating and trying to get you to engage. This was a similar scenario, where the guy got in front of him and then stopped at a stop sign or a stoplight. The member ultimately who was behind him at this point saw him start to get out of the vehicle. Essentially, he was blocked in from the front, and I think, if I remember correctly, he either believed he was going to get out or didn't even want to take the chance that he might get out and engage face to face. So he did the one logical thing that he could do. Fortunately, under the circumstances, he put his car in reverse and he just simply drove back 75 or 100 yards and watched what happened. I think, yes, at that point, the guy got out of the car, looked at him, then got back in the car and left. Shawn Vincent: It's such a befuddling move at that point, and it was clearly a disengagement. It was as simple like, "I'm not messing with you. You win." Now- Don West: Now, at that point that if the other driver attempts to engage, he's got 100 yards to walk or 50 yards to walk where the other driver can then reassess and calculate and decide what to do at that point, what other kind of evasive action to take or what have you. I thought that was so smart. It's gutsy to me in the sense that you don't want to give in. You don't want to throw up your hands and surrender. You want to meet face to face the idiot who if not causing the problem to start with is reacting unfairly to you, blaming you for something that even if you did it wrong, it wasn't that bad. It certainly doesn't warrant that kind of disproportional reaction. All of a sudden, it just starts churning, and people do such incredibly foolish and dangerous things. Shawn Vincent: I know. I know. Some of the best marital advice I've ever gotten was the idea, do you want to be right, or do you want to be happy, right? So I’m quite content being wrong and happy frequently. I think in self-defense or something, somebody said, "Do you want to be right, or do you want to be alive, or do you want to be right and have someone's blood on your hands from a conflict that could have been avoided?" Don West: Anytime you decide to engage somebody in one of those situations, you are making the assumption that they will act reasonably and rationally even under an emotional circumstance. That's a bad assumption because there's a lot of crazy volatile people in this world, and even otherwise pretty stable normal people have trigger points, and for some reason, it seems to be, driving is one of them that- Shawn Vincent: Yeah. At the beginning of this conversation, you were talking about how often you'll field phone calls where people are in trouble for brandishing while driving, right? So brandishing is in most places, I think in Florida, it's just true is considered an assault, right? If you brandish a weapon, that's a threat of deadly force. Don West: Yeah. It depends on where you are. Not all states have the crime of brandishing, but they all have some variation on assault. Assault is typically a pointed threat to someone. For example, if you point a gun at somebody, you're often guilty of the crime of aggravated assault. That would be assault without the intent to kill. It means non-justified assault, essentially. Shawn Vincent: As opposed to a defensive display. We've talked about that before, where you're neutralizing a threat by demonstrating that you have force and are willing to use it and -- Don West: When you would have the right to use force. So the reckless display or the aggravated assault is when you don't have the right to do that. Assault is often intentional and pointed in a lot of places, has a mandatory prison sentence that involves a firearm. Brandishing is more of a reckless kind of waving around, threatening, not necessarily pointed at somebody for the purpose of shooting them or even for the purpose of making them think you're going to. But it's kind of a reckless display and is still a criminal offense. It can be a serious criminal offense. Shawn Vincent: Here's why I bring this up. Don West: But non-justified. It's not brandishing if you did it in response to a legitimate bonafide threat. Shawn Vincent: Sure. Don West: The problem is a lot of times it's not. It's too much force. It's trying to win the argument to prove that you're the one who's capable of using force. Shawn Vincent: Yeah. So here's why I bring that up. I'm thinking about this case. We talked about, way some time ago, Indiana, south of Indianapolis in a rural community. We have two neighbors, one of them is a firefighter, and the other one is this crazy-haired wild guy. You know Laura Dern's father? What's his name, that actor? Don West: Bruce? Bruce Dern. Shawn Vincent: Bruce Dern. Picture Bruce Dern with his hair all crazy, acting crazy like Bruce Dern does. This is his neighbor. Apparently, they'd been at it for years. There's a fence dividing their property, the firefighters out working in his yard. He's got a security camera out there, full-color security camera recording for some reason, maybe because he's had problems with his neighbor before, right? So the neighbors there. They get at it. I don't know if you can hear what they're saying, but they're shouting at each other. This Bruce Dern neighbor, he's on his riding mower, and they exchange words. I think there's finger flicking exchanged. Then the lawnmower goes off frame, right? Then it comes back on frame. The Bruce Dern character on the mower picks up this revolver. He puts it in the air, and he shakes it. Kind of there's waves that like, "Hey, asshole. I've got a gun." Shawn Vincent: Well, his neighbor, when he does garden work apparently is carrying his pistol that's loaded with 16 rounds, and he pulls it out and just unloads the whole thing on this guy. Couple of rounds hit him, and he falls off. The rest of the rounds hit the lawnmower. Miraculously, the neighbor stands up, walks back inside and calls for help, and he dies in his house. But all this is to say that brandishing may be illegal but is also the best way to get yourself shot. Don West: Oh, sure. Shawn Vincent: Right? Let's imagine in this case that Sinclair didn't have any intention to murder Byrne for cutting him off, but was trying to most likely really be the big shot here, right, by introducing the gun into it. You don't know who's carrying and who's not. I think Sinclair assumed Byrne didn't have a gun and that he had no control of this situation. Don West: I think that's highly more probable than that Sinclair had gotten out of the vehicle with the intent of shooting him. I think you're right. He lost control, and all hell broke loose. It's interesting when we're talking about brandishing because, picture this scenario if you would. We talk about things that are really a bad idea. But they aren't necessarily against the law. Picture yourself in a parking lot, and two people are vying for a parking space. One of them sneaks in and grabs it, and you're angry because by all rights, that was your spot. Shawn Vincent: He unclaimed it. Don West: Yeah. You had been waiting for it, and this guy sneaks right in front of you, and you pull right behind him, and you get out of your car and walk up to this guy's window to give him a piece of your mind. That's not illegal. You can cuss out somebody. You can yell at him. You can go up there and criticize his driving and say, "You low life, what a lousy thing to do? I hope your kids don't see what kind of a ..." Shawn Vincent: S.O.B. you are. Yeah. Don West: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a free exchange of ideas. Shawn Vincent: Yeah. Ideas. Don West: Okay. But if the guy behind the wheel, and if the guy doesn't threaten him, if he doesn't raise a hand, if he doesn't do anything other than yell at him, you don't have the right to use force in response to that. You can't hit him because he thinks you're a lousy driver. Shawn Vincent: Meaning you the driver of his car. You can't- Don West: Yeah. You can't reach into your glove box or on your seat and raise a gun to point out to him because you don't like what he says. Shawn Vincent: Because he's in your window giving you a piece of his mind. Don West: A lot of this stuff I think starts out even like that. A guy that's a bit of a hothead but not necessarily intending any harm or any violence and just- Shawn Vincent: Not necessarily wrong about the traffic, right? Don West: ... puts themselves in a situation where it becomes volatile, not intending that it will ever go anymore. But they just want to vent. They want you to know for sure what a jerk you are, and then one little thing compounds, and another little thing. Pretty soon, somebody feels a little bit threatened. Then, in response, to the other person feels threatened. Then, pretty soon, either it escalates to violence, and the person who hits first is wrong, they're committing a crime, or the person that raises the gun has now introduced lethal force into what's otherwise a non-self-defense scenario and is guilty of a crime. Shawn Vincent: So this makes me- Don West: That is brandishing. Shawn Vincent: This makes me think of the Ronald Gasser case. Don West: Wow, sure. Shawn Vincent: So we got to- Don West: What a road rage case that is. Shawn Vincent: ... New Orleans. It's Ronald Gasser. So he doesn't know that this guy that he cut off is Joe McKnight, a former Jets player, a local football hero who made good. Don West: And the son of one of the sheriff- Shawn Vincent: I don't recall that detail. Don West: I may be mistaken by that, I apologize. I thought even his family may even have been connected to law enforcement. Shawn Vincent: He's a local hero. But they didn't arrest Gasser originally. There was a lot of pressure to make an arrest. There is a racial thing too. Gasser's white, McKnight's black. The community was upset when there wasn't an arrest immediately. But notwithstanding, Gasser cuts off McKnight. There's a several mile, what the law enforcement described as a tit-for-tat road rage incident. They're cutting each other off and driving. People thought they were drag racing down. They had security cameras from multiple businesses showing them going till at least a couple of miles later. They come to an intersection where there's cars behind them. There's no room to navigate anymore. This scenario, no one's going to back up 100 yards. Right? Don West: Sure. Shawn Vincent: What we know is that McKnight gets out of his car and comes over to Gasser's vehicle whose window is down. There's at least one witness who suggests that Gasser said, "No, you come here." As in they were engaging with each other. McKnight comes to Gasser, leans into the window of the vehicle, meaning his hands, forearms, crossed the threshold of Gasser's rolled down driver's window. That's when Gasser says he felt threatened. He had a gun that he had already pulled out on a seat. He fires three times. McKnight dies. Gasser's eventually arrested. Eventually found guilty of second-degree murder. I think he just lost his last appeal. Don West: He has a substantial prison sentence as a result of it, I think. Shawn Vincent: Yeah, at least 17 years. Yeah. So McKnight wasn't armed. We know that actually there was a gun in the vehicle that he was in. He didn't bring it out with him. But this encounter, I don't know if Gasser was trying to apologize, like Byrne was in this scenario that we talked about earlier, but you've got somebody coming up to your window. You're penned in in traffic. You're strapped in with a seatbelt. You're very vulnerable. It's a scary situation. But- Don West: But apparently, Gasser rolled the window down. There's no evidence that McKnight smashed the window. Correct? I think what was really in dispute was what McKnight's intentions were, even if he put his hands on the window frame of the door. Was that a threatening gesture, or was he just sort of resting there as he leaned in to give Gasser a piece of his mind. Shawn Vincent: The appellate court just decided that that was not an aggressive gesture. Right? That that didn't because- Don West: So you could not respond to with force. Shawn Vincent: That's right. Because in Louisiana, they actually have on the books a law where crossing that threshold could open the door to a use of force incident, like a breaking and entry kind of thing, right? You've told me before that reaching into someone's vehicle in some places can be considered a felony, right? Don West: A very serious felony. If you were to reach through an open window and hit somebody in the face that could under Florida law be considered burglary of a conveyance with an assault or with a battery, which could make it a very, very serious felony, as opposed to a misdemeanor if you just happen to hit somebody -- a battery. When you combine that with penetrating the space of the vehicle, it's like reaching through a window of a house and hitting somebody. It's a protected space. So the crime is additional crimes and enhanced crime. Shawn Vincent: Yeah. But if you rolled the window down, or if you open the door, you're changing the scenario a little bit, aren't you? As- Don West: Yeah. It's an invitation. It's consent of burglary has to be nonconsensual. So you can't open the door of your house or your car, invite someone in and then claim that they burglarized your place. If you invite somebody into your house, and then you get into a fight with them, and they hit you, that doesn't make it a burglary. Shawn Vincent: Right. So we did the case out of Dearborn, Michigan, Ted Wafer case, where he shot Renisha McBride, where there's that threshold where the big mistake was that Ted Wafer opened the door in the middle of the night to a person who was pounding on it. He thought they were trying to break in, but you don't open the door for someone who's trying to break in, is the lesson there. So I think the lesson here, where we're always looking for the lesson for the concealed carriers in these cases that we look at, and the lesson here is you don't roll down your window in a road rage incident. I don't think anything can ever good come of it. It's an escalation. It's an invitation. Don West: You made a great comment when we were talking about what Byrne did obviously in an attempt to begin accepting responsibility and apologizing how that could be misconstrued as a willingness to further engage and is not going to be assumed as being a friendly gesture. I think that it's going to be assumed as enhancing the level of hostility, frankly, misinterpreted so easily. Shawn Vincent: So what I've written about this case, I basically called road rage a no-win situation for a concealed carrier. I think that the end, the only way to avoid it is to go. Don West: Even if you're right. Even if it's the other guy's fault. Shawn Vincent: Especially if you're right. Yeah. Just go the other way. Get out of the way. Drive conspicuously in the opposite direction to send the signal that you're not going to engage, that it's over, and then only if they've relentlessly followed you- Don West: I made the comment that Byrne should have run the red light. I don't mean literally run the red light, but maybe- Shawn Vincent: If it were safe for him to do so- Don West: Maybe if- Shawn Vincent: ... or to turn right or to ... Don West: Whatever it took for him to improve his position of safety rather than exposing himself to the risk of not knowing what Sinclair had in mind as he was approaching his vehicle. Frankly, if he got a glimpse of the gun, he would have to assume the worst at that point. Shawn Vincent: That sounds like a good last word on this case. Always a pleasure to chat with you, Don. Don West: We don't always know where we're going, but we eventually get there, and- Shawn Vincent: That's true about every place. Don West: I enjoy these conversations greatly. I think that sometimes we may cover the same ground, but it's slightly from a different perspective, maybe from someone else's eyes as opposed to the way we first talk about it. I have to think that this stuff isn't hard, but that doesn't... It's not complicated, but that doesn't make it easy, I guess. It takes a lot of thinking and visualizing and frankly being very, very conservative in how you deal with people. Shawn Vincent: Yeah. You approached me with the opportunity to work with CCW Safe and tell some of these stories, right, to communicate to the members some of the benefit of the experience that we've had together and what we- Don West: Sure. That's right. Shawn Vincent: ... see from here. I was excited about the opportunity because I believe in the Second Amendment, and I believe in the right to defend yourself. But I've seen, through my work, so many people get it wrong and people I think should be free go to jail for the rest of their lives because I don't think they had the imagination to understand what would happen to them after the fact. Most defendants that I've had a chance to work with don't even understand how a trial unfolds. When they pulled the trigger, they had no concept of all the legal nuances that they would face for doing something that they felt and had felt for a long time they were justified in doing. Shawn Vincent: So like you say, it's difficult, but it's not complicated. I think really what we're trying to do is open people's imaginations as to how these things actually play out, how the aftermath of these things actually unfold in real life through stories that we find from people who've gone through them. Don West: I think we learn by that. I know that when I used to study for a test, it was always good for me to take practice tests to put myself in a similar situation. That was usually more helpful to me in figuring out how to pass the test. I was going to take than it was just studying the material in a vacuum, actually looking at it in -- Shawn Vincent: What's the practical application that you're going to be facing -- Don West: Exactly. I think we do that a little bit. I think every time we expose people to the things that we've learned, that we've been exposed to by looking at this stuff and having experienced it, that we create an opportunity for people to connect with the information that they might not connect with if they just read a pamphlet or read a book on self-defense law. So that's -- Shawn Vincent: There you go. Don West: ... enjoyable. As always, thank you. Shawn Vincent: Thanks for talking. Don West: Look forward to the next time we get together in person or across the country. Shawn Vincent: Or through the powers of technology. Don West: You bet that, Shawn. Shawn Vincent: Don, take care.

 In this episode of the P100 Podcast, our hosts Paul, Dan and Logan welcome Nicole Chynoweth from the Carnegie Science Center to discuss the center’s new exhibit on mummies. From there we move on to the science of fear, and then on to hockey with their guest, Jeremy Church. This episode wraps up with a review of some unique Pennsylvania town names. We bet you have your favorites.----more----Full transcript here:Logan: You are listening to the P100 podcast, the biweekly companion piece to the Pittsburgh 100, bringing you Pittsburgh news culture and more because sometimes 100 words just aren't enough for a great story.Dan: Hi everyone. Welcome back to the P100 Podcast, we're happy to have you back for another episode. I am Dan Stefano, I'm here with Logan Armstrong. Logan.Logan: How's it going?Dan: A pleasure to have you with us and Paul Furiga will be joining us in a little bit. Today's episode we're going to be talking about mummies. Not your mothers, not like that Logan. I see you, that's what you're thinking. No, just having a pleasant thought, thinking about dear old mom. No, Okay.Dan: Now, we're actually going to be talking about the mummies that you might think of whenever you think of ancient Egypt and other parts of the world here. There's a new exhibit at the Carnegie Science Center - Mummies of the World, and we're really excited to talk with someone from the Science Center about that.Dan: Afterward, we're going to be discussing the science of fear. Keeping with us, somewhat of a Halloween type of theme here. Then, we're going to be talking about, what everybody knows, it's the beginning of hockey season. Logan, you excited about that?Logan: No. Dan: No. You're not excited about hockey. Okay. Well, I am and some other people in the office, and we're going to be talking with one of them about the growth of youth hockey in the region, which is really something that's taken off in the past few couple of decades here in Pittsburgh. And we're going to finish up with Logan and I being just as serious we are now. We're going to talk about strange Pennsylvania town names. So if you make it to the end, you're going to be in for treat on that one.Logan: Oh yeah. Stay tuned.Dan: Okay, so let's get going. All right guys, for this segment we're going to talk about mummies. In particular, mummies of the world, the exhibition. It's a new exhibit at the Carnegie Science Center and from the Science Center, we have Nicole Chynoweth. Nicole, thanks for being here.Nicole: Thank you for having me.Dan: Absolutely. Thanks for being with us here. And can we talk a little bit about your own role within the Science Center here. Can you tell us your position and a little bit what you do?Nicole: Sure. So, I'm the manager of marketing, public relations, and social media with a focus on exhibits and the Rangos Giants Cinema.Dan: Great. What does that entail then? I mean, that I imagine you you are working with a lot of different positions there. Right?Nicole: Yeah, it's a really fun job. I get my hands in everything from new movies that we have coming out at the Rangos, educational films to the exciting new exhibits that we're bringing to the science center, from space topics, planetarium related things, and mummies-Dan: Really cool, it seems like a fun place to work. Right?Paul: Nicole, you've had your hands in the mummies?Nicole: No.Paul: Okay. The promotion of the mummies.Dan: The promotion of the mummies. Paul: I'm sure we'll talk about some of the technical aspects, but that would seem a little gross, but...Nicole: I don't think so. I find the exhibition more fascinating than I do creepy. And I'm not a fan of scary movies or I did not watch the Brendan Fraser mummy movie.Paul: You didn't?Nicole: No interest in that.Paul: I did watch those.Dan: You're missing out on a classic from the 1990s.Paul: Yeah. Well, classic is a little strong-Dan: I think it should have won an Oscar, but that's just me.Paul: Okay, Dan. We'll talk about that another time. So Nicole, when I think of the science center, I think about some of the other things you mentioned. Space, technology, mummies?Nicole: Yes, mummies are, especially this show, the mummies featured in Mummies of the World, the exhibition is, have so much to offer in terms of scientific, anatomical, biological information that we can still learn from today. So what I find really exciting about the mummies of the world is that it focuses on both natural mummification and intentional mummification. So, you might be more familiar with intentional mummification. That's the type that was [crosstalk 00:04:15] practicing in ancient Egypt. Correct.Nicole: And we do have some examples of Egyptian mummification in the show, but this also takes a look at the natural mummification process that can happen when conditions are at such a level moisture wise, temperature-wise that is able to naturally mummify a body, be it animal or human.Dan: Right. Well, it sounds like some pretty amazing things to see...Paul: Yeah, it's fascinating.Dan: What are some examples maybe of the intended mummification that we'd see there? I mean, is there anything from, I guess everybody knows about Egyptian mummies but then, they're also South American. What else might you see?Nicole: So an interesting example of the intentional mummification process that aside from like the Egyptian mummies that are featured in the show, there is Mumab, also known as the Maryland Mummy. In the nineties, two scientists at the University of Maryland decided that they wanted to try their hand at an Egyptian mummification process. A man had donated his body to science, and so they started the process of mummifying him. So, you can see Mumab in the show.Nicole: That's just an interesting way of seeing how we are still learning thousands and thousands of years later about how this process works and the tools that they had to use to complete the process and what the body has to go through for mummification to occur.Dan: That's really cool.Paul: Did it work?Nicole: I've been told that it's still in process, it's not completely... He's not completely mummified yet.Paul: Take some time?Nicole: Yes.Paul: Wow. Something I never knew.Dan: That's pretty awesome. Can you tell us what else is in the exhibit then? I mean, are there any, you say interactive portions to it. What should people and families expect whenever they're inside here. It's not just, as you'd be at a museum taking a look. I mean one of the great things about the science center is it kind of hands-on.Paul: Hands-on. Yeah.Nicole: Yes. So in addition, to the 40 animal and human mummies and 85 rare related artifacts, visitors will also be able to look through several interactives related to different topics within mummification. I think a favorite among children will definitely be the, what does mummy feel like a station where you can touch different types of mummified materials, so there's like frog skin, fur. Mummified fur, different things like that they'll be able to touch these like textile panels that are examples of what those things feel like.Nicole: Another great interactive is there's a large map that shows where different types of mummies have been found all over the world, which I think is really important to look at from the perspective of which, like you said, we are so used to just thinking about Egyptian mummies.Paul: Yes.Nicole: And really there are mummies all over the world, [crosstalk 00:07:15].Paul: So not to be surprised?Nicole: Yeah.Paul: You never know where you might find a mummy!Nicole: Right, right.Dan: Okay. Well, people will hear, we can see Mummies of the World through April 19th that's correct, right?Nicole: Correct. Open through April 19th. It takes about 60 to 90 minutes to get through the exhibition, for parents that are maybe wondering if the exhibition is appropriate for their children. We do have a family guide available at carnegiesciencecenter.org/mummies, that might answer some of the questions parents have before they take their kids to the exhibition.Nicole: But I really believe that it is appropriate for all ages and I think people will take something away from the show, be it a new interest in archeology or anthropology or just being able to connect with the backstories of the mommies that are featured in the show. You get to know them. They're more than just a mummy in front of you. You learn their story, how they lived, the way they lived, where they were from. So, super excited to have it at the science center and to be able to offer this experience to Pittsburghers.Dan: That's great. Anything else happen at the science center lately?Nicole: Yes. So, it's Halloween season.Dan: Yes.Nicole: What better time than to experience a scary movie on Pittsburgh's largest screen?Paul: Very good.Nicole: The Rangos Strengths Cinema teamed up with Scare House, this year actually for Rangos x Scare House. We co-curated some Halloween movies together to offer Pittsburgh a really exciting lineup for the Halloween seasons. So we have coming up the Universal Studios Classic Monsters. We're showing the Creature from the Black Lagoon, Frankenstein and Dracula, on October 11th through the 13th.Nicole: We also have Dawn of the Dead 3D showing October 25th and the 26th. And that's a really exciting screening because they don't often show the 3D version. So if you've seen Dawn the Dead before, I can guarantee you have not seen it like this.Dan: This is the original one?Nicole: Yes. This is the original Dawn of the dead. Yes.Paul: In 3D.Nicole: In 3D.Paul: Have you seen it, Nicole?Nicole: I have not seen it. I'm not a huge fan of the scary movies, but I've been told that if there's one I should experience at the Rangos this year. It's probably this one.Dan: All right? Just how big again is the Rangos?Nicole: So we are a certified giant screen. The screen itself measures 72 by 38 feet.Paul: Wow.Nicole: We also have 45 surround sound speakers. Your average theater has 14.Paul: Dan, if you and I can get that past our spouses and into our basements. I think that'll be good.Dan: I might have to tear down a wall or two in my basement, but I think I can handle it.Paul: You know, it's all about the purpose, Dan.Dan: You know what, we're trying to fix more damage to begin with. So I think I could get this Rangos a screen down here. That'd be perfect.Paul: It'd be very nice.Dan: Nicole, how can people find out more about the Carnegie Science Center, both online and in social media?Nicole: Sure. Visit us at carnegiesciencecenter.org or find us on Facebook. Carnegie Science Center or Twitter and Instagram @Carnegie S-C-I-C-T-R.Dan: Okay. Thanks so much for coming on Nicole. We appreciate it.Nicole: Thank you.Paul: Yes.Dan: All right guys. We were just talking about mummies and now we're going to... mummies, if you'll look back at it, they're famous movie monsters, some of the old ones from the 30s, some of the more recent mummy movies and whatnot.Paul: Brendan Fraser.Dan: Exactly, yeah. I love those horror movies and I love being scared. I love this time of year whenever we get a chance to go out to a haunted house. Me and my wife try to do one at least once a year. She's not wild about them, but I have a great time. Even right now in a couple of days. I believe the scare house is going to be reopening the scare houses. One of the more popular attractions around the area of this third winter.Paul: Award-winning.Dan: Award-winning, correct. Yeah. They had to move from Etna and they're in the Strip District. I think they maybe even changed the name to reflect that, but I think, it's interesting that people love to go to these things and they're so well attended.Dan: You see the lines around the block just to be scared and so I've had a chance to go look at the psychology of fear here, and there's an interesting phenomenon that researchers have found called VANE. It's V-A-N-E, and it stands for Voluntary Arousing Negative Experiences. Logan or Paul, you guys ever felt anything like that? Do you have any voluntary experiences?Paul: Yes. Dan, some people call that work?Dan: No. Yes.Paul: I've absolutely. So, I mean, I'm the old guy in the room. You think back to when I was a teenager, the voluntary arousing negative experience was to take the date you really like to a scary movie.Dan: Okay.Paul: I think we're going to get into this Dan, some of the why this is in... Things that people will voluntarily do you, you might not have expected a certain level of affection from your date, but if you took her to a scary movie, there would be the involuntary reaction when something happened on the screen of-Dan: Them getting closer? There you go. That's clever.Paul: Yeah. Well, and it's all this time at least all the scary movies.Dan: I think, when you look at some of the research here, what they point at, one of the most important parts of that is that it `is voluntary and that people were making a conscious decision to go out and be scared. And a lot of that is about overcoming stress. And you might go in with another person, you're working together to try to get through this shared experience here, fighting the monsters, try not to punch the actors who are just trying to have a good time and scare you.Dan: But they get a chance to get outside of themselves, and as we said, face a fear and there's really a great quote here from a woman named Justine Musk. Her quote says, "Fear is a powerful beast, but we can learn to ride it". I think that's just a very good succinct way to put it. But our good friend Logan here, you were actually a psychology major for a couple of years at Pitt and you know a lot about fear.Logan: Yes. So, as you said, I was a psychology major for a few years. I really enjoy just kind of how humans work. But so basically what it is that you have a part of your brain and it's a little almond-shaped lobe called a medulla. But, so basically what happens is that you're, when you see emotions on people's faces or when you see something that would cause you to emote in a certain way.Logan: So, say you see you're out in the wild and you see a lion and you're like, well that's not good. So that message sends to your medulla, which then sends to your limbic system. And if you guys are aware of the limbic system, it's your fight or flight response.Dan: Yes, okay.Logan: When you experience these negative arousals, that kicks into high gear and that pumps adrenaline through your entire body, your pupils dilate, your bronchitis dilates, just you're in this hyper-aware zone, and that's where adrenaline junkies get it from.Logan: It's a similar thing to where you're experiencing fear where you might be scared, but your adrenaline is pumping so much and it's releasing so many endorphins and dopamine that you end up enjoying it.Dan: Well. Okay, now we know whenever we either go to a haunted house or if we go see the mummies exhibit at the Carnegie Science Center, none of us are going to be scared because we know all the science, and we just know what's going on in our brain.Paul: Well, I mean this is also why people like roller coasters shout out to the steel curtain at Kennywood. Because they know it's safe. Right?Dan: Right.Paul: The experience is scary, but it's safe. When you go and see a movie. Yes. You sure hope so. You see the movie, you know it's going to be an hour and 20 minutes or two hours or whatever and when it's over, you may have been scared during the movie, but you're okay. The same with the rollercoaster, three minutes and then you're back in line, right it again. Right? Because you've enjoyed that safe experience of being scared.Logan: And it's the same concept where it's going back to my earlier example. If you see a lion in the wild or you're going to be scared. But if you go to the zoo, you're going to think it's cute or whether somebody else tickles you, you get a reaction, but you can't tickle yourself because your brain knows it's not a threat.Dan: Well, we do see a lot of alligators on the streets of Pittsburgh these days, so I don't know. You know what I mean. Maybe we'll see a lion the next, but I don't know that's all there is to know about fear or at least a good introduction for it. So, yeah. Logan, thanks for the knowledge there.Logan: Sure thing.Dan: Yeah. Maybe you should have stayed as a psychology major.Paul: He won't be here helping us today.Dan: That's a fair point.Logan: Now he's like "you really should've stayed a psych major"Logan: Centuries before cell phones and social media, human connections are made around fires. As we shared, the stories have shaped our world. Today, stories are still the most powerful way to move hearts and minds and inspire action. At Word Wright, Pittsburgh's largest independent public relations agency. We understand that before you had a brand before you sold any product or service, you had a story.Logan: Word Wright helps clients to uncover their own Capital S story. The reason someone would want to buy work, invest or partner with you through our patented story-crafting process, visit wordpr.com to uncover your capitalist story.Paul: All right guys. It's a fun time of year because the penguins are back in action. We're all hoping that they can get back to the Stanley cup this year. Who better to have on our vice president Jeremy Church here at one of our vice presidents here at WordWrite. Jeremy, you're involved with hockey and can you tell us a little bit about that?Jeremy: Sure. I've been fortunate to be involved with the game for nearly 40 years now as a player and a coach. Grew up starting about eight I guess in Michigan. Then we moved here in 10 continued to play, went away to prep school and played all through prep school Junior A, was fortunate enough again to play in college and then the last 17 years at various levels. I've been able to coach.Paul: That's awesome. Yeah, Who do you coach with?Jeremy: Right now, I'm coaching my younger son. With 11 Hornets, youth hockey organization. Prior to that, I helped with the high school in Mount Lebanon for five years. Coached at Shady Side Academy for a year and again using the word fortunate was able to go back to the Prep school. I played at Culver Military Academy and coached there for six years and it's a pretty storied program.Paul: That's fair and awesome. Well, Pittsburgh's got a long history in hockey going back to the turn of the century here, pretty much and but from a lot of people, the history and hockey didn't start until Mario Lemieux got here in the early eighties and Jeremy have a fun story about Mario Lemieux actually.Jeremy: I do. There've been two big booms locally when it comes to the growth of the sport. And certainly the first one had to have been when Merrill was drafted back in 1984 so we had just moved here from outside of Detroit and moved to the South Hills and we went to South Hills village one day and the mall was still there. At the time it was Kaufman's Department Store, which is no longer there.Paul: Oh yeah, the mall's there now just no Kaufmann's.Jeremy: So we're walking through and there's a little table set up and there are two or three people sitting there, one of them towers over all the others. And as we get closer and closer, there's no line at all. Mind you, it's Mario Lemieux sitting there signing autographs before he'd ever played a game.Jeremy: So, we walked up to the table, got his autograph. He still really couldn't speak English that well. But if you could imagine today the kind of stir it would create if Mario were around talking at to anyone in any environment. It was the exact opposite back then. I still have the autograph today.Paul: What did you get autographed?Jeremy: They had little teeny pamphlets of him in his Junior A Laval and from the Quebec Major Junior League Jersey, and that's all they had to sign. I think it was him. And it might've been Paul Steigerwald because at the time he was head of showing Mario around town and Mario, for those who don't remember when he was 18 actually lived with a host family in Mount Lebanon for the first year that he was here when he was 18.Paul: Yeah. Well, like I said it, whenever he first got here, he lived with Lemieux.Jeremy: Yeah, he returned the favor.Paul: Well, since that day, whenever there was no line at Kauffman's, today there was no more Kauffman's and you would have a gigantic line. But so what can you say about just seeing the growth of hockey? Especially from a youth hockey angle here, you've been front and center with it your entire life?Jeremy: It's pretty remarkable. Doing a little research earlier and in 1975 there were basically two rinks that you could play out of indoor rinks for Youth Hockey: Rostraver Gardens, which is still around and Mount Lebanon Recreation Center, which is still around.Jeremy: By 1990, when I was in high school, there were 10 and now that figure is roughly doubled to around 20 in the region. There are 62 high school teams and there are 28 organizations in the Pittsburgh Amateur Hockey League. And within the Pittsburgh Amateur Hockey League, there are now 5,600 players. And that's for those who are around playing in the eighties or growing up in the eighties and early nineties here, that's almost hard to believe there's, you know that there are 28 organizations, but if you go down through the ranks of 18 and under 16 and under 14, 12, ten eight and under age groups, there's dozens and dozens of teams at various levels all throughout that.Jeremy: So, for last year at the ten-year level, ten-year-old level, there were 80 plus 10 new teams in PAHL, Pittsburgh Amateur Hockey League League. So pretty remarkable.Paul: Right, Yeah. The majority of those kids, they're probably not going to be heading to the NHL, but a lot of kids want to at least, pretend that they're one of their heroes and get involved in the game. And I think one of the problems, maybe not a problem with hockey, but one of the issues surrounding it is there is a perception that there is a bit of a barrier to entry. You've got to have skates, you've got to have pads, you've got to have a good helmet, you've got to have a good stick. There's a lot of, there's a lot to that kit there. Jeremy, there are easier ways for kids to get involved in the game today though, right?Jeremy: Yes. Part of the Testament to the Penguins organization and certainly as Sidney Crosby has been, his emphasis and involvement with youth programs and youth hockey initiatives. And not just in Pittsburgh, but I know as well back when he returns to Canada in the summer and throughout the year, he likes to give back to the community.Jeremy: But a big initiative that started, it's now celebrating it's 10 year anniversary or 11 year anniversary is the little Penguins learn to play hockey, where Sid partnered with Dick's sporting goods to give, what is now I believe more than a thousand sets of free equipment out to kids who want to start playing the sport. So that goes hand in hand with a program that I think runs six weeks, eight weeks, in January, February to get kids introduced to hockey.Jeremy: But to your point in that, the big barrier to entry is the cost of equipment, which can be several hundred dollars even for kids that are five, six, seven years old. So that's certainly got a lot of kids involved in the game and has led to those massive increases in participation that I cited before.Paul: All right, that's awesome, Jeremy. Well, thanks so much for coming in and talking to us about hockey. We're hoping for another good season from the Penguins. Maybe a longer playoff run than last year. We got a bit of a break last year. I think they earned it after winning a couple of cups. But yeah, thanks again and yeah, we'll talk to you soon.Jeremy: No problem. Thanks to you.Dan: Right. This next segment. We're going to learn a little more about our co-host Logan Armstrong. Logan is from Eighty Four, PA.Logan: That I am.Dan: Now, we got talking about this and it got us, we started, you know, going down a rabbit hole and we got discussing why 84 was actually named 84? At first, I thought it was named after the construction company the-Logan: 84 Lumber.Dan: Yeah, 84 Lumber, and it turns out I was wrong. That 84 is named after 84 PA, and there's a lot of history and a lot of different theories about how the town was named. Logan, do you want to go through some of them maybe?Logan: Yeah, sure. So there are a couple theories. 84 is quite the town. There's not much in it other than 84 Lumber, but you know, it's nice. There are a lot of theories on how it was named, the most popular of which is that it commemorated Grover Cleveland's 1884 election victory. Some other theories were that it's on mile 84 of the railway mail service. My favorite though is that it's located at 80 degrees and four minutes West longitude. This seems like the most probable to me.Dan: My favorite actually is apparently in 1869 general David "Crazy Legs" Hamilton had an outfit of 84 soldiers with them and held off an attack of Outlaws. Now that just sounds fantastic. Yeah.Logan: That sounds quite heroic. If that is the case. I am proud to be from 84 PA.Dan: Maybe you're a descendant of general David "Crazy Legs" Hamilton here. Is that possible?Logan: Yeah. I believe I'm Logan "Crazy Toes" Armstrong.Dan: Okay, keep your shoes on man! We don't want to see anything. Well, after this, after we talked about 84 we also started taking a look at some other weird names for towns in Pennsylvania here and if you go online, you can find quite a few of them. Logan, what were some of the interesting ones you like you?Logan: There are quite a few to choose from. A couple of my favorites were, while the all known intercourse, PA, which is actually the most stolen sign in Pennsylvania, where it says "Welcome to Intercourse" for good reason.Dan: Obvious reasons.Logan: Right. Going along that same route, a rough and ready PA was, they named it after a California Gold Rush town, so I guess they're rough and ready to get some gold out there. Can't blame them for that.Dan: I imagine that sign is also been stolen many times.Logan: Right. Okay. Then, well, let's play a game here. I'm going to give you some Pennsylvania town names and you're going to tell me how you think that those names came to be. How's that sound?Dan: Bring them on. I'm a repository of knowledge.Logan: Okay, great. Peach Bottom.Dan: Peach Bottom. This is simple. This is extremely simple. Everybody in the town of Peach Bottom is very short, and they're, but they're also Peach farmers, so they can only see the bottom of the peaches that come from the trees. It's kind of a shame because they've never seen the peach tops.Logan: That is a shame. Those peach tops are so beautiful.Dan: We have an actual reason why it's called Peach Bottom?Logan: In fact, Dan, you weren't too far off, Peach Bottom. Got its name in 1815 from a peach orchard owned by a settler named John Kirk.Dan: John Kirk was very short, as we all know.Logan: Right? Yes. Okay. Shickshinny, Pennsylvania. What do you think of that?Dan: Schickshinny. Ah, got it. Okay. Shickshinny is named after a famous dance created by the person who created Schick shaving blades. Fun fact, a few people realize that he had a dance. Whenever he would cut his face on his old rusty blades, he would do a little jig-Logan: A little jig!Dan: In a big thing because it can... to get the pain away, and so he decided I've got to create a better, more comfortable blade and so he created the Schick shaving blade.Logan: Well, I foresee-Dan: Everybody knows this.Logan: I've foreseen the future...We had the Whip, we had the Nae Nae. Next, we're going to have the Shickshinny going on in all the clubs in Pittsburgh.Dan: I think this one is actually one of those Indian words that have made a lot of Pennsylvania names here.Logan: Yeah. Yeah. It looks like an Indian word that either means the land of mountains or land of the fine stream.Dan: Or land of the cutting your face on your favorite razor.Logan: Yeah, I think that's the most common translation. Yeah.Dan: Sure.Logan: We are well beyond 100 words today. Thank you for listening to the P100 podcast. This has been Dan Stefano, Logan Armstrong, and Paul Furiga. If you haven't yet, please subscribe at P100podcast.com or wherever you listen to podcasts, and follow us on Twitter @Pittsburgh100_, for all the latest news updates and more, from the Pittsburgh 100.

There've been some songs I've been listening to lately. Including the new KMFDM track! So I had them on my mind when I had to go play some tunes... If you're into variety like me you might enjoy it as much as I do. Appreciating Industrial music's connections to "Techno" as much as how many Industrial fans are Metal fans. Dig in!

  Fitting In Fitness & Healthy Eating... On this week's episode of the Lunch and Learn with Dr. Berry we have a return guest from episode 93, Dr. Slyvia Gonsahn-Bollie. She is America's Favorite Obesity Doctor and she comes back for a second time to help our busy women especially moms in the Lunch and Learn Community just how to fit health and fitness into their busy schedule. This episode should serve as the busy mom's guide to get over the hump of losing weight and staying on their fitness journey. The conversation follows the trend of our initial one where we focus on many of the obstacles that these busy women face when dealing with trying to juggle working, taking care of families and having little time to actually take care of themselves. Remember to subscribe to the podcast and share the episode with a friend or family member. Listen on Apple Podcast, Google Play, Stitcher, Soundcloud, iHeartRadio, Spotify Sponsors: Lunch and Learn Community Online Store (code Empower10) Pierre Medical Consulting (If you are looking to expand your social reach and make your process automated then Pierre Medical Consulting is for you) Dr. Pierre's Resources - These are some of the tools I use to become successful using social media Links/Resources: Official website – www.drsylviagbollie.com Twitter – www.twitter.com/fittmd Facebook – www.facebook.com/fittmd Instagram –  www.instagram.com/fittmd Social Links: Join the lunch and learn community – https://www.drberrypierre.com/joinlunchlearnpod Follow the podcast on Facebook – http://www.facebook.com/lunchlearnpod Follow the podcast on twitter – http://www.twitter.com/lunchlearnpod – use the hashtag #LunchLearnPod if you have any questions, comments or requests for the podcast For More Episodes of the Lunch and Learn with Dr. Berry Podcasts https://www.drberrypierre.com/lunchlearnpodcast/ If you are looking to help the show out Leave a Five Star Review on Apple Podcast because your ratings and reviews are what is going to make this show so much better Share a screenshot of the podcast episode on all of your favorite social media outlets & tag me or add the hashtag.#lunchlearnpod Download Episode 111 Transcript Episode 111 Transcript.. Introduction Dr. Berry: And welcome to another episode of the Lunch and Learn with Dr. Berry. I’m your host, Dr. Berry Pierre, your favorite Board Certified Internist. Founder of drberrypierre.com, as well as the host of Lunch and Learn with Dr. Berry. Bring you another amazing episode with Dr. Sylvia Gonsahn-Bollie who is, if you remember that name is actually a repeat guest of ours. I was very fortunate enough to get her back on a second time because I know she's crazy busy, but I was able to get it back because I had a lot of feedback from her previous episode, which was episode 93. If you're unfamiliar or if you just a new subscriber since the last time she was on. And she talked about obesity, obesity-related medicine, and gave us a lot of tips on how to kind of get us and keep us on our new year's resolutions, especially because a lot of them tend to fall under the wanting to lose weight category. So we got her back and again, I got a question from Lunch and Learn community. Well, Dr. Berry, I'm a busy mom. I work, I take care of the kids, I take care of my family. I really don't have the time to be healthy. Like what can I do? And that's where, you know what I said, I could've given her some tips, right? I could have given her some tips. They probably wouldn't have been the best. But I say good. If I'm going to talk about weight loss tips and especially for my busy moms out there, why not bring America's obesity specialist to talk to us, to educate us, to really get us on the right path. So this episode is going to be for the busy moms out there who have way too many responsibilities, way too many things to do and unfortunately that happens, right? And we all know is that the health tends to fall by the wayside, right? Like usually you have to take care of everyone's personal wellbeing and housing and work and everything else tend to happen. And unfortunately our health usually suffers, right? Usually is the case in this standpoint here. So we have Dr. Sylvia Gonsahn-Bollie to really educate our busy moms and gives tips on how to stay on our weight journey. Right? And we're going to talk about weight journey a lot because I think, and I loved it because a lot of times we think about weight loss at this point A to point B type of thing. But really what she talks about, she says, no, this is a lifestyle change that you have to like go for the rest of your life, right? So even when you get to that goal weight, you have to understand like you have to keep on going. That’s just the second part, right? We broke it down in parts. Just a second part, just getting to the weight. So quick little bio again, if you had not checked out episode 93 please go back and check out episode 93, so drberrypierre.com/llp093 because it was an amazing guest, especially it was an amazing topic. And again, we're hitting home today with the busy moms. So Dr. Sylvia Gonsahn-Bollie to just to kind of give a little quick bio from her. She's a board-certified internal medicine physician. She's an obesity medicine specialist who helps inspire optimal health through honesty and hope. She lost 40 pounds, overcoming emotional eating and physical inactivity. Now she has both personal as well as professional expertise in weight loss as well as weight maintenance. As a working mom herself, a wife and self-professed foodie. She keenly understands the limitations that prevent busy people from achieving their health goals. Dr. Bollie is passionate about helping busy people, especially working women, obtain and maintain a happy and healthy weight. At the end we're going to give you her links to follow her cause she's pretty much on all social media is just like I am. Even in the show notes, you'll have a chance to find where she's at because again, this is a person that you need to follow. She does actually weekly teachings on health and weight loss and again absolutely amazing person. Like I said, I was very fortunate enough to get here a second time around. So again, if you have not had a chance, remember, subscribe to the podcast, leave a five-star review and let her know how great she did on the podcast. Because I tell you, she blew it out of the water. You guys have a great day. Episode Dr. Berry: Alright, Lunch and Learn community, we have a repeat guest on today's episode and definitely one that was, you know, really requested that you guys love for an episode. You know, Dr. Bollie and you know, she's come back, right. You know, I was able to get her to come back for at least one more time. We haven't annoyed it too much and she really going to be talking about the busy mom. Right? And I know I have a lot of Lunch and Learn community listeners who ran into that issue of having to balance their health, their kids' well-being, they spouse well-being and everything, job, everything else. And unfortunately, that health tends to fall at the wayside. So ladies and gentlemen, please again a quick little introduction again and thank you for Dr. Bollie for coming back to the Lunch and Learn with Dr. Berry. Dr. Slyvia Bollie: Oh, thank you so much, Dr. Berry. You know, I love being here. You're so wonderful. So thank you for having the back and forth. And I love the lunch and learn community and just the fact that you're spreading this information because it's so important and the diversity and the topics that you're sharing also. So thank you for having me back. Dr. Berry: So for those who, maybe, someone, you know, got a lot of listeners since the last time we talked, right? So just give them a little bit of introduction of who you are. You know, why you're so important and you know why, you know, I was again, fortunate enough to kind of get you for a second time around? Dr. Slyvia Bollie: Oh, awesome. Okay. Well, so I am Dr. Sylvia Gonsahn-Bollie. I'm board certified in internal medicine and obesity medicine, but I probably should back because you know, we all have this program spill that we do. But I am a wife. I'm a mom, I'm a doctor, I'm a runner, I'm a foodie. So I have many hats and, and, but I'm passionate about helping busy people, especially work for women, obtain and maintain our happy, healthy weight through practical lifestyle interventions. And this for me all kind of started with my own weight loss journey, which began in 2014 late 2014 but I count 2015 as my actual start. That was when I did my first 10 K at trained up to and did it. So I've just sold it five years on my fitness and weight loss journey and I don't even like calling it a weight loss journey and we'll talk about that my weight journey. So I have personal and professional experience with it. I am. When I started this journey, it was about a year and a half after having my first child, my son. For those of you who don't follow me on Facebook or on social media, I have a second child now. I'm five months postpartum. But with my first child, that was when this, what I'm going to talk about today, really hit home for me. You know, I was getting used to being a new mom. I was just finishing up my residency. I was a chief resident of transitioning. So chief resident, which for us is an extra fourth year. And also I'm an attending, so becoming like stepping into my new, into my career. And then I was also just getting used to everything. And so I put everything ahead of me and my health and my weight, even though I was preaching health to other people. Right? So I was 40 pounds overweight at the time my son was one and I kind of held onto that for about a year and a half. So finally it started to impact the way I was counseling patients. I would be like what did you eat for lunch? And then I would hear in my own head, what did you eat for lunch? So exercise, like I would ask the patient, did you exercise it here? I hear the voice, did you exercise? And so I started to feel very convicted about what I was doing. So this, for that reason I started to focus on my own health and prioritize in it. And I started by training for that race of which is the monument, 10k, a popular race here in Richmond, Virginia where I live. And then from then just kept building and building and growing. But it's not easy, you know. So because of that, I know, as I said, it's hard to fit in fitness. It's challenging to make those healthy food choices, especially when you're stress, especially when you're busy. So I know that the journey has to be individualized in some ways. Like we can share in a community in terms of encouraging each other. And there are some general things that theme to it that we can do, but you really have to address your own individual journey to try to be able to fit this in. Dr. Berry: Interesting. We should definitely touch on a few parts. One, I want to highlight that she said this, this is one of her first 10 k's which means she's run multiple, which is absolutely amazing. And you talk about the weight journey. I take care of a lot of patients and now I do inpatient medicine. So I tend to see a lot of the end state stuff when I did inpatient medicine, outpatient medicine, you know. It was always that start right where I used to see a lot of at the beginning. And I think they were mentally at the point where they're saying doc like I'm ready to lose some weight, but I didn't necessarily know how. And I think a lot of times it was that population of those moms, those women who were busy lifting. Like again, it is not like they weren't doing anything. Life was just happening all around them and whether it be work, whether it be school or whether taking care of kids, whether be taken care of their family. Unfortunately, the health guy left on the back burner. So when you talk about your personal weight journey, was it like, were those patients the big like kind of step that's a, you know what I gotta do something because I like how can I keep looking at my patients over and over and over again and tell them exactly what they need to do to lose weight, but I'm not personally following it myself. Dr. Slyvia Bollie: Definitely. I mean, because, you know, as I've mentioned, I think in the last podcast. There’s a study out there that shows that physicians who are overweight or have obesity are less likely to counsel their patients on it. And I think for me personally, I started to feel that I understand that because I almost felt like a hypocrite, you know, talking to people about what they were doing and I was not doing it and live in it. So once I noticed that it was starting to, it had gotten to the point that I felt it was starting to impact the way I was able to deliver care, especially to a set population of patients that really needed the care. Then I said, okay, it's time for me to reevaluate it. And I think for me personally, how and why it was helpful, it really improved by empathy, right? Because there's something different. And we all know this, we were both parents. So you know, there's different from book learning. Like there's these we would say by the book, but as a parent, but once you have your own child, you're like, and you see the nuances, oh, maybe I can't do that. Maybe an extra 30 minutes of screen time is okay today. Yeah, that's it. That's just what it boils down to. So that's what I think happened. And so what I realized that I had to do was to number one, stop just telling people what to do and think about why and so, and think about what I was doing in that let me be able to help to empathize and to better help people. So the first step really was as stop beating myself up and being very negative because you know, I was sending these lots of the goals that weren't really attainable for a person who had eight then a 16-month-old child and also had a busy professional husband and had a lot and was working full time. So maybe really saying that I need to work out 30 minutes every day, wasn't going to happen initially in the beginning or saying that I should eat, you know, go from drinking soda to drink and water every day. That was going to be challenging because you've got to get acclimated to that decrease in and that's on many levels, not just psychologically, but also physiologically. Your body just used to a certain level of sweetness and you got to tone it down so you're able to tolerate the regular water - clean water. I get used to drinking water. Dr. Berry: I get used to, sometimes I look at juice now and it looks so good. Get Back. (Yeah.) Now the goals were, were there goals that you know we're kind of placed upon you? Like people thought like, well, you should be able to do 30 minutes every day. You should just cold turkey drink juice. Was those like just kind of like outside goals, kind of waited upon you? Where those kinds of like internalized in yourself and then you kind of realize this is not a successful route if I continue to try to go this way? Dr. Slyvia Bollie: Yeah, well I think, you know, we have guidelines right? As, as physicians and a dietician’s health community, so their guidelines set, right? So the American Heart Association recommends that we get 150 minutes of moderate exercise per week. So that's two and a half hours of exercise per week and moderate being that you can move without sinking. So like while you're jogging, while you're walking, you're moving fast enough that you're not sinking or an hour and a half of vigorous exercise, which is moving fast and if we can't talk while you exercise. So that's the American heart association guidelines. So that, of course, is what I would strive for because that's when I'm counseling my patients on it. Now the dietary guidelines are controversial for people. There are people you know who don't believe in me, don't believe in dairy, things like that. Personally, I feel like the literature really supports more of a Mediterranean diet and as close to the plant-based as you can be, which is hard because I do love my chicken. I love chicken. So unapologetically I'll try it. So, but you know, so my goal was to really minimize, I don't eat red meat or pork since I was since age 15 so that wasn't hard for me. But kind of back on like chicken, fried foods, things like that, and trying to eat as clean as possible, which is minimizing process foods. So those were my goals based on all the data and all the things that I've seen about eating a healthy diet. So that, and for me, the big one was sugar like and is still cutting down on sugar because when I'm stressed I tend to eat a lot of sugar. And that's again very physiological thing because those high levels of cortisol make you want to eat more sugar. Dr. Berry: No stress like a mom. No, no, no. No stress. Dr. Slyvia Bollie: So that's where I feel a lot of pressure came from because I knew the guidelines, I know what I'm supposed to do, but you know, there's a gap between what I'm doing and what I need to do. Dr. Berry: So when you were making the mental transition even before you made the leap, like physically as far as stopping doing things and you know, working out more, what was the support system like? Because I feel when I talked to the moms out there, a lot of times they feel like it's on their own. And they feel because it's on their own, that's what makes it more difficult than not to even start and if they do start to continue. Dr. Slyvia Bollie: Exactly. Well, I'm glad you talked about it. So let me characterize this. What would I call the person then? Then we'll get the "not answer that question because I do want to talk about what I called this busy woman syndrome". That's what I call it syndrome. Or for those people who are in the church also known as Martha Syndrome. So people who are familiar with the Bible and things like that. So if you are not familiar with the Bible, I'll tell you real quick. So it's a story about two sisters, Mary and Martha and Jesus comes to visit and this is paraphrased of course. Jesus comes to visit their house and you know, Martha is all busy. She's in the kitchen, she's cooking, she's cleaning up their house, she's just all over the place busy. Really what I would be doing. Mary meanwhile is the chill sister. She's chilling, seat by the Jesus at his feet, just like enjoying the moment. And Martha comes out. It just like I could see myself doing it. It's like, Hey Jesus, like tell Mary to get some business about herself. Tell her to come and help me. Let's get ready. Do something. And instead of reprimanding Mary as you would expect, Jesus actually says, Martha, you are concerned about many things. Meaning you got way too much going on. Mary has chosen the most important thing, which is to just be present at the moment, to enjoy the moment and to spend time meaningfully with people she loves. So I think this is a perfect picture of kind of how we are. We put a lot on ourselves and some of it, yes it's true, we must do it. I mean we have to work, have to cook, like all these things. But there's a time and a place where we can actually, where we feel like we need to be doing something where we can take a break and sit down and be present in the moment. And I think when it comes to health, we have to carve out those moments where we can sit and be present and say, I'm going to prioritize my health. Whether that moment is eating something healthy or making a healthier choice or is actually going out and exercising and doing something for a few minutes for ourselves. Dr. Berry: More than Mary, less than Martha. I love it. Dr. Slyvia Bollie: So now, you asked the question on what was the support system like? So that's why I kind of bring out too. For me, I'm a person of faith. So I think a lot of times when we think about like our health journey or weight journey in general, and again getting back to this concept of weight be, and we can talk about Dr. Berry at the end, may be about, it'll be in a weight journey and not just a weight loss journey because too often we focus on that weight loss. And once we get to that weight loss is like, Oh, I lost the weight and let me go back to eat and what I eat and you know, and you regain all the weight and you're back on another weight loss journey. So I really want to shift our mindset to it being a weight journey where that includes the weight loss, the weight maintenance and everything where we're doing it. So for the weight journey, it's so important not to do it in a vacuum. For me, I followed the philosophy of faith, family, friends, fitness, and food. So I like alliteration. So all those F's. So, but faith is the basis of thinking about it. You know, really for me Biblically, what does the Bible say about health and taking care of our bodies and being able to stay healthy and using that as a support in that some people who are a part of a faith community, maybe your church or synagogue or your mosque, it has some resources that you can use to build into that. So if faith is important to you, don't exclude that from the journey of your fitness journey. So that's one of the things. So it's creating support with what we already have versus looking at it. Now, and that's, you know, probably more of the touchy-feely time. For me on my fitness journey, I would say friends were important. I have a very good friend and she to me was the key to unlocking my weight loss journey. And to be perfectly honest, because I am such a perfectionist, I can be very hard on myself. So you know, I'm like, oh, I didn't make that 30 minutes. I didn't get two and a half hours, this and this and that. And so one day I was talking to her about how frustrated I was about losing weight and my fitness journey and she just stopped me and she was like, be nice to Sylvia. I like her about her saying that just like it hit me. I'm like, yeah be nice. Because when you're kind to yourself, you're not holding or nice to yourself or to anyone. Be nice. Because most women were very caring and will help people. We're not going to be, you know, a kid comes to you and like, you know, mom, I didn't, I wasn't able to get a hundred on my test this week. You're going to be like, that's okay. You got an 89 and it's all right. You'll try harder next time. Let's figure out what we can do to get those grades up or to see why you miss those points. So that same kind of kindness that we would extend to other people, we have to extend to ourselves. So, okay, this week I wasn't able to make it in two and a half hours, but let me look back and realistically think why that was, oh my goodness. You know, it was close to the month. I had to get all those charts and I had to submit on my work at work. There was a lot going on, that was an obstacle. It's not an excuse. It's an obstacle to me getting this work done. So it took me getting that workout in, all right, but now that identified the obstacles, what could I have possibly done to do and instead to get that workout in instead, or what? How could I have set myself up to make better food choices? Okay. I know that it was a week that was filled with PTA meetings, soccer practices, football practices, dance practice, whatever. And so realistically me thinking that I was going to cook dinner every night, didn't it make sense? But maybe instead of us rolling up to a fast food place, I could've just like meal prep and make like chicken. It used some big chicken or some enough food for a day or it could have gone to a healthy place and gotten a family meal pack that we could have actually had two days of leftovers from. So those are the kinds of choices when you're being kind to yourself. So I talked about faith, I talked about family, talked about friends first and then family. So the family is a tricky one, right? (Let’s talk about, yes.) Because sometimes family can actually, it can help or hinder on the weight loss, on the weight journey. Because let's say, and especially for moms, they're like, I hear this all the time, my kids don't like eating that or my husband does not like eating that. And then, and that's true, there's data to support that, right? Actually, for married couples, that data was an in married couples and I'm probably could work for common law couples too, but for married couples that you're more likely to adhere to your diet plan or your healthy eating plan if your spouse is involved with you. And also in the first year, an interesting fact in the first year of marriage, you more likely to gain 50 pounds. So there's a newlywed 50 too for women. Because we start heated up to that. So you know, so having that your partner, your spouse involved with you is so key because it will help. But what do you do if they're not involved? Like for me, I love my husband. He supports me as much as he can, but he has been blessed with a great metabolism. He got a six pack from drinking a six pack of coke. Like he just gets, it just comes naturally. He doesn't have to work out. So he can't really be on this journey with me because he can't get it. So he just eats what he wants to be. Right. I'll ask him, I'm like, can you go get me some fruit bars and then wanting, the one time I asked him for that and then he came back with like a box of Gelato and I'm like, ah, the nutritional content of this is very different like you're not helping me at all. He was like, oh, it's just ice cream. Yeah. Dr. Berry: That's usually what I get. I usually get like, well, my kids don't eat that way. My family members don’t eat that way. Maybe I don't have time to cook two different meals for two different groups of people. Dr. Slyvia Bollie: Exactly. Well, what I'll say is don't make it hard for yourself. And that's what I did. So number one, I shifted my mindset rather than say, you know, oh, I don't have them and he's not helping me, or my kids don't want this. I said, okay, well this is another form of mommy me time. I get to eat, mommy gets to eat what she wants to eat, they can eat whatever they want, but this is my me time. This is something I'm doing just for me. I'm going to eat this salad for me. I'm going to eat this kale for me. And that's how it's for me. You know, I'm buying my own personal grocery. Actually, now that are kind of territorial. They're like actually had guests recently and they were eating me, I'm special low carb bread and I was. (The guest bread is over there.) Why are you eating my bread? So yes it does. But that's how I changed my mindset about it. To make it easy on myself, I keep the protein the same, but I kept the carb so we can eat the same protein. So be it chicken, be it turkey, be it fish, I eating it. That's me. You know what I mean? They're not even that. But I keep the protein the same for the most part. And then I keep the vegetables the same. I'm lucky to do, especially my son loves all vegetables, so I keep the vegetables same, but I cut the carb or switch to the carb about. So I’m in a family of big rice eaters, they like a lot of rice. Try to get them to eat brown rice is hard. They like white rice. Dr. Berry: The brown rice talk over here. It doesn't even, I know exactly what that white rice. Family is life. I know that life is life. Dr. Slyvia Bollie: So they're not trying to have that. Sometimes if I get the right brand, like Uncle Ben's friend of brown rice. I can interchange it out, but it has to be the first day, you know, its very thing. So anyway, that being said, I've changed the carb about, so I just do a half a plate of vegetables for myself or I might do cauliflower rice for myself and then they can eat that. And that makes it very easy because then I, or I've put a salad, you know, then that way I'm not fixing to different meals. We're sharing the same protein. We're sharing the same vegetable is only a quick, simple thing that I have to do for myself. Dr. Berry: I love how you talked about having to make them the mindset shift first before the action occurred. Whatever that action is. Cause I think that you know, really slows a lot of moms down. They may know, they may read all that they needed to read and they see all the videos needed to do. And they have that first step really doesn't happen and nothing subsequently is successful. Dr. Slyvia Bollie: Well, I have been, you know, practicing now in the past five years. I've seen, I've had what, 15,000 plus patient encounters and I started obesity. Yeah, I know, right? They check this data and I'm a nerd, y'all know, I know this data. So, and then I, you know, and then I started weight loss doing, you know, 40% weight loss exclusively in 2017 and late 2016. So I've seen lots of patients, right. And one of them, and so I can, but I will say when it comes to weight loss, weight management, 90% of it is the mind. It's the mind. Because when you, you know, the old song says free your mind and the rest will follow. Once you make that mind shift, then these things that seemed hard, that seems like it's that were quote-unquote excuses your obstacles, you find a way around them. You find a solution for them but it, so I really, I’m a big proponent, a big advocate of the mind. I recently was working with someone and they wanted me to just like, give them formula. Just give me some exercises, just give me some things and it realistically you don't need me to do that. There are billions of exercises you just go on YouTube. I love to search for it and find new people to do that. There are billions of diets and the data supports the best diet for you is the one that works right? The one that you can stick to. So it really comes down to me helping you change your mindset. And I don't do it alone. So when we talk about the team, the other part of your team is figuring out what those mindsets are. For a lot of my patients that they will end up going to see a therapist or a psychologist because there is deeper than the weight. I always say weight is not just a number, it's a story. There's a story behind what got that person to that weight. And once you unlock that story and figure it out, then both as the physician, both as the clinician but also as them for themselves, then we can figure it out. So sometimes we, they end up needing a psychologist on the team and not just the provider, a physician on their team to help because there's a lot of comorbidities like depression, anxiety, trauma, PTSD. A lot of that is tied into weight as well. Dr. Berry: I know you said you were taking out they were comorbidities that are there. (I know.) Obesity-related. Because I remember the bill. Nope, that was it. So now that you have a team, right? You have your mindset has shifted, right? I'm a busy mom. Right? Like I have mentally made that leap. Right. Then I'm ready. Right. What do I do next? How do I start? And I guess is that, would you say that's the start of their weight journey? Like when does that actually begin? Dr. Slyvia Bollie: Yeah, I would say your weight journey starts, once you decide and you make that change that you're ready to do it. No one can force you. No one can talk to you about it. You know, it's almost, I think last time we talked about I make it analogous for those who are in medicine or in healthcare to smoking cessation. Like when you stop smoking, quitting smoking, right? If you've ever been with this smoke grip, to get them to actually quit smoking as a matter what you put on the cigarette pet, where you put on the team, it doesn't matter. So we rate it. We say you're either pre contemplated, meaning you're not even thinking about it. So don't even talk to you, contemplating, you're thinking about it. Got some idea, but you're not ready for action yet. Grant action based and then you're in maintenance and then relapse. And so I treat obesity just like that, which is model for change. That's the formal name of it. So, so when you now are conscious that you've really wanted to change and you're ready to, so you're in the contemplation stage, that's step two. So now you're ready for action and to make the change. So I think yes, the mind shift changes number one, and then ready for action. So I think number one, I tell people to identify, and I can send this to you, the link, I put it on my website, I made a little graph or sheet that kind of follows my weight loss journey. So you'll be able to go directly to her site. Download that. Yes. Dr. Berry: This will be on the show note for Lunch and Learn community so you'll be able to go directly to her site. Download that, mentally. Dr. Slyvia Bollie: So now that you're ready for it and you can write down, you need to write down like acknowledge what are your barriers, what are the obstacles that you face, be it time, be it an unsupportive family. So yeah. So getting started, what I tell you to do is, so address your obstacles and create opportunities. So what I recommend that you do is write down everything that you identify as the obstacle. The common term for it is excuses. People say it's just an excuse. But again, that mindset shift, right? Excuses is a very defeating term. It makes, it puts blame on you. Like I'm not doing something, I'm supposed to do it, but I could be doing it. So I shift it from saying it's not an excuse, it's your life. It's a barrier to what you're trying to do and what you're trying to accomplish it. So instead it's an obstacle. And once you recognize as the obstacle, but that obstacles as opportunities. So now you have an opportunity to change what you're doing. So what I'll do, so like lack of time, for instance, what opportunities can you create for a time in your schedule and give yourself some options. Give yourself A, B, C, even D, E, F. So like for me, when I started back in late 2014, my obstacle time was a huge obstacle because at that time my husband was commuting about two hours a day back and forth. So that when I got home I had to take care of the baby, my little toddler. And that made it hard for me to go to the gym and exercise. Right. So what opportunities can I do? All right, well let me exercise in the morning instead. And how much time, I'm more of a morning person anyway. Let me try to get up earlier and exercise in the morning. Maybe I can get a baby stroller, like a jogging stroller. So I actually got one of those offline. Maybe I can find a gym that has childcare in with it. So I would join the gym with childcare in it. Okay, well sometimes I can't get to the gym. What can I do? Let me do some. I started actually with a rockin' body, so I started with that because actually one of my first obstacles was I didn't like exercising. At least I thought I did exercising. Dr. Berry: Very telling because I think a lot of people don't realize like that's actually alike. Dr. Slyvia Bollie: You have to like it. And that's why when you don't like doing something, you'll find any reason not to do it. So, of course, I don't have time because I don't like it. And what I realized in that, so that's actually a huge, not just a mindset shift, but also a barrier or obstacle. So what I realized is I was trying to force myself to do things I didn't like to do. So when I started with rocky and body, which was just like dancing and I am not a good dancer, but it made me feel like I was so things like do it that way. So I like doing that. It made me feel good, you know, and it has short workouts so it has some as short as 10 minutes and some as long as 45 minutes. Then I started the running, which one of my colleagues that I work with, he's like, oh he actually just turned 60 yeah, we celebrate the 60 but he's 60 years old, but he's been running for years. And he said, yeah, so 30 plus years he's done a Boston marathon, lots of things. So seeing him and just his consistency with it really inspired me. And so that's how it started. A trend for the first 10K that then I did. And because he was doing it and you know, he really motivated me to do it. And then I found I liked running, you know? And so I kept going, kept adding it, have added distance at a distance, did a marathon in 2016 and it kept doing the 10K and did my fifth monuments 10K. This year was my fifth one, four months postpartum. (Congratulation.) Thank you. So, but you don't know what you like to do until you try, you know? Whereas then I have other friends, I have colleagues, they like doing CrossFit, they like doing Hit, they liked doing weightlifting. I don't like doing that stuff. I recognize the value of it. But I know for myself I don't like it. I have to do it because it's good for the strength and aspect of it. So I say figure out what you like cause you may say I hate exercise, I don't like exercise. But really you just haven't found what you like to do. So challenge yourself to find the activity and think about activities you don't consider exercise that you do enjoy doing. Like do you enjoy dancing? Do you enjoy being outdoors? Do you enjoy, because then maybe you can find, uh, some form of exercise, quote-unquote that you enjoy doing too. Dr. Berry: What I love about what you just said, especially cause it's kind of eye-opening, is that a lot of us when we'd say, well, I don't have the time to exercise. Where we're really saying is I don't like that exercise that y'all want me to find time for us. So I'm not going to find time to do it. But once you find something you like, whatever that something is from an exercise standpoint, all of a sudden you'll wake up early in the morning and you'll stay up late at night, you'll squeeze it in during lunch. You'll do things for stuff you like which makes sense. Right? Again, when we got to the food we like, we'll do whatever we got to do for that food. We like, right, when you have an activity we like, we'll do it. We ever have to do. And I think once we hold up that same appraise with an exercise, whatever that exercise is for you, you'll find the time, right? Yeah. Some kids got to go to sleep, right. You know, family guy, you're taking it, you do that time to kind of be by yourself. And I liked that you said maybe you don't have time to go somewhere. Right. Maybe there's some stuff you can do even in your own house to kind of maximize the free time that you do have. Dr. Slyvia Bollie: Exactly. And that was another, you brought up a good one. Another barrier, right? Healthy food doesn't taste good to me. Like that was probably, you know, is it, like I said, it's been five years. I forget where I started. Right. We want to front and act as we've been there. I've always been healthy. I've always been on this witness. No, I did not like healthy food when I first started. So that was my first month to set shift for me. It was just like, okay, well how I actually worked around this because I'm a foodie? Both of my parents owned a restaurant when I was a kid. I grew up like just immersed in food. Culture food is a big part of my life, but what I challenged myself with was how can it, rather than saying I don't like, maybe again, I'm not liking the healthy food I'm choosing. Or I'm choosing tasteless food. I'm not applying the same principles of Buddhism to my food, my healthy food. So what I will do is challenged myself to make my healthy food as delicious as possible, but still healthy and to find healthy options when I go out to eat. Because you know, again, being busy, I do have to eat out a lot. I do sometimes some weeks of his very busy. I may not have the time to cook the way I want to, but let me challenge myself to find those restaurants that have healthy options and let me challenge myself when I cooked to make it delicious, healthy, and delicious. Not just something dry or blend because I say I'd want to eat healthy. Don't punish yourself, enjoy what you're eating, but just try to stay within the parameters of making it healthy. Because to me, if you're a good cook, if you're a true foodie, then you can find deliciousness and make deliciousness with anything. Anyone can make it delicious. If you get to put a whole stick of butter in it and half a cup of sugar, but it takes real skill to make, you know, some quinoa delicious or it seemed to make this tofu delicious. So that's what I've been, what I challenged myself to do. And that's kind of how I worked around the barrier of not really finding healthy food at that time appealing. Dr. Berry: When we talk about healthy food, right? Because this is personally, I always run into the issue right? I'm a very visual person with the food and some of the foods that they called healthy I got to ask that question, it's not even a secondary question. Some of the food that they called healthy really don't look good. Like Hey, I haven't even like tasted it yet. But sometimes that mental barrier, they even taste food that's healthier for me it's difficult because I'm, "oh that food doesn't even my...what is that?" And I that's, that's sometimes I get, what am I looking at right here at the hospital and they do this, they always have like a vegetarian section. This thing that it looks like meatballs, but I know for a fact is not a meatball. And then it's almost like hard like a rock. Like it's just like, okay. And that's what always gets me like, and I know that's probably going to get a lot of moms out there, right? Like the food don't look good to us. It's difficult for us to even put it in our mouth to eat. Dr. Slyvia Bollie: Exactly. So what I would challenge you to, what I would say to that is you're right then don't eat what does it look good to you? Like personally for me and, and that's again about knowing yourself and that mindset shift. I don't like big food and I shouldn't call it big, but I don't like to look for light foods. Big chicken. I told you I like chicken. Finally, I found one brand that actually does taste like chicken and it's made from, but when I read the ingredients like you when I know what do I really want to eat this, like wheat, soy and some kind of fungus, but it really tastes like chicken. But before that, I don't like those like big meatballs. I don't like big things like that because you're right, psychologically I'm expecting the taste, the texture of a meatball that I'm used to. And then when I get this and my brain is like automatically going to think it tastes gross because you know, it's not the meatball that I'm used to. So I would say focus on what you do like. So if you like vegetables, so initially within, you know, I know that I like vegetables so a lot of my things is stir fry. If he even looks on my Instagram page and stuff like that. There are a lot of stir fries because I can eat vegetables. There's a lot of eggplants. I like, eggplant is hardy. There is a Portobello mushroom, it's hardy. So more of the more vegetables which you know the plant-based community or argued that it's healthier for you anyway and cleaner for you than eating something that's processed to look like me in the first place. And so I would say if you identify that, then don't eat it because already if you don't think it looks good and you're right, most of the food is person visual and not only visual but also smelled too. So if you have that perception before you even put it in your mouth, it is not going to taste it. Once it hits the cognitive part of your brain, you know, it's missing all those functions. It’s missing the texture, it’s missing the taste that you're expecting and no one would like that. So don't eat it, don't eat it. Find something else that is appealing to you. Like maybe make the list of it. Now it is more challenging for those people who say, I don't like vegetables, which I do run into people like that or I only buy fruit. That again adds into your team, which is the second part. So you asked how do you get started? So address your obstacles and create opportunities to is assemble your team. Like we talked about your support system and your structure. I use the principle of fitness inspire through teamwork. That's my handle or whatever, FITT. So we need a team, right? So who's on your team? So maybe you need a Dietitian on your team professionally because you don't like a lot of foods. Or you have health conditions like diabetes, hypertension, prediabetes, insulin resistance. You have conditions that do require special attention to come up with a specialized or individualized food plan. And I'd tell people all the time, why haven't a physician? So if you can find an obesity medicine physician in your area, you can go on the OMA website, which would come put in the show notes also. They can help you get started. But when it comes to nutrition counseling, I'm the type of person, I like to acknowledge my limitations and my training and it helped my patients get to where they need to go. So I said doctors, we do drive-thru nutrition counseling. That's for many reasons like you know what I mean? Like you go drive-thru, we tell you a couple of days. Don’t eat carbs, don't eat sugar. But when you go to a nutritionist, they give you like a full four course meal and nutrition counseling because they can go through in detail, they have the time, go through detail and to see what it works for you, what doesn't work, and look at everything like that and come up with a very detailed plan. So I always recommend if you have a lot of barriers to things you like, dislike health condition. He should see, it starts with your physician. But definitely seeing nutritionists to help you on your team. And the team that I use, you know, as I said, I use my F so you know, faith, family, friends, if a physician or primary care provider, psychologist, dietician, you know, so a comprehensive team is important to help you with your weight journey. Dr. Berry: That's beautiful. Okay, I'm a busy mom. Right? I made the mental switch, I got my team together. I’m starting to identify what things, I will make time for it, right? Because we know the time is there, right? We've already, the mentorship has already said, but you know, time is there. So we already know what the time is there and now we're starting to identify this is, I like this exercise. I don't like this exercise. I'm going to lean towards this way over here and now we're even starting to like even say, you know what? Maybe I can eat healthy right now and I'm asking it as a little bit later as far as, especially when we talk about eating out because I always get that excuse, I am eating healthy and I'm doing everything like well how come I haven't lost my 20 pounds yet? I think that's the part of the journey that I feel like people would hit the stop sign and breaks and that's when they kind of get off. Right? Because, they, for some and again, and maybe kind of going back to having more realistic goals. Right? But they don't, right? But they don't, right? They say I haven't lost my 20 pounds and now they're back to see you because they say, Hey I did all these things and the weight's not coming off. Right? Like what do I do? Dr. Slyvia Bollie: Alright. So going back to the steps, let me just reiterate one more time. So getting started. So I address obstacles and create opportunities, assemble your support team. And then the third thing is to act daily. Do something daily towards those goals that you have set. So even if you can't get your 30 minutes in one day, okay, do one minute. Because I find when it comes to mindset comes to momentum. You just got to keep going. I don't allow myself to go more than 48 hours without exercise. And because I find that that third day that's when the inertia or the laziness, that's it. And it gets harder for me to get back on my routine. I mean, unless of course, I'm sick or something like that. There've been times when I've been sick and I had to go for a week. But since it started, so that third day come hill come high water, I'm going to do some. And where there's just one minute of a plank. I view my time bank of fitness as a bank account, right. Rather than viewing it like I have to do 30 minutes each day. No, I have to get in two and a half hours this weekend. However, I get that two and a half hours is fine. So if I just do 10 minutes today, but over the weekend I can do an hour, then it's all working towards the same goal rather than see a very rigid that you have to do 30 minutes every day or something like that. So break it up how it works for you. So just something every day, maybe today I'm going to, instead of having that chocolate chip cookie at 3:00 PM, I'm going to have, make a choice and choose to just have an apple at 3:00 PM instead. So that's what it means to do it by acting daily. Now when you talk about it, and I wanted to make sure we clarify that before we shift into the weight because the weight loss part of it, because you're right, the struggle is real. So this is the way that I talked about this, which I mentioned in the first podcast, was just that, number one, we've got to think about a couple of things from evolution or hysterical, whatever you believe in and point of view. We were not made to lose weight, right? Weight has an advantage, excess weight. The reason why we have this adipose or this fat tissue is to protect this and to serve as storage for energy, to serve as the storage for food, for times of scarcity. Right? And so I always tell my patients who have obesity and they left. I hope you will too, that if we were in like caveman times or they would be queen and the king of the jungle and I would be eating like this is real, right? You have a protective advantage of where you are. But unfortunately, as we have now moved into food positive times where we don't need this extra adipose or this extra tissue to hang out as we did before, now the body is not used to getting rid of it and certainly not used to getting rid of it as quickly as possible. So we know from a lot of studies that have been done like this showed the biggest loser study came out and it showed that most of those people who lost all that weight so quickly to a very intensive process with a lot of team of people. For those people, they gain most of the weight back. And part of that, when they looked at the biology of it, their body set into motion a whole process for them to regain their weight. Like their metabolic rate slowed down. There was a release of hormones that made them hungrier, that made them not process the fat in sugar as well. So there was a lot going on for it because of the fact that they lost the weight so rapidly and how much of the weight was lost. So we know that you know, we have physiology fighting against this in many ways. And then also psychologically as you're alluding to, is just the fact that, oh, I'm not losing weight, how I feel or would the as quickly as I feel. And so then we do other things and we'd go back into old habits as well that too. So when we talk about weight loss is they're complicated, but then from a more practical perspective, so that was how the nerdy science kind of stuff and the psychological stuff. But let's be real. It took you 50 years to gain that weight. Why do you think you should lose it all on 50 days? Common guys, give us some time. (I love it.) That rapid weight loss is very traumatic for the body. It is. It is. So the body's going to say, pola, pola, pola, pola. We starving. Why are we losing so much weight? Let me slow down this process a little bit. Let me give myself time to get used to all these changes. And so you may experience what is called a weight loss plateau. Now there's controversy. Some people don't believe in it, this and that. I believe in it. I've seen it and I think the science does support it and it makes sense like your body needs time to get used to the changes that are being made. So I think during those times when you feel like the weight is not coming off as quickly as it should, that is definitely the time if you don't already have a good support system to seek it out. And again, I mean no shade to any of their specialty or profession, but I know the training that I got as I transitioned from internal medicine, so obesity medicine, I learned a lot about what to do during those times and to really about treating obesity as a disease. So that would be a great time if you are, do have access to an obesity specialist or clinician in your area to try to seek one out, to see if they can help you lose weight. Now in terms of what you should look for in one, I think that probably should be a whole another set very, because I could go on for a long time. But you do need to seek help to help you through the weight loss plateau. So that help, just in short may include dietary changes. It may include behavioral changes and it actually should include a lot of those. And then sometimes if you already optimized on all those things, especially, I'm sorry, a key one for working moms, I should say sleep. You need seven to nine hours of sleep at night to lose weight. That is because all of our natural weight burnings, that burning hormones are weight loss hormones. They are reset when we sleep and when we get into the right circadian rhythm, and that takes about seven to nine hours at night. And then also stress, you need your stress level to below. So stress management is a key part of it because people who rate their stress levels as moderate to high, on average, we weigh about 11% more than people who rate their stress levels as low. So you need to really make sure that those are in place. And then if all those things are in place, then this is when a physician or clinician may say, maybe we should do weight loss medication and there are several on the market that had been approved to help treat the disease of obesity and to help with weight loss. So that's when, and that's what we may need to almost quote unquote trick the body out of this kind of Plateau state or non-weight burning state. Dr. Berry: I love it. So after an action, what's our next of a plan or action? So we've got action, we're doing it at least a minute. I love that at least a minute because I think sometimes the moms do feel guilty. They do feel guilty, (We do.) Just couldn't get it, I wanted to and so and so happened. I know I'd be working out like I tried to work out in the mornings, but usually, my twins usually toward that, right? They wake up early, someone's got to be with the other along the way. And it's usually me. Right? So I know there are always obstacles that are in a way. So I do love that we give them an opportunity to say no, you know, it's okay. Just put it in the bank. It's not a race. We just need you to get there. We just need you to get there. Had to be the first. We just got to get you to that point every single week. And I love when I stay up. When they get to point in there the action and they're losing weight and now they're feeling good about themselves. Right? Like what? Like what do you do? How do you counsel them to stay on it, right? Because again, I love the fact that we really call it a journey, right? Because this is something that as a lifelong thing that they need to like handle it. What are some of the things that you've seen that's caused people to maybe backslide a little bit? And what are some of the tips that you have to say like to keep on going? Dr. Slyvia Bollie: So the next stage in the stages of changes is maintenance, right? So you guys what, we're in action, now we just need to maintain it. You've already addressed some things. So lack of results is a key thing like you mentioned. So people who may lose that initial five to 10 pounds and get it off very quickly because it's more water weight and people in the body was ready to give that. But then you get to a place where maybe raw now five to 10% of your body weight and then your body kinda plateau or as not losing as quickly. So people get discouraged and the negativity sets in. I think it's very important then to again, tap into your team and figure out what's going on. That's the time to make their appointment with someone that's to talk to your friends who are on the journey with you. Those people who are going to support you, your family, your faith, those things to keep you on the journey. And that's the glue that's kind of keeping you going during those times when you may feel discouraged on your own. Because everybody will feel that way. I think number one, again, a mindset shift is just knowing that this plateau or this lack of results as part of the journey. Number two, knowing that it's a constant journey. So you mentioned something very common, like yeah, I have the five months old now. She often wakes up, but if you follow my Instagram stories, you'll see her in that video with me. Right? So that means maybe I have plans to go out for a run that morning, but she woke up. So now we may be doing a carry fit or like a baby carrier exercise instead. And I'm just lifting weights with her or, you know if she won't let me put her down or I'll put her in a thing and exercise in the swinger or something. So you know, knowing that it's going to be constantly something. Something will always be there. That's the other mindset struggles. Not just because, okay, I've declared this thing and I'm going to do it. That is going to be quote-unquote easy. It's not going to be easy. There were always been some barrier there, but you get better at figuring out how can I navigate around that? So that's why I say mindset is so important because that's what's going to help you to maintain and continue the weight journey. So now that you've lost the weight or a year in the process of losing the weight continuance to go, and so that's how I know in the office and in the clinical setting how I support my patients. So number one, showing up, right? Sometimes you have a tendency to hide when you haven't reached the goal or the goal is not going the way you want. Don't hide, still, show up. Come to your appointment. Call your friend, call your trainer and I'm so sorry my fitness trainer friends are going to be so mad at me. Yes, fitness trainers, they're been important. You know, I'm more like individual because my exercise is more of my me time. But definitely if you struggle with being alone or working out alone, get a trainer, get someone to help you. And I'm actually going to get a trainer later on this year too because they can help you get to that next level of fitness that you want to get to or you need to get to. So yes tapping into the resources you need, show up using your team and still continually reevaluating what is working, what isn't working and knowing that you needed, you're going to need to change. Like I can't tell you how many times I would come to feel like I was finally in a group with especially fitness and I focused on fitness. But the food, of course, is the number one thing for weight loss. But fitness helps them so much. So I would get my fitness schedule down and then my husband's work schedule would change and I'd be like dad, waking up baby. And so, you know, it's always going to be something. I think that's what I've learned and that's life, right? There's always going to be something. But your ability to adapt, which probably it could still see as we talk. It helps out so much. Right. I just added a fourth A so I had a sense and assemble. I had act now I have, did I just already forget it? This is the sleep deprivation can get but no, but yeah, I just added a fourth A to it though. So you have assessed, you have, so you acknowledging those barriers. You had to assemble your team, you have acting daily and then assess. So constantly reassessing what needs to change, what you need help with that so important. Dr. Berry: I love it. Before we get you out of here, again amazing teaching education and I know obviously we talked about the moms, of course, busy dads. I know y'all out there clearly, but we got to talk about the moms because you know, we know how hard they work. Before we let you get out of here. Right? Like what I need you to tell everyone, like again, we've talked about before, how can they get in touch with you, teach you, learn from you. What is out there that they can kind of consume cause I think, uh, you know, they're going to listen to this and then go back and listen to episode 93 and then be like, wow, this is the person that I need to follow. How can they follow and learn and continue to kind of even follow your journey that you're still on as we speak. Dr. Slyvia Bollie: Yeah. Well definitely through social media. I have a website that is drsylviagbollie.com. I also am very active on Facebook. I do weekly live postings where I teach on different topics and I'm committed to trying to do those weekly now. I also post regularly on Twitter, on Instagram, just to keep us all motivated on our fitness journey. And that's my main goal, just showing real-life examples of trying to fit into in fitness and fit in healthy eating and so busy lifestyles, especially as a working mom. So there's social media is the best way. Dr. Berry: Okay. So I ask all my guests on the podcast, how is what you do helping to empower busy moms across the world empowered themselves for better health? Dr. Slyvia Bollie: I think what I'm doing is helping busy moms across the world because I'm empowering us to just be ourselves and work within those confines would be in ourselves. Work within that rather than trying to fit any mold, fit any model and putting yourself on there. Like you mentioned a lot of guilt, a lot of pressure. Like I, my goal and how I hope to help all of us is to just help us realize that number one, it's possible to fit in fitness. It’s possible to fit in healthy eating. And it doesn't have to be the way that anyone else does it, but in a way that works best for you. Dr. Berry: Love it, love it. Again, Lunch and Learn community, I want to thank that Dr. Bollie for coming on the second time and dropping even more gems. And she did the first time and you know, blessing us, educating us, and really getting this right and together, especially for the busy moms out there. I know a lot of them are. I know a lot of them in the Lunch and Learn community who are starving freedom. So I like this. So again, thank you for joining the show today. Dr. Slyvia Bollie: Thanks. Bye. Download the MP3 Audio file, listen to the episode however you like.

Transparency is key, there's nothing else that's going to help us out of this. We've got to choose the hard right over easy silence. There've been quite a few recent media pieces about federal workplaces and beyond for that matter. This includes PBS NewsHour, NBC Dateline, and even the John Oliver's show on HBO.Go to AbbyBolt.com for more information on this and many other controversial subjects surrounding moral courage in the workplace and what it means to Lead with F.I.R.E.Email me at abby@upinflames.org if you have an experience you would like to share or are in need of a resource. If I can't help, I will point you in the direction of someone who can. Do you believe in the mission of Up In Flames? My goal is to continue this podcast organically and have it sponsored by those it serves instead of corporate sponsors. Not to mention you will get early access to episodes and behind the scenes info no one else is seeing. Be a part of something great, become a Patron and support the podcast at patreon.com/upinflamespodcastVisit AbbyBolt.com for the full story and background of UIFListen:Google Podcasts HereApple Podcasts HereGet SocialFacebook @AbbyBoltSpeaksInstagram @AbbyBoltSpeaksUpTwitter @AbbyBoltSpeaks Implement your own Zero Tolerance standard, check out the #NotMe App.Be sure to check out my other podcast Her Brotherhood, where we celebrate triumph over tragedy!#NotMe #HardRightOverEasySilence #LeadWithFire #UpInFlames #HerBrotherhood Transcript:All of this media is causing many to take pause to think about their workspace and how they're treating their brothers, their sisters, their coworkers, their peers, their supervisors. Past and current experiences never mentioned out loud before, being shared amongst close friends and confidence in many different circles and there are nothing short of heartbreaking sometimes. What I'm really finding crazy is that I'm hearing a broken record across the country, not just here in my place, not just in this state, not just in this Western region, across the country. There are so many heartfelt stories out there of folks that have practically gone down in flames and part of me wonders how many people we've actually lost and not realized. People are going down not only professionally but personally as well, because of the troubles that we're having at work. Many of these stories occur in male dominated professions, but it isn't only the females who suffer. Something tBuzzsprout - Let's get your podcast launched! Start for FREEDisclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/upinflamespodcast)

Full Transcript Below Show Summary: Beep Baseball is an adapted form of Baseball and is played by Visually Impaired/Blind  players wearing “Sleep Shades” to level the playing field for everyone. The ball is a 16 inch round softball with a beeping sound that allows the defensive team locate the ball. Blind Abilities Logo 6 members field a team with a sighted picture pitching to their own team. The sport of Beep Baseball originated right here in Minnesota and we sat down with Doug Van Duyne, Manager of the Minnesota Millers. Doug tells us about the game, the history and an opportunity coming up in June for teens to learn more about Beep Baseball and get a chance to run, hit and participate in a fun filled day with others sharing their love of the game. The Minnesota Millers are already practicing and preparing for the big Bash in Chicago and their fund raiser is kicking off tomorrow to help support the teams travels and expenses. You can find out more about getting involved  and support the Millers on the web on the web at www.MNMillers.org Here is the information about the Miller’s Kids Beep Ball Day event: The Minnesota Millers Beep Baseball Team will be hosting a kids beepball day to teach the game of beep baseball to kids. Blind & Visually impaired kids, 15 and under are invited to participate & learn the game. It will be a modified version of the International game incorporating a T-Ball version of the sport. WHEN:   June 15th,  2019  WHERE:  Casey Lake Park—North St. Paul, MN. Middle Field behind main ball field  Time:   10AM—Noon  If the weather is hot, please bring a bottle of water. To sign up or get more information, visit www.MNMillers.org/kidsor email info@MNMillers.org Contact: Thank you for listening! You can follow us on Twitter @BlindAbilities On the web at www.BlindAbilities.com Send us an email Get the Free Blind Abilities App on the App Storeand Google Play Store. Check out the Blind Abilities Communityon Facebook, the Blind Abilities Page, the Job Insights Support Groupand the Assistive Technology Community for the Blind and Visually Impaired.     Full Transcript Doug Van Duyne: What we're trying to do is reach out to kids that are 15 and under, boys and girls, that are blind or visually impaired and just introduce them to the sport. Jeff Thompson: Beep baseball. Doug Van Duyne: You've got some kids running around. Let them know it's okay to run, which is probably counter intuitive to anybody with a visual impairment. Jeff Thompson: Meet Doug Van Duyne coach of the Minnesota Millers Beep Baseball Team. Doug Van Duyne: We use a ball that's a 16-inch ball that's been modified. And the ball actually beeps. We want them to focus in on that cadence, which is kind of I'll clap with it, set, ready, pitch, swing. Jeff Thompson: Learn about the game. Learn about how you can help support the Minnesota Millers Beep Baseball Team. And you can find the Millers on the web at mmmillers.org. Doug Van Duyne: At the end of the day it's the ability, right? We don't focus on a disability. We focus on the ability. Jeff Thompson: Welcome to Blind Abilities. I'm Jeff Thompson. Beep baseball. It's a sport that is adaptive baseball for people who are blind. And I got the manager of the Minnesota Millers in the studio today, Doug Van Duyne. How are you doing? Doug Van Duyne: I'm great. Thanks for having me on. Jeff Thompson: You bet. This is really cool because it's a really neat sport and you got a big event coming up in June that a lot of people can learn about it. Youth can learn about beep baseball. Doug Van Duyne: That's correct. We're pretty excited about that. What we're trying to do is reach out to kids that are 15 and under, boys and girls, that are blind or visually impaired throughout the whole state. Our initial effort has been to reach out through mobility and visual teachers in the state and just introduce them to the sport. So it'll be a very low stress kind of situation. An introductory thing. Get some kids running around. Let them know it's okay to run, which is probably counter intuitive to anybody with a visual impairment. It's a completely safe environment and it's a great way to get some fresh air in your lungs. Doug Van Duyne: I meet some other folks that might share in some of the same struggles and tribulations that the community deals with probably on a daily basis. Jeff Thompson: Since we're talking about people learning about beep baseball, why don't you give us a brief description of what it is. Doug Van Duyne: That'd be great. It's a modified version of America's national pastime. We use a ball that is a 16-inch ball that's been modified by the Pioneers, which are the retired folks from the telephone company. And the ball actually beeps. What we do is we play ball. The pitcher and the catcher are actually on your team and they're trying to get you to hit the ball. And once the ball's put into play under the national rules, the bases are 100 feet away. There's first and third and one of those two will start emitting a buzzing sound. You have to run to either first or third, whichever one is activated and get to that base before one of the six fielders playing defense takes possession of the ball. And it's pretty straight forward. There's no throwing the ball after the fact. The field is divided up into zones and there are folks that can see, that have vision, that's what we call spotters. And they will yell out one-time what zone that ball is in so that the defenders have the opportunity to get a jump start to that area and try to get the ball in their possession before the runner gets to the buzzing base. Doug Van Duyne: I should also add the pitcher and catcher are sighted. That helps. And that's pretty much it. It's pretty exciting. The teams that we play from across the country are extremely competitive. A lot of athletes have lost either their total vision or partial vision for any number of reasons but take this extremely seriously. But here's the greatest part of the whole sport, on the field we're extremely competitive, but the minute the game is over it's one big happy family. And that's really the essence of sports and the way I think of sports. Jeff Thompson: Can you describe the equipment that each player is expected to have or that they use during a game? Doug Van Duyne: Sure. So every player, whether you're on defense or at bat, is actually wearing a blindfold. So those that have some vision, whatever that is, the field is completely level. You can't see anything. So, that's the one piece of required equipment that is a must. And the umpires will and expect to make sure there's no cheating. Unfortunately, there are some that try to get an edge. And there's a softball bat. And that's really the only equipment. You can wear a glove if you're in the field, but actually most of the players find that the glove is a hindrance as opposed to just using your hands, being very tactile, and cradling the ball with their hands versus trying to get it in a glove. Other than that a good pair of shoes is always great. Some folks wear knee pads because there's a lot of diving on the ground. Doug Van Duyne: I should also mention that we always play on 100% grass. So it's not even played on a baseball field. Most of the games are played on a soccer field that has been marked off in accordance with the field dimensions like a baseball field with 175 feet being a home run. So if you hit the ball in the air 175 feet, it's an automatic home run, which gives you two points. The ball does have to travel 40 feet for it to be considered fair. The pitcher's 20 feet away, pretty close, but there's really no other specialized equipment other than those buzzing bases and the beeping ball. Jeff Thompson: So you kind of key in, when you're up to bat you kind of keying in on that beep. And do they say pitch or anything when it's released? Doug Van Duyne: No. Jeff Thompson: Okay. Doug Van Duyne: That's a great question. So the pitcher does use a cadence. And there is required verbiage that's used. And it's either set, ready, pitch or set, ready, ball. Pitch or ball are the only two words that are interchangeable, but that sequence has to be the same. So when the pitcher says set, that lets the defenders know something's about to happen. The batters don't really key in on the beeping of the ball. In fact, in our batting practices we use a dead ball. And we want them to focus in on that cadence, which is kind of, I'll clap with it, set, ready, pitch, and on the fourth one they, we want them to swing. That's the rhythm of our cadence. Set, ready, pitch, swing. The beeping is really for the defenders to try and find the ball once it's in play. Jeff Thompson: So you just get that rhythm down and boom, boom, boom, swing. Doug Van Duyne: Yup. And as long as they swing consistently our pitcher will put the ball in the strike zone based on that person's swing. Jeff Thompson: Well that's kind of sweet! Now you're talking about it's a big family after the game. And that might explain why you're going to Bolingbrook, Illinois for a Beep Baseball Bash. Doug Van Duyne: Yeah, that's probably the closest tournament to us. There've been a couple already down in Texas. There's a couple coming up in Indiana, but Chicago, it's a six-hour drive, but it's the closest tournament to us. The Lyons of that community, Bolingbrook and the surrounding communities, do a great job in putting that on. There are eight teams and it's always probably the top seven teams that go. We are kind of in the middle of the pack in terms of ranking naturally, but these are all the top 10 teams for sure. And we like it because they're good teams. So that really, early on in the season, allows us to see what we have to work on prior to the World Series. Doug Van Duyne: It is a family atmosphere. Everybody looks forward to seeing each other down there in Chicago. Pretty much it's the same teams that come. And then the World Series, which we'll probably talk about a little bit, is a week-long. And so many families take that as their vacation just to reconnect with people from all over the country. There's a team from Canada, a team from Taiwan. Don't know that the team from the Dominican Republic is coming this year, but there are teams from all over that come for that week-long tournament at the end of the summer. Jeff Thompson: So you're the Minnesota Millers, but you get around. I mean Chicago to Oklahoma, playing teams from out of the country. That's quite a festive type of deal. I can see why people would want to use a vacation because ... You've been in this for a few years, so you probably know a lot of people that'll be attending. Doug Van Duyne: Yeah. And like I say when we're playing, they're probably not my best friend. But once the games are over for those of us that are able to have adult beverages, we'll be yucking it up in the bar and we're just one big happy family. It’s just a really unique thing. I've been coaching since I've been 17 years old. I've coached a lot of sports. And I've seen a lot of ugly in sports. There's none of that in this program. Jeff Thompson: That's really cool. How many years has the Minnesota Millers been in existence? Doug Van Duyne: Oddly enough the sport started in Minnesota back in the late 70s. And at that time there were four teams in Minnesota. And it kind of grew, but I would say in the early 90s the programs in Minnesota fell apart and that we resurrected it. Our first World Series was in 2010. We were able to get enough people together that really wanted to play. So, since 2010 we've been playing. So, this will be 2019, nine years. Jeff Thompson: Wow! Time flies when you're having fun, right? Doug Van Duyne: Exactly. Exactly. Jeff Thompson: So what kind of arrangements do you have? Spring comes, you have spring training, practices. You get together and see how the team's doing, see how everybody's interest is in it. And of course, you're going to interest a lot of youth here by having your event here. I think it's June 15?  Doug Van Duyne: Yup. That's right, June 15th. We try to get indoors. It's Minnesota, right? And like this year there was snow on the ground not too long ago. Jeff Thompson: Yeah, it could be tonight. Doug Van Duyne: Exactly. So, we try to get indoors and do some batting. Just get people loosen up a little bit. See who's coming back. Making sure there's no injuries and just starting to get loosened up. We had our first practice two weeks ago outside. It has really good. We had one last Saturday. This Saturday we'll be doing our fundraiser, but then we'll practice again the following Saturday. So up until June 9th or 7, 8, 9 actually is the Chicago tournament. We have a lot of weekends. And we have people from, throughout the metro area. A lot live in the Twin City metro area. Few come up from Rochester. I have one of the players out by Waconia. So, as you can imagine logistically pulling people together can be daunting at times because everybody, of the most part, needs a ride of some sort. Jeff Thompson: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Well that's quite a commitment. I mean people are committed so they must be enjoying it to keep coming back. Doug Van Duyne: I think so. One of the unique things ... We have a player from Hudson. Todd Paulson is his name. Great guy. Has been losing his vision due to a virus that he had. It was a cold or pneumonia. And this was going back several years. An avid softball player all his life. Found out about us. Came over. Been a great asset to the team not only in terms of a player, but as a person. But through beep ball has connected with a young lady and they're engaged now. So how cool is that? I mean it's not just a sport. It transcends into life and life skills and relationships and things of that nature. Jeff Thompson: Well it's really neat that it's a sport. It's an activity. And it's a passion once you get a taste of it. Doug Van Duyne: Yeah, if you don't me putting a shameless plug in. Jeff Thompson: Oh no, plug away! That's what it's all about. Doug Van Duyne: Nice. So, this Saturday at Tom Reid's Hockey City we have our fundraiser. It the Minnesota Millers Beer Bash/Silent Auction. And that runs from 1:00 to 4:00. You can buy a mug online for $15. It's a Minnesota Millers collectable mug. And then you get to drink free until the keg runs out. Or you don't have to drink beer and you can just come on down and put in some bids on some pretty nice items. Package from the Twins Diamond Club and all kinds of good stuff. Jeff Thompson: There you go. So, I suggest anybody that's listening check it out. Check them out this Saturday at Tom Reid's. That's Saturday, what is that? 1:00 to 4:00 right? Doug Van Duyne: Yeah, 1:00 to 4:00, correct. Jeff Thompson: Another opportunity in June, the 15th, for the youth to come out there. But if you're interested just to go out there to check it out, talk to everybody. Seems like a friendly bunch. Doug Van Duyne: Yeah, we get along pretty good. We have a good time. We like to keep it loose. We don't get too serious about it. Of course, nobody goes out to lose, but at the same time it's all about building confidence in a variety of levels. And building successes. Doug Van Duyne: Our website is mmmillers.org and we try to keep that up to date so there's a ton of information on there if anybody wants to check that out. We post our practices there. We post our events on there. It's a good way to keep in touch. Jeff Thompson: Yeah, I really like the name because my dad used to watch the Minnesota Millers back in the day. Was it the Minneapolis Millers or Minnesota Millers? Doug Van Duyne: Minneapolis Millers, yup, back in the day. You bet. Well maybe we'll have to get you out there Jeff. Jeff Thompson: That sounds like fun. Doug Van Duyne: We'll slap a blindfold on you. No commitment on your part but check it out. See first-hand. Jeff Thompson: No reason not to show up on Saturday either to support the team and get my mug. Doug Van Duyne: There you go! Jeff Thompson: And you can do that in advance. Someone can go on the website, mmmillers.org right now and order a mug. They're only $15. Doug Van Duyne: Yup. And then it gets you all the beer you like to drink till the keg runs out. And if you're not a beer drinker you could put pop in it. Nobody will give you a hard time. Jeff Thompson: There you go! And supporting this, this will help you get to the World Series down in Oklahoma for the big games. Doug Van Duyne: Yup. And that's exactly why we do it. All the money that we generate minus whatever the cost is goes directly to the players. A lot of the players have limited income, just cost. But it roughly costs everybody about $5000 to participate in the tournaments and the World Series between travel and lodging and all that stuff. Every dime we get we put right back into the players to help them offset any costs. Jeff Thompson: Yeah, I mean even taking a van or getting transportation in Chicago or anywhere. That's all you guys putting this together because of your passion, your love for the game. And it costs money to do all that. So, if anybody's listening, wants to help support this great sport go ahead. That's mmmillers.org. Doug Van Duyne: Yup. There's a donate now button on there too. So, they don't even have to buy a mug. And like I say, a dime at a time works for us. Jeff Thompson: But the mug's pretty good. I guess it's a frosted glass with two baseball bats on an X. Well you describe it. Doug Van Duyne: Yeah, it's actually our logo that we have temporary tattoos for and the like. But it's kind of a tribal look. It's a home plate, two bats crossed over it with a ball in there and some tribal scribing that doesn't translate to any significant meaning. And with the word Minnesota over the top and Millers under the bottom in a Nordic font to it. Jeff Thompson: There you go. Well Doug, good luck with all your games this year. Hopefully people come out, check them out. I hope they do because it's been around for a while. And I remember we practice beep ball a long time ago. And that beep, beep, beep, but no one told me about that cadence. That makes sense now. We were just listening for the beep. I like that. Boom, boom, boom, swing. Doug Van Duyne: It is kind of addicting whether you're sighted or not. When you see the game, everybody is just amazed at the level of activity. And really at the end of the day it's the ability, right? We don't focus on a disability. We focus on the ability. Jeff Thompson: Great. That's awesome. Well Doug Van Duyne, thank you for coming on to represent the Minnesota Millers and good luck this weekend. Doug Van Duyne: Thanks a lot Jeff. We appreciate the opportunity to spread the word and we'll have a beer together this weekend. Jeff Thompson: All right. That's Tom Reid's, 1:00 to 4:00. Get your mug. We'll see you there. Doug Van Duyne: Thanks. Jeff Thompson: For more podcasts with the blindness perspective check us out on the web at www.blindabilities.com. On Twitter, @BlindAbilities and download the free Blind Abilities app from the App Store and on Google Play. That's two words. Blind Abilities. You can also enable the Blind Abilities Skill on your Amazon device. Just say enable Blind Abilities. Jeff Thompson: A big shout out goes out to Chee Chau for his beautiful music. And you can follow Chee Chau on Twitter @LCheeChau. [Music]  [Transition noise]  -When we share -What we see -Through each other's eyes... [Multiple voices overlapping, in unison, to form a single sentence] ...We can then begin to bridge the gap between the limited expectations, and the realities of Blind Abilities. Jeff Thompson: For more podcasts with the blindness perspective: Check us out on the web at www.BlindAbilities.com On Twitter @BlindAbilities Download our app from the App store:  'Blind Abilities'; that's two words. Or send us an e-mail at: info@blindabilities.com Thanks for listening. Contact: Thank you for listening! You can follow us on Twitter @BlindAbilities On the web at www.BlindAbilities.com Send us an email Get the Free Blind Abilities App on the App Storeand Google Play Store. Check out the Blind Abilities Communityon Facebook, the Blind Abilities Page, the Job Insights Support Groupand the Assistive Technology Community for the Blind and Visually Impaired.

It takes a lot to get Tiffany B and I excited about a horror film. There've been scant examples of us actually leaving the house in order to see something that's deliberately setting out to scare us. Us was one of those films. We'd seen Get Out and loved it, we'd seen a crackerjack trailer and loved it, we also watched some Key and Peele and really enjoyed it even though there was a strong likelihood that it would have zero bearing on the film. Did we go in with expectations too high? Maybe. But a lot of the early reviews seemed to suggest that expectations couldn't possibly be too high. Get 'em higher, the reviews seemed to suggest. And so, with expectations grazing the clouds, we plunged into the world of rabbits and jump suits and those bloody golden scissors. Whether you've seen it or not, there's something for you, so why wouldn't you have a cheeky listen on the way to work? Listen and love!

Miki Brittenham is a medium, animal communicator and crystal healer, who works with crystal energy to speak to the body as well as other lifeforms. She offers readings and energetic crystal healing for people and pets, intuitive coaching, handmade jewelry, crystals and other metaphysical awesomeness, like her psychic haikus better known as psykus. She shares her near death experience. GUEST LINKS - MIKI BRITTENHAM mikibrittenham.com Grounding through Sacred Geometry free ebook by Miki Brittenham 15 Characteristics of Near Death Experience MENTIONED ON THE SHOW Maxfield Parrish artist HOST LINKS - SLADE ROBERSON Slade's Books & Courses Get an intuitive reading with Slade Automatic Intuition FACEBOOK GROUP Shift Your Spirits Community BECOME A PATRON https://www.patreon.com/shiftyourspirits Edit your pledge on Patreon TRANSCRIPT Miki: I was really sick. I was pregnant with my first child and I got something called HELLP syndrome, which is hemolysis, elevated liver enzymes, low platelet count. It's like the most rarest form of preeclampsia I guess. Something like that. Back then, it's a death sentence. So you basically die. But nowadays, majority of people, they don't die now because of medical advances. But back then, I don't know, I guess you just died from it. I'm not really sure. That's what they told me anyway. I was in the hospital, in and out of the hospital, and the total amount was probably about a good four to five months, because I kept going in and out and in and out and they just kept me in. And they said I needed to at least make the 32-week mark. So on the day that I made the 33-week, they induced me. That was the first mistake because my health had just started going down rapidly, but my body was failing at that point. My blood pressure was really high and my platelets were super low. Which is why they didn't really want to do a cesarean because of the clotting factor, right? So they induced me and at that point, they had said, I guess I was in labour for about 12 hours and they said that my platelets had dropped to 80,000. Normal is about 150 - 450,000. So they told me that my blood pressure was so high that I was going to have a heart attack or stroke. And they came in and I remember this. They brought me some papers and they basically said, "Here, sign these papers because we need to keep the baby alive but you're going to die." Slade: Ohmygod... Miki: That was pretty much what they had said. Yeah. It was so weird. They're like, "Alright. Well you're dying. We need to get this baby out." My liver shut down. The whole birth took four minutes. My liver shut down and my heart stopped. It was 9:00 when they wheeled me in there and her birth certificate says 9:04. I don't even understand, but it was so fast, and as soon as they started to put me under, I left my body and I was watching from above, but I didn't really care about ME. I mean, they were saying, I could hear them, they were saying, "Her heart stopped. Her heart stopped. Get the baby out." All I cared about was just making sure that baby was okay. I had no... I mean, it was weird because it wasn't like an emotional attachment to the baby. I just wanted to make sure the baby was going to be alright. It was like, is this baby going to be fine? But I didn't care anything about my body at all. I was watching it and I had zero emotion to it at all. As soon as I saw the baby was coming out and that she was fine, I just floated up out of the ceiling. My mom was super stressed out and she was on the roof. You know they have those patio, I don't know if it's really the roof, but those outdoor patio smoking areas, right, they used to do in hospitals? She was out there smoking and I could see her and I felt the same about her. I was like, Oh, there's my mom. But there was zero emotion involved. And then I just kind of floated up, and I did not see a tunnel or anything. It was like I had seen my mom, and I started to float up, and then all of a sudden I was there... wherever, you know, whatever the 'there' is. There were three people there. I don't, I mean, they weren't really people but that's the best way for me to describe them. Beings of light. The first thing that I noticed when I was there was like, everything was so much brighter. And it was almost like when you're looking at the sun, how bright that is, but it didn't affect your eyes in any way. Like it was so soft and calm and just everything was bright. You know when the sun is starting to set, and the sky sort of looks like a Maxfield Parrish painting? Slade: Yes! Miki: Okay. That's how it looked. That's the closest way that I can describe it. And it just, it was so beautiful. And these beings were there and there's this feeling when you are, like you've been gone a long time and you're getting off of a plane and you see people you love. And it's just so... you just want to run to them, right? It's like that. This most intense love of everyone you love: your family, your lover, your kids, your parents, your animals. All combined. If you could combine all of that love into one feeling, that's how it feels. And I felt that about these beings. They had, I mean I'll describe them. They had features but they didn't have any features. And I know that's like a contradiction and it doesn't make any sense, but I don't know if I perceived them as having this or if that's what they really had. Because it's almost like they're just a light but within the light, I could pick out these features, almost. So there was an older man who had long hair that was very pale and really blue, blue eyes. He was wearing some kind of robe or cloak, maybe a cloak but there was some kind of sleeves because I remember cuffs. They were, all three of these beings were wearing the same kind of cloaks. It was sort of like they were almost white or very pale and kind of shimmery, almost like there were jewels but there weren't jewels. I want to say it's like there was gold thread through this white but there was no gold thread. It was just very shimmery. All of it was shimmery, like their hair and their eyes. Then there was a younger man who had lighter, not really brown hair but kind of like a dirty blonde, darker, not so pale as the first man, and he was a lot younger and he had like a purplish blue eyes and then there was a woman who had really long, like, super long pale hair. Very, very pale, maybe pale blonde, and she had those purply eyes too. That is the one with the bluish skin. Her skin kind of had this blue tint. I don't really recall if the other ones had a blue tint. They might have. But there was just so much emotion involved in seeing these people, like we were hugging without hugging, like a virtual hug or something, I don't know. There was a river. I could see out in the distance, like with that pretty Maxfield Parrish sky, there was a river and the water was so crystal blue. Have you ever been to Zion National Park? Slade: No. Miki: We went a couple of years ago and I've never seen water that colour except for at Zion National Park. It was almost like this teal colour, maybe green. Almost like this bright, bright turquoise. The water in Hawaii has that in some areas, but it almost is like there's too much pigment in the water in Hawaii. Whereas in Zion it seemed more like very sheer waters. When I saw that water, I was like, that's the kind of water that that river was! So strange but there was some kind of field but I don't recall there being a colour to the field. It was just a landscape kind of all blended in to that sky but it was a field and then there was a river. I was over here in one spot and the river was over there and I could see it but there was almost like this invisible barrier or this secret fence that I couldn't see. Like, No, you do not pass. I'm on this side with these people and there's all that beautiful stuff over there and I'm like, I just want to go over there! But that wasn't what was going on. I joke and say I wasn't allowed in heaven because it's that barrier. But it wasn't like I wasn't allowed there. We were just doing something over here. There was some kind of weird building that we were by. I keep remembering a building but it wasn't a building. It has really strange angles and it had that iridescence. Like their robes. So it could have been something I perceived there, you know what I mean? They were just beings of light. I don't know if that building was a perception. I'm perceiving there's a building here or there really was a building there. Looking down on myself, I have no body. Like if you're looking at yourself now and you look down, you would have a body but I had nothing. So there were no parts of me that I could see. I'm just seeing everything from my eyes. Nothing was spoken between us. It was all telepathy. So I knew everything that they were saying. I knew everything that they were thinking and it was just this deep connection. And then I went into the life review. The best way that I can describe it was like, you know when you see those maybe in TV or movies, they have these huge monitors that have a whole bunch of different little squares and everything is moving. Like these TV monitors with people on it or something from all across the world and they're showing each one has different stuff in the little cubes. It was sort of like that. So it was like there was lots of different visions going on of my life and it felt like it almost kind of wrapped around my head, but I don't think I had a head. So it just sort of, I want to say it was like a 360 degree vision almost. And every block had a moment of my life that I was able to look at and feel and understand everything that was going on in all of these different moments of my life all at the same time. But it's not just feeling it from your perception. Whatever interaction that you have with every person, you feel it from their point of view and your point of view at the same time. So every single interaction that you ever have, you experience how the other person perceived you, what they picked up from you. And sometimes it was really painful. I mean, if sometimes you're an asshole, you know what I mean, and you say things that aren't nice, then you kind of really see how you impacted this other person. You really explore every area of your life and it's almost like it's instantaneous and you're just learning and learning and you kind of see how you behaved and where you went wrong maybe and where you went right. Or where other people damaged you in certain moments and how you perceived what they were trying to say versus what they were really trying to say. It was pretty intense. After that, the thing about the life review is there's no judgement. Those beings, they didn't judge me at all. All they had for me was pure love. I was the only one who was judging me. So there is no judgement. There is no being that's gonna come and, no god is going to judge you for your wrongs and things that you did wrong to other people. The only person that's gonna judge you is yourself. You are your judge and sometimes that's, you know, I think that's even more painful. To see your own shortcomings, you know what I mean, so vividly and understand them. In seeing where I went wrong, it was almost like, not wrong, but where I could've been better, or done things different, it was almost like some moments were a sad revelation where it's just so impactful. Then, after that, the beings showed me this. It's a domed chest. I don't know. It's really strange. It kind of has a dome top and there were straps across it and it was really iridescent, kind of goldish colour. And they lifted up the chest and when I looked inside the chest, that was the moment that I had complete clarity of every question I've ever asked. I knew all my answers to everything, and I was like, Oh yes, I know this stuff! I know all of this stuff. That's right. Like it was almost like I remembered that I'd always known this stuff. I think I watched my future. Looking in the chest is where I really have thought about a lot of it over the years, trying to figure out what exactly was in that chest because, you know it's like I remember what was in the chest but I don't have a clear vision of it and I can't really put it into any words. The only thing that I remember when I looked in that is going, "Oh!" But whatever they showed me in that chest, was the reason I chose to come back. So it must've been a future like, this is behind the box if you choose curtain #2! It was at that point that they asked me, "Are you staying or are you going?" So it was like, I mean, they didn't ask me. It was this mind-to-mind connection. I knew they were giving me a choice and at that point, it was my turn to do something about my situation. It was at that point where I was like, "Okay. I'm going back." And then my uncle was there, which was really strange. My uncle had a, he died of a congestive heart failure from a drug overdose when he was 33 and I'm named after him. He died when I was 19 but I'm still named after him. The only word that I recall being spoken like a spoken word through this whole thing was what my uncle said. He was a big wave surfer and the word that he used to use to describe the perfect wave was 'perps', and when I said "Okay, I'm coming back", he threw the shaka and said "perps". What was really interesting is that he was perfectly clear. I mean, he was like these other people but he, like I really remember his features so well. Maybe because I know him. I mean, I knew them too but I'm very familiar with him. But he only had an upper body. He didn't have any legs. I've always pondered that. I don't know. It's kind of strange. I mean, I didn't have legs either so I guess it would make sense that he didn't. It was at that moment that I decided to come back and I woke up in the ICU. The first thing I did was I stuck out my finger like E.T. and said, "How big?" because I wanted to know how big the baby was. Because they had said that she wasn't growing, she was about 2 pounds. She was 3 pounds. So she was perfectly fine. She was doing great. I stayed in the ICU for about two weeks and I had a 24-hour nurse in there that didn't work at the hospital, that no one else saw, so he was like a stranger angel, right? He was in there. He was wearing scrubs and he would sit by my bed. His name was Scott and he would sit by my bed every day and any time I would wake up, I kept waking up and I would have these nightmares of this death scenes and I would panic and I would wake up and I'd be like, "Where am I?? What's going on??" And he would hold my hand and he'd say, "It's okay. You had a baby. The baby is fine. You're gonna be fine." And I'd be like, "Okay." And then I'd kind of fall asleep but I remember asking the nurse, when the nurses would come in, "Where's Scott?" And they're like, "What are you talking about? There's no one here named Scott." I'm like, "Yes! He's been sitting with me every single day. He's wearing blue scrubs." And they all wear maroon scrubs and no one's in blue scrubs. But he was in blue scrubs. So that was kind of interesting. Slade: Ohmygosh. Okay so I've written down some questions while you were talking. Just a couple of things that, it's like a lightning round of details. Before you had this experience, had you ever had an out of body experience or ever done any kind of astral projection or tried to do anything like that before? Miki: Um, yeah. When I was about 13, 14, I went through this extreme astral projection phase where I went to bed at like, 7:00 every night. Shut my door because I was just going in there to meditate because I'm going to leave my body, you know? It was like this determination and so... I rearranged my room so my bed was in the direction it needed to be in, everything was perfect. Most of the time I think I fell asleep but there was one time where I did leave my body and I remember seeing my body laying there and just that, seeing that, was so... I don't know. It freaked me out that I just.. Slade: Popped back in? Miki: Yeah. Just popped back in. There was this weird instance. That was the only time before this, but now it seems like, I mean, I can't do that spontaneously at all. But whenever I have some kind of anesthesia, I always, I see the situation from above, so I'm hovering above but it's in a different, very different than that experience. That experience I had zero attachment to my body. When that happens to me now, I do have feelings and an attachment to my person, you know, my body. Slade: So when you were in that place, which, I love the Maxfield Parrish reference because I love golden hour, that time of day, that time of light. I love the late 19th century painters who were really into capturing that. And I think that being the age that we are, there was a period in the 80s and 90s where that artwork was very popular on posters and stuff. Miki: Yeah. Every room in the house. Slade: Yeah so I totally know what you're talking about. So when you describe this kind of wall of love, of sort of these entities clustered together, you do talk about your uncle manifesting as a unique individual being. But other than the three entities who were guardian spirits or whatever, were there other... Like, was there a crowd of people and you sort of could pass your eyes over it and see like, Oh there's this person and this person, or was it just more of a feeling? Miki: Um... Slade: You know, were your grandparents there? Miki: Nope. Slade: Your ancestors or anything particular like that? Miki: Nope. The only people that I recall being there at all were these three beings and then my uncle randomly showed up when I, like, "Woohoo! You're going to live!" Kind of a, I don't know, like my cheering section or something because of the choice I made almost. Slade: Who do you think the entities, the blue-skin lady and the sort of Merlinesque character? He shows up in a lot of guided meditations, you and I know, from intuitives who do these kind of Akashic Records travelling and all this kind of stuff. That is a type of entity that we do often see, those three that you describe. Who do you think they are now? Did you come out of this experience thinking, who the heck were they? Like, I want to know who they are. Or did you have a sense of who they were that stayed with you? Miki: Um... I think that I've contemplated this experience for 25 years now. At first I didn't really know who they were. You know, I was like, I don't know who they are. But I knew that they were someone that was super close to me and that they love me and they were there. So I just regarded them as people I knew. I don't know if they were people, but that's the best that I can... Beings that I knew, maybe, you know? I belong with them. That's where I belong. I mean, I'm here. But when I'm not here, I will be with them because I belong with them. I do have moments in time where the female comes and goes like she's almost like maybe one of my guides that sort of steps in every once in awhile. So maybe they step in, the other two step in every once in awhile. I'm just not really aware of it because I have such a strong connection to my main guide, who I've always had a super strong connection to him. He looks very similar actually to the younger man but I don't think they're the same person. I don't feel like they are. Slade: Do you ever try to communicate with these people now? These entities, these beings? Miki: With the woman. Slade: Okay. Miki: Her name is Wistera. But I have not... Only because I've encountered her more times than the other two that I've started kind of exploring that. But I don't feel like... I think if I were going to communicate with them at this point, that I would have. You know? That maybe they would've shown up in some form or fashion somewhere. Slade: So during the life review part that you talked about, and you talked about how you got to experience it from the perspective of the other people involved, but also that you were judging the moments of your life and interactions and stuff. Do you have a conscious recollection of how your understanding was different during this experience than it would have been during the moment that some of those events happened? Like for instance, you're recalling some memory or you're seeing some event from the past that you had, let's say, some kind of anger or resentment about, and then now you have this different perspective of it. Did you come away feeling changed about your own real life experiences? Like, I've got to rethink everything? Miki: Umm... sort of. It wasn't the other people or how I perceived things that happened. It was more how I reacted to the things that happened and why was I reacting in this way. When I was a kid, I used to have this weird thing that would happen to me. I would be hanging out with friends or family or whatever the situation was and then I was almost like I was watching it from above the situation at the same time and having a different consciousness about it, going, "This is a very odd interaction. Why are humans behaving this way?" And then in my own mind, I'd be like, "What is that?" It was sort of like that kind of separate... like, here's the human doing this and here's my consciousness going, "Why are humans behaving this way? What is making them react this way?" It was a similar experience where I'm experiencing my human thing but it wasn't like a memory. It was like I was re-living every single thing, like I'm having this conversation is real right now in this moment. Every memory at that life review was going on at that moment. There was no distinction of time. It was really happening and I was seeing how this interaction impacted my life and how I reacted to it. And how my reaction to it impacted what came next. And how I could have reacted differently and how that would've made a different thing happen next. It was like this broad view of my action. Slade: Were you able to retain any of that sort of perspective? I was thinking as you were talking about it, it's like you had full awareness of your Higher Self as maybe separate from your sort of animal self or something. Did you retain any of that perspective that you feel like you use now in some way? Miki: Yes. Definitely I think that I do. I think that comes into my, I'm an overthinker, you know? I am really very concerned about, okay, if I behave this way, how is that going to impact this situation? Like, what can I do to make it the best situation? Or what would be the best way for me to behave in this situation, kind of overanalyzing. I definitely think that watching that has really changed my behaviour, because I used to, I had a kind of not the greatest upbringing, parts of it were really good, some were really great. I had a lot of anger when I was younger and sometimes I could be a little volatile, you know? It was almost like when I came back, I was a completely different person. I mean, not completely. I still am the same person but in a much softer sense, maybe? Much more caring, not so self-centred. Much more concerned about how other people feel or, let's try and figure out what the best thing for everyone involved is going to be. So it's not just about me anymore. Ever since then, I don't feel that it's all about me or this one situation is me. Because it's not always, it's never just about me. It's always about everyone involved. Slade: Did you believe in the afterlife before this experience happened to you? Miki: I didn't NOT believe in the afterlife. I don't know if I had any real belief. I had hippie parents. I wasn't baptized. They were like, "No, she should choose her own way in life." My parents were Catholic. I grew up Catholic. That wasn't really their thing, although my mom kind of went back to the church for awhile. But I'd gone to many different types of churches trying to, you know, teen groups with friends or whatever, trying to figure out what it is that I thought. I knew there was something. I don't think I ever thought there wasn't something, but I didn't really know what it was. Slade: So what is your perspective on the afterlife now? Miki: I definitely think that we live. I have zero fear of death. The only fear I have about death is that I feel like, if I were to die today, I would be perfectly okay with dying. The only part of it that would be upsetting to me is, there are certain things I'm trying to achieve. I have these things laid out that I'm trying to do or to achieve, but I'm not concerned about, like I'll catch up with all these other peeps later. My family or whatever. I'm not concerned about them. It's only about what it is that I'm like, "Wait, wait, I wasn't done doing what I was trying to do." You know what I mean? That kind of... Slade: Yeah... So you do feel a sense of peace about your consciousness continuing after this lifetime? Miki: Oh definitely, yeah. I definitely feel that this is just a moment. This is just something that I'm experimenting with right now, being a human. I'm trying it out. Seeing what's going on. I am certainly not this body at all. I'm something much more grand than this body. This body, with this body, there's limits. It comes with limitations and so within this body and this form, I'm learning to work with those limitations, you know? Slade: Okay. So let's talk about the chest a little bit. You talked about, there was just so much information there and a sense of oh yeah, remembering all this stuff. And then as I imagine when you came back, you don't really necessarily remember individual truths from that viewing of the chest or do you? Are there sort of philosophical maybe insights that you retained from that glimpse into that chest that you can now have conversations with people, you know what I mean? Miki: Yeah, um, definitely I couldn't sit down and be like, "This is what I remember from the chest. There was this, this, this..." You know what I mean? It doesn't come to my memory in that kind of a way. There are definitely things that I know, and it's just like, I didn't know these things before. And that's where I can make that distinction of, this is things that I knew that the chest showed me because I didn't have those thoughts, I didn't know any of this beforehand. I just was sort of, oh, whatever, "Here I am" kind of thing, right? I didn't really think about, I mean, I thought deeply about things but when I thought deeply about things I didn't have the same... You know, it's like I'm thinking less about it now because I know the answer, almost. Slade: So let me ask you this way then. Like when you hear someone talking about something like god or spirits or mediumship or, you know, just any kind of spiritual or philosophical concept. As you're sort of observing those things or hearing questions presented about them, do you sort of have a part of yourself that's like, "Nah, that's bullshit." Or like, "Yeah, actually what he's saying reminds me of something that's a truth from that chest." Are you able to evaluate thoughts now in reference to that? Miki: Yeah. I think that I am. I definitely do look at a lot of things and go, "Psh, okay that's bullshit." One of the biggest things that I can say is bullshit is, and which is very big in the spiritual community is, "We're here. This is an earth school." You know what? That's bullshit. Slade: Oh, thank you! I'm so glad. Miki: This is not an earth school. What kind of asshole would be like, "Oh, let's send all these people here and let them learn something with no curriculum! Hahaha." Come on. That's ridiculous. That's not... not at all the case. It is not a school. We aren't trying to learn. The only thing we are trying to do is experience. Like I said, you're this huge, huge consciousness. I guess I'll call it consciousness because I don't really have anything else to call it. If I call it that, then kind of we all know what I'm talking about. Because if I say 'thing', that's just like, "You know, you're this huge thing right?" Slade: Right. Miki: You're bigger than life. You are so big you're everything. You have such limits in this body that you're in. The only thing that you're learning is, if you're going to learn something, you're learning how to work through these limits of this physical body because it's an experience that you want to have. That's it. You're experiencing what it's like to be in this body. Slade: Like in the way that somebody might choose to do ayahuasca or trip on mushrooms or go underwater with scuba gear. Miki: Exactly. Yeah. Slade: Interesting. Miki: So that's what it is. It's not a school. You aren't, I mean, you learn things along the way. Don't get me wrong. You do learn things along the way. But it's not like you're here to learn. You're here to experience and through your experience, you're going to learn because you learn through every experience. Slade: Right. And there's not like this predestination, like, I'm going to go have this sort of earthly experience so that I can learn what it's like to blahblahblah. Like there's not that much planning. Miki: Well I think there are themes. Slade: Okay. Miki: So it's not really like... You know, it's like if you were planning to, I don't know, make a convention, okay? There's a lot of planning that you have to put in it. Everyone's talking about, "Oh, this is how we want it to come out." There's this and this and this. It doesn't need to be... I mean, it's detailed and you do have a planning committee, but you're more discussing themes. Slade: Like the vibe that you want it to have for the attendees, or... Miki: Yes. Slade: What you kind of want the takeaway to be, but the nitty gritty, like how you get there is more randomized than that. Miki: Yeah. That's a lot more organic and because you choose one thing or you don't choose something. And some people, I mean, probably like you and me, we're "i'm going to make this choice," and something in your head is like, "No, don't do that." Right? Slade: Right. Miki: Stay away from that person. Don't go there. And you either adjust to pay attention to it or you don't, right? I mean, of course if you don't pay attention to it, then everything goes to shit. You're like, "Goddamn, I should've listened to that." Slade: I had this experience yesterday actually when I was pulling into the parking space down at the tea shop or something like that. And I looked around and just in a flash, I saw all these instances of kind of miserable shit. I mean, there's really no other way to put it. Someone who was really struggling to get across the crosswalk in a wheelchair in the rain and then there was an animal that was missing a leg and I mean, I just sort of like turned off the keys and looked around. It was just, bam bam bam bam bam. All this awful stuff, just all this hardship and difficulty in a slice of a moment. And my thought, Miki, in that moment, was, "Who in the hell would make this up on purpose?" That's kind of like this weird question I had for the Universe. So when you said that about this isn't an earth school, we're here to experience versus here to learn, that really spoke to me. Because I felt such an overwhelming sense of how cruel the world was. And not that there aren't always things to be grateful for and all these other things that we can think are wonderful and make it worth it. But I'm just saying, the idea that anyone would mastermind that kind of stuff... Like I'm okay with the fact if it's kind of like, random and organic, if it's nature, but the idea that it would all be pre-scripted, like a video game, feels kind of evil to me. You know what I'm saying? Miki: Yeah, but in choosing the themes, like you said someone in a wheelchair who can't walk and they're struggling through whatever until they come to terms with using the limitations that their body has. You do choose those things but they're themes. It's almost like... It's not as random as, "Woohoo, I'm going to be a human. I'm gonna dig through this bag and randomly pick out 5 themes and those are going to be somehow manifested into my human life." It wouldn't be as random as that because you... I mean this now is going into past lives, which I don't think are past lives, but anyway, we'll just call it a past life right now. Say if you randomly chose these 5 themes out of this magic trunk or whatever, right? The chest. And then what if you'd already, in a past life, you'd already had that theme or... You would go, "Okay..." And you're looking at your human life differently when you're here than when you're looking at it from there. It's like a completely different perspective. So you looking at whatever limitations have been put on your human existence in your human body, you don't feel the same way about those limitations when you are choosing those themes. Slade: What were you going to say about the past lives? We'll call it a past life but you actually don't perceive it that way. I have an idea what you're going to say, but I want you to explain that really quick. Miki: They aren't in the past. They're all right now. They're all going on in the same time but I mean there's no concept of time, really. Time is just a space in consciousness where you can experience something. That's time. That's the best definition really of time. Slade: So we're living all kinds of experiences of other places. Miki: All kinds. And the themes are the same. Slade: Oh really! Miki: Yeah. We kind of talked about this like, what is god, right? Slade: Yeah. Miki: If there is a god, so in order to explain this, we'll have to talk about that for a second. So... Slade: That was gonna be my next question anyway. Miki: The best way that I can put "god" and just saying god, because everyone knows the concept that we're talking about, the best way to describe it would be like an octopus where 'here' is the head, is this main energy, or consciousness, the main theme, all of the arms are all of the other, like the webs almost, it's the same theme. The arms are the same thing as the head of the octopus. So god is the head of the octopus and we're all the arms. We're all experiencing the same thing or, we're the same thing, but we're all experiencing it in different ways. So if you took all of the pieces, like let's just say, for the sake of this conversation and understanding this concept, if you were god, right? I mean, you are. We're all one. So you're god. But there's a bunch of different facets to your personality. And each one of them likes different things, does different things, but altogether that makes Slade. If you broke up every single thing about you and about your personality, fantasy writer, teacher, podcaster, tea lover, animal lover, all of these different aspects of you, right? You have so many. Each one of these, if you could make them into a completely different person and send them out into the world as that personality and just imagine how much faster you would experience everything there is to experience. Because you were spread out instead of just one. Slade: We're the way by which the Universe is aware of itself. Miki: Yes. Slade: Yeah. And when you and I had this conversation about the octopus thing, I said well that's really cool because I'd always perceived it as kind of a fractal image, like a computer screen saver that's like a fractal. And there is something octopus-like about those tendrils, or whatever and the facets and all that kind of stuff. So yeah, I actually really get that really easily. Do you feel like that was something that was in the chest? Miki: I do. Yeah. For sure. Definitely. Slade: So switching gears just a little bit. What was it do you think that motivated you most to go back? Miki: Probably my kids. Slade: Right. Miki: Because four years after I had my daughter and died, I decided to do it again, but I knew I was like, everyone's like, gasp, "You're gonna have another kid." The doctors and everybody kind of freaked out. I said, "Nope it's gonna be perfectly fine. Everything will be fine." And everything was perfectly fine. There've been so many things in my life from that moment where I go, "Nope, this is the way it's going to be. Don't worry about anything because it's gonna be perfectly fine," or "This is the person, without a doubt, I know for sure." Almost like, just these deep knowings about my life which, I can't sit here and recall them but when they present themselves, I'm like, "Oh yeah, I know that." Slade: So you're really moving through trusting your gut and feeling like everything always turns out okay. Miki: Oh yeah, definitely. Slade: What a great way to live. Do you experience anxiety? Do you worry about things? Because I'm a big worrier. Miki: Yeah. I mean, I do worry about things and I think we talked about this too. I worry about things in both directions. I can take one idea and take it to the depths of hell and I can take the same idea and go to the highest point of ever anything and become the most famous person in the world. You know what I mean? I can go in all directions and I can see almost like how the idea could potentially play out in whatever direction I went with, you know? I don't really know if it's worrying so much as just deep thinking. Slade: Yeah, like contemplation. Miki: Extreme contemplation. Slade: Does it happen kind of instantaneously or is it something you really mull over and analyze a lot? Miki: Sometimes both. It depends on how much time I have to think about the particular thing. Sometimes I can daydream about something and just enjoy looking at how something's going to play out, I guess. Slade: Thought experiments. Miki: Yeah. Uh huh. Slade: What do you hope, like when you tell people this story or when you put this out there, what do you kind of hope people take away from it? Miki: Just to know that we are all one and that we all are love. That's, you know, and I think maybe I hope that they feel a sense of ease about being a human because everything is, Oh you're born and you die. You're born to die. That death is the end. It's almost like I feel like the human culture doesn't put enough importance, they put a lot of importance on a birth but the importance they put on a death is much more tragic than celebratory, which is what it should be. So that's what I think that I hope everyone gets from this. Just a sense of calm warm fuzzies about... because I wish, it's a transition, that's all it is. You're just, it's like you're done with this book. That was a great book and you close it. What happens to you when you're done with the book? You're enriched. Your soul grew in some way. You feel, Oh, that was such great book. I really connected with these characters. It's the same. It's just like closing a book. You're just done with this book. You're still perfect and whole. Slade: Hmm... I have so many thoughts about what that means for storytelling in general and what it is that we seek and living all these different lives through story. I'm like radiating out in layers of thought right now. So tell us a little bit about the work that you do now. What do you do with all of this in the world? Miki: I don't really know what I do but I like to help people. I like to help people in whatever way that they feel they need to be helped. If that's doing a reading, if that's having a friend, if that's having a healing. Animals. I read for animals. I don't know. Yeah. I guess, make people laugh? Bring happiness in some way. And if that's through a reading, then that's what I need to do for them. Slade: I like that you don't really separate what you do as work from what you do as just sort of being human in the world. Miki, thank you so much for coming and just laying this whole story out for everyone. Tell everyone where they can go find you online if they want to connect with you. Miki: You can find me at MikiBrittenham.com Slade: Miki, we love you and your stories and your great perspective. I learned a lot listening to you today. I'm sure a lot of people are gonna have cool questions for you when this episode comes out. Thank you so much for doing this. Miki: Thank you, Slade, for having me.

COMMENT:While we spend a lot of time angsting over whether helmets should be worn on Lime scooters, or whether they should be ridden on footpaths or not, spare a thought for quad bikes.The number of quad bike deaths in this country, according to one coroner, is unacceptably high.Deaths reached a record high in 2016, and that's before we get to all the serious harm injuries.According to injury statistics, 845 people are injured on quad bikes each year - 190 of those are seriously hurt.It's not a new problem, nor is it an unknown one. So why are people still dying on quad bikes?There were two incidents at the weekend. One in Hawke's Bay on Saturday, another in the King Country - both accidents resulted in deaths and appear to have involved the quad bikes rolling.Just two weeks ago another quad bike rolled and a 26-year-old woman was killed in Northland.It's not like these incidents don't get public attention, yet we seem to still have a problem with quad bikes.The question is how preventable are these deaths?There've been calls for more vigilant farm safety practises for a long time, but it's hard to know how many people take good safe practise seriously. And how many still adopt the 'she'll be right' approach.Are risks on farms carefully communicated and attempts made to mitigate them? Most reasonable farmers would say yes.But in an environment like a farm, factors can change all the time – weather, grounds, level of terrain, loads, the condition of the paddock.A hill might be perfectly safe to take a vehicle up one day, but dangerous the next. It can be very easy for complacency to kick in.But it's not just working farms that have issues, there're also family farms, or lifestylers who use quad bikes for all sorts of reasons.There's recreational riders, the ones who take it for a fang along the beach.So how do we better minimise harm when quad bikes are used in so many applications?It's not an easy fix, but perhaps if we put half the amount of energy we put into Lime scooters into quad bikes it may help with a little more cut-through.

This weeks serving of Brick-fil-A comes with some extra sauceeee as the guys get things cooking by discussing some of 2019's most prominent women. Cardi B's Dog walking skills (2:45), Kamala Harris's historic announcement (10:10) leads to some quick HOTEP Talk (12:50) and a sprinkling of the newly minted Notorious A.O.C. Has there been a cultural phenomenon the likes of what the recent Netflix and Hulu produced Fyre Festival documentaries have brought upon the world, and especially the internet? The squad dives in...deep (17:30). Future's latest project The WZRD dropped, and the album is discussed, as are the questions of Future's current standing, is he still in a lane separate from his peers and where does he go next? (33:45) There've been many prominent women this year but the man of the hour has undoubtedly been the one and only Big Draco himself, Soulja Boy (1:13:00). And finally for your new favorite recurring segment What If?, the guys ponder, WHAT IF WALE HAD SIGNED TO G.O.O.D MUSIC AND 2 CHAINZ SIGNED TO MMG? (1:31:08) Follow the guys on @92BricksPod. Editing/Mixing/Engineering by: Khari Clarke "KC" Original Music Produced by: Khari Clarke "KC" Artwork by: Ieasha Ramsey Subscribe, Like, Share and most importantly, tell ya moms!

Can you build a better kind of city, one that will hold its value through the ages, through sheer brute force and debt—lots of debt? This is the bet on which that the Indianapolis suburb of Carmel, Indiana has gone all-in. In this week's episode of the Strong Towns Podcast, Chuck Marohn talks about Carmel with Aaron Renn, better known to the internet as The Urbanophile. Renn is a Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, where he focuses on urban, economic development, and infrastructure policy, and a Contributing Editor at its quarterly magazine City Journal. He blogs as the Urbanophile at his own site. Renn is a native of Indiana and has a longstanding interest in Carmel, and take a somewhat more rosy view of it than Chuck does. He characterizes Carmel as both a very typical and very atypical Midwestern "big square suburb"—a 6 mile by 6 mile square, to be exact, a legacy of Indiana's rural township system. It is typical in that it is known for family-friendly living, nice homes, good schools with winning sports teams. Carmel, however, is atypical in that for the last two decades or so, it has taken on over $1 billion in municipal debt—roughly $10,000 per Carmel resident—in pursuit of a high-quality built environment: arguably a New Urbanist alternative to traditional suburbia. Carmel has built roundabouts galore to handle traffic without requiring massive stroads. It has poured money into upgrading rural roads to complete street parkways, and taken full control of its own water infrastructure from Indianapolis. Perhaps most controversially, the City of Carmel has acted as a sort of master developer for a built-from-scratch downtown and civic commons, which includes such big-ticket items as a $175 million, acoustically perfect concert hall. Carmel's gamble, Renn says, is a response to the Growth Ponzi Scheme that Strong Towns diagnoses, in which suburbs lose their allure after a generation, wealthy residents skip town for the next suburb out, and those older suburbs find themselves unable to pay for infrastructure maintenance and services. But rather than adopt the Strong Towns approach of incremental development, Carmel has gone the opposite direction. Renn summarizes the Carmel mindset: "We are actually going to invest into producing actual high-quality, urban amenities, infrastructure, etc. while we are in our growth phase, so that when we are complete, we have an essentially unreplicable environment that will retain its allure in a way that these earlier generations [of suburbia] didn't." Carmel's bid is to permanently be a premier suburb of Indianapolis, and to offer the amenities that can attract a surgeon, a high-powered attorney, or an executive at a company like Eli Lilly. It is to be a place that can compete with the lifestyle offered by upscale enclaves in coastal cities. Marohn responds to this with a wariness about debt and a question about who or what puts the brakes on human hubris. Carmel is implementing today's best practices du jour at a full-throttle pace, but, Marohn asks, what about the planners who looked at 1920s Detroit and said, "Cities have been bad places for a long time. There've been tenements and congestion... We've got this figured out. We need to put highways through here, and tear down buildings to open things up." Weren't they, in undertaking—aggressively—the first generation of the suburban experiment, also saying, "We know how to design a higher-quality living environment. We just have to do it"? Strong Towns is rooted, in large part, in a deep skepticism that any individual is capable of knowing what will be resilient 20, or 40, or 100 years from now." Renn is not as concerned about Carmel's ability to sustain its debt levels, arguing that in many cases the city has simply foregrounded things that would be hidden, unfunded liabilities in other places. But he does agree with Chuck that a valid criticism of Carmel, above and beyond the question of debt, is its inorganic nature. The city is not the product of thousands of natural experiments as developers see what works and do more of it, but rather of a tightly controlled vision of what the community will be at its finished, built-out state. Can Carmel realize that vision? Or will it go off the rails, due to changing local politics, a decreasing appetite for big municipal debt, or unforeseen economic or cultural factors? "That place has not given itself any alternative path, if this proves not to be the right one," says Marohn. There's a lot to like about Carmel's urban design choices, especially vis-a-vis other suburbs in the Indianapolis region, but Marohn says he cannot help but feel that the city is headed for a binary outcome: either really good, or really disastrous. Listen to the episode for a lot more insights about one of America's more ambitious experiments in local government and planning. What do you think of Carmel? Let us know in the comments.

Real Life DinnersFun, Fresh, Fast Dinners From the Creator Of The Chic SiteBy Rachel Hollis Suzy Chase: Welcome to the Cookery by the Book podcast with me, Suzy Chase.Rachel Hollis: Hi. I'm Rachel Hollis, and my latest cookbook is called Real Life Dinners.Suzy Chase: I just have to say that you're my very special 100th episode guest, and I can't thank you enough for coming on my podcast again to talk about cookbook number two. You're the co-CEO of The Hollis Company, an entrepreneur, a motivational speaker, social media influencer, mom of four, wife to Dave, and a New York Times and Amazon best-seller. Now, you show us how to handle dinner in your new cookbook Real Life Dinners. It's one of those cookbooks for real life. Now, how has dinner played a pivotal role in your life?Rachel Hollis: Well, dinner is one of my favorite, no, it is the favorite meal, and so many of the best memories in my life happened around a dinner table. Sometimes that dinner table was my own. Sometimes it was my grandmother's sometimes it was a little table somewhere in Italy when we were on vacation, but as I started to dream of what the next cookbook would be, I really wanted to celebrate the meal that I loved the most, and I also, as a mom of four, dinner is what I'm constantly trying to figure out. It's the only meal that I really cook. I mean, sometimes we do breakfast on the weekends, but I'll be super honest and tell you that more often than not, it's Cheerios or toast or waffles, but dinner is where I really, my heart is there. I really put a ton of effort into making sure that we're eating good dinners. I thought, I can't be the only woman who's trying to figure this out. When I buy cookbooks, that's the only kind of cookbook I buy is things that are going to help me get dinner on the table, and I just wanted to show my own.Suzy Chase: You wrote in the introduction, "Sometimes I'm so busy working on ways to help other women live a better life than I run out of time and my kids eat turkey sandwiches, or worse, just straight up turkey rolled around a piece of string cheese for dinner." What is your planning strategy so this doesn't happen?Rachel Hollis: My favorite practice that I've adopted in the last couple of years is prepping for my week on Saturday or Sunday. It's a really fantastic way to meal prep. I take the time, I figure out what are the lunches and snacks that I want to be able to take to work with me during the week or that my husband wants for breakfast. I prep those, as well as figuring out what we're going to have for dinner on that Sunday. I'll do all my grocery shopping, and I'll get the stuff that I'm going to prep as well as the things that I want to make for dinner later in the week. That way, if I'm going to, let's say, marinate some steak or do something that requires a little prep work, I'll get it all done then so that when Tuesday rolls around and I'm going to grill up that meat for Dave, it's ready to go, and I've done it in advance. I'm trying to take as much work out of the process as I possibly can to ensure that we're, frankly, eating healthy because I can get dinner on the table for you all day long, but when I'm in a hurry or I'm in doubt, I'm going to reach for things that aren't as great a choice for what we're eating. I'm going to reach for stuff that's probably really carb-based and taste delicious, but doesn't help us stay in a healthy way of life. I found that by prepping, I remove a lot of the stress from my life, as well as I feel better about what I'm feeling my family.Suzy Chase: It's funny because one of your mottos is "we're not going to have a dream, we're going to have a plan." I guess that translates to cooking too.Rachel Hollis: Yeah. I think if you are waiting until you're hungry to try and figure out what you're going to eat, you're in trouble. In fact, I can tell you that earlier in my life, years ago when I had my first baby, and I really, really struggled with my weight, it was because, like a lot of moms, I wasn't taking care of myself. I would get to 4:00 and realize I hadn't really eaten anything, and then all of a sudden, I'd eat everything in the kitchen. What I was choosing were really bad things, like, "Oh, I'll eat a box of Ritz crackers," so-Suzy Chase: I was just going to say Ritz-Rachel Hollis: Yeah right?Suzy Chase: ... and with some cheese.Rachel Hollis: Yes, exactly, but I'm way more likely to succeed with a plan that I've set for myself if I'm intentional about planning for it.Suzy Chase: Describe the progressive photos that come with each recipe in the cookbook.Rachel Hollis: The idea of showing step-by-step photos has been a part of any recipe I've created since the very beginning. I actually got my start in this space as a food blogger, which is very surprising to a lot of people because that isn't as much what I do now. I'm much more known for motivational speaking or writing books about hopefully making choices to change your life for the better, but I got my start as a food blogger, and when I first started, most of my audience were not people who felt super comfortable in the kitchen. The step-by-step photos were just my way of trying to ensure that you knew exactly how it was supposed to look at each stage. I try not to take for granted that you know what it's supposed to look like when it's mixed up or that you know the texture of that piece of meat when it's medium versus well-done. The photos are my way of trying to help you along. I think as a blogger, I was always so mindful of the idea that if you failed when you try something new, if you try a recipe or a craft, and you fail at it, it's probably my fault as the writer or the blogger for not explaining it to you in enough detail, but the problem is you don't blame me, you blame yourself.Suzy Chase: Yes.Rachel Hollis: When you blame yourself for failing at something new, you're not likely to try it again. I've been really intention with wanting to be very explanatory when we do anything to make sure that you understand. From a cookbook perspective, you'll see this a lot, there are plenty of cookbooks where only a certain amount of the recipes even have a hero shot, and very few have hero and, a hero is the big, beautiful shot at the end, in case listeners don't know, but very few have the hero shot as well as the step shots. Even though it's much more expensive, that was a must-have for me because if you've learned to follow along my recipes, that way, I want to make sure you have what you need to succeed.Suzy Chase: It's funny that you just mention it, because I just realized how often I have to Google what it looks like that I'm making out of a cookbook because there's not a picture with it.Rachel Hollis: Yes. You need to know, especially even if you are a cook, if you've not done that recipe before, you're like, "I don't know ... Is this supposed to have grill marks? Is this supposed to have a char?" I think it really helps you, even if you are familiar, you feel comfortable in the kitchen, it really helps you to get to that end-result that's most ideal if you have a visual of where you're headed.Suzy Chase: One busy mom move is to throw together brinner, breakfast-dinner, and you have a whole chapter devoted to it. Talk about how having something for dinner that's not really dinner makes it feel special.Rachel Hollis: I think ... This is something that felt always special to me as a little girl was getting to eat something when you weren't supposed to be allowed to eat it, if that makes sense. The story I tell in the book is being a little girl and going to dinner. We're on a family road trip, and my mom let me order a milkshake for dinner. Frankly, I think she's just so tired of four kids in a car and a long trip that she's like, "Man, get whatever you want. Just please stop screaming," but I got to have a milkshake for dinner. I still remember that 30 years later how special it felt. For me, having breakfast for dinner, like if we do waffles or pancakes or we have eggs and bacon, it always feels like a treat for our family. Truthfully, a lot of breakfast dishes are much easier for me to whip up quickly than meat or a casserole or something like that. I had to do an entire chapter on breakfast for dinner because it was such a part of my life. I think the story-telling reminds me of something that I saw. I'll tell you, Suzy, I don't read reviews of my books ever. I've made a pretty big deal. I've talked about that a lot on social. I do not read reviews. I learned not to do that years ago because good reviews make you feel awesome and bad reviews make you cry, so I just don't-Suzy Chase: Aw.Rachel Hollis: Because I feel like, "Hey, I'm not for everybody, and that's fine," but the other day, I happened to be on Amazon. I was looking at something for the cookbook. I was trying to get the link for it to post on social, and I just happened to see something that was like two stars. I was like, "No," and then thought, "Well, I have to read. I have to see what she said. I'm not ... I'm human. I want to know what she didn't like." The thing she didn't like about this cookbook, which I think is important to tell your listeners, is there's a lot of storytelling. For me, because I write fiction and because I write nonfiction, my fan's favorite part of the book is the story behind it. Why did you cook this? Why do you care about this thing? When did this show up in your life? This woman was like, "There aren't ... I don't want storytelling. I want the straight recipe. This feels like a waste of my time." I thought, food, and especially dinner, it isn't just the food. It's the experience. I never wanted to give you just the recipe. I wanted to tell you why this was meaningful and powerful in my life.Suzy Chase: You have one brinner ... It's so funny to say that, brinner.Rachel Hollis: That's-Suzy Chase: Brinner-Rachel Hollis: Yeah, that's what we called it.Suzy Chase: You can make your breakfast strata on page 34, let's say, on Sunday, and then you can serve it on Monday night for dinner, so that goes along with your meal prep philosophy too.Rachel Hollis: Yeah, and there's a whole section in the book of ... I don't know if you've ever seen Steel Magnolias, but it's always what I think of something that freezes beautifully. There's a whole section on food that you can prep in advance or you can marinate and throw in the freezer and then thaw it later because, again, this is real life. None of these recipes require a ton. You don't have to prep things in advance, but if you're busy like I am and that's helpful to your life, we want to make that as easy as possible to achieve.Suzy Chase: Do you have a favorite go-to summer recipe in this cookbook?Rachel Hollis: There's an entire chapter on grilling. That was really intentional because during the summer, we are just grill fanatics. We were grill fanatics in California, but I will tell you that we moved to Texas about a month ago, and it is just hotter than heck here. I mean, people told me it was going to be hot. I didn't really understand, and now, I'm like, "Okay, I got you," so we've been grilling almost every night. The one that I keep coming back to over and over because I eat fish, I don't eat meat, is there's a cedar plank salmon recipe in the book that I love. I use a spice blend in the beginning of the book. It's four of my spice blends that you can create in your own kitchen. It is a Moroccan Spice Blend that I put all over that salmon and then put it on a cedar plank. It cooks so easy. I feel like it seems like a scary recipe because you're like, "What is this wood that I'm incorporating into my grill," but honestly it is kind of the most foolproof fish that I think you can do anywhere, on the grill or even sauteing or baking or whatever. That's a favorite. I've been making it over and over and over. But I also think the whole grill chapter, I'm not trying to toot my own horn, but I'm really proud of the grilling recipes in it because there's everything. There's fish, and there's meat, and there's vegetarian options. If you're having a cookout this summer, I feel like it's a winner.Suzy Chase: Speaking of spice blends, you are obsessed with spices and have, as you said, four spice blend recipes in this cookbook. Describe the Fiesta Blend, and what can we use that on?Rachel Hollis: I really ... When I was younger and didn't know as much about cooking, let's say I was newly married, spice blends gave me courage and gave me confidence because I didn't feel confident enough in the kitchen to think, "Oh, I could put a little cumin on this and maybe some garlic and some salt." I didn't know enough about flavors to make my own thing. I would go to the store, and I'd say, "Well, I'm going to make fajitas, and so I'm going to get Fajita Mix or I'm going to get a Fiesta Mix, and that's going to have the flavors that I need." The thing with spice blends is that they can be really expensive, and so I thought, well, could I give people a recipe for how you could use spices and herbs that are already in your cabinet and mix them together to make a blend. The Fiesta Blend is something you can use on anything that has a little bit of, needs a little bit of Latin flair, and that can be anything from your meat, your fajitas, your tacos to eggs. I think they all work really well. I wanted to give something that was a different flavor palette for no matter, no matter what you were cooking, you had something that you could use.Suzy Chase: I think I remember last winter, you went to Kansas City, which is the reason I remember this is because I'm from Kansas City, to meet about developing your own spice blend.Rachel Hollis: Yes. You're so right. Originally, the spice blend were blends that I was using. I thought, "I'm going to create these things, and then I'm going to sell them." To be totally honest with you, I just came off an appearance on QVC with my first cookbook. I've done so much TV over the years, and QVC just felt like this magical pairing of my skill set, like, oh, I know how to be on camera, and I also know how to have a product that I think other women will like, I should develop my own. I started to work on the spice blends, and to be honest with you, it was such a long process. It was start and stop and start and stop, and what really ended up taking me out of the process was not the length of time, was that I was really struggling to create something that would last on shelves but that wouldn't include chemicals that I didn't want to put in my food.Suzy Chase: Oh.Rachel Hollis: I personally stay away from things ... If there's something in your ingredients that you can't pronounce, it's probably not good for you. A lot of what are in spice blends are things that they put in there so that they don't cake. If you've ever had spices where it gets clumpy, it probably doesn't have these agents in it to keep them from caking. The more we worked on it, there really wasn't a way to make what I wanted to make and have the flavor I wanted to make without putting chemicals in it that would preserve the food. Interestingly enough, I found out so much about spices and how there's a chemical that's in almost every single spice that exist that, I don't know how else to explain it except to say that it sort of, like if you put it in your mouth, the thing that's hottest in your spice blend will hit your taste buds first, and it kind of wipes out all the other flavors that are there, but if you add this chemical, which I can't think of the name of it right now, there's something in it that makes it so that when you taste the blend, you're able to taste everything, and that-Suzy Chase: That's weird.Rachel Hollis: There was a massive difference between one and the other, one with and one without. I just thought, I just can't do it because I've talked so much to people about how much I try and make sure my kids aren't taking in things that they don't need, and I was like, "Oh, you're going to be a hypocrite," so I decided to just make the spice blends available to you in the cookbook. If you notice, the blends are done in small batches. That's so you could use up what you got there without it having to sit for a really long time on your shelf, which means it's not going to cake, and it's still going to give you those flavors that you want, but it's in your own kitchen in a little mason jar. You can keep it on the cabinet, and you're ready to go.Suzy Chase: Well, frankly, I think that's smarter too because we have those spices already in our kitchen, so we can make a little batch. I think that long process, going through trying to make your own spice blend brought you to that.Rachel Hollis: Absolutely.Suzy Chase: Last week, I made your recipe for tuna stuffed avocados on page 154.Rachel Hollis: Yes.Suzy Chase: It was so fast to make, and filling, and I loved the basil. Tuna is one of those foods that you can have more than once a week, and it's so versatile.Rachel Hollis: Absolutely. In fact, when I meal prep on Sundays, I almost always make tuna salad because it can sit in the fridge for several days, and I can have it for lunch, or in a pinch, I can throw it in an avocado like in the cookbook, and I've got something to fill me up. Again, my protein of choice is fish, so it's a great option for me. My kids will eat it. My husband will eat it. I think I'm always trying to come you up with new and different ways to serve the same kind of things, and adding in something like basil just gives it a different flavor that you're used to, but I think it's so yummy.Suzy Chase: What existed in lifestyle media when you started was only what was perfect, beautiful, and airbrushed. Right now, I would love for you to talk a little bit about what's going on, other than your cookbook, The Hollis Company, Made for More movie, Rise Couples Weekend, Rise podcast, and whatever else is new in your world. There've been so many announcements-Rachel Hollis: So many things.Suzy Chase: ... lately. So many.Rachel Hollis: When I first started as a blogger, I mentioned earlier, I started as a food blogger, and honestly, my career as a blogger has really just followed me as a woman. Five or six years ago, I was trying to figure out how to feed toddlers. I was trying to figure out how to make dinners for my husband and myself that our kids would eat. I was doing food blogging because that's the stage I was at in my life. Later in my career, I started to focus on DIY and how to decorate a home because we had a new home, and I wanted to decorate it. I really have just organically brought my audience along for the ride. In the last few years, I've done a ton of work on personal growth and how do I get past some of the things that I'm dealing with like anxiety. As I was walking through those seasons, the audience started to ask, like, "Hey, how did you get past that? How did you learn to do this? How did you set a goal and achieve it?" I started to share my process with them, and it really has just grown, again, organically into what the business is today. We are The Hollis Company. My husband actually just left a really big job to come and help me run this thing that has just exploded, which I will tell you, Suzy, back in the day, my intention, we wrote it down on the wall, was to give women the tools to change their lives. Five years later, that is still the line that's on our walls. Back in the day, I was hoping that the tools to change your life would be found in a casserole recipe because, to me, getting dinner on the table a lot of times felt like the greatest achievement I had in a day-Suzy Chase: Totally.Rachel Hollis: ... and now, giving you the tools to change your life looks more like how to be intentional and how to have a gratitude practice and how to be kinder with yourself. I had a book come out in February called Girl, Wash Your Face, and the response to that book has been the most incredible, sometimes overwhelming, but the most incredible experience of my professional career. It has just exploded, and as it exploded, it really opened up the fan base and gave us more women who wanted more content, and so that's what we do. We have personal growth conferences, both for women by themselves and in couples, and we made ... This sounds crazy, all the things that we've done, but when we were producing our conference this year, I had thousands and thousands of emails from women all over the world who were saying, "I want so badly to come to the conference, but I can't afford it. I can't afford the travel." I really started to dream about how we might be able to bring them the experience of one of our live event weekends without the expense. The answer to that was we made a documentary about the weekend. It will be in movie theaters in August 2nd throughout North America, so it's in both the US and Canada, and you can go to letsrise.co, which has all the information about the movie and our live events if you're curious, but it's a way to check out what we do and see the magic and the power of going to a personal growth conference for the cost of a movie ticket, which is about 13 bucks. We are really, really excited and proud of what we've built and are continuing to build. It'll be fun to see what happens next.Suzy Chase: I'm excited for that too. I already have my ticket and-Rachel Hollis: Aw, thank you.Suzy Chase: ... I'm getting together a big group of girls here in New York City to go see it.Rachel Hollis: How fun, and that's what we're hoping honestly. The most incredible thing about this online tribe that we have created is the community of women. It really is what makes our live event so special is we say from the stage, there is nobody here who doesn't have a friend. If you see a woman standing by herself, she just became your buddy. Nobody sits alone. We are all going to do life together. There is something that happens. There's an energy that happens in that space when women from every walk of life are really intentional about, "Hey, let's go grab a glass of wine," "Hey, let's go talk about this," "Hey, let's go have lunch," because you find commonality in people when you didn't think you had anything in common. I'm super excited to hear that you guys are going to go in a group because I really think that is the best way to experience this particular event.Suzy Chase: Where can we find you on the web and social media?Rachel Hollis: I'm all over the place. I'm on every place you could possibly find me, but my favorite to hang out is definitely Instagram. I love Instagram. It's so pretty, but my handle is @msrachelhollis, M-S Rachel Hollis, and then I'm Rachel Hollis on every platform that there is. You can find me anywhere you go.Suzy Chase: From a girl growing up on Weedpatch Highway to a super popular lifestyle expert and CEO, you are such an inspiration, and I'm so honored to have you on my hundredth cookbook podcast. Thank you so much, Rachel Hollis, for coming on Cookery by the Book podcast.Rachel Hollis: Oh, I am honored. Thank you so much for having meSuzy Chase: Subscribe in Apple Podcasts, and while you're there, please take a moment to rate and review Cookery by the Book. You can also follow me on Instagram at CookerybytheBook. Twitter is @IamSuzyChase, and download Your Kitchen Mix Tapes: Music to Cook By on Spotify at Cookery by the Book. Thanks for listening.

In this episode of Building Infinite Red, Jamon, Ken, and Todd touch on the fears, anxieties, and struggles of running a business. They share stories and thoughts on starting a business, managing stress, how success and failure impact focus, the difference between venture capital and other sources of funding, fear of missing out, and the importance of knowing what you stand for. Show Links & Resources YNAB: Personal budgeting software Four Yorkshiremen by Monty Python Episode Transcript TODD WERTH: So I thought a good topic today, one of the reasons because I'm personally interested actually, hear what Jamon has to say and Ken has to say, and of course I'm sure they're interested to hear what I have to say. But the topic is when you start a new business or you're an entrepreneur doing multiple businesses, or anything of that particular area. What are some of the biggest fears, anxieties, apprehensions, that you might have you know before the process, during the process, whenever? I find this very fascinating, because I imagine a lot of people, well maybe some people who are listening are experiencing these right now and A) it'd be great to hear someone else express the same thing so they know that they're not alone in this, and B) it's kind of interesting to think about yourself. It kind of, it's not something you typically sit down and think about, so if you two don't mind, that'd be a really interesting subject for today. KEN MILLER: Sounds good. JAMON HOLMGREN: Yeah. Well I think back to when I started by business. It was 2005, and I was working for a home builder at the time, so I had a, you know, decent job. It was an office job. I was doing I think cad design and marketing for this builder. Not really doing programming. But I decided that one of the things that ... well I had, prior to this time, I had thought, you know I'd be really nice to own my own business at some point. It'd be something that I would aspire to. And I think that part of that was my dad owning his own business and knowing a lot of entrepreneurs kind of played into that. I thought it would be an interesting thing. I've always been a little bit independent. Want to kind of set my own course. So I started thinking about doing this and talking with my wife, and at the time I had a six month old baby. That was my first kid, my son, who is now 13 years old. Around actually this time of year is when I decided that I was going to do this. What helped was an opportunity that came up. So the apprehension of how do I get my first customer was sort of already taken care of. My uncle had a bunch of work that he needed done, and he asked me if I wanted to do it kind of on the side, or as a business, and that gave me the confidence to pull the trigger and say, let's so this. Because I had a built-in customer right away. But I do remember the first month sending my bill over to him, and it was only eleven hundred dollars, and that was all I had earned that whole month was eleven hundred dollars. And that was a wake up call to me that, hey I can't just expect the money to come in, and that was definitely ... I sat up and noticed. TODD: Yeah, that's really interesting. So when you started ClearSight, that was your first company, correct? At that time? JAMON: That's right. Yeah, ClearSight. There were other points along the way where I was sort of I got kind of gut-punched. Many times along the way. One was when ... my first business was doing websites, but it was also doing CAD designs, so I had essentially two business, and the CAD design part of it, you know designing homes, designing remodels, those sort of things eventually dried up, because remember that was during 2008, 2009 the housing recession kind of came along and that impacted the designers first, because we were the first ones in the process. People stopped taking money, equity out of their homes to do remodels. They just stopped doing it. So basically the whole market dried up. I remember my uncle told me, "I don't have any work to send you anymore." And I had a few accounts myself, but they were pretty slow too. And I kind of sat at home for a few days and felt sorry for myself. But in typical Jamon fashion, I was like, well I guess it's time to go do this myself, so I went out and literally started knocking on doors at offices and stuff and handing out my business card. Wasn't too successful at that, but it was at least doing something, and then things turned around eventually. TODD: Since you had a new baby at home, and obviously you're married, and you're trying to support them. JAMON: Right. TODD: Did that add any worry to you at that time? JAMON: Yeah, for sure. It certainly did, because any worry that my wife felt was reflected back on me because I feel very a sense of responsibility that I need to be making sure that we're not losing our house. Making sure that we can keep food on the table, things like that. So that was a lot to process. My health definitely suffered because of it and a few other things, but there was a lot of stress involved with that. I think that if I were to go back now, knowing what I know now, I could very much have probably pulled out of it much faster. I could have found a better path, but you live and learn. TODD: I'm sure there's more to tell about that story, but I'm curious to hear your thoughts Ken. KEN: For me the biggest worry was always money. Right? I mean, since I came out here to Silicon Valley, I had the dream. I had the Silicon Valley dream for sure. I wanted to start my own company. And to a certain degree, the Silicon Valley dream as sold is not sold accurately. Right? It's sold as this sort of fantasy. And the truth of the matter is you have to have more resources than is reputed in order to do the Silicon Valley way effectively. You need to know VCs or people who know them. It helps to have affluent parents who can bankroll you not making any money for years and years and years. I'm luckier than most on all of those accounts, and even I found that very intimidating, challenging. And especially living in the Bay Area, once you have established a life in the Bay Area, the idea of not taking a salary for a couple of years is utterly terrifying if you don't have a big pile of money. In fact, I wasn't really able to do this until I had a little bit of a windfall from the Yammer acquisition to lean on. Basically just enough to let me barely scrape by for a year for which I'm still very grateful 'cause I probably wouldn't be here today if I hadn't had that. And there were some scary fricking moments. There've definitely been a few extremely close calls financially. So I don't ... that fear I think was justified and surmountable. Let me put it that way. Right? You can definitely figure that one out, but I'm not gonna lie. It can be super scary sometimes. For me, the biggest mental shift that got me where I am now is that I had always had in my head this sort of venture capital model, because that's what I knew. Right? Because that's the kind of company I'd worked for. I saw how that process basically worked. But it always felt wrong to me. Right? Like, I was always like, what's so wrong with profit? What's so wrong with actually making a business that can support itself fairly early on? And I think it was the Paul Graham post that was like, the difference between a start up and a small business. And a start up is specifically optimized for hundred S growth or nothing. JAMON: Right. KEN: And that's what venture capitalists want for the most part. Right? No venture capitalist wants you to be one of the nine or ninety-nine that don't make it. JAMON: Mm-hmm (affirmative)- KEN: Nevertheless, the model is set up that way. The model is set up so that only one in ten or less have to make it. And so once I realized, oh no all along I wanted to make the lifestyle business, basically, the small business. TODD: I just wanted to point out that especially in Silicon Valley the term lifestyle business is a semi-derogatory term. KEN: Pejorative, yeah. TODD: Yeah to refer to a normal, actual business. KEN: Exactly. TODD: And I always found that amusing when they said lifestyle business it was insulting you, because you make a profit. I always thought that was funny. KEN: Yeah, right. It's sort of like the Silicon Valley model is for people who would rather be a billionaire or nothing. Right? It's kinda like a shot at a billionaire is worth way more to them then a pretty good path to a millionaire. Once I realized that that was the exact opposite of me, I was much happier and I could actually work towards something that mattered. Right? And not even the millionaire part, right? It's like, if that happens, that would be awesome, but it's more creating the environment that I wished that I'd had. JAMON: When it comes to fears and those types of feelings, do you ever feel maybe that you are missing out on those wild rides? KEN: Do I have FOMO for the- JAMON: Yeah, a little bit of FOMO. KEN: Sometimes. JAMON: FOMO being, of course, fear of missing out. KEN: Yeah, living here especially. I think that's inevitable. JAMON: Right. Because we're not set up for just rocket growth at Infinite Red. KEN: I've been at enough companies that ended up making everybody thousandaires or worse. Right? Or negative thousandaires in at least one case. I had a friend, he seemed like he was living the dream. This was way back when in the first boom. Right? He seemed like he'd lived the dream. Right? He was just an engineer at a start up and he was suddenly a millionaire overnight. And then within six month, he was a negative six hundred thousandaire with a gigantic tax bill. JAMON: Oof. KEN: The whole model has kind of lured a bunch of people into the stock option thing. This is what I'm talking about specifically. I think there is absolutely a place for the venture capital model, but the stock option compensation model that a lot of people have done, is kind of a raw deal in a lot of ways, but that'd be a whole other topic, so- JAMON: Yes TODD: Just real quick, I own tons of stock and stock options that are worth absolutely zero- KEN: Yes. TODD: But, if I ever run out of toilet paper, I am set. JAMON: So Todd, you started a business well before Ken or I, and you know I actually I don't know if I've ever heard the story of your very first business and how you went from being a software engineer at a company to owning your own business, and I'd like to hear about that from the perspective of the topic of this episode which is about fears, and uncertainty and things like that. TODD: Yeah. Yeah. That's great question, so I've owned three businesses. This hopefully is my last one here at Infinite Red. My first one was in 1999. We started, it was three of us, it was also a consulting company like Infinite Red which lasted for nine years. It was a little bit different. Real quick, we did mainly enterprise, not start ups, larger companies, that kind of stuff. And our model was kind of to be subcontractors. So we had a lot of relationships with other consulting companies. One of the things we did, is we did really hard things well. So all the other consulting companies, like especially at that time it's gonna sound funny, but you'd have companies coming to us saying, "Look, we're doing most of the project, but they want something on the web, and we have no idea how to do that." And we did. And we knew Visual C++ and we knew all sorts of things. And so we specialize. We were higher priced because of that, and we'd come in and do the fun parts, in our opinion, which was really great. This is circa 1999. That one wasn't ... there wasn't too much anxiety from it. It was a small company, so later I'll talk about most of my anxiety at Infinite Red come from my worry of the 25 families I'm responsible for. JAMON: Right. TODD: It's not so much myself, because I do not have affluent parents. Well, most of my relatives are dead now, but I never really worried about money. I mean worst case scenario, I can be a developer. I'm pretty darn good developer, and I can make good money at that. And I moved out of the Bay Area, so for me my lifestyle is much cheaper than it used to be. So I don't worry about that so much, but I do worry about everyone's families who work at Infinite Red. My first company, we didn't have that. It was all just high level people. There was three to six of us, depending on the time. And we kind of just slipped into it. We had our first few big customers before we even started. So that wasn't really stressful at all. The second company, which came after my first company, I went back and worked for companies, for other start ups as an employee, and that's how I met Ken. Ken was my boss. And I was doing that mainly just 'cause after nine years running your company, I was just kind of tired, and I wanted to be an employee for a while. And I did that for about three, three and half years. And Ken, sorry boss, it was super relaxing, easy. You work like seven and a half hours a day or whatever. KEN: This has been noted on your permanent file. TODD: You know, regular jobs often are pretty lax compared to start ups. As an aside, I was in a pizza parlor once, and I saw a sign behind the wall. It was obviously the pizza parlor was owned by a person, it wasn't a chain, and the sign said, the only thing more overrated then running your own business is pregnancy. Which is true, if you do it for low hours and high pay, you really should rethink that, but there are lots of great reasons to do it. Any who, my second company was venture capital backed company which means we didn't use our own money. It was intentionally designed to do the hockey stick which means go from zero to very high very fast, and we had investors. And we had to pitch to venture capitalists and angel investors, and we had all the kind of normal Silicon Valley stuff. And that lasted for about a year and a half, and I cherish that experience, because it taught me a lot about that process from the inside. It was completely a failure which is fine. The fears in that, once again, were not personal, because as I did right after that, I went and got a job with Ken. JAMON: Right. TODD: And I made plenty of personal money. And because we weren't investing our money, the VCs were, there really wasn't a lot of anxiety there. I would say the main anxiety there was performance. Meaning it's kind of depressing when you're failing, and sometimes you have a great success. We did one month, especially. And we were shooting to the moon for a whole month, and it was super exciting. So it was just kind of a roller coaster of anxiety for that kind of business. Yeah, Jamon? JAMON: I think it's really interesting to hear you and Ken talk about the idea of, well I can just go get a job as a developer. Because for the longest time, I didn't feel that I had that option. Whether that was reality or not, I don't know. I was basically, I kind of thought of myself as just building websites. I just built websites for people, and I didn't really think of myself as a software engineer. I just happen to be someone that happened to built websites. TODD: Knowing you Jamon, and the quality of engineer you are, you are completely wrong. You could have totally got a job, but I get why- JAMON: Yeah. TODD: -from your perspective you felt that way. KEN: Yeah, well and it's a matter of ... it highlights how important just knowing the scene is. JAMON: Right. Yeah, totally. KEN: If you know the scene, yeah if you're an engineer, even like an old rusty engineer, like we're going to be before too long. TODD: Too late, Ken. KEN: Right. JAMON: Too soon and too late. KEN: Even if you're an old rusty engineer, you can figure it out. Right? JAMON: Right, yeah. KEN: The demand is so overwhelming and so consistent and so pervasive that- JAMON: Yeah. KEN: -if you know sort of the ins and outs- TODD: Even you Jamon could get a job is what you're saying. JAMON: Even I could get a job. KEN: No, if you're half-way competent, and he's more than half-way competent, about 60 percent. JAMON: I appreciate it. KEN: No, it's- JAMON: 60 percent. Yeah. No, and to hear that now. It's something that is obviously more of an option now that I don't need it, but at the time it didn't feel like an option, and so especially when I started getting employees in 2009. And most of them were young. They didn't have much in the way of family, but they would obviously still have ... they needed jobs, and I felt that. I felt that in every part of me that if the business wasn't doing well, that I was failing them. And that actually drove me for a long time. I think if I'd had the option to go work for someone, or felt I had the option to go work for someone, I may have actually quit at some point. But I didn't. I kept the course there. KEN: I will say, that I'm glad that I did not know everything that I should be afraid of going into it. 'Cause there is plenty that you should be afraid of, and if I'd known all that stuff going in, I probably wouldn't have done it, and I'm glad that I did it. And if I had to redo it now, I would do it again. JAMON: Right. KEN: And that's an important distinction is that it's not that I would do it again, it's that only hearing the bad stuff at that point, would have been a disaster. TODD: Ignorance and hubris are the two best tools of the entrepreneur. JAMON: I feel like it's both more stressful and more scary than you think, but also you're more resourceful and more able to deal with it then you think. KEN: Yes. TODD: Hundred percent. I would say, talking to other people who are new to it, and I certainly had to learn this, the biggest problem is the buck stops here. Meaning in every other situation where you worked, you could always throw a problem up the ladder. JAMON: Yes. TODD: And when you're a small business person, you don't know accounting? Doesn't matter. Do it. JAMON: Someone's gotta do the accounting. TODD: Right, like there's literally no excuse. There's none, and you don't have that money just to pay for people to do it. KEN: I guarantee the IRS does not grade on a curve. TODD: No, they don't care about your excuses. KEN: Yeah. TODD: So Jamon, Ken, and I come from very different places. So Ken obviously went to Harvard. He's impressive on paper. I actually did not. I didn't finish college. I started making way too much money as a programmer to be honest. But when I first started out in 1996 as a professional programmer, you know I wasn't making tons of money, but it was plenty for me, because where I'm from, it's a lot of money. And at that time, I'd probably be more like Jamon meaning I didn't see myself as really deserving that kind of stuff, but this was in San Francisco in 1996. So I saw the first boom, and then I saw the crash, and then I saw the second boom. And after a while, you start to learn, although I don't have Ken's personal background. I do have Ken's professional background. JAMON: Mm-hmm (affirmative)- Yep. TODD: And so, one of the things I've noticed when talking to Jamon, because he's in Vancouver, Washington, and not around that stuff as much, is he feels a little bit like an imposter. He's totally not. And I bet even now in his mind he imagines that those people working at Google somehow have this huge, amazing, genius to them, and Ken's probably in the middle. He probably thinks some of them do. I personally have yet to meet one of these fabled geniuses. So the more you get involved with that, the more you realize they're just humans, and you're just as good as they are. KEN: That is true. JAMON: I think that's been something that I've become more and more aware of over the past several years. And it's funny because I don't usually think of myself as having imposter syndrome. I'm actually quite a confident guy, but in that regard I definitely did not really realize ... it felt like they were a different breed. They were a different type of person. And I always felt like I could probably learn anything, but there was still this degree of separation. But, anyway, coming back to the topic at hand, I think that sort of uncertainty and fear can be a motivating factor. But one of the things, so one of the things I'd like to talk about, is there are healthy ways and unhealthy ways to handle that stress, and I've done them all. Believe me. TODD: Like cocaine? JAMON: Maybe. TODD: Jamon's mother, he's totally joking. He's never done cocaine. JAMON: Yes, thank you Todd. And my mom does listen to this, so thanks Todd. TODD: He really has not, trust me. JAMON: You wouldn't want to see me on cocaine. KEN: Oh god. Yeah, that is the wrong drug for you my friend. JAMON: Yes. KEN: Oof. JAMON: But you don't want to transfer stress to clients. You don't want to transfer stress to employees. You don't want to transfer it to your significant other. To your family. And unfortunately, I've done all of those things, because I'm human and that's what happens. You get a lot of stress, and then you feel like you need to let off steam. One of the things that I actually really appreciated about this partnership is that we're able to let off steam with each other. And in a way, that is healthy. That isn't transferring to someone else who has nothing to do with it or has no power. Where I have two partners who are actually in the same spot, and they can help. It's been really, really helpful. So that is really important. I think how you transfer stress. Yeah, Todd? TODD: I agree. I don't kick the dog. I kick Ken. Which is better. The dog appreciates it at least. JAMON: You don't even have a dog, Todd. TODD: I don't have a dog, and I've never kick a dog by the way. I'd kick humans all day long, but never a dog. JAMON: This is true. TODD: Just to be clear. JAMON: Yes, Todd is the one who canceled a meeting because he had to bring a bird to the hospital that had hit his door, actually one time. TODD: It's true. It is true, and that bird is flapping happily today. KEN: As far as you know. TODD: I hope. Back to my story, because it's all about me. Anxiety at Infinite Red really does come around to team members mostly, and you two Ken and Jamon because I don't want to let you down, and I certainly don't want someone's family not to be able to have a Christmas because of something stupid I did, or because I was acting emotionally when I should have been acting rationally. That kind of stuff. JAMON: This year, me not having Christmas had nothing to do with you Todd, so I can let you know that. TODD: Jamon's house was burglarized and burnt down. Not burnt down, but set afire on Christmas Eve. KEN: Torched. TODD: So, if you're feeling good about humanity up to this point, now you can feel bad about it. So, there you go, but they're back in their house. KEN: You're welcome. TODD: Everything's good. JAMON: Yes. TODD: You're back in your house. Everything's good, and he has a wonderful family, and all is well. JAMON: Yeah, it's really nice to be back. Anyway, I cut you off. TODD: But so that's a lot of my anxieties about it. At my age, I'm 46, and I've done this a long time. I don't stress as often. Like I used to get very stressed out doing sales calls or that kind of stuff. I've done all that stuff enough where it doesn't really bother me too much. Even tough things where you have to be really tough with the client, or vendor, or something like that. It doesn't, I mean it bothers me temporarily of course you get the adrenaline going and no one likes that. But it's really the things that give me anxiety and up at night is if I make a mistake that will cause us not to be able to pay payroll. JAMON: Yeah. TODD: Now, one note. We've always paid payroll. JAMON: Yeah. TODD: But that is something- KEN: There's been some close calls. TODD: That is something that- KEN: Yeah. TODD: That makes me work harder, and it makes me worry. Me, personally, I could figure it out, it's not as big of a deal to me. KEN: Well, I think also a big stressor that I didn't ... it makes sense in retrospect, but it wasn't one that like occurred to me, is how hard it is to maintain focus over time- JAMON: Mm-hmm (affirmative) TODD: Yeah. KEN: -when you don't have a boss doing that for you. I was a small scale boss at my previous jobs, but this experience definitely makes me want to write a nice little note of apology to every boss I've ever had. Like, however bad they were, I have more sort of sympathy for what they were dealing with then I did before. TODD: That's so true. KEN: Yeah, and the surprising thing is how hard it is to cope with success. When you're doing well, that's when the monster of de-focusing really starts to rear its head. It's like driving a car fast. If you've never driven a car at 150 miles an hour, it's a different thing from driving it at 60 miles an hour. It takes a little getting used to that state, oh things are going well, but that doesn't mean that I get to take my eyes off the road. TODD: Mm-hmm (affirmative)- KEN: So. CHRIS MARTIN: Can you guys go in a little deeper on how you manage some of these things? 'Cause you've talked about having the feelings of stress and fear, but maybe some of the ways that you manage it, a part from kicking Ken. KEN: That's Todd's favorite. TODD: Well, Ken mentioned that success can be hard to deal with, and I have a tried and true technique I've used for many years with dealing with the problems of success. And here it is. And I'll share it with you. I normally would charge for this advice, but I'm gonna share. Don't be successful. There you go. KEN: Yeah. TODD: You're welcome. KEN: That one we're still figuring out. Having co-founders you actually trust is probably the number one. TODD: Yeah, it's hard to do, and at one time in my career I said I would never ever had a partner or a co-founder again. And here we are, so. JAMON: I think getting together in person is important. Of course, we're a remote company. So I'm up here near Portland, and Ken's in the Bay Area, and Todd's in Vegas, but we did get together a couple weeks ago to talk. And there was a stressful situation going on, and that was something that we went through together in person. TODD: Well, we also hang out in zoom a lot. JAMON: Yeah. TODD: Every week. And that's similar. But, yeah having good co-founders who are your friends, and you become almost married at a point, because when you're in business together it is like a marriage, and you know everyone's finances. You know if someone's spouse is having problems with the way the company's working. You have to deal with that- JAMON: Mm-hmm (affirmative)- TODD: -at least as an auxiliary person in that particular thing. So it's a very intimate thing for sure. I definitely choose that very, very, very wisely. I've had bad experiences, and of course I've had great experiences here. JAMON: I think that one of the things that we actually do fairly well is we will say when we're stressed. You know, we'll say, "Hey, I am currently feeling a high degree of stress." And then the other co-founders can say, "Okay, what is causing this." And we can talk about it more objectively. And just saying it out loud sometimes is a way to kind of like let go of it a little bit. TODD: We also know how to fight which takes a while. That's a hard one to learn. JAMON: It is. TODD: But we've learned how to fight. Yell at each other, and know that afterwards we're going to be okay, and that's important. JAMON: Yeah. TODD: The trust that you would gain with a girlfriend or boyfriend or your spouse- KEN: Sibling TODD: -where you can have an emotional throw up as it were and know that you're still gonna be loved as it were. KEN: Well, and also it's sort of on the focusing issue, actually. It's relevant there too which is that I'm pretty ADD I would say. I think that's probably pretty common I would say for entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurship is one place where you can actually challenge your ADD tendencies. However, I also know it's like, "Hey guys, I'm having some trouble focusing and motivating on x, y, and z- JAMON: Right. KEN: -can I have help with knowing that there's not going to be any judgment coming along- JAMON: Right. KEN: -with that help?" JAMON: Right. Yeah. TODD: To be clear, it's all not roses. Sometimes one of us gets irritated with the other person because of these issues and- JAMON: Right. TODD: -but ultimately once we get talking to it, we're not super human. Sometimes I get irritated with Jamon or Ken and vice versa. But the whole point is, when you get to the end of that, you're supportive. JAMON: Another really important thing is to have some really core principles. Some kind of tent poles so-to-speak that you can come back to. One of the things that we really strongly believe is that the core of us three is one of the most important things about this company. And so we can come back to that. I mean, if the most important thing that we had was some technology or some financial goal or something like that, then it would put a lot of stresses on our relationship, but since we've made that relationship such a high priority, it's extremely important. And another thing, along those lines, is we recognize that we are human, and that sometimes it's actually a personal situation that's contributing to work stress. TODD: Yes. JAMON: You might have situation where maybe a family member has health issues or you're having trouble with a relationship, or anything along those lines, and we ... I was actually talking to an employee recently who talked about a personal situation that they were having and how it was contributing to their stress, and I had noticed the stress that they were going through at work, but I didn't know about the personal situation, and it's okay. I told them, "It's fine. It's a normal, human thing to have situations that arise. I understand. It's something that you can tell us, if there's something going on, you don't have to be specific. You don't have to tell us private information, but just tell us that something's going on, and we will do our best to be as understanding as possible." TODD: And it's a matter of trust. That particular person trusted Jamon. That's fantastic. It's trust that we build up between founders. It's trust with the team, and to some extent, trust with your customers, and your vendors. Especially with customers and vendors, if you can do that, that's fantastic, but the others you can do with time. Just to give you an example, trust. I try to be trusting even when I shouldn't be. I picked up this guy the other day, in my car, he gets in the backseat. I just picked him up. I didn't know him, and first he gets in, understandably he's like, "Thanks for picking me up, but how do you know I'm not a serial killer?" TODD: And I just looked at him. I'm like, "What's the chance two serial killers would be in the same car?" Pretty low. So, yeah trust is very important. Any other tools or techniques that you all have for dealing with these anxieties or stresses or whatever? KEN: Drinking. Drinking is important. Water. Water. JAMON: Lots of water. KEN: What do you think I meant? Oh, come one. JAMON: Yes, stay hydrated. KEN: Yes, stay hydrated. Yeah. JAMON: Actually, along those lines, I started working out a couple years ago, and that has been a really good help for my stress level. When I get through with a workout, I feel better about myself. I feel good. There's probably some endorphins or something that come with that. And it's really hard when you are really critically needed at work to take two hours to go workout, but it's also extremely important for your long-term health. And so you have to prioritize it very high. And you can basically justify it to yourself which I had to do with if I go and do this, I will be better equipped to handle the issues that come up, and it's so true. Working out has been a very good thing for my stress level. TODD: A lot of people might be worried about their finances or their spouse's opinion and that kind of stuff. Which can be super challenging, so you have to deal with that. Another thing that I've noticed is, and this is pretty common, especially in our world, and I have to remember that 110 years ago, Ken'll tell me a real number, but somewhere around there. Most people worked at home, and most people had their own business. They didn't call it their own business, they were just a blacksmith, and people paid you to hoove their horses or not hoove. JAMON: Shoe. TODD: Shoe. KEN: Shoe. TODD: Shoe their horses. Thank you. It's been a while since I've lived on the farm about 30 years, but anyway- JAMON: It's that a farrier or something? TODD: Huh? JAMON: Ken, isn't it- KEN: A farrier. JAMON: Yeah, it's a farrier. KEN: That sounds right. TODD: Whatever that means. Anyways, so you would just do that. You'd just offer your services and that was a home business quote unquote. But, you know, since we all grew up in the late 20th century or the 21st century, for our younger listeners, you know that has been not the normal but the minority. And so a lot of people I've talked with, they said, "Well, can I do that? Do I have the permission to do that or whatever?" And it is kind of hard to get to their skull like who are you asking permission from? There isn't ... there is the government who has rules, but despite what you might think about the government, the rules are actually fairly basic and the IRS of course wants you to pay the money, but that's actually not the difficult to be honest either. So it's just really an internal stumbling block. You don't have to ask anyone. You can go right now. Get a business license, and sell bottles of water at a popular park. Right now, and you technically have a small business. JAMON: Regarding the personal finances side of this, one of the things that my wife and I did early on that really helped was we did a monthly budget. So we used the tool called YNAB, youneedabudget.com, and we sat down every month together, and we entered all of our receipts and we had categories and we split everything up. We were kind of finance nerds during this time, and that was helpful, because it gave us a sense of control over our finances. We knew where we were. We knew whether we had enough money to pay the mortgage. We knew how much, we could specifically tell you what day we would run out of money if we couldn't bring anything in, and that was helpful. Now, sometimes the math brings its own anxiety, but at least you know where it is, and it's not this unknown out there all the time. Actually, more lately, we've gotten away from that. After almost 15 years of marriage, and I kind of want to go back to it, because there are some stresses that come from not knowing. TODD: Yeah, sometimes everything is just fine, but just don't know it, and you assume the worst because- JAMON: Exactly. TODD: -people do. So I have a question for Ken. I grew up very poor, just some background, but later in my early 20s and stuff, my family actually started doing pretty well. My mom and my step-father ran a couple businesses. My brother started businesses and has done very well for himself. So, although, in my younger life, we were almost less than working class, to be honest. Later in life, we had a lot of experience with business. So me being in business was very natural to me, and my family understood, and they actually didn't understand when I was working for someone else. It was weird to them, but Ken, I know from discussions with you, the opposite was true. From your family, there wasn't anyone who were business people and that kind of stuff, and it was kind of outside your culture. I would love to hear if maybe that caused any particular issues for you? KEN: Yeah, for sure. I grew up in what I would call kind of professional slash academic class household. Right? College degrees going very far back in my family. Doctors, lawyers, scientists, illustrators, artists, also but professionals of various kinds. Going back quite a while. There was a flavor of business being looked down upon a little bit, and that was definitely, even when I got to Harvard. There was that divide was still there even though Harvard certainly has both types. The professional type to kind of like, well I'm good at something. I'm really good at this, and I'm so good at it people want to pay me good money for it. And that's a perfectly good life. And I'm actually here to tell you right now, if you have those skills. If you are happy doing them, you're in a good position. Should you start a business? The answer is probably no. Right? I did it because I couldn't stand not doing it. Right? It was just this terrifying but enticing thing for as long as I could remember to be ... I just wanted to be on my own. I want to do this. Ah. Right. It was this dragon inside that I couldn't contain. In some degrees, it made me a bad employee. Sometimes. Right, because anybody who's not doing what they're sort of supposed to be doing is not happy. Right? Jamon, do you want to interject? JAMON: Oh, I just want to say in Ken's family if you say someone is a painter, that means that they are an artist, and they paint on canvas. In my family, if someone's a painter, that means they spray paint on houses. KEN: Yes. TODD: In my family, if someone's a painter you're like, "Oh, he's got a job. That's wonderful." KEN: Yeah, so the three of us we talk about this class stuff all the time because when you start talking with people who grew up in different backgrounds, you start to realize what your blind spots are. Like, I remember Todd saying, growing up people who went to the movies were rich or something like that. Todd, do you remember what some of your things were? TODD: Oh, there's a long list of what rich people do that most people would find amusing. KEN: For me, not only ... I grew up in a fairly prosperous town. I would say. Right, but I wouldn't call it, there weren't a lot of rich, rich, rich people, but it was prosperous. And then going to Harvard, of course you get exposed to all sorts, and you start to realize how high the ladder goes. Right? And that gave me I think a sort of warped perspective on life. And Todd's perspective was warped in a different way. And by sort of, not like the three of us, by any stretch of the imagination, now encompass an enormous swath of life experience. JAMON: No. KEN: We're all white dudes for one thing. Right? JAMON: Yes. KEN: But nevertheless, it gives us sort of perspective on things that helps. It blunts some of the fear. JAMON: Mm-hmm (affirmative)- KEN: To have that breadth of perspective. TODD: I'd like to ask Ken, because your family culture wasn't business-oriented, and as you just mentioned, almost a little bit looked down upon business people, I guess for the crassness of it all. KEN: It wasn't overt, but it was definitely outside of our purview. TODD: And definitely your friends from Harvard who weren't in business school or that kind of thing ... do you, like for me. It's easy for me. The bar was so low. I surpassed almost everyone I grew up with long ago. JAMON: Yeah. Similar. TODD: I don't have to prove anything to anyone. KEN: Well, so at this point I don't care very much. At this point, I'm doing my thing and that's that. However, I will point out there is something very interesting about Silicon Valley. Which is that Silicon Valley is a business culture that was grown by people kind of like me- JAMON: Yeah. KEN: -from the professional and scientific culture. JAMON: That's true. KEN: And as a result, that is where, I think, I'm not a sociologist. I haven't studied this or anything, but my theory is that that's where that sort of disdain for lifestyle businesses comes from. I think it's seen as sort of a grind. Where you're getting paid for the brilliance of your idea, you're just getting paid for hard work. JAMON: Yeah, I think that this idea of a lifestyle business, which I don't have any negative connotation whatsoever. In my world, a lifestyle business sounds like a luxury. KEN: Luxury. TODD: Luxury. JAMON: Okay, we're gonna have to link to that YouTube video. TODD: Yes. JAMON: But some Monty Python there. But I think that's actually something that was really, really helpful was when we merged was the idea that we can design this business to be lower stress. That doesn't mean we take our eye off the ball, which we kinda did for a little while there. That doesn't mean that we don't work hard, cause we do when the situation demands it, but we can design the type of business where the general day to day things are not drudgery. They are things that we enjoy doing. That we're good at, and that we can contribute to the success of the business. And I think that that's something that's actually overlooked a little bit when you're owning a business that you do have the ability to change things. You have the ability to enact change. It may be painful. It may be hard. It might be expensive, but you can look at something and say, "You know what, this isn't fitting for me, and I'm gonna change it." Whether it's cutting off a client that's being too stressful. Whether it's hiring someone to do something that you're not good at. All of those things are things that you can do. My sister started a small WordPress website company. So she's building WordPress websites. And she asked me for a lot of advice along the way, because she knew I'd kind of- TODD: Is this Meredith, Jamon? JAMON: Yeah. That's right that's Meredith. And one of the things I told her was that you want to stay with your kids. You want to be at home. You want to build this business that does not interrupt those things, so make those very core priorities. When you make decisions, they should be based on whether they enhance that or take away from that. It kind of gave her permission to look at things through that lens. That you don't have to necessarily measure it on dollars and cents or even things like customer satisfaction. That may be a goal and you don't want to let people down, but ultimately you don't want to let your family down. And that's something that I think is really important. So for her, you know her husband's an engineer, a mechanical engineer. He makes good money. It's not something where they have to have the business, but she wanted something that challenged her while she was also able to be at home, and I think it's done that. TODD: And the people she worked with on her team are similar, correct? JAMON: Yeah, that's right. So she not only provided a business that works for her, but also for the people on her team. So she actually has people that do code. That do design. That do content. And in many cases they are people who stay at home with their kids. And that's kind of a cool concept that there could be a business that enables that. TODD: I think that super important to mention the reason why, because people think that their business has to be like they see on TV or they read about it in a magazine or a book or whatever, and it doesn't. What principles you base your business on is up to you, and then your job is to figure out a way to make that happen. I think it's awesome that she wanted to help herself and her team who want a particular lifestyle and still be able to have this business, and she's doing it, and that's wonderful. KEN: Yeah, and I think it's worth saying on the list of reasons to start a business, getting rich should probably not be your number one. If getting rich is your number one reason, well I mean that's fine, and depending on your personality, it at least has that as a possibility. JAMON: Sure. KEN: Whereas most jobs done. At least not on any sort of short time frame. The number one reason to do it is 'cause you want more control over your life. And that's why we did it. So the first year that I took off, when we were still trying to build an ap and we hadn't done the consulting yet, my daughter was two, and to save money we took less daycare. I had to still have some, 'cause we both work, but did less daycare. So I spent time with her. I cooked for the family. I found all these ways to save money, and I was sort of part-time house husband while this was going on, and even if the rest of this fails, right? Even if we crash and burn, the chance to have that year and do that will be with me the rest of my life. So, part of our mission here at Infinite Red, and something we've always agreed on is that we don't just want a successful business. We have to do that in order to make the rest of this work. And it's a perfectly good goal in itself, but that we also want to be an example of how work can work. Right? Not that there aren't others, but this is us. This is what we think work should be like. Not that it's never intense. Not that it's never hard. Not that it's some sort of walk in the park. It is not. But that it can co-exist with the rest of your life in a much more harmonious way than has been the model for 20th century corporate whatever. TODD: Yeah, there are other ways to run a business, all of them are wrong. CHRIS: Ken do you think that when we ... that struggle occurs when we move away from those principles and values and what's important to us as business owners or whatever that label would be? So like, when you move away from maybe wanting to spend time with your family or building a company where it fuels the lives of your employees. You know, do you think that fear and intention is magnified if you move away from those things? KEN: What do you mean by move away from those things? CHRIS: So that they're no longer a priority. Maybe you're making decisions that go against those values. KEN: That is definitely a source of stress. And the fact of the matter is, we are still a business. We still have to operate in the same environment that every other business does. And we have to compete against businesses that don't operate the way we do. JAMON: Right. KEN: And to whatever extent our values create, like I said, put us at a disadvantage, and I think sometimes in the short term that is true. We sometimes have to make hard choices in order to survive and work another day. And I think there's probably kind of a core, not exactly explicitly articulated, there's some core that we won't push past, but when we have to hopefully temporarily do things that are different from our stated values. Yeah, that's rough. Absolutely rough. JAMON: Yeah. KEN: The trick is to kind of figure out ... this is why it's so important to figure out what your real values are. Right? And we've had to sort of narrow it down in certain places, because if you have this long list of things that you claim to care about, but that's not actually true. Right? Then, when it really comes down to it, there are some things that are more core than others. If you die on the hill of one of the non-core ones, and it causes you to fail, that is an unacceptable outcome. And so, figuring out which hills you're really willing to die on and which hills you're not willing to die on is super important and there's not really a shortcut. It's something that you figure out as you go along. TODD: If you're getting chased by zombies through a forest and the zombies are starting to catch up to you, sometimes you have to give grandma a cookie and push her down the hill. That's all I'm saying. It sucks. It's against your principles, but grandma's lived a good life, and she loves those cookies. Fact. JAMON: I don't even know how to follow up on that one, but one of the things I was asked early on when I started my company was, what are your core principles and I kind of fumbled through an answer, and I don't even remember what it was at the time. But I actually think it was probably not reasonable for me to even know what those were at the time other than personal values, but over time, taking lumps here and there and bruises, and the stress and anxiety of various situations, it's made it very clear what is really important. At the time I was young, I was idealistic. I didn't really understand what could go wrong. What mattered. What didn't. But I think that all of those stresses and fears eventually taught me a lot of things and so in a lot of ways, even though they kind of sucked at the time, they were necessary to get me to who I am today. You know, I don't want to go back and relive them, but I wouldn't trade them away. TODD: Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Well that was super interesting to me. I knew some of that. I learned some new stuff which is always fun, and I hope it has some value to the listeners for sure. You know, our experience. At least it's hopefully an interesting story if nothing more. JAMON: Absolutely.

Jack McAneny, Director of Global Sustainability, has been with P&G for 20 years.  During that time, he has had a variety of assignments in the Health, Safety & Environment and Technical External Relations functions. In his current role, he coordinates P&G’s Environmental Sustainability efforts. Prior to joining P&G, Jack worked for the Federal Occupational Safety & Health Administration as an Industrial Hygiene Compliance Officer. Jack Joins Sustainable Nation to Discuss: Leading sustainability in a multinational corporation Science based targets for sustainability goals P & G's Forest Positive initiative 2030 goals including 100% renewable energy and 50% reduction in GHG emissions Advice and recommendations for sustainability leaders Jack's Final Five Responses: What is one piece of advice you would give other sustainability professionals that might help them in their careers? I think the one thing that I would offer would be really building and maintaining your networks internally and externally. That's not advice that would be unique to sustainability professionals. Right? I'd probably give that to anybody entering the private sector, but I do think it's especially important for folks who are playing in the sustainability space, especially folks who might be in more of a corporate or oversight role. And the reason I say that is we work really, really hard to embed ownership of sustainability into the business and into the line organization so it becomes a way that we just do business. And so, as a consequence of that, it's not like we have a large corporate sustainability staff and we get a lot of our work done and manage by influence. Having robust networks can really be a powerful tool in terms of influencing. I'm not talking about having 10,000 connections on your LinkedIn profile. I'm really talking about a very strategic, deliberate and proactive approach of understanding who you need to develop relationships with and who you need to maintain them with. Certainly that applies internally, but also externally. So, I would just encourage folks to really spend some time thinking about their networks internally and externally, and the role that they play in advancing their work. What are you most excited about right now in the world of sustainability? This theme of collaboration. I think more and more people are coming to recognize that if we're really going to address these big issues like climate change, deforestation and solid waste and you name it, those are things that are bigger than any one company. They're bigger sometimes than any one country. So, we know if we're going to drive change at scale, it's going to require collaboration, not just amongst industry but also across governments, civil society and the private sector. Now we're seeing some examples of that here in the US, you have the closed loop front and you see organizations like the Trash Free Seas Alliance that are helping to build collaborative efforts. I think more and more folks are coming to that realization and I really do think that's going to be key to really tackling some of these big thorny issues. I'm just excited to see momentum building behind that approach. What is one book you would recommend sustainability leaders read? That's a tough one because there are so many good ones out there. There's lots of good ones out there that talk about how you build the business case and pragmatic case studies, which I've enjoyed. There've been books out there around reinforcing the importance of the work we do. I think the one that I would offer is a book by an author named Lee Thompson. She is a professor at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern, and she wrote a book called The Truth About Negotiations. We don't really think about it a lot of time in these terms. We think about the importance of trying to integrate sustainability into the business, and as I think about going to talk to a business leader who has P&L responsibility for a large business or a large brand, typically I'm they're asking for resources, asking for people, money, time or to share a voice or a commitment. These folks who are leading these businesses have finite resources and they have lots of people coming to them asking for very important help and assistance. So, you don't think about that as a negotiation for resources, but I found a lot of tips and tricks in that book, The Truth About Negotiations, that I found helpful. So, that is one that has a proven helpful for me. What are some of your favorite resources or tools that really help you in the work that you do? For me, it's anything that helps bring the outside in. I think part of my job, and I suspect the job of many sustainability professionals out there, is understanding what's going on externally today and what we can expect in the future, in terms of some of these big sustainability trends. Bringing that perspective into your organization to help inform decision making and to help develop strategy. Having those resources that bring you that external perspective can be incredibly important. So whether it's news feeds or industry associations or peer groups that you're a part of. I think it's anything that helps bring that outside in has proven helpful. Now obviously depending on your category, your business sector, your, role, you might need to specify those to more topical areas. But beyond that, I would encourage folks to make sure that you have one or two of these, whether their news feeds or subscription services, that give you that really broad view across both environmental and social space in terms of current trends and events, because it's really important to maintain that broad perspective. It has helped me connect dots that I wouldn't otherwise normally have seen. So yes, it's important to be topical and focus, but it's also important to keep that broad view because it helps you from developing blind spots. Finally, where can our listeners go to learn more about you and the work you're leading at P&G? Yeah, they can go to pg.com/citizenship. As I mentioned before, we operate against a very broad citizenship framework, environmental sustainability as a part of that. If they go there they can see our most recent citizenship report and have just some great examples of the work that we're trying to do. I think more importantly, given who your target audience is Josh, it'll help folks understand where we're focused and what we're trying to do, and if folks see potential linkages our synergies there, we certainly would welcome any thoughts or ideas that they may have.

In this interview, naturopathic physician Carrie Decker, ND, describes some of the actions she takes with patients to help reduce the risk of developing dementia and cognitive decline. Her integrative approach includes nutritional and lifestyle assessment, assessment for common risk factors or other potential exposures, and nutritional supplementation to meet her patients' individual needs. About the Expert Carrie Decker, ND, is a certified Naturopathic Doctor, graduating with honors from the National College of Natural Medicine (now the National University of Natural Medicine) in Portland, Oregon. Decker sees patients at her office in Portland as well as remotely, with a focus on gastrointestinal disease, mood imbalances, eating disorders, autoimmune disease, and chronic fatigue. Prior to becoming a naturopathic physician, Decker was an engineer, and obtained graduate degrees in biomedical and mechanical engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign respectively. Decker continues to enjoy academic research and writing and uses these skills to support integrative medicine education as a writer and contributor to various resources. Decker supports Allergy Research Group as a member of their education and product development team. About the Sponsor Founded in 1979 by molecular geneticist Stephen Levine, PhD, Allergy Research Group® is one of the very first truly hypoallergenic nutritional supplement companies. For nearly 40 years Allergy Research Group® has been a leading innovator and educator in the natural products industry. Our dedication to the latest research about cutting-edge nutritional supplements continues to this day. Our purpose is to provide customers with products they can use to improve their patients’ quality of life, through scientific based innovation, purity of ingredients, education and outstanding service. ARG is proud to be a sponsor of the Clinical Education LinkedIn Forum, a closed peer-to-peer group on LinkedIn where healthcare professionals can ask clinical questions and receive evidence-based and clinical-based responses by experts in their field. Visit www.clinicaleducation.org/linkedin for more information & to sign up for free! Visit www.allergyresearchgroup.com for more information on ARG and our products. Transcript Karolyn Gazella: Hello, I'm Karolyn Gazella, the publisher of the Natural Medicine Journal. Today we're talking about maintaining healthy brain function with naturopathic physician, Dr. Carrie Decker. Before we begin, I'd like to thank the sponsor of this podcast who is Allergy Research Group. Dr. Decker, thank you so much for joining me. Carrie Decker: Thanks Karolyn, I'm glad I'm able to be with you today. Gazella: So we're going to start by having you remind us of the medical definition of dementia, and then tell us how common these conditions are. Decker: Yeah, so dementia basically is the mental decline and associative changes in memory, mood and even personality which can occur from an acute incident, such as a vascular event or head injury, or be the progressive changes we see with conditions such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's Disease, or even alcoholism. There are other less common causes of dementia as well. Not surprisingly, many of these conditions can overlap, particularly vascular and Alzheimer's dementia. The main difference with vasculars and Alzheimer's dementia, is that with a vascular event there will be a more sudden decline and then a fairly stable period compared to the typical slow decline of Alzheimer's disease. With a vascular event you might see a sudden change in personality, mood, language or even motor symptoms. Personality, mood and motor changes also may occur with Alzheimer's disease, but are generally in the later stages and occur gradually. Vascular or stroke related dementia accounts for 10 to 20% of dementia in the US and Europe. And the most common type of stroke is ischemic stroke which represents roughly 80% of all strokes in the US. There actually is a region in the US known as the stroke belt in the Southeast, which I was unaware of. Multiple studies have found a higher incidents of stroke in this region. Even in well characterized populations such as healthy male physicians and patients born there. There are many subcategories of ischemic stroke and, of course, all are associated with conditions such as a clot or vessel disease which leads to obstruction and reduced blood flow. And with this oxygen, the nutrients to a focal region of the brain. With a hemorrhagic stroke, which is often associated with hypertension and trauma, blood leaks into the brain and locally increases pressure in the surrounding region. Changes with a hemorrhagic stroke may occur somewhat gradually over minutes or hours, where the intracerebral hemorrhage are very suddenly with a subarachnoid hemorrhage. Clinically, the course of events helps to diagnose which type of stroke someone had, but brain and vascular imaging is required for diagnoses. Incidents of cognitive impairment in dementia after stroke ranges from six to 32% which becomes clouded with factors contributing to other types of dementia the longer the patient is followed. Alzheimer's dementia is most common type of dementia. In the age specific incidents ranges from less than 1% in an individual 65 to 70 years of age, to as high as 8% in individuals 85 years in age and older. Early onset Alzheimer and dementia can occur in individuals as young as 30, however this is far less common and usually genetically related or many misdiagnoses and other conditions which can cause cognitive changes. Gazella: Perfect. So what I'd like to do, is I'd like to focus on Alzheimer's a little bit, because it is the most common form of dementia as you mentioned. So what are some of the hallmark changes that take place in the brain, that can indicate Alzheimer's has set in? Decker: So all this again is pretty gradual, but the key things that occur in the brain with Alzheimer's dementia, which many people ... the physicians out there, at least will remember from cramming for pathology tests, are extra cellular deposits to amyloid beta peptides near fibrillary degeneration and associated tangles and neuritic plaques. These are not specifically seen with imaging, but analysis techniques and tracers are constantly being developed that can help us see these changes more specifically. Additional biomarkers that assess for changes in markers related to tau and amyloid beta in the cerebral spinal fluid are also being developed to help determine the risk of cognitive decline and assess for Alzheimer's disease, but are not yet recommended for routine diagnostic purposes. Brain imaging with an MRI is indicated in the evaluation of dementia and is capable of identifying alternative diagnoses such as the cerebral vascular types of events. Contrast may be used, excuse me, to help visualize the regions of vascular compromise or even an altered blood-brain barrier. Structural changes seen in an MRI with Alzheimer's dementia include general and focal atrophy, as well as white matter lesions; however, these findings are non-specific. The most characteristic finding with Alzheimer's disease is reduced hippocampal volume, or medial lobe atrophy, which must be evaluated relative to one's age, as a decrease in volume is normal with aging, as well. At times, there might be a dramatic reduction in hippocampal volume of over 40%. Positron Emission Tomography, which is commonly called a PET scan, with amyloid tracers can help us determine if there's an amyloid burden on the brain and this helps rule out the likelihood of Alzheimer's dementia if they're not found. But, it's not diagnostic if they are found, because you still have to rule out other types of pathology. Gazella: Okay, perfect. Now what are some of the symptoms of Alzheimer's disease? Decker: As most people ... even an untrained non-professional would know, the cognitive impairment is one of the most common signs that we see. Especially, initially, with Alzheimer's dementia. But it may be accompanied by executive disfunction and visual spatial impairments. Executive disfunction may manifest as difficulties in things like problem solving, multi-tasking, and abstract reasoning. Visual spatial impairment can manifest as changes with difficulties with reading, discriminating form and color, perceiving contrast, and detecting motion. For the most part, these deficits and changes manifest insidiously. The memory changes with Alzheimer's dementia involve significant deficits and declarative episodic memory, that is the memory of events occurring at particular time and place, which relies heavily on the hippocampal function. Memories for recent events are also impaired early in Alzheimer's disease, whereas the ability to recall something that's mentally rehearsed, like an address, is kind of spared early on. Longer term memories, which have been consolidated and in essence kind of rehearsed over years, are also spared because they don't rely on the hippocampal function. The deficits in immediate recall of rehearsed items, as well as semantic memory, the knowledge and facts we accumulate through our lives, gradually develop with time. Procedural memory, like knowing how to tie your shoes, can become affected in the later stages. Generally, the earlier changes are described overall, as recent memory impairment. Kind of avoid confusion and language that's often over a patient or caregiver's level of understanding. Also, with this we might see neuropsychiatric changes, particularly in the mid to late stages of the disease. This can include apathy or depression, irritability or related disengagement. More severe behavioral disturbances, such as aggression, wandering, and psychosis or hallucinations, also can be seen but really should be evaluated for further other possible causes, such as infection or medication-related toxicity, which is also more common in the elderly. It is not uncommon for patients to underestimate their deficits and offer alibis or explanations for them when they're pointed out, which kind of contributes to some of the mood-related symptoms, such as irritability for people. Loss of insight also occurs with time. And, interestingly, those with more insight into their condition are more depressed. While those with less insight are more likely to become agitated, experience psychotic features or perform actions like leaving the house, wandering in their pajamas. Which, if someone had the insight, they were less likely to do. Seizures may also occur in 10 to 20% of individuals in the later stations of Alzheimer's disease. The seizure type isn't so much a motor one, it's more of a focal non-motor seizure which manifests with impaired awareness, confusing amnesia spells, unexplained emotions, and experience of a metallic taste. Sleep disturbances are also common with Alzheimer's disease and may occur early in the disease process. This includes the fragmented sleep. It also may manifest as longer sleep. Sleep time generally decreases by 30 minutes per decade, starting at mid-life. So some sleep changes are also normal with aging. Poor sleep also happens to be a risk factor for cognitive decline and dementia, which is important to note. Gazella: Yeah, it's a devastating diagnosis, there's no question about it. And today we're talking about reducing risk. How do we even know that's possible? Decker: Whenever I think about risk for any type of disease, I think about, "Well, what are the risk factors?" And if we can associate it with a risk factor, if we deal with those risk factors then we're reducing your risk. So, from the Alzheimer's disease, specifically risk factors are hypertension, dyslipidemia, and altered glucose metabolism. Each, of course, is treatable. Individuals who are physically active have a reduced incidence risk of Alzheimer's disease and cognitive decline. Exercise, of course, also reduces the risk of these other things; the hypertension, dyslipidemia, and hyperglycemia. So we really can't say enough about that. Long-term use of certain medications, such as benzodiazepines, anticholinergics, antihistamines, opioids, and proton pump inhibitors, may be associated with increased risk of Alzheimer's disease. So working with patients to discontinue these, if not needed, may really benefit brain health. Exposure to environmental pollutants, including air pollution, second-hand smoke, or pesticides may put someone at increased risk for Alzheimer's disease. Chronic infections, such as Lyme disease, also may put someone at risk for developing dementia. That can be mistaken for Alzheimer's disease, but the inflammatory aspect of any type of chronic condition also may play into something that may later manifest as Alzheimer's. Cigarette smoking contributes to cardiovascular disease and hypertension, both of which are risk factors for Alzheimer's disease. The high-sugar diet, of course, contributes to the development of diabetes and hyperinsulinemia, which increases the risk of Alzheimer's. Excessive alcohol use contributes to dementia in its own right and affects memory acutely. Chronic use of alcohol in excess also contributes to hyperglycemia and the nutritional deficiencies, which may also be contributing factors to longer-term memory problems, as well as Alzheimer's. So, with so many things that are risk factors that are associated with Alzheimer's disease, correcting them inevitably reduced the risk. And then when we start to eliminate many of these factors that are known risk factors for Alzheimer's disease, or at least associated with it, the reduction in risk, of course, compounds as well. Genetically, there are definitely some things that we're unable to change, per se, but we can still influence the phenotype by addressing environment, nutritional, and other factors which impact it. Gazella: Well, that's great. And I would like to talk about nutrition and specific diet. You mentioned high-sugar diet as being a possible risk factor. When it comes to reducing risk, what do you like to emphasize and why? Decker: For me, really that's one of the biggest places to start. Reducing the high intake of high glycemic foods, like the breads, pastas, desserts and sugary snacks, often is one of the first changes that most people need to make. So often, people are grabbing these things for a quick energy fix because they're easy. And they also come with a blood sugar spike and then a blood sugar crash. Good brain food really includes foods that provide the essential vitamins and minerals, proteins, and healthy fats. Eating a diet that has lots of color, and not the artificial variety, helps people to take in the necessary vitamins and minerals, as well as many other phytonutrients found in fruits and vegetables. Nuts like walnuts, which provide healthy fats, protein, Vitamin E, as well as other nutrients and salmon, which provides a lot of Omega-3 fatty acids, are particularly good things to routinely include in the diet. A higher total intake of Omega-3 fatty acids, particularly DHA, is associated with a reduced risk of Alzheimer's disease. DHA helps reduce the amyloid beta peptide accumulation, as well as oxidative damage, which also is a contributor to Alzheimer's. One more part of that, when you dial really into the diet more, on an individual basis there might be other things that come up, things like the food sensitivities, the allergies, different types of things that cause inflammation. And for some sensitive people, even things that are high in histamine might be something to reduce. Histamine is an inflammatory mediator, which released from basophils and mast cells in the body, like when we have an allergic response, but it's also found in certain [inaudible 00:11:40] like fermented meats and wine. People can become more sensitive to foods like this when the lining of the gut is damaged, or if they have certain genetics related to the breakdown of histamine. Histamine increases the blood-brain barrier permeability, which can contribute to neuroinflammation and neurodegeneration. Gluten absolutely should be out of the diet for people with celiac disease, as it's been determined in this population, specifically, to contribute to cognitive impairment, as well as nutritional deficiencies. But, not only them, the people who are not affected by celiac disease also can have an inflammatory response and with this foggy thinking, however we don't have research that I'm aware of that specifically connects it with Alzheimer's yet. Gazella: Okay, so it sounds like a really solid anti-inflammatory diet. In addition to diet, you mentioned exercise. You mentioned sleep. But what other lifestyle factors are critical to look at when it comes to reducing risk of dementia in the patient population? Decker: Yeah, like I said, exercise is one of those things that just is important for so many aspects of metabolic health, but also has other ways that it improves cognitive function. It's something that supports the levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor in the body. We shorten that up, calling it BDNF. And that improves neurogenesis and cognitive pathways in the brain. Exercise also has been shown to increase hippocampal and total brain volume, which we already talked about as being something that happens with Alzheimer's disease. Cognitive stimulating also benefits cognition, and that's been shown in studies. Just something people talk about. So whether this includes reading a book, playing a game of cards, or learning a new musical instrument or other skill, it's important to include. Eliminating smoking and excessive alcohol intake also should be a part of a dementia protocol. But, also general health promoting advice. Healthy sleep is important for cognitive function and preventing dementia. So working with lifestyle to make adaptations, such as new blue light or other stimulating things at least an hour before bed might come into play with people if the sleep is poor. Gazella: So Let's talk a little bit more specifically about nutritional factors and how they might contribute to cognitive decline in Alzheimer's disease. Decker: Nutritionally, deficiencies or lower levels of certain vitamins, minerals, or other essential nutrients have been shown to be associated with Alzheimer's disease. This includes the B vitamins; B-12 and folate, Zinc, Vitamin D, as well as tocophorols, and tocotrienols. Lower levels of CoQ10, which our body produces, have also been shown in some studies to be associated with an increased risk of dementia. I believe it's critically important to start with the necessary nutrients, such as these, because their impact in the body extends far beyond just the brain. Zinc has a critical function in the brain and lack of zinc can cause neuronal death. Low zinc levels are associated with a poor ability to smell and depression. So if these symptoms are also mentioned, screening should be considered. Homocysteine levels have been observed to be significantly higher in patients with Alzheimer's disease and also can be deficiencies in the B vitamins; folate, B-12, or riboflavin. Homocysteine elevation also is commonly seen in cardiovascular disease and depression. So if these are also an issue for a patient, and even if not really, this should also be considered. Vitamin D access in your [inaudible 00:14:45] hormone and also impacts genetic expression. Vitamin D levels should be at least 30 nanograms per milliliters and I would recommend even higher, really around 50 nanograms per milliliters. Low levels of vitamin D are also often seen with cardiovascular disease and should be a part of screening for that. Tocophorols, tocotrienols, and CoQ10, they're all fat-soluble, neuroprotective antioxidants and they're also cardio-protective. They support not only a healthy brain, but they reduce the risk of cholesterol oxidation and they support health vessel function, which can help reduce the risk of the vascular dementia, which we talked about earlier as well Gazella: What about other botanicals or natural substances? Are there any others that have evidence supporting cognitive function and helping reducing risk? Decker: Yeah. There's so many that I kind of got into thinking about some of them and there's way too many to discuss. But, I'm looking at ... I wanted to talk about some of them with the biggest evidence that I've seen. So because inflammation plays a role with Alzheimer's disease, we talked about that with diet. Some different therapies, which can help reduce inflammation like oxidative shots, can be helpful. But some other mechanism-like things like essential fatty acids also may improve dementia. When we talk about managing inflammation with natural substances, curcumin, the active compound found in tumeric is often at the top of the list. And it comes into play here, too. Curcumin has been shown to improve working memory, attention, and reduce cognitive decline in healthy elderly patients. Curcumin has clinical evidence it helps reduce depression, as well. Which, again, is common with Alzheimer's disease. Mechanistically, it has been shown to reduce oxidative stress and accumulation of the beta amyloid plaques, at the same time reducing our increasing levels of protective antioxidants, such as superoxide dismutase. Of course, making sure the curcumin is bioavailable is very important. The best data I've seen comparing a lot of the [inaudible 00:16:35] curcumin preparation suggests that the best bioavailable can be obtained with a molecular dispersion process that then answers the water solubility and dispersion of fat-soluble ingredients, like curcumin. With this type of preparation, it's been shown to be even six times higher absorption than the more commonly used curcumin phytosome that's found in many supplements. Another one that has a lot of evidence behind it is Huperzine A. Huperzine A is an extract from the club moss and it acts as an acytlcholinesterase inhibitor, which also happens to be one of the mechanisms of many drugs which address dementia. Huperzine A also may help reduce dementia by regulating production of beta amyloid precursor protein, protecting the cells from oxidative stress, mitochondrial disfunction, as well as damage associated with glutamate induced toxicity. Glutamate's an excitatory neurotransmitter in the brain, and when in excess, it promotes some of this neuroinflammation and neurodegeneration that we see with a lot of chronic nervous system diseases. There've been multiple randomized, placebo-controlled trials looking at the impact that Huperzine A has on both Alzheimer's disease, as well as vascular demential. It's been shown to significantly improve cognitive function in patients with mild to moderate vascular dementia and significantly improve cognition, mood, and activities of daily living scores in patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease. The benefits of Huperzine A have also benefits in other populations with findings of enhanced memory and learning in adolescence and improved recovery in elderly patients from general anesthesia. Ginkgo Biloba has been studied in many clinical trials, as well as in the studying of dementia. As a botanical, we always think of it as being this go-to for supporting microcirculation, kind of in the fingertips, the toes, the eyes, the kidneys, but the brain is also a part of that. Ginkgo's protective, in part, due to its antioxidant effects and supports circulation in the small vessels by reducing platelet activation and aggregation, as well as stimulating the release of endothelium-derived relaxation factor. In double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled studies in patients with mild cognitive impairment, Ginkgo has been shown to improve cognitive function and reduce dementia conversion rate, improving episodic memory and even improving activity challenged gait, which is something that can be an issue with people with dementia. In a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled study in patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer's or vascular dementia who also had the neuropsychiatric aspect of that, Ginkgo was shown to significantly improve cognition, neuropsychiatric symptoms, functional abilities, and the quality of life in patients, as well as their caregivers. In healthy populations of middle-aged and older volunteers, Ginkgo has also been observed to positively impact memory, improving recall performance, as well as speed of processing abilities. Lipids are also very important for the brain, which is not very surprising, as the brain is very fatty tissue. Brain cells are especially rich in phospholipid choline, which the body can synthesize from a substance called citicholine, also known as CDP choline. Citicholine and phospholipid choline both support the integrity and functionality of the neuronal membrane, as well as the mitochondria. Citicholine provides choline, and enhances the synthesis of acetylcholine, the neurotransmitter that plays a significant role in memory and learning. Citicholine has been studied in multiple clinical trials with populations experiencing memory-related issues ranging from mild cognitive impairment to vascular dementia and Alzheimer's disease. A Cochrane review assessed the effectively of citicholine in 14 double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trials in patients with cognitive impairment due to chronic cerebral disorders, which can include both the vascular and Alzheimer's disease and found that, in patients with cognitive impairment due to these disorders, that citicholine has positive effects on memory and behavior in at least short to medium term and they recommended that studies of longer duration be conducted. Significant improvements in mental performance have even been seen in patients with early-onset Alzheimer's disease treated with citicholine, as well. In a population of patients with the apolipoprotein protein, E epsilon four allele, which increase the risk of dementia, including that of the early-onset dementia as well as vascular dementia, citicholine has been shown to significantly improve cognitive performance, also improving the parameters of cerebral blood profusion in brain bioelectrical activity patterns. In patients who had their first recent ischemic stroke, citicholine was shown to improve attention, executive function, temporal orientation, cognitive status, as well as quality of life, many of which often decline in this post-stroke period. Lion's mane mushroom is another one that's worthy of mention in a discussion of dementia, as well as in the other changes that occur with aging. Lion's mane has a long history of traditional use for supporting nerve growth and we now know it induces the secretion of nerve growth factor. In recent randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled studies, lion's mane has been shown to significantly increase cognitive function scores in patients with mild cognitive impairment, as well as reduce depression and anxiety. In animal models, lion's mane has been shown to improve spatial short-term and visual recognition memory impairments induced by amyloid beta peptide. Peripheral neuropathy is not uncommon at all in the aging population, whether it be due to diabetes, nutritional life deficiencies, or idiopathic in nature, and lion's mane can also be a benefit for this, because of the fact that it promotes nerve growth factor again. Lion's mane, like many of the medicinal mushrooms, also may have protective effects against certain forms of cancer. Gazella: I was gonna say, there's a long list here. Decker: I know. I just have to throw this last one in. French maritime pine bark extract also is another one that's been the topic of several clinical studies related to cognitive function. Although, this one hasn't been studied in the population with Alzheimer's or the decline already, it's been studied in several different healthy population ... in different clinical studies. In population ages ranging from kids to older adults, even including 60 years in age and above, it was repeatedly shown to improve cognitive function, as well as additional memory retention, mental performance, and working memory in some of the studies. And beyond cognitive function, it is also one of these that can positively impact blood pressure, cholesterol balance, blood sugar, and has positive impacts on these other diabetes-related microvasculature complications. So it's really excellent for use in individuals who also experience these other challenges. Gazella: So that is a long list. You've identified lots of choices when it comes to nutrients and botanicals. Now, are there any safety issues or contraindications associated with this long list that you've just mentioned. Decker: Yeah. Well for the nutrients, of course, some of them such as zinc and vitamin D are appropriate only if there's a deficiency. As an excess, they can cause problems. But, things like CoQ10, tocotrienols, and essential fatty acids are really very safe and are used in part to help reduce cardiovascular disease risk, as well. The side effects that some people might experience with agents that help increase blood flow to the brain, like Ginkgo, is a slight headache. And, of course, if this occurs the dosage should be diminished or supplement discontinued if it doesn't subside. Some people might find cognitive support formulas, and even things like CoQ10 and phospholipids alone, to be somewhat stimulating. Not like the jitters type of thing, life coffee, but feeling like a little supercharged. A little of this sounds positive. It can be really problematic if you're not able to do something with that energy or need to go to sleep. I've also seen people have more vivid dreams when taking something like Huperzine A, and that tends to usually be more transient. But if it's troubling and doesn't dissipate with time, an alternate supplement should be selected. I generally instruct people to start with low dose, especially if you using combinations of these nutrients, because they really can be very potent. Although some of the nutrients can be taken at night, I generally tell people to take anything that's intended to support cognitive function in the morning. Because we really want it to be something that helps us fly through the day and be as productive as we can be. But really, with all supplements, it is important to screen them with your doctor to make sure they don't have interactions with other medications you may be taking and to make sure they're something for you, individually, that is correct. Gazella: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And, it occurs to me that you mentioned formulas for brain health ... probably a lot of these ingredients that you mentioned are used in combination to be more effective. So there's a synergistic effect. Is that accurate? Decker: Yeah. Some things more than other. Different supplement companies put different combinations together and a lot of the companies look to the research, just like I'm talking about today, and see what might be appropriate to put together. When I work with things, I often use a B vitamin complex or other specific combinations meant to address homocysteine elevation, if that's an issue. Essential fatty acids and moderate doses of vitamin E, if not part of the diet routinely, should also be included. CoQ10, Vitamin E, and essential fatty acids - the fish oils, sometimes you can find those in combination because they're all a fatty substance. They often combine very well. Vitamin D and zinc tend to be single nutrient therapies that people are on because we use them for all sorts of things, including immune support as well as mood. So those will be things, individually, people take. Generally, if someone's healthy and not experiencing cognitive decline, that's kind of a good combination package of nutrients to just prevent the nutritional decline-related issues. But, some of the combinations ... I've seen a combination that has the lion's mane mushroom, the phospholipids, citicholine, as well as a substance called coffee fruit extract that really supports cognitive health quite well on both a short-term and long-term basis. The coffee fruit extract, which contains less than 1% caffeine, has been shown in multiple studies to increase levels of brain drive neurotrophic factor, which I kind of talked a little bit about with exercise. The brain drive neurotrophic factor promotes neurogenesis and is naturally increased in the brain when someone's working on learning something. I like the combination again, because it's so potent and it's something that someone feels the effects of in the day they take it, yet it has long-term benefits because of the fact that both lion's mane mushroom and coffee fruit extract have of promoting neurogenesis. It also contains American ginseng, and that in combination with the phospholipids, has a pretty dramatic on energy levels as well. You know, we see a decline in energy with aging populations, which also can be an issue. I've also found this combination to be really helpful with patients with depression, which makes sense. There's a common overlap with some of the things we talked about in many ways with depression. So you might want to consider it for that, as well. Gazella: Yeah, sounds like a good combination. Well this has been packed full of great information, but I'm wondering if you have any other advice for practitioners who might be listening, who are trying to help protect cognition in their patients. Decker: Yeah, and this one doesn't maybe fit in with everything I've been talking about, but I'm a naturopath and I think about things in a very whole-minded fashion ... and I live in Portland, so maybe that influences it as well, but I think it's really necessary to look at the impact of community and how being happy can really impact the overall health of our patients. Particularly in older patients, a lot of them might be alone and if they get stuck in grief ... say they have the passing of a loved one or so many people pass the more we age, and often that will be people in the family. A partner. A spouse. And that contributes to loneliness and these things don't really just eat away at the mood, but they bleed into the health in so many other ways. Community really gives people life. It gives them purpose and meaning. And being active and finding community, which someone resonates with, really serves a far greater purpose than just being an event on their schedule. And with the elderly or aging population, whether this is a local community center, a church or some other group, it can really help people find a fulfillment and happiness and that goes far beyond just that. It improves the mood and the health of the brain, as well. Gazella: Yeah, that's such an important point and I'm glad that we're ending with social support, because it has far reaching benefits. Well, once again, I would like to thank the sponsor of this topic, who is Allergy Research Group. And I'd like to thank you, Dr. Decker, for this wonderful information and joining me today. Decker: Yeah, it was great to be able to do so. Gazella: Well have a great day. Decker: Thank you, you too.

The collapse of the construction giant Carillion has focused attention on the contracts it had with the Government, one of which involved cleaning, landscaping and maintenance at 50 prisons in the south of England. The prison contract came into effect in 2015, but within months major problems started to emerge, as prisoners, staff and inspectors reported long delays in getting cells, windows and toilets repaired. The Ministry of Justice acknowledged that Carillion was under-performing and ordered the company to pay back millions of pounds - but its contract was allowed to continue until the work was taken in-house after the firm folded last month. There've also been growing concerns about another contractor, Amey, which has a maintenance contract at 61 prisons in the north of England, the Midlands and Wales. Amey's work came under the spotlight at Liverpool Jail which was described in a recent report as "squalid", with prisoners living in damp, dirty and cockroach-infested conditions. The contracts, which are worth £200 million over five years, were intended to deliver savings of £115 million. But Ministers have admitted that the Government won't achieve the economies it wanted to because it under-estimated how much it costs to maintain jails. They say the new government-owned facilities management company which has taken on Carillion's work will secure "significant improvements" and have pledged to strengthen the management and oversight of its contract with Amey to deliver a better service. But the Prison Officers Association says the failure to maintain prisons properly has fuelled frustration behind bars, contributed to increasing levels of violence and endangered the health and welfare of inmates. File on 4 explores the background to the prisons maintenance contracts, the impact out-sourcing has had on prisoners, staff and the public and whether the solution lies in greater state control, an end to private sector involvement or more investment. Reporter: Danny Shaw Producer: Sally Chesworth Editor: Gail Champion.

I love comic books. I love comic book movies. I especially love Marvel comics. I especially love Marvel comic book movies. I try with all my might to not be biased, but DC films make it difficult. There've been 4 of them so far, and only one has risen to the heights of 'very good'. And that one wasn't directed by Zack Snyder... But I promise I go into each film hoping for the best. As I did with Justice League. It's building on the fine work done by Wonder Woman, it's got all of DC's heavy hitters, and it looks a lot funnier than all of the previous films in the franchise. What could go wrong? To discuss all of the highs and lows, I bring my own Wonder Woman to the mic, Tiffany B, and we talk for ages. As ever, if you've not seen the film, and are interested whether you should drop your hard earned shekels on a ticket, we give you 12 minutes of spoiler-free chat. If you have seen it and want to get into the nitty and gritty, we chat for friggin' ages about all the spoileriffic details. Listen and love!

We continue with our series with John Carlin, former Assistant Attorney General for the U.S. Department of Justice’s National Security Division. This week, we tackle ransomware and insider threat. According to John, ransomware continues to grow, with no signs of slowing down. Not to mention, it is a vastly underreported problem. He also addressed the confusion on whether or not one should engage law enforcement or pay the ransom. And even though recently the focus has been on ransomware as an outside threat, let’s not forget insider threat because an insider can potentially do even more damage. Transcript Cindy Ng: We continue our series with John Carlin, former Assistant Attorney General for the U.S. Justice Department. This week we tackle ransomware and insider threats. According to John, ransomware is a vastly under-reported problem. He also addressed the confusion on whether or not one should engage law enforcement or pay the ransom. And even though, lately, we've been focused on ransomware as an outside threat, one area that doesn't get as much focus is insider threat. And that's worrisome because an insider can potentially do even more damage. John Carlin: Ransomware, it was skyrocketing when I was in government. In the vast, vast, as I said earlier, majority of the cases, we were hearing about them with the caveat that they were asking us not to make it public, and so it is also vastly under-reported. I don't think there's anywhere near, right now, the reporting. I think Verizon attempted to do a good job. There've been other reports that have attempted to get a firm number on how big the problem is. I think the most recent example that's catching peoples attention is Netflix. Another area where I think too few companies right now are thinking through how they'd engage law enforcement. And I don't think there's an easy answer. I mean, there's a lot of confusion out there as to whether you should or shouldn't pay. And there was such confusion over FBI folks, when I was there, giving guidance saying, "Always pay." The FBI issued guidance, and we have a link to it here, that officially says they do not encourage paying a ransom. That doesn't mean, though, that if you go into law enforcement that they're gonna order you not to pay. Just like they have for years in kidnapping, I think they may give you advice. They can also give back valuable information. Number one, if it's a group they've been monitoring, they can tell you, and do as they've tried to move more towards the customer service model, they can tell you whether they've seen that group attack other actors before, and if they have, whether if you pay they're likely to go away or not. Because some groups just take your money and continue. Some groups, the group who's asking for your money isn't the same group that hacked you, and they can help you on that as well. Secondly, just as risk-reduction, as the example I gave earlier of Ferizi shows, or the Syrian Electronic Army, you can end up, number one, violating certain laws when it comes to the Treasury, so called OFAC, and material support for terrorism laws by paying a terrorist or other group that's designated as a bad actor. But more importantly, I think for many of you, then, that potential criminal regulatory loss is the brand. You do not want a situation where it becomes clear later that you paid off a terrorist. And so, by telling law enforcement what your doing, you can hedge against that risk. The other thing you need to do has nothing to do with law enforcement, but is resilience and trying to figure out, "Okay, what are my critical systems, and what's the critical data that could embarrass us? Is it locked down? What would be the risk?" The most recent public example Netflix has shown, you know, some companies decide season 5 of "Orange is the New Black," it's not worth paying off the bad guy. We've been focusing a lot on outside actors coming inside, and something I think has gotten too little attention or sometimes get too little attention, is the insider threat. That's another trend. As we focus on how, when it comes to outsider threats, the approach needs to change, and instead of focusing so much on perimeter defense, we really need to focus on understanding what's inside a company, what the assets are, what we can do to complicate the life of a bad guy when they get inside your company. Risk mitigation, in other words. A lot of the same expenditures that you would make, or same processes that you put in place to help mitigate that risk, are also excellent at mitigating the risk from insider threat. And that's where you can get a economy of scale on your implementation. When I took over National Security Division, my first, I think, week, was the Boston Marathon attack. But then, shortly after that was a fellow named Snowden deciding to disclose, on bulk, information that was devastating to certain government agencies across the board. And one of my last acts was indicting another insider and contractor at the National Security Agency who'd similarly taken large amounts of information in October of last year. So, if I can share one lesson, having lived through it on the government end of the spectrum, that sometimes our best agencies, who are very good at erecting barriers and causing complications for those who try to get them from outside the wall, didn't have the same type of protections in place inside the perimeter area, in those that were trusted. And that's something we just see so often in the private sector, as well. In terms of the amount of damage they can do, the insider may actually be the most significant threat that you face. This is the kind of version of the blended threat, the accidental or negligent threat that happens from a human error, and then that's the gap that, no matter how good you are on the IT, the actor exploits. In order to protect against that, you really need to figure out systems internally for flagging anomalous behavior, knowing where your data is, knowing what's valued inside your system, and then putting access controls in place. From a recent study that Varonis did, and this is completely consistent with my experience both in government, in terms of government systems in government, in terms of providing assistance to the private sector and now giving advice to the private sector, is that it did not surprise me, this fact, although it's disturbing, that nearly half of the respondents indicated that at least 1,000 sensitive files are open to every employee, and that one fifth had 12,000 or more sensitive files exposed to every employee. I can't tell you how many of these I've responded to in crisis mode, where all the lawyers, etc. are trying to figure out how to mitigate risk, who do they need to notify because their files may have been stolen, whether it's business customers or their consumer-type customers. And then, they realize too late, at this point, that they didn't have any access controls in place. This ability to put in an access control is vital, both when you have an insider and also, it shouldn't matter how the person gained access to your system, whether they were outside-in or it's an insider. It's the same risk. And so, what I've found is that...and this was a given example of this that we learned through the OPM hack. But what often happens is the IT side knows how to secure the information or put in access controls, but there's not an easy way to plug in your business side of the house. So, nearly three-fourths of employees say they know they have access to data they don't need to see. More than half said it's frequent or very frequent. And then, on the other side of the house, on the IT, they know that three-quarters of the issues that they're seeing is insider negligence. So, you combine over-access with the fact that people make mistakes, and you get a witches' brew in terms of trying to mitigate risk. So, what you should be looking for there is, "How can I make it as easy as possible to get the business side involved?" They can determine who gets access or who doesn't get access. And the problem right now, I think, with a lot of products out there, is that it's too complicated, and so the business side ignores it and then you have to try to guess at who should or shouldn't have access. All they see then is, "Oh, it's easier just to give everybody access than it is to try to think through and implement the product. I don't know who to call or how to do it." OPM, major breach inside the government where, according to public reporting, China, but the government has not officially said one way or the other so I'm just relying on public reporting, it breached inside our systems, our government systems. And one of the problems was they were able to move laterally, in a way, and we didn't have a product in place where we could see easily what the data was. And then, it turned out afterwards, as well, there was too much access when it came to the personally identifiable information. I have hundreds of thousands of government employees who ultimately had to get notice because you just couldn't tell what had or hadn't been breached. When we went to fix OPM, this is another corporate governance lesson, three times the President tried to get the Cabinet to meet so that the business side would help own this risk and decide what data people should have access to, recognizing when you're doing risk mitigation, there may be a loss of efficiency but you should try to make a conscious decision over what's connected to the internet, and if it's connect to the internet, who has access to it and what level of protection, recognizing, you know, as you slim access there can be a loss of efficiency. In order to do that, the person who's in charge is not the Chief Information Officer, it is the Cabinet sector. It is the Attorney General or the Secretary of State. The President tried three times to convene his Cabinet. Twice, I know for Justice, we were guilty because they sent me and our Chief Information Officer, the Cabinet members didn't show up because they figured, "This is too complicated. It's technical. I'm gonna send the cyber IT people." The third time, the Chief of Staff to the President had to send a harsh email that said, "I don't care who you bring with you, but the President is requiring you to show up to the meeting because you own the business here, and you're the only person who can decide who has access, who doesn't and where they should focus their efforts." So, for all the advice we were given, private companies, at the time, we were good at giving advice from government. We weren't as good, necessarily, at following it. That's simply something we recommend people do.

Co-founder and co-editor Lance Knobel discusses challenges and mission of Berkeleyside, a pioneer in the field of online local journalism and a blueprint for hyperlocal news.TRANSCRIPTSpeaker 1:You're listening to method to the madness, a weekly public affairs show on k a l expertly celebrating bay area innovators on your host, Lisa Kieffer. And today I'm interviewing Lance Nobel Co founder and Co editor of Berkeley's award-winning independent online news site, Berkeley side. What is the secret to Berkeleyside side's success? What Speaker 2:accounts for Berkeley side's particular sort of ambition and success? First, [00:00:30] everybody involved in Berkeley side, particularly the three founders, myself, Francis Tinkle Spiel, and Tracy Taylor, all of us came to Berkeley side with a lots of experience, you know, many decades of work in journalism. So we bring that knowledge and experience to it and I think that shows in how we cover things, how we write about things, our seriousness, our intent, all of those things manifest. I think we're also incredibly fortunate [00:01:00] in the nature of Berkeley. Um, that can't be denied. Um, this is a city, first of all, where there's tons of news. We're never short of interesting, fascinating, complex things to write about readers. Yes, that's the second part. Readers who really care, um, and are very, very engaged, which is, I don't think that common. I think there's no denying that Berkeley ins have [00:01:30] a particularly intense involvement in what's happening in their city. Speaker 2:How do you get your stories? We get our stories in a number of ways. Um, one obviously is, you know, the conventional journalistic way of getting stories. I'm pounding the pavement, speaking to people, going to city council meetings, seeing that there's a hearing on a building, all of those very, very conventional things. What is new for Berkeleyside and I think for many others is that [00:02:00] our community is also an incredibly important source of news for us. That may range from getting a phone call or a tweet or a Facebook comment. Hey Berkeleyside I heard sirens, what's going on? And that would trigger a call from us to the police or that these news stories that come to you? Yeah, we, we get, we don't just mindlessly retweet things. We, we, we try and be quite rigorous about things. But if, [00:02:30] uh, somebody particularly, you know, often, you know, at this point, we're seven years old, so we know a lot of our readers, particularly the people that are engaged and get in touch with us, said, you there are people we, we've got a lot of faith and trust in and they've established a track record that's different than just getting something out of the blue. Speaker 2:But, you know, we get a lot of tips, which as I say, maybe very simple, um, I smell smoke. You know, is there something happening? What's the helicopter doing over, you know, my street, [00:03:00] uh, you know, I hear police sirens. You know, we had a fascinating story, uh, just a few weeks ago where somebody phoned us and said, I came across a really strange thing and it was a pile of discarded ballot papers that county ballot that sent out. Somebody had found a bundle of, I forget what it was, 43, just in a recycling bin and said, what on earth is going on? And so he had himself phoned [00:03:30] the, uh, registrar of voters who said, that shouldn't be happening. And then the police got involved and they said, this is evidence of current. And he called us and said, you might want to look into this and Emily Ragu. Speaker 2:So our amazing, you know, senior reporter, you know, she kind of got on the trail and you know, she on Facebook and Twitter said, hey, are people having issues with the mail? And it turned out that this was not an isolated incident that [00:04:00] the mail carriers and Berkeley have been so kind of overwhelmed by the volume of mail, particularly in the election season, but also the fewer resources in the post office or there are fewer mail carriers for greater volume being required to do double shifts. So all of these things, people were getting their mail delivered at midnight. Uh, people were finding their mail had just been dumped. There were all sorts of problems and that all came from just one phone call. So, [00:04:30] you know, that's, I wouldn't say it's typical, but it's not uncommon for something different from nature. Newspapers like New York Times. I mean, don't they get tips as well? Speaker 2:And of course, most famously in this last election season, neither one of the New York Times reporters, when she looked in her mailbox or the New York Times, they're where the Trump tax returns. Unfortunately, only one set of tax returns from way back when. But you know, that that was fantastic investigative journalism that [00:05:00] just fell into her lap. So yeah, that does happen. But I think it is the case that, you know, local news has a particularly intimate relationship with its readers. Um, and so we benefit from that. It's also the case that, you know, we're in a world where everyone has the ability to be an observer reporter in their way, whether it's through things they say on Facebook or Twitter and, you know, we're harvesting all [00:05:30] that. And I think, you know, when I worked in journalism, you know, in the pre-digital age, all of us were aware of kind of getting letters written in green ink, um, which is the sign of a kind of crazy, cranky person. Sometimes they're interesting things. More often than not, it's a sign of a crazy cranky person that has no, no, no. A basis, in fact. So that kind of thing has always happened, but there's so many new avenues and I think the, uh, intelligent [00:06:00] news organization finds ways to tap in, harvest, all those new ways of getting information. Speaker 3:You make a distinction between content providers and real journalism and the dangers that we face when real journalistic investigations, et Cetera, don't happen. You've been known to solve what is known as wicked problems. Is this one of the challenges and the problems that you're trying to solve at Berkeley side? I mean, in general? Speaker 2:Awesome. Well, we're, we're incredibly committed to [00:06:30] a profound belief in the importance of journalism for our democracy in a city like Berkeley. No one else is really going to be the watchdog of what's happening. You know, we're pretty rare in being, you know, journalists that show up every city council meeting. Uh, we show up every meeting of this happening, adjustment forward. Uh, we show up to the school board, all of these things you need, you need the sunlight, uh, that, you [00:07:00] know, good journalism can provide. I think that's incredibly important. The thing I'd shy away from is creating this kind of hard and fast distinction between journalists and others. We're fortunate in this country that we don't have any licensing scheme for journalists. Many, many, many years ago I ran a small publishing company in Italy and to be journalists Sta in Italy, you know, you needed to have, you know, that license to show you [00:07:30] were a professional journalist. Speaker 2:No one level you could say, well that's good. Everybody has to have certain professional standards they meet and you know, why shouldn't they be licensed the way doctors and lawyers, given that you believe journalism is important, shouldn't you have something that says this person is fit to serve as a journalist? I would reject that. Absolutely. I suspect if anyone, and maybe uh, president Trump will try this, if anyone tried to do it, I'm pretty sure it would be shown to be unconstitutional as [00:08:00] a suppression of the free press and free speech. People commit acts of journalism all the time and they don't have to necessarily be journalists. I don't believe that there is a sacred class to whom these acts of journalism are a kind of holy order with a secret language and a, you know, a decoder ring. Speaker 3:It's been a bit of a wild west lately. There've been some fake news sites, especially during this election cycle Speaker 2:is a huge problem. And [00:08:30] you know, our friends at Facebook, you know, down there in Menlo Park, one would hope if there is a sense of responsibility there, they need to look at their algorithmic approach to showing people things that allegedly they'll be interested in where wholly fake news. I mean there are organizations that have set up to provide fake news because they know it can appear in people's Facebook feeds and you can monetize that, you know, [00:09:00] if you get traffic to your site. This is horrific. Uh, you know, Brian Stelter who talks about the media on CNN has done some fantastic work and has spoken out in really incisive ways about how to guard against fake news. And you know, we all need to be aware of that. Any of us who are in our forties, 50s, 60s, we didn't grow up in a digital age. Speaker 2:Um, we grew up in an age where newspapers were on paper or you listened to the radio or watch television, but we [00:09:30] learned the cues where you could discern between what is authoritative and what is fake. Or at least you thought you did and you knew you, you gained a good sense of your something that was the national enquirer by the supermarket checkout. You would guarded that as having a different relationship to the truth. Then, uh, the New York Times or the La Times or the San Francisco Chronicle, you kind of understood that at a very [00:10:00] instinctive level in the digital world, a lot of those cues have been removed. You're the, the generation that's growing up that's wholly digital. I'm confident my two sons will never buy a paper newspaper, but they, I think you have from a very early age, you develop the instincts to understand what's real and what's fake in a digital realm. Speaker 1:Their children may have a critical analysis that many, many people do not get educated. Speaker 2:But I think all of us need to learn [00:10:30] and find ways to make that discernment and to learn to that filtering process to learn what can I trust, what can I believe in and how can I develop the skills to dig in and find something? Is that real? Before I mindlessly repost it and send it and share it with my friend? Speaker 1:If you're just tuning in, you're listening to method to the madness, a weekly public affairs show on k a l x Berkeley Celebrating Bay area innovators. [00:11:00] Today I'm interviewing Lance Noble, Co founder and Co editor of Berkeley side. You lived in England for like 20 years, 27 years, and then you came back to the states. How did the idea Berkeley side enter your framework? Speaker 2:Very simple and very innocent. Tracey Francis and I, Tracy, who's my wife, Frances was a friend. Our children went to school together, so we were all journalists, all knew each other and we were aware [00:11:30] and lamenting the fact that the city we live in, there was no way to find out what was going on. When you landed in Berkeley. Yeah, we moved to Berkeley. When we moved from London, Tracy and I, you know, in Speaker 1:what was going on at the time. What were people reading? Speaker 2:If you wanted local news, there was nothing. I mean there was a, the Berkeley dally planet eat, which at that time was still coming out on paper twice a week. But the Berkeley daily planet was, you know, very clearly about advocacy journalism. It covered some things. It ignored other [00:12:00] things. If you wanted to know what's happening at Berkeley High, you would never read about it in the Berkeley daily planet. If you wanted to know, you know about crime, you know, they did the occasional police blotter item, but that wasn't, uh, the core of their being. They were trying to press a point of view and to give a perspective as they saw it on a, you know, the politics of the city and particularly the politics of development and things like that. There was no where, other than the occasional [00:12:30] story in the chronicle maybe, but there was no one that was regularly covering what's happening in our city. Speaker 2:And we thought, hey, we know how to do this. And we started it thinking this is something that will be interesting to do from time to time. And you were thinking digitally at the time. Oh yes, from the word go. It was going to be native to the Internet. I mean, seven years later I think we'd been proved right in that no dream whatsoever of putting ink on paper and [00:13:00] you know, having the delivery trucks rollout or any of that sort of stuff we believed in. And we're very committed to this being a digital, uh, new source. But at a very early stage people said, this is great, you know, where have you been all my life? What were you telling? What kind of stories? Just stuff that struck our fancy. Um, both, both things. Both little things. You know, I saw this, I was curious about it. Speaker 2:I tried to find out, but also, you know, started going to city council and writing about that. And He, Berkeley and [00:13:30] Berkeley, eons have a very distinct view of themselves. I can recall people pushing back at us and saying, well, you haven't been here for 20 years so you don't understand anything and you're never going to understand anything because he, and uh, we rejected that. We didn't think that person or people that said that were correct. And I think, you know, we've had the last laugh on that one. Let's talk more about that. How you ramped up, what got you on the map? All of our, our growth has been organic. [00:14:00] You know, people saying to friends, Hey, you know, did you see this story on Berkeley's side? What on earth is Berkeleyside? Oh, you don't get Berkley side. You know, you should have a look at it and it ran. Speaker 2:It remains free and you do. So it has been entirely growth by word of mouth, but there is beyond doubt. There are some stories that, you know, capture greater attention. You know, an early story in Berkeleyside was the gourmet ghetto mountain lion, you know, which [00:14:30] we covered, you know, from early in the day. It happened in the middle of the night. Uh, you know, a mountain lion wandered down from the hills into the gourmet ghetto was seen, reported to the police, the police, you know, deployed, uh, eventually found the mountain lion much to the sadness of many. But I think the only choice the police had was they had to kill this mountain lion. All of us, you know, from comics and TV shows, you think, oh, why didn't they use a tranquilizer [00:15:00] dart? It turns out that if you shoot a mountain lion with a tranquilizer dart, it can probably run for a mile and a mile and a half. Speaker 2:And you do not want a mountain lion running through the streets when, you know, we have, you know, homeless people, we have children that might've been out, you know, for some reason, um, a whole bunch of reasons where you do not want a mountain lion running through the street anyway, the police had to kill this mountain lion. Uh, we wrote about this, uh, it's the kind of story [00:15:30] that does go viral. And so that gave us a burst. Fast forward to when there were the large black lives matter protests and demonstrations in Berkeley. You know, we covered that literally around the clock, you know, reporter following what was happening, writing about it live, you know, tweeting, Facebooking, updating the story on our site. You know, posting videos round the clock without cece and our readership really spiked [00:16:00] during that, Speaker 3:picked up by other news outlets. Speaker 2:It certainly was picked up in many places. We covered it better than anyone else. You know, the protests were big enough that lots of media were covering that story, but we covered it. You're so visibly better than anyone else. Lots of people learned about Berkeleyside then. And that gave us a huge base. The balcony collapse, uh, you know, was a story covered all around the world. But several days after the balcony collapse when most of the world's media had left because the story had [00:16:30] moved on, you know, I think in the next two or three months after that collapse, we published 60 stories about the balcony collapse. So we are committed to what's happening in this city and we follow stories with an intensity and a concentration that other people are just not going to do. And you know, the thing we always talk about as both our joy and our burden is that, you know, when people smell, spoke or hear a siren, [00:17:00] the immediate thought they have or hear a helicopter they think is, I need to look at Berkeley cyclists. They're going to tell me what's going on. We love that. But it also means, you know, we have to be on our toes all the time to reward that faith that people [inaudible] Speaker 3:we'll have that. We'll be reporting on it. Yeah. Know, I feel like with this recent election that there's almost a bigger faith in local news coverage because so much of the national media gave a pass to the president of luck. There were a lot of issues around media. Yeah. I think cable news [00:17:30] blew it. Yeah. Speaker 2:More than, uh, newspapers blew it. I mean, the Washington Post in particular I think did a fantastic job of covering your David Farren told on the fraud of the Trump foundation. Um, you know, if he doesn't win the Pulitzer and every other prize going, something is very wrong. So there's some that did a very good job. Yeah, New York Times was very up and down. It had, you know, Maggie Haberman and a few others. There were some great reporting, but there were also, you know, totally freaking [00:18:00] out about the nothing burger of the emails on Hillary's side and also for a long time normalizing very abnormal behavior. In the case of Trump, I mean, they eventually caught on and called lies, lies. But there was, it took a long time. Speaker 3:And what was, what were the cues that were missed there? If the data was wrong, the polls were wrong. Speaker 2:This is not my area of expertise. I read about it endlessly, but you know, I'm reading other extras that the Poles actually weren't wrong. Nate silver has pointed out that the polls [00:18:30] are going to turn out to be more accurate for 2016 than they were for 2012. What wasn't accurate were the state by state polls. The national polls got the vote pretty close. Hillary is going to end up being probably 2% with 2% more of the vote. Then Donald Trump at the level that counts, uh, the 50 contest in our states with electoral college. Some of the polls fell down very badly. You know, Michigan, Wisconsin. Speaker 3:[00:19:00] You've talked about some of the challenges facing Berkeley side. I just read a University of Missouri study that said many of the challenges are reduction in revenue from display advertising and just being sustainable. You've managed to stay sustainable. Can you talk about what your revenue model is and some of the things that you're doing in order to remain sustainable? Speaker 2:We make revenue three different ways and I think it's an important that we have different, we have a diversified source of revenues. Uh, we're not relying on any one source. [00:19:30] I think that's incredibly important for us. Advertising remains the most important source. The second important source of revenue for us is our members. Berkeleyside doesn't make people pay for the news. And as far as we're concerned, we'll never make people pay for the news, but we allow people to pay for the news. What we have found remarkable, and this is another area where I think Berkeley in this are proving to be a very special breed of people. When we ask people, do you want to pay for the news? A lot [00:20:00] of people say, sure, I'll pay something. And we have about 1200 people who pay an average of about $70 a year Speaker 3:membership. Do you say pay what you can? You Speaker 2:know, if you go to the support page on Berkeleyside, uh, what you see prominently is give 25, 10 or $5 a month. But you can also see below that give whatever you want. And so it's choose your own menu. Is this growing every year? Have you been met? Every year has grown, no question about [00:20:30] it. And we think there's a lot of room for growth in the revenue there. But as I say at the moment, we have about 1200 members a giving an average of $70 a year. So those members, our readers and certainly our members, overwhelmingly Berkeley fans. And then third area of revenue. And it's another one where we think there is a lot of room for growth is events. You know, we've recently had the fourth edition of the uncharted ideas festival. It's grown every year. How many [00:21:00] people came out? We had about 400 people. Speaker 2:You know, one of the reasons why there are a number of reasons why we think there is a lot of potential with uncharted and potentially other events. Um, one is, although there's a lot of room we believe for growth with our core Berkeleyside, the advertising, the membership, we're clearly geographically constrained with that. There are only so many people, so many advertisers that want to reach those people. So many people that could be members with uncharted, we don't have [00:21:30] that geographic constraint. We have a scattering of people and at the moment it's only a scattering. But you know, there's a couple that comes every year from San Diego. You know, they make it kind of part of their plans. A, some people come from uh, Napa County and you know, they, you know, one woman said to me, this is so fantastic, you know, nothing like this happens where I live, you know, I'm going to get all my friends to come so we're not geographically constrained. Speaker 2:We're also not constrained in terms of the companies we can go to [00:22:00] who can sponsor on charter in their mini Davos, which I used to run Dava. So I actually don't think it's a mini Davos in any way. Cause Davos is about, uh, the super rich and the super powerful, the dirty secret of Davos and many things like Davos is powerful. People are often uninteresting or certainly uninteresting at the level of ideas. It is vanishingly rare for a CEO to be interesting, at least [00:22:30] interesting on a public stage. Most of them are trained to give you oatmeal all the time because what's wrong for them is saying something that's going to be interesting or quotable or different. That's a bad thing for them. We don't want those people that uncharted, we want people who are going to provoke you and make you think and make you challenged what you've always thought and perhaps you disagree and perhaps you disagree, but certainly introduce you to things you never thought [00:23:00] about before. Speaker 2:That's a very, very different challenge. And the liberation for me of doing what we do with uncharted is I can pick people who have no impressive title whatsoever that people have not heard about, but they are fascinating thinkers and we can put them on stage. And I, you know, I, I kind of hope and believe you will be hearing from these people, but you don't need those credentials in advance to get on the stage. That uncharted. And that's, that's very liberating for us. And I think it's fascinating [00:23:30] for the people who come. So, so it's advertising membership events and we think that tripod of revenues is he to our health. I have noticed on your site, and I also read about it in the chronicle, that you are introducing something that your readers Speaker 1:to invest. This is an interesting democratization of a local newspaper. Speaker 2:Well we think, we think it's, it's good and we're increasingly certain that we're the first news organization, maybe the first media organization to [00:24:00] do this. A direct public offering is a very little known, the long existing way to offer an investment direct to the public without going through a stock exchange, without going through an investment bank, without, you know, the kind of Kickstarter and things like that or you know, I think a great way for people to raise money in various ways. But this is actually a real investment. The States Department of business oversight reviewed what we were doing. [00:24:30] They had to license us and were going directly to our readers and to other interested people. You have to be a California resident. That's the only qualification to encourage them to invest directly in Berkeley side. And it's something the Green Bay packers did a, you know, the only community owned team in the NFL and it just felt this is the right thing for us. This Berkeley side, we're all about the community we serve. So this is the right way for us to raise them. Speaker 1:Does feel good [00:25:00] to invest in your community? Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. It's, it's main street, not Wall Street. People must be really watching this. Um, we had a very good story. I'm Nieman lab. The Neiman center is at Harvard University. They a study and a research, uh, the media, you know, funded by the Neiman Foundation, a Nieman lab wrote about it. So I think a lot of people in the know in media and journalism would have seen that at the San Francisco Chronicle. Just wrote about it daily. Cal wrote about it and I think we'll get more [00:25:30] coverage for it because if there's one thing journalists are very interested in, it's what's happening to other journalists. Right? So I think it's the kind of story that, um, we think, you know, we'll get picked up and other people were right about it. We're licensed to raise $800,000. That's our goal. Um, that's what we're really committed to. We're about a quarter of the way there and it's very, very early. Speaker 1:I'm sure it's closely watched because it could become a great model for other [inaudible]. Speaker 2:That's exactly right. I, I don't think there's any one model for what's going to make local [00:26:00] news thrive, but I think our diversified revenue stream and our using this direct public offering as a way to raise the capital so we can fund our ambitions and you know, we want to do so much more. That's why we're raising capital. Speaker 1:What is the future of Berkeleyside? Speaker 2:We are committed to covering Berkeley as well as it can be covered. That's the core of our existence. Will we create at some point Oakland side that's such an enormous task and Berkeley as a city of 120,000 [00:26:30] people, we've largely bootstrapped our way to covering that. Covering a city, the complexity of Oakland, four times the size of Berkeley, more than four times the complexity of Berkeley. You'd need really significant investment to do that. Well maybe one day, I don't think in on a five year horizon. That's the right thing for us. Um, we are strategists. Where are you? Where are you going to be? I'm very skeptical of the value strategy. I [00:27:00] I think know strategy is helpful in that it can present different scenarios and things like that. I think people that plan out what they're going to do that never happens. Uh, you know, plans, confront reality and things change. Speaker 2:I'm a firm, firm believer, you know, there's this notion of design thinking. You talk about innovation, you've probably encountered it but you know, design thinking as opposed to engineering thinking and engineering thinking would be, yes, we have a strategy and I've got 20 steps that are going [00:27:30] to take me to this goal that I've decided is where we want to get. Um, a design approach is more, I know it's going to be a chaotic process. I know that there are going to be twists and turns that one can't predict, but I have a north star that I'm, I'm aiming at and that we will find our way to and our north store is, is being the best possible local, independent online news provider. Um, our core focus is Berkeley [00:28:00] because we solve Berkeley. We may say, Hey, we've got, got it right in Berkeley. Let's look at who knows what other other areas. Speaker 2:Um, but we need to get Berkeley, right? And we think there's, you know, we think we've done a great job over seven years, but we've got a long way to go to, to really solve that and say, this is done. You know, it's sustainable. It's, it's working. There's no question about its future. Now we can start looking at other things. [00:28:30] I knew it'd be a real distraction for us to say, Hey, let's add two other cities or something like that. That's a way to, to collapse. At the very early stage of this conversation, you asked about lots of online news operations of folded a, the one thing that is certain in a lot of people have gotten wrong is journalism doesn't scale. We've done a lot of good things with Berkeley side, but that doesn't mean it's an algorithm that you can just roll out in another city and you'll get it right patches. Speaker 2:A [00:29:00] fantastic example. They made the mistake of thinking you create a 800 patches patch, part of AOL, a now owned by a mysterious, uh, you know, uh, private equity group that they're just Zombie sites that don't do anything. But you know, they said, oh, just like newspaper chains. We're going to create a digital chain and we're going to create 900 of them over the next two or three years. That's nonsensical. That doesn't happen. And you know, we know because we [00:29:30] know the difficulty of doing it right in Berkeley, how hard it is to get it right for your city. And that's what, they're not fungible and journalists aren't fungible. You need to the right person and the right people who know and are committed to that city. If you go to berkeleyside.com and look at the contact page and our phone numbers, their email addresses are there. You can write to us tips@berkeleyside.com and if you're interested in the investment, it's invest.berkeleyside.com [00:30:00] you know, we are open. We want to talk to people. We want to hear from people. We're very engaged with our Speaker 1:right off the canvas and the we work building lean and mean take sack. We very lean very much. Thank you for being on the program. Thanks a lot, Lee. You've been listening to method to the madness, a weekly public affairs show on k a l x Berkeley Celebrating Bay area innovators. You can find all of our podcasts on iTunes university. Tune in next week, Friday at noon. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Stress Prevention and Reduction This month’s theme is Stress Management and you can get the free worksheet at AffirmationPod.com/Stress   There've been times I've told myself "let's not wait until stress builds up and things go dramatically wrong before making a change." I don't need to remind us - or maybe I do? - that stress ages us, it puts us more prone to illness or disease.  We don't sleep as well, we don't think as clearly.  For me, it shows up in how I talk, my facial expressions, on my skin etc. So in this audio blog episode, I share how I've taken action by doing things to reduce and prevent stress in me and in my life.  The ones I highlight are:  Made bold decisions, a recent one is I quit my job Give myself wiggle room, I am really careful not to overschedule and overcommit myself Put money into stress reduction, I purchased food warmers for hosting and entertaining Betty Crocker BC-1586CY Buffet Server MaxiMatic EWM-9933 Elite Platinum 3-Tray 2-1/2-Quart Buffet Server, Stainless    Please note:  next month's worksheet is the Self-Care Worksheet.  In your answers for the Stress Management Worksheet, think intervention meaning what to do when stress happens.  Save your prevention strategies for the Self-Care Worksheet.   Want More?  Download the App! Feel better, stronger and more confident with the Affirmation Pod App!  This episode is in the category ”Stress Management" The AP Access App is where you can easily mark your favorites, make your own playlist, download to listen offline and a whole lot more!  It's also where you can sign up for premium access, which gives you all episodes with no ads and no announcements plus bonus content you won’t find on the podcast.  Download the App at AffirmationPodApp.com!              

Professor John T. Clarke discusses the goals of the Mars Maven Mission.TRANSCRIPTSpeaker 1:You're listening to KALX Berkeley 90.7 FM, university of California listener supported radio. And this is method to the madness coming at you from the Public Affairs Department here at Calex, celebrating the innovative spirit of the bay area and beyond. I'm your host. Eileen is r and today we're lucky enough to have with us professor John Clark from Boston University. Hello professor. How are you? Speaker 2:Hello. Good, thanks for having me on. Speaker 1:And Professor Clark, uh, happened to be here in Berkeley and so we got him on the show to talk about, um, [00:00:30] and innovation of his that is now, um, orbiting the planet Mars. The is shell spectrograph. So we want to talk about this and learn a little bit more about it. But first, um, I always start the show talking to someone who's invented something with the same question. What was the problem statement that you trying to solve? Speaker 2:Uh, okay, so this goes back quite a ways. Um, I trained as an astrophysicist and I built experiments to fly in space and try to analyze the data to answer particular [00:01:00] questions. Uh, the system that is flying now at Mars addresses one question, but it started about 25 years ago. Um, I was using another telescope to look at the atmosphere of Jupiter and there was something that we didn't understand and we used that instrument in an unusual way that it wasn't designed really to do. And we were able to figure out what was going on there. So I got the idea and then I built a prototype for this, a shell [00:01:30] spectrograph, um, to fly basically on a test bed on a rocket that just goes up in the space and comes right back down. You only get about five minutes of data. That's called a sounding rocket. Speaker 2:So let me back up a step. A spectrograph is a device that disperses light into the different wavelengths, the spectrum of colors and a usual, a normal spectrograph would have a certain resolution that refers to how much the light is spread out in wavelength. And a shell was a particular [00:02:00] kind of system that uses a different kinds of dispersing optic called an a shell grading. And it spreads the light out a lot more than a usual system. And to do that, you only get a look at a small part of the color spectrum, but you'd get a very good resolution on the different colors or wavelengths. Speaker 1:Now are there different, um, can you see all parts of the spectrum, just basically what it's trained on or is it only a certain part of the spectrum that it can see? Is there a specific thing you're looking for with the magnification [00:02:30] it gives you, Speaker 2:yeah, I mean, I can do an analogy here. If you are up on grizzly peak looking to her mouth, Tablo Pius low resolution system would see from Mount Tam to San Francisco and Michelle was zoomed in on the peak of Mount Tamela pious and get good resolution on that, but not be able to see anything else. Speaker 1:Ah, okay. So the problem statement of the shell spectrograph is to get deeper into the analysis of certain parts of the atmosphere by magnifying it. Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly. It actually magnifies spectrum, [00:03:00] the color spectrum rather than the atmosphere itself. Speaker 1:So as a, as a scientist, um, when you, you recognize the need for this, um, how do you go about, you know, starting to build something like this and now you started this 25 years ago. So I want to kind of go through the story and understand how we've gotten from there to here. But when you first understood, wow, there's a need for this, how do you go about, do you have to go get grant funding or how does that work? Speaker 2:Well, yeah, you start out writing a proposal and maybe calling the person at NASA who would be able to find you, have [00:03:30] a conversation about whether they would be a light to see this kind of a, of a proposal. And I did that when I was assistant professor back in the late eighties and they agreed and then it took several years to develop the system and fly it. And it flew several times on these sounding rockets before we had the opportunity to propose it for this mission to Mars. Speaker 1:Hmm. So, uh, taking a step back real quick. So let's talk a little bit about your background. So your astrophysicists, where did you do your studies? Speaker 2:[00:04:00] Well, I went undergraduate at Denison University in Ohio. I went Grad School in Physics at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. And from Hopkins I came out to Berkeley to the space sciences lab up on the hill for my first job after Grad school. What were you doing up there? I was doing the same general kind of thing I'm doing now, but I was doing it from ground-based telescopes. I spent a lot of time at Lick Observatory and Mount Hamilton in the South Bay. Speaker 1:Okay. And so, uh, from that point you got, did you became an assistant [00:04:30] professor and you saw you were working with a, uh, a telescope that was looking at Jupiter, is that right? Speaker 2:Yeah, so this was a NASA facility. There was an, a very high orbit around the earth. It's called the international ultraviolet explorer. And that's where I got the idea from Jupiter and then I realized I could apply the same kind of instrument to other planets and other problems. Speaker 1:And so, um, you started to build it, you did some space flights or I'm sorry, some, um, some tax space test space flights [00:05:00] to test the feasibility of it. And um, and this seems like it was a, it's like all kind of a lifetime project, right? You're, you're going to balance it, you know, teaching and doing your regular stuff. And this is a long term project. So take us from the time that you start doing the sample flights to now it's on the, this latest, um, mission to Mars who, tell us about that process. How do you get from kind of the samples to actually getting it onto, I'm sure lots of scientists are trying to bolt things onto something that's going to get orbit Mars. Speaker 2:Yeah, [00:05:30] it's very competitive. Um, and this is not the only thing I was doing research wise, but it was one thing kind of on the back burner for awhile. Um, in 2005, I joined the small group of people from University of Colorado and from Berkeley who were planning to propose for a small, relatively small mission to Mars. Um, so we started meeting in 2005. Uh, it was accepted in 2008 and it was launched in 2013 and it arrived at Maurice this past September and [00:06:00] we're now getting data back. So it's a long process. There's no guarantee it's going to go and there's no guarantee it's going to work even if it's funded. And, and they agreed to launch it. Speaker 1:So what is this? It's called the Maven, right? The via in it. Exactly. What is the a, the Mars Maven Maven Speaker 2:as a mission that stands, it's an acronym. Stands for Mars atmosphere. Volatile evolution experiment. So this is basically a global climate change mission for Mars to try to learn about how Mars has evolved [00:06:30] over its lifetime. In what ways have may be similar to the earth or have been similar to the earth when it was young. And in a nutshell, we think that Mars started out like the earth oceans of water. There is a lot of evidence on the surface of Mars today. You can see what looks just like river channels in flowing patterns, but it's dry. It's very dry today. Any water that's there is locked up in the polar ice caps or maybe into the surface itself like a permafrost. So the purpose of Navan [00:07:00] is to not land. There's no, um, rover a maven. It's orbiting around and through the atmosphere of Mars and trying to figure out the detailed physical principles by which the atmosphere of Mars is changing today. And then we could extrapolate back in time and understand what Mars was like in the past. Speaker 1:So is the hypothesis that, um, we can, um, try to understand better how to head off our own potential losing our oceans [00:07:30] by studying Mars or what, what's the, is it, is there that much of a analog that we can draw between that planet and our planet? Speaker 2:Well, you're painting a very particular picture there and worth looking more at a big picture. If we went to understand how planets in general work, we'd like to understand Mars that could teach us something about the earth. We're not really trying to save the Earth by sending a mission to Mars. Uh, we'd like to understand more of these principles to understand these exoplanets that are being found today around other stars. Speaker 1:[00:08:00] Yeah. And tell us about those exoplanets. What are, what are those that are being found today? These new discoveries, right. Speaker 2:There are new discoveries. The, um, technique by which these are found is the reflex motion of the star response to the gravity of the planet. So the first ones that were found were giant planets that were very close to the star. And now as the method improves, we're finding smaller planets farther away. We're not yet at the point of finding an earth, but it's getting close. Speaker 1:So we're, we're speaking with Professor John Clark, uh, [00:08:30] um, from, uh, Boston University who's, uh, luckily here in Berkeley to talk to us about, uh, the shell spectrograph that he has developed that is on the Mars Maven, um, and is, uh, helping to analyze the atmosphere of Mars. So I have one, you know, as a layman who knows nothing about this stuff, there's one thing I don't understand at all is the time lag between information gathered by Maven, right. And coming back to Earth, like how long does that take? Speaker 2:[00:09:00] Uh, well, it's minutes. It's not hours. Um, it's, uh, on the order of maybe 10 minutes. It varies a lot depending on where nick, the, uh, Mars and the earth are in their orbits around the sun. The distance can change dramatically, um, from one time of the year to another. Speaker 1:What's the mechanism through which the information is sent? Speaker 2:It's just a radio transmitter, just like Cadillacs, a little more, well, not probably not more powerful, but it's beamed back toward the earth and their large dishes on the earth, they pick up the signal. [00:09:30] So we send commands to the spacecraft and we get the data down. Speaker 1:Same Way. Wow. So it's, it's, it's, I'm much faster than I would've thought I would have. Like you hear about like these telescopes that go into deep space and, and you know, they're sending images back, but you don't even know if that telescope still exists. But I guess this is totally different because some closer away. So, um, what are the, it's, it's been orbiting Mars for the last six months or so, right? Correct. So what, what are, what are, what are you guys finding? Speaker 2:[00:10:00] Um, we're just, uh, still in the early phases of, of learning about Mars. When you first get a mission to another planet, like this one, the first thing you do is turn everything on and test it out. And you test your ability to command it, to have the onboard computer, do things in the right order and at the right time. And there's always a process of a few months where you understand how it works and, and, and fix things basically. Um, fortunately Neva is working very well. There've been some little hiccups, but basically everything's working. [00:10:30] Uh, we then get getting data back and we're now getting into more of a routine mode where we do the same thing every orbit around Mars. And then we can build up measurements over the course of a Mars year, a Mars orbit around the sun, and start to understand some of these physicals, Speaker 1:the principles. So, um, the, uh, and how long has a Mars year? Last year was about two or three years to earth years. So, and is there a, an expected lifespan of the Maven? Um, uh, is, [00:11:00] is it just called? It's, it's a satellite spacecraft. Yeah. Speaker 2:Yeah. It is a satellite. Um, it's expected to last for five to 10 years. It's built to last a long time. The prime mission for Maven is one earth year around Mars, but we expect that it would be continued for a second earth year to get one full Mars orbit around the sun. And the science team would like to go longer than that. Speaker 1:And so how did, like your involvement, cause you have one part portion of it. Yeah. Um, how, um, how does it work? Is [00:11:30] Do you have like a, I don't, I suppose you have like an iPhone app that's giving you data. I mean, where do you guys collect the information and is it, can you be constantly harvesting the information from your computer or is there different feeds coming from my phone? It's on air book. Nice. Speaker 2:Um, I mean the data come down, they go to the Lockheed's plant south of Denver and then they come to the science centers. And I would like to point out that the lab at Berkeley, the space sciences lab built several of the instruments that are on maven and several of the instruments were built, the University of Colorado. [00:12:00] And I have one channel of one instrument building Colorado. Speaker 1:Okay. And so your, your channel is, the shell spend should respect it is which is a sending back data. And what exactly in the atmosphere as the shell spectrograph looking at in Mars? Speaker 2:That's a good question. The shell spectrograph was designed to measure the ratio of deterioration to hydrogen in the upper atmosphere of Mars. So deterioration is like heavy water. It's a proton with a neutron in it and it has twice the mass of [00:12:30] a hydrogen atom. Um, the, the quick picture here is that when Mars was young, we think it had a lot of water. We think a lot of that water boiled off in the space. The gravity of Mars is only about one quarter of the gravity of the earth. So we think it lost a lot of its atmosphere. They just floated away. Well, it didn't float. Some of the atoms have enough velocity in their head pointing up. They can escape the gravity. It's a small fraction. But if that happened and water was lost water, we break up into hydrogen and oxygen [00:13:00] and about one and a 10 or a hundred thousand of those hydrogens would be deterioration. Now the hydrogen would boil off faster than the deterioration because it's half the mass. So if you lost a lot of water over time, there'd be more deterioration. And the ratio of those two gives you an idea of how much water was lost over the history of the planet. How long do you Speaker 1:thank you? It'll take to, to um, collect enough data for you to have enough to do your extrapolation that you want to make? Speaker 2:Well, we have [00:13:30] a quick look. Now we know that it's working. We're measuring deterioration and hydrogen. Now we get down into the gritty details of exactly how you analyze that and how accurately you can pin down, um, the numbers. But we don't want to just measure it to turn into hydrogen at one time. We want to look at Mars at different latitudes over the course of its seasons and find out if there are variations in the amount of deterioration in the atmosphere. Speaker 1:Now as an astro physicist, um, what is your, um, opinion of, you know, it seems like [00:14:00] the NASA has shifted years under the Obama, one of his big access to stop the space shuttle program and focus on, uh, more of these types of scientific endeavors. Is this the right move for, for us to be doing right now is going further out and looking at Mars and potentially further exploration? Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean if you ask a scientist, they'll say that robotic exploration is the way to go. It's much less expensive. You don't put anybody's life at risk and we can build very [00:14:30] good instruments to send to the other planets. But a lot of people also believe in and support, um, human space flight and getting away from low earth orbit. And that's another thrust of the current, uh, NASA space program. Speaker 1:So, uh, and so the robots like those rovers on Mars and, and Maven is communicating with those rovers. Right? Speaker 2:Uh, it's not, it's just with the earth. Speaker 1:Oh, okay. I thought that there was a relay is there's an ability for it to really, Speaker 2:ah, right. So you're ahead of me here. So maven was built by NASA [00:15:00] with a relay, so that in the future, after the maven science is more or less complete, they will change the orbit and then use the maven spacecraft to relay data from landers on the ground back to the earth in both Speaker 1:after it's kind of primary or first mission is complete. Right. So tell them, tell me a little bit, you know, and we're talking to professor John Clark from Boston University who is a part of the, uh, Mars maven team about the mission to Mars and the Michele spectrograph, [00:15:30] which he invented to help, uh, understand the atmosphere of Mars and climate change on Mars. So tell us a little bit about, um, just the, the scale of building something like a satellite that goes to Mars to figure out this problem. Like, we talked a little bit about it, but how long does it take? How many people are involved? Seems like a really big endeavor. Speaker 2:It is a big endeavor. We started out in 2005 with maybe a dozen, 15 people around the table thinking about how [00:16:00] we'd write the proposal. Um, it ended up with probably at one point a a hundred, 200 people. I'm working on developing the spacecraft and the instruments and testing them. Uh, the instruments were built at different labs around the country. Um, and then they were put together at Lucky's plant, south of Denver. The whole thing was tested. Um, and there's a lot of testing that goes on, um, with these missions cause it's, uh, you know, you launch these things, you can't go back if anything goes wrong. It's like building a car to [00:16:30] last for 10 years without ever changing the oil or filling the gas tank and you know, things can go wrong. Um, so there's very thorough testing on these things. Speaker 1:What's the failure rate of these types of, I mean, I'm sure that the level of testing is beyond what anybody could really imagine, but is what's the failure rate of these types of missions? Speaker 2:Well, if you run it long enough, something will fail 100%. What you want to do is make sure that it's built to last longer than what you need it to do. And this [00:17:00] has gotten very good at this. Um, Lockheed builds very good spacecraft. NASA builds very good instruments. The, um, so you think about a timeline for these things and how long they're going to go. And, um, I'm thinking of a, of an anecdote. I worked for NASA when I was younger and I was at the space flight center in Huntsville, Alabama where Wernher von Brown worked and they still told stories about him and they asked him, how do you make these, these rockets, you know, how do you make them work? It's very risky. Hard [00:17:30] to do. He said, well, we design it and we build it and then we tested until it breaks and then we figure out what went wrong and we tested again and we do that until it doesn't break and then it's ready to fly. So it's the testing program that's more important than trying to figure out everything that can go wrong. Speaker 1:Yeah. And so I'm, I'm a software, so I understand testing software and coming up with, you know, unit tests and system tests and really, really running through that rigor. But I would think that the level of rigor on something like this [00:18:00] must be much, much, um, greater than, than I could imagine. Is there a certain protocol that, you know, NASA puts everything that's going to go into space through that, you know, it has to pass, you know, 50 million checklists or whatever it is, or how does that work? Speaker 2:Right. There is a protocol. You will test it by vibrating the instrument, simulating the vibration of launch. You'll put it through a temperature cycle, hot and cold, more than the range you think we'll experience in space. You have to put it in a vacuum [00:18:30] to simulate the vacuum of space. There are all kinds of things like that. But the other trick that the aerospace industry and NASA use is to try to use things that have flown before that worked and not try something that's brand new, you know, improve the technology gradually and not just start from scratch. Speaker 1:So there's this, there's learnings from the 1960s missions that are kind of baked into, we just continually improve, improve, improve. Speaker 2:Yeah. But there's probably not much left from the 60s, I hope. [00:19:00] But it is Speaker 1:gradual process. Yeah. Interesting. Okay. Well, um, you know what, one question that I wanted to ask you about is, uh, the, there's a certain, um, it seems like the, you know, our, um, humanities race into spaces evolved quite a bit. You know, if I Harken back to the 60s, you had a big competition, but now it seems like there's a lot more collaboration. Is that, is that from an, from a layman's perspective, that's the way it looks. Is that accurate or, we have this, you have just one [00:19:30] international space station and everybody kind of shares. And, um, so is there other other countries involved on the Maven or is it this is a NASA, Speaker 2:we have several European co-investigators. Scientific co-investigators. That's correct. Yeah. And A, we have a couple of people from Japan who are participating in the science, uh, but there's still somewhat of a competition between nations. Okay. The, uh, the Chinese who are trying to do things on their own without getting help from other countries. And, uh, I think that if China landed [00:20:00] on the moon, that might help us in terms of getting this country behind, going back and doing more things in space. Speaker 1:So do you think that there's still much to explore on the moon? We've, we've kind of given up that, uh, before we, we've given up that mission before you really figured out everything and we should've, Speaker 2:well, to me, we've learned a lot about the moon and we should be moving on and doing other things. Um, but I support, um, human space flight. Um, I personally suspect that the future of human space [00:20:30] flight is more in private companies. It might be space x, Elon Musk going to Mars, um, before the government does. And partly I say that just because companies are willing to take on more risk and do things less expensively than the government is. Speaker 1:Yeah. And, and uh, and be more disruptive but potentially be, um, more dangerous. You know, that, that's the scary part of that too. Is that what kind of, there's probably no regulation of space level or maybe there is, I don't know. Speaker 2:Well, the more risk [00:21:00] you take, the more accidents there will be. I think that's true and I expect that things will go wrong. Um, but we know a lot already in terms of building rockets and flying things, launching things into space. And private companies today can take advantage of that history of knowledge and hopefully things will go well. But in the early days of aviation, there were accidents and people got hurt, but they kept going. And that's, I think, the kind of spirit that you need to have. Speaker 1:Yeah, sure. I mean, all great explorers. [00:21:30] They're all gonna eat to cat or yeah. Serious risks with a life and limb. Yeah. I'm the worst. We're speaking with Professor John Clark from Boston University here. Kayla likes Berkeley 90.7 FM. He's a part of the Mars maven team. Uh, it's a satellite that's now orbiting Mars that is, um, uh, sending back information about the atmosphere and climate change on that planet. Um, and Professor Clark also teaches, uh, actively teaches at Boston University. What, what are you teaching there? Right now? Speaker 2:I'm in the department of astronomy. [00:22:00] I teach planetary science, uh, intro astronomy all the way from non-science major undergraduates to advanced Grad students. Speaker 1:Okay. Well I wanted to ask you about, um, you know, as someone who's studied this as a career, what is the, um, you know, in our lifetime we were to say like the next 50 years, what would you say are the big milestones in terms of space exploration that are attainable for us as a race? Speaker 2:Wow. 50 years is kind of a long horizon. Um, [00:22:30] and it's hard to predict. I th I expect that robotic missions will continue to fly over that time period. Um, I think that human space flight will develop, there are a lot of people who have decided that Mars is the place for human beings to go next. It's, um, it's very risky. There's a lot of questions about radiation, about keeping people healthy. Um, it's not going to be an easy thing to do, but I can see that happening in less than 50 years. Yeah. Now, another thing that I find [00:23:00] more interesting in the shorter term, like 10, 10 ish years, is these, um, these things like virgin galactic where they're building ways to take people up into space and come right back down. And I think that, um, a lot of people alive today will have the choice of the cost will come down as they do it more and more. I think they'll have the choice of buying a car or flying in space. It'll be at that cost level. Speaker 1:But flying is patients on a Lark just to experience zero gravity or to actually [00:23:30] go from one part of the planet to the other. Speaker 2:So when I go into a room with a bunch of students, I ask them if you could spend 20 k and flying the space, how many of you would do it? And I wait about three seconds. And then I say, if your hand isn't up, you're not going to do it. If you're thinking about whether it's a idea, yeah, you're not the ones who will be on these first slides. Speaker 1:So it's going to be some kind of a, a something for the Uber rich kind of like to say, Oh yeah, I've been in space. That kind of thing. Speaker 2:A lot of people can afford to buy a car and they might prefer to ride the bus and have the experience [00:24:00] of flying in space. Speaker 1:Yeah. Interesting. Okay. Um, what about, um, as we find these more exoplanets, um, what is your, what is your feeling on what's out there? Is there, is there life out there that we're going to be, um, able to, I know it's the million dollar question by you, someone who's studied this your whole career probably. So what's your feeling? Speaker 2:Um, well I don't, I won't give you any feelings, but I thought about it. We see so many other stars, so many other galaxies and now we're finding so many planets [00:24:30] around nearby stars. It's become clear that most stars have planets around them. They're very common. They're just, if you look at the numbers that are going to be so many of them out there, that there have to be a lot of them that are similar to the earth. And there may be forms of life that we have not dreamt of that could be on other kinds of planets. So if you just look at the numbers, the Azar, there's life all over the universe. So that's the good news. Now the other news is that as far as we know, nothing can travel faster than the speed of light [00:25:00] and at that speed there may be life all over the universe and we'll never find it just because of the distance. It's going to be hard. It may be close by. Okay. I'm not saying it's impossible, but most of it we will probably never be in contact with. Speaker 1:Do you think we'll ever be able to really know? You know, explain it. I mean this is the big question. You know, you have like religion versus science and there's this big leap of faith. You kind of have to take it either way. Like you're saying there, it's probably out there, but how are we ever going to know [00:25:30] unless they come? Someone does can travel faster than the speed of light and show up in our doorstep. Speaker 2:Well, what I described is what we understand today. Now I'm willing to change my mind that the drop Speaker 3:you're a scientist, Speaker 2:it's been, you know, very dangerous to assume that you know too much, uh, throughout history. Speaker 1:Yeah. You know, I always think about 'em, um, as again, someone who is not an astrophysicist about star trek, which is a lot of my understanding of this. And they have the, um, the premise that there's [00:26:00] higher, um, forms that are watching us waiting for us to be able to unlock some secrets of interstellar travel. And once we do, then they show up and say, okay, you know, now you have to learn how to responsibly travel. And you know, perhaps that's uh, that's out there cause there's potential to have so many different kinds of life forms up there. So Speaker 2:it's fun to think about and there's a lot we don't know. But another thing that scientists talk about is a thing called the Thermi paradox. And Rico fare made decades ago said, if there's other life in the [00:26:30] universe, where is it? How come we don't know about it? Why haven't they come here and contacted us? And that's a different way of looking at the same question. Speaker 1:Yeah. So, um, uh, in closing the professor John Clark here from Boston University and on KLX Berkeley in 90.7 FM, if you were to kind of wave your magic wand and get your wildest dreams from this maven exploration and the shell spectrograph that you put on it, what would you, what would you find out? What would be the big, you know, victory for you? Speaker 2:We would learn everything we need [00:27:00] to know about the escape of water into space from Mars to be able to go back 3 billion years and know what Mars was like when it was young. Was Mars earth-like and for how long was that earth-like? Long enough for life to begin on Mars, a questions like that. Speaker 1:All right, well hopefully we'll find that out and it's not, it's going to be pretty quick like in the next couple of years. Right. This is the great, well, best of luck. Thanks so much for the exploration you're doing for all of us. Hopefully we'll all get to learn about it. And you can follow, um, [00:27:30] the Mars may even, there's a page on NASA I believe, that you can find. You can just Google a maven and you will see that. And thanks so much for joining us, professor. Speaker 2:It's a pleasure. Thank you. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Lisa Kiefer interviews Harold Goldstein, PhD., the founding executive director of the California Center for Public Health Advocacy, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to improving the health of CaliforniansTRANSCRIPTSpeaker 1:Method to the madness is next. Speaker 2:You're listening to method to the madness, a biweekly public affairs show on k a l experts celebrating bay area 10 Oh Lisa keeper. And today I'm interviewing the founder and executive director of the California Center for Public Health Advocacy, Harold Goldstein, Dr Goldstein's, innovative public policies address the conditions that perpetuate, [00:00:30] you'll be Citi epidemic here in California. [inaudible] welcome to the program, Harold, Speaker 3:as a pleasure to be here. Lisa, thanks so much for having me. You founded the California Center for Public Health Advocacy way back in 1999 did, it seems like a long [00:01:00] time ago now. 15 years. What do you do over there? You know, what we do is we were one of the lead organizations in California that's addressing the obesity and diabetes epidemics. And we, we look at it from a public health perspective, from a community perspective. We say, what is it that's going on that's leading to have so many kids, especially in kids and teens being overweight and having now diabetes. A quarter of all teenagers in this country now have diabetes or prediabetes, and that's not happening. [00:01:30] Um, by chance it's happening because we live in a world that is promoting and perpetuating these epidemics by putting soda and junk food everywhere we turn by making, making physical activity, um, more and more difficult making sedentary lifestyles as easy as possible. Speaker 3:What led you to found this policy institute? It's a good question. You know, I had been working at the La county health department, um, at the time and I was working on some issues that were starting to teach [00:02:00] me about this epidemic. I, I met a researcher there who had been working in east la and um, he was the first guy I'd ever met who showed that 30 to 40% of kids in the Mana bellow school district in east La were overweight in that school district. Now I'm sure there's 50% of kids who are overweight, but in 1999, that was a first time I'd ever heard about childhood obesity. And I realized that most policy makers, they didn't know about childhood obesity [00:02:30] either. And things have only gotten worse. Why didn't they know about it? Well, I think in 1999 obesity was really a new issue for all of us in public health. Speaker 3:I think a lot of people were more concerned about hunger and they were about obesity. It was really a new issue to a whole lot of us and when I saw those numbers I realized that if that many kids were overweight in this one particular community and I started looking at some other data of what was going on elsewhere, I realized this is one of the top [00:03:00] public health issues that need to be addressed and there just weren't that many other organizations doing that. So then you started your organization, started the organization. Again, we focus on public policy. We think that state and local policies should encourage and support people in making healthy choices rather than undermine those choices. What are some of the conditions that you have discovered over the years that lead to this? One of the first things we did is we held a series of town hall meetings all over La and we talked about this issue of childhood obesity and we asked people what? Speaker 3:What do you think [00:03:30] we should be doing about it? And one of the issues that came up over and over again with school food, and it turned out that in 1999 and really up until 2006 when we got final legislation passed, schools were as much about perpetuating and causing the problem as they were about solving the problem schools that were selling soda and junk food and very unhealthy meals. No one was really looking at those and, and saying, we as, uh, the government [00:04:00] that policy makers and we as citizens can have an influence over what kind of foods and beverages our schools are selling our kids. And simultaneously PE programs, fiscal education programs, or nonexistent sending. Yeah. So we, in in 2005 did a study that showed that at least half of all school districts weren't meeting minimum physical education requirements. So here on the one hand, we've got schools selling soda and junk food to our kids and at the same time, no longer [00:04:30] even providing quality physical education, selling junk food and sodas were their vending machines. Speaker 3:How did they, how did they actually sell? Yeah, I mean, and so a school sell food and a variety of different ways and their cafeteria, um, and they're all a cart line you can buy even today. Of course, you can still buy lots of food and the all the cart line or his whole meals in those days before 2005 when, when Governor Schwarzenegger signed our bills to get [00:05:00] soda and junk food out of schools, there was soda and candy bars and Gipps everything else that you could imagine the worst of the worst soda and junk food you'd buy right there in the cafeteria or in vending machines and school stores as fundraisers, pretty much schools had become soda and junk food. Superstores and what we did through public policy is to say, we got to draw a line someplace. At the very least, schools should be prohibited from selling the worst of the worst of these projects yourself. Speaker 3:I do, I have an 11 year old, [00:05:30] so I know, I mean, it's um, kids are gonna eat what's put in front of them. Schools have a responsibility to be a part of the solution, not a part of the problem. So you started at 99 and you're talking about legislation that was enacted in 2005 to support your research and findings. Can you talk just a little bit about, you know, six years. What was the process of getting? Yeah, so it was, it was a series of changes that went into effect. Um, our very first bill in 1999 [00:06:00] was w what I now look back on as being rather naive. We, we had a bill that was going to simultaneously get soda and junk food out of schools, established the nation's first soda tax, put stronger requirements on physical education. W We threw everything in to one bill. Speaker 3:We learned a lot in that process. And one of the things was you got to do this one piece at a time and the soda and junk food out of schools. We became really our, our top priority. And so over the course from then 2001 [00:06:30] we got, we defined what the nutrition standards would be in 2003 we got sodas out of elementary and middle schools. And then in 2005 under the Schwarzenegger administration, we got sodas out of high schools and we got just really good strong nutrition standards k through 12. So it took a long time. You know, at one time I would have said six years is a long time. I look back on it and say, you know, for, for making a real major public [00:07:00] policy change, six years isn't that long. And then what we did in California, um, spread across the country and now federal law, federal law, same kinds of the first lady. Speaker 3:Ms. Obama took those same kinds of standards and has made that federal law. Did you meet any challenges from big food producers that actually make these products? Oh yeah. You know, the food and beverage industry fought tooth and nail against this and every other things that we've done. You know, there are a lot [00:07:30] of people that make a lot of money making our kids fat and giving them diabetes, right? We live in a a market economy that really encourages people to find products and to market products that they can sell as much of as possible. And so we know going into this that, uh, those are going to be our biggest opponents and that's our job is to encourage, convince, cajole legislators to take their responsibility seriously [00:08:00] about drawing some limits about what these corporations can do, the big food industry, probably through a lot of ad money against this law. Speaker 3:Did you meet one on one? What was, what were your sharing? I mean, we certainly met one on one with them. Um, I think that the most important thing, and one of the things I've learned through this work in, in the obesity and diabetes world, it's been true that the truth wins out by, over and over again. I'm highlighting the extent of the childhood [00:08:30] obesity epidemic and now over and over again highlighting the extent and of the diabetes epidemic and the pain and suffering going on in California families. And communities and the costs and medical costs, the healthcare costs of these problems. By highlighting all of those things over time, legislators get the message and we also organize tens of thousands of Californians to call their legislators to get involved in this process because [00:09:00] we all know we, we want our communities to be safe and healthy for our kids. Speaker 3:You always organize organizer. How did you get those skills? How did I get those skills? I'm not sure as a little kid, I grew up here and in Oakland and um, I remember being eight, nine, 10 and listening to talk radio talk radio started in, in San Francisco. And I learned very early on somehow deeply what the political process is all about. And I grew up in the, in the 60s where social [00:09:30] justice, uh, the black panthers were doing their work in Oakland. And I think I absorbed that deep into my bones and all my life, I've wanted to do some things to make the world a better place for our kids, for the next generation. And when I met that researcher back in the late nineties and saw how many kids were overweight, I realized this is one of those issues that I could commit my life to see it a lot here in Oakland to oh my gosh, it's um, it used to be, I remember [00:10:00] back in the nineties talking about when you were just starting this stuff, I would fly back to the Midwest and that's where I would notice it first. Speaker 3:It's like, it seemed like everyone was kind of oddly obese. It was not like just overweight, you know, it seemed very sudden. Yeah, no, it's really, it really started right around the 1970s we commissioned a study from the UC Berkeley Center for weight and health a few years back. And we posed the question to them, how much of the obesity epidemic are sugary drinks responsible for? If you look just at sugary drinks, how [00:10:30] much of the epidemic are they responsible for? And what they showed was that between 1977 and 2001 and that's really when the obesity epidemic was taking off between 1977 and 2001, um, the average American was consuming 278 more calories per day. That's all a lot of extra calories. Um, all of a sudden, and it really wasn't took off in 1977 of that 278 more calories, 43% [00:11:00] of those are just new soda calories, sugary drinks. Speaker 3:So when I say sugary drinks, I mean soda in sports drinks and energy drinks, vitamin waters, all of those things. And it's just, it's a prime example. And I actually think one of the most important examples of how the world changed between the time I was a kid in the 1960s to where we are today. When I was a kid, we rarely, only on special occasions would have a soda or sugary drink. And if we did it would [00:11:30] be a little bit, it would be a treat. Today there are sugary drinks almost everywhere we go. They're served not in six. And a half pounds a bottles or even 12 ounce scans. Now when you go to a vending machine, they're 20 ounce bottles and when you go to a fast food restaurant, they are refillable 32 ounce cups every and they're sold my favorite. There's, there's a soda vending machine at the, uh, auto parts store in Davis. Speaker 3:There are soda vending machines on every floor of the Sacramento [00:12:00] airport. Now, I don't know where they are in other airports too, but everywhere you go there, soda the world we live in the environment, the, the places that we live are now hocking us soda. Everywhere we turn everything we're not turning and we aren't turning very much. Uh, the beverage industry. Uh, there's a great book by Michael Moss, a New York Times investigative reporter called sugar fat and salt, and he got the inside documents from the beverage industry just like research has gotten inside documents, offend that tobacco [00:12:30] industry. Michael Moss got the inside papers from the food and beverage industry and in his chapter on sodas he talks about how the beverage industry uses the most sophisticated research to figure out what they are inside the beverage industry, what they call the bliss point, the exact amount of sugar and flavor and Fizz. Speaker 3:My guess is they even, they even test the sound of the cap opening like what is it that all suck us in as [00:13:00] much as possible and they seduce us, right? They do everything in their power to get us to buy their products and then when we do, they blame us for it. Right now obviously we have some choice about what are we going to do and what aren't we going to do, but a lot of that choice is influenced by the marketing of these companies. Like that's the reason the beverage industry spends $400 million marketing their products to kids and teens. You were talking about some other things you've done since you did some labeling. Yeah. So we got soda and junk food [00:13:30] out of schools finally in in 2005 and then we work with governor Schwartzenegger to get first ever funding for physical education in 2006 first ever funding. Speaker 3:There had never been, never been dedicated funding for [inaudible] schools. You know, they would use whatever funding they already had, but there was no dedicated funding just for PE. So that was 2006 and then we, and that's true for all the nation wide. There are some other states that that did have funding. And so that's part of what we did was fine [00:14:00] first ever here in California have had funding for elementary school PE. And then we, we worked, it took a couple of years to, to get the first ever state legislation requiring calorie information on Menus and menu boards. So if your listeners go to restaurants now, chain restaurants, at least the nutrition information, the calorie information is on the menus and menu boards significant. It is significant. I mean, one of the things I learned in doing that was, um, just personally, if I go out to a restaurant and I'm looking at a [00:14:30] menu and I think I know what's the healthier choice or what's not, I actually, Speaker 2:I have no idea if you're just tuning in, you're listening to method to the madness, a biweekly public affairs show on k a l x Berkeley Celebrating Bay area innovators. Today I'm interviewing the founder and executive director of the California Center for Public Health Advocacy, Harold Goldstein. Because just [00:15:00] because the Speaker 3:menu says garden fresh something or other, it doesn't say anything about how many calories are in it. It doesn't say how much is fat isn't it has an even more, it doesn't, doesn't say how big the portion is, right? So you go to, um, you know the cheesecake factory and they bring you a truck and, and offload a salad and your plate and you think, well, it's a salad. It must be good for you. But you know, can speak, it could be thousands of calories. Quite literally. You said it's just chain restaurants. Where do we, you see these menus [00:15:30] with the calorie. So the, that menu labeling law was also then adopted by the Obama administration mandating, um, calorie information on chain restaurants all over the country, just chain rest, just chain restaurants. It's 20, 20 restaurants or more. But the, unfortunately the implementation of that law is now caught up in the implementation of Obamacare and the feds haven't yet put out the regulations to say, here's how it's going to be implemented. Speaker 3:So, um, there's still [00:16:00] some more work to do to the, to State California. It's, well, if it had happened for a while, but then once the feds took it and, and included it as part of healthcare reform, it's now it's slowed down. There's some restaurants that have taken them away. So we're, we're waiting for the federal government to issue their regulations to define how that's going to be going into effect. Just recently you had another bill SB 1000. Yeah. So throughout all of this work, um, it's why I've been talking already, Lisa, about sugary drinks. More [00:16:30] and more information is coming out about really how harmful sugary drinks are. So we got sodas out of schools in California in 2006 or 2005 we at least got the bills passed and uh, to put calorie information about sodas and other things on chain restaurant menus. But a lot more needs to be done to educate people about really how harmful these sugary drinks are. Speaker 3:Can you talk a little bit about, yeah, so, so s yeah, so SB 1000 would've been the first [00:17:00] would have made California the first state in the nation to require warning labels on sugary drinks. The bill made it through the Senate in its first year, which is really quite an accomplishment. And what the, what the warning label says is the consumers should be aware that soda and other sugary beverages contribute to diabetes, obesity and tooth decay. So let's talk your question of how bad are they? You know, I think a lot of people know that sugary drinks aren't great for you. It's not like [00:17:30] eating Broccoli. I don't think most people know how really bad it is. I didn't know. I mean, unless you're reading medical journals, there's no way you'd know. One 20 ounce soda has 16 teaspoons of sugar, so imagine putting 16 teaspoons in your coffee in them. Speaker 3:Drink two sodas a day for just two weeks, two sodas a day for two weeks, and your LDL cholesterol, your bad cholesterol goes up 20% drink two sodas a day for six months, and the amount of fat in your liver goes up 150% [00:18:00] these, this isn't just kind of bad for you. This stuff is really bad for, and here's how it works. No wonder we're getting so much diabetes. It is exactly why we're getting diabetes because it's, we consume this in liquid form. Liquid sugar is a lot worse for you than if you eat a candy bar. It takes hours to digest. If you drink a soda or other sugary drink because it's in liquid form, we absorb that sugar and as little as 30 minutes, we get this enormous pulse of sugar that spike in sugar. [00:18:30] Over time, it starts to wear out your pancreas, which is what regulates your sugar levels. Speaker 3:And a lot of that sugar gets converted into fat, right in your liver. And so that's why drink two sodas a day for six months, and you get 150% increase in liver fat. That liver fat also contributes to diabetes. So the combination of fatty liver and worn out pancreas is exactly what causes diabetes. And if you look at the numbers, [00:19:00] um, two thirds of California teens drank a soda, other sugary drink a day. So what they're doing is virtually injecting 16 teaspoons of sugar right into their veins over time. Of course, it's having these consequences. As I said earlier, a quarter of teenagers in this country today have either diabetes or prediabetes. Pat Crawford, the head of the UC Berkeley Center for weight and health, um, says, how bad did this, does this epidemic have to [00:19:30] get before we start telling the truth about sugary drinks? So why did it die in the legislature? Speaker 3:The reason it died is because the beverage industry did everything they could imagine to fight this bill. You know, this does that mean? So what it means is they hired as many lobbyists as they could. We actually know that they contacted every Latino lobbying firm in Sacramento to try to hire them. They made up their own stories, really about [00:20:00] sugary drinks. Um, they're coming up with their own research. They hired a phd nutritionist from UC Davis to testify virtually to say there's no difference between eating an apple and drinking a soda. They both have sugar and the body doesn't notice the difference. Now, I, you know, in the old days, in the old days, um, the tobacco industry would hire doctors to be their spokespeople for smoking cigarettes. The beverage industry is doing those same kinds of things where they're, they're doing [00:20:30] their own research that even though it's, you know, the real scientists who don't have skin in the game, or I'm proving it wrong, they're coming up with their own research. Speaker 3:They're hiring their own quote unquote experts to try to undermine what is universally recognized as the fact that these sugary drinks are just kind of bad for you. They are really bad for you. And when your kids are drinking them, you're putting your kids on a straight path to getting diabetes. What [00:21:00] do you do next to get this bill through? You don't give up obvious. No, obviously, you know, I went to, I've told the lobbyists for the fast food industry and when we were working on menu labeling, you know, if, if you want to keep fighting us, we'll keep fighting you and we'll keep getting the message out about how unhealthy fast food is. And I say the same thing to the beverage industry. You know, if you want to keep fighting us and you want us to, to keep hammering on you and keep educating consumers about how bad [00:21:30] your products are, we'd we'd be happy to. Speaker 3:That's, that's the business we're in. We're in the business of educating consumers and we're educating consumers all along the way. And then how long before you can bring it up again to the assembly? So the legislature is going to be for this year, it's, it's over. But we can reintroduce it and begin to every year if we want to. Um, and I think it's, it's imperative that we do, consumers need to know, the most important way to educate consumers about how [00:22:00] harmful these products are is to put a warning label right there on the front of every bottle so that moms can see for themselves which products are healthy and which aren't telling you a story. I was at the park with my son not long ago and another mom was there with her child and she asked me what I did and I started talking about this public health work and she says, yeah, I don't let my kids drink any of that sugary stuff. Speaker 3:I make sure they drink this. And she pulls out of her purse a box of some sort of juicy juice, you know, [00:22:30] and I said, well, let's see what's, what's in that. It was the same stems, all high fructose Corn Syrup, right? So because it said juicy juice, she assumed it was a 100% cheese and it wasn't at all is virtually Coca Cola or Pepsi Cola with 5% fruit juice in it. And she thought it was healthy because it had the word juice on. If there was a warning label right on that container, she wouldn't be confused. She'd choose a healthier product for herself. Educating people about what are the [00:23:00] different sugars and which, which products are are good for you and which products are leading to diabetes. There's also a lot of caffeinated beverages like red bull and you know what about that stuff? Yeah, so you said a whole other issue now it's really part of the exact same issue. Speaker 3:You know, one of the things that the beverage industry has done over the last 30 years is they have dramatically expanded their product line. So what used to be just coke and Pepsi [00:23:30] is now there's broad array of products that commonly sound healthy sports drinks. Those must be good for you. Well, they're not. They're just sugar and salt. That's what an electrolyte is, is just salt. You and your kids don't need any more salt. Most Americans are eating twice as much salt as they need vitamin water. My Gosh, that must be good for you. It's got vitamins in it. No, it's not. It has very small amounts of vitamins and it's got the same amount of sugar as everything else. Um, and energy drinks, like you're talking about, [00:24:00] energy drinks are some of the sweetest beverages you can buy. They're the most sugar of, of any products. Speaker 3:Really odd, I have to say. I've never tried one. Maybe I should taste terrible. They are very artificial. Yes. So they are spiked with caffeine, they're spiked with other cold supplements. But these are things like Guarana and towering that most people have no idea what these things are. What those things do is they accentuate their, their, uh, [00:24:30] a kind of caffeine like substance and they accentuate the caffeine. So now, especially for kids and teens, this is dangerous stuff. There've been teenagers that have died, literally died from drinking too much of this stuff. It's got the sugar and it's got just way too much stimulant for our kids and teens to be able to handle what happens physically when you have too much of it. Too much. Your heart goes into Techie Cardia you've heartily, um, go into a arrhythmia and a can stop. [00:25:00] So there are a number of cases of kids going to the emergency room and some unfortunately have died. Speaker 3:And it's part of your battle part includes these. Absolutely. So these, these beverages have just as much or more sugar than other ones. And part of what we're doing is educating consumers about how bad these products are and the harmful effects of them. Where do you get the money to fight the big companies? So we are fortunate to have funding from some foundations. We're also very [00:25:30] fortunate to have donations from people all over California, all over the country, really, um, who want to be a part of this movement to make sure that our kids, um, live longer lives than their parents instead of what's, what's predicted now is kids born in the year 2000 are going to have shorter lives and their parents. So people all over the country who are willing to and want to be a part of taking on the beverage industry. Speaker 3:The food industry are a part of the work we do. And together we're making a difference. How many people work for the California [00:26:00] Center for Public Health Advocacy? We've got about 30 people all over California. We have an office in Davis Office and a lot on volunteers. We would depend a lot on volunteers and a lot on like I say, donations from people who, who like us see this as really a critically important issue and want to make uh, the lives of kids healthier. Do you have any other future issues on the back burner that you are really looking forward to starting work on? [00:26:30] You know, I think the, the, this issue of warning labels and soda is certainly one of them. It's, it's a part of a broader issue of diabetes prevention. You know, we just issued a report a few months ago showing that a third of everyone in California hospitals today has diabetes. Speaker 3:One out of three hospital beds is filled with someone with diabetes. 43% of Latinos, 40% of African Americans and Asians and hospitals today have diabetes. This is a crisis [00:27:00] of enormous proportions. The American Diabetes Association has said that higher healthcare costs are driven largely by rising rates of diabetes. If we want health care costs to get under control in this country, we need to get the diabetes epidemic under control. You know, I think unfortunately people think if people don't have contact with, um, a friend or family member with diabetes, I think they often, they go ahead, take my insulin, take my medication. And that's the end of the story. Um, but unfortunately, diabetes [00:27:30] leads to nerve damage, blindness, amputations, kidney disease in the last 30 years. The number of people in the United States who are, who have end stage renal disease, this means that their kidneys aren't working and they need to be on dialysis. Speaker 3:The number of people in the last 30 years, they're getting federal reimbursement to medicare covers. Um, healthcare costs for this. The number of people with diabetes caused end stage renal disease who are [00:28:00] getting treatment has gone up 39 fall. Unbelievable. So we're talking about a disease that at its worst leads to amputation, dialysis, and the need for kidney transplant. Like how bad does it have to get? And we have shortage of transplants. So if we do have an armature multiple transplants, so w we we need to do everything we can. I think that the simplest thing we can do is let people know about this direct link between liquid sugar, soda and other sugary [00:28:30] drinks and diabetes, and then we need to start moving upstream and make sure that people get the testing and the treatment that they need before they end up in the hospital. Speaker 3:It's going to be a lot of listeners who want to know more about your organization. Do you have a website? I'm sure you do. Absolutely. Tell us what that is. It's a public health advocacy.org we also have a great website just on sugary drinks called kick the can.info, so public health advocacy.org and kick the can.info. All too often we buy into [00:29:00] the food industry mantra that says that obesity and diabetes are all about personal responsibility. It was very painful to me. I think it's time that we make it clear collectively to the food and beverage industry that they have responsibility to will make healthy choices, but we need to draw some lines on how extreme their marketing and advertising [00:29:30] efforts are that are convincing our kids to consume their products that are leading directly to diabetes. Well, thank you for being on the program today. On my sessions, Speaker 2:you've been listening to method to the madness. If you have questions or comments about this show, go to the k a l x website. Find method to the madness and drop us an email. Tune in again in two weeks. At the same time, [00:30:00] have a great weekend. Speaker 4:[inaudible] Speaker 2:[inaudible]. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The legendary film director and bon viveur Michael Winner was a regular contributor to many Whistledown programmes over the years. There've been plenty of tributes in recent days - but here he is reminiscing about his love of film trailers in a 2009 programme for Radio 4 called, "Never Before in the History of Motion Pictures". Patrick Humphries is the presenter, and Katrina Fallon the producer.