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Introducing the All Def SquADD Cast show “Versus". It's a podcast with the OG SquADD! Each week, the SquADD will debate topics and vote at the end to see what wins. Versus airs every Monday and you can download and listen wherever podcasts are found. Special Guest Chinedu Unaka  Kevin Simpson This Week We Discuss Fight 1 Kangaroo vs 3 Honey Badgers  Become Rich But Can't Help Family vs Have A Rich Family That Mistreats You Mexican Cuisine vs Asian Cuisine S/o To Our Sponsors Cash App Download Cash App For a limited time, new Cash App customers can earn $10 if they use code CASHAPP10 in their profile at signup and send $5 to a friend within 14 days.  Terms apply.

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I'm like "Just the water." There you go "Just the water." But anyhow I say all that to say the blue plate special of the day at McBee's whether you're eating healthy or not they got you covered 'cause you can do the chicken breast but today's Thursday the special is red sauce spaghetti and it is oh so good if you like spaghetti I'm not even a red sauce spaghetti fan I like alfredos- Really Okay and the chicken spaghettis and stuff But I will eat it here and there Like if somebody cooks it I'm not pushing it away But I did I wanted to try everything on the menu Yeah So I could honestly give you my my opinion on it Their red sauce spaghetti's great but if that's not your thing they do have um hamburger steak which is works great for keto They have chicken breast or country fried steak And of course the vegetables okra and stewed tomatoes black-eyed peas turnip greens rice and gravy side salad lima beans green beans mashed potatoes mac and cheese fried okra or fries So you know if you been doing this long enough you know you can create you a carb less plate lunch right there from McBee's And uh I I went a little half and half yesterday I did get the fried okra 'cause they have in my opinion the best fried okra in town It's hard to pass fried okra man It it it really is Let's uh let's take a call real quick before we jump into this conversation on the Mazda Jackson phone line Hey good morning you're on the air Good morning Clay Uh I was headed toward I-220 yesterday going to Industrial Drive take my son some lunch I live in Rankin County of course But on the way up there that going there is nothing but a junk It's trash and I was thinking since the fair was gonna be in town everybody was gonna clean up everything mattresses on the highway Uh it was just it was just unbelievable And where was that at 20 westbound going to I-220- Oh oh to Industrial Drive Oh oh yeah It was terrible Yeah it it's bad C- like of course I come through there every day and I'm just wildly disappointed I will say that at least up through the Ellis Avenue area there they do have the street lights working again Uh so kudos to MDOT for that Okay Okay but everything else it it was just terrible the fair will be here today and they would have everything cleaned up but no Ah it's unfortunate- So but hey what you know if you don't expect anything you won't be disappointed when you don't get it.That is true And I didn't expect nothing else from out of Highlands County But thank you Have a great day Enjoy the show Bye You Thanks I love- Look- I love my callers Ca- can I say this though I actually do think that Mayor John Horn's doing a good job so far I do too Yeah I mean look are are there things that people wish would happen faster Yeah But if you look at sort of the level of activity you know just getting out and filling potholes and paving streets and the stuff that's the basic blocking and tackling I think they're looking for the right police chief obviously right now Um you gotta give them a little credit compared to where we were were you know just- Oh sure a few months ago Well you know it's like I said for the the year leading up to the election whoever wins if they'll just come in and quit doing all the wrong things right they'll they're gonna look really smart Just just letting you know like a like letting a a s- a let- letting a a wound heal on your arm a scab If we just quit picking at it it'll heal Uh the last mayor and the administration in general just kept picking at scabs And for the analogy here it's like uh traditionally you know for 100 years for government to run correctly you just take a right take a right take a right Uh at every opportunity to take a traditional right chalk away to the left And if you would just get back to taking the rights just doing the right thing period You don't have to be the smartest guy in the room but it's gotten so bad if you'll just do that again you're gonna look great And I think John's getting back to just do it just let's just quit trying to reinven- vent the wheel and just let it go round and round and some of this will autocorrect Yeah and look John's smart Um I think he's surrounding himself with some smart people I mean we'll see how it plays out It's earl- it's too early to say that it's going to be a a raving success But comparatively already they're doing things and I think have kind of built the right kind of team Um and then you know you look at the level of cooperation that I think you're going to get from the legislature from the governor um they all like him I mean he had a history of working across the aisle and being easy to talk to and easy to work with And I think people are gonna want to help um you know as we come up into this next session And so I think Jackson's like if if I I know part of of your brand has been like hey Jackson's not where it needs to be and that's true I think Jackson has an opportunity right now to right some wrongs Yeah 100% Look I said it straight up Now there's gonna be some things I talk about 'cause this this is my brand this is my show I mean I'm going to talk about Jackson crime and some of the things I see that are just- Sure out of control But like just the culture rot more so But I did say I'm I'm gonna give it a year bef- unless there's something just egregious I'm gonna give John a year to find the bathrooms so to say before I start really peeling back and you know being nitpicky 'Cause I I think that there's gonna be a lot there's a lot to un- to un-F around here and I'm gonna give him an opportunity to get that get his people in place let them figure out where the bathrooms are at And I'll be honest there the these people I think the expectation is you gotta come in and start working from day one and you're seeing that You mentioned it with the potholes And so these people they're hiring they seem to be hitting the ground running and that's uh wildly impressive uh based on the last 7 or 8 years And look I I would say this too is like uh it's possible to do both things to recognize that progress is being made in a way that is at least somewhat encouraging and simultaneously not to hide from the fact that there's some significant challenges in Jackson that are gonna be hard for anybody to solve for Uh no no doubt No doubt Because I I look I'm exci- I'm optimistic for the first time instead of pessimistic that some things are gonna get done and that we're gonna start enforcing some laws around here And little stuff like code ordinance and whatnot are gonna be big things And not just Quit just going after businesses to go after How about start going after people for the broke down cars in their yard All this little stuff You know get back to the quality of life things Get back to people holding the people accountable for not cutting their grass holding businesses accountable uh illegal signage I mean let's get back to enforcing what's on the books Code ordinances to me is just like the number one thing that the last administration just said "Nah We're we're not gonna bully the citizens." Yeah I mean I think this is true not just in Jackson but everywhere but having pride in where you live is a pretty good indicator of how of of the quality of life that you're gonna have Well you know look Russ one of the things for me that really grinded my gears and I did not intend to get on this but we're here now uh there's a crew of guys and God bless them and I don't talk about them much but it's the guys they're all from like Rankin and Madison County and they've been cleaning the interstates and all that It's Casey Bridges and some other guys and they're doing they're doing great great work Uh but uh there's a part of me that wishes they didn't do it and this is just selfish I get it I should be glad they're doing it and I should I should give them their roses right But they're they're doing it for a bunch of people who really don't appreciate it overwhelmingly They the second they cleaned up the interstate pressure wash it all their stuff these people and some of the comments I've seen online from people is "Y'all supposed to be doing it Y'all should be doing it We shouldn't be having to Y'all all left Jackson The least you can do is come back and clean it." I'm like how about thank you How about that H- how about y'all clean your own city Or how about I don't know the people that we pay taxes to clean and pressure wash the interstates and bridges and everything else how about they do You know Like the citizenry shouldn't have to be uh doing Yeah look and I think there's I think there's a danger a- and I came up in churches I came up doing mission work um and part of the danger that I saw in church mission work is like you would take a group of youth to some city right in the United States presumably with the thought that you were gonna share the gospel of Christ but really it was a work trip And you'd go into a neighborhood and you'd clean up trash or you'd paint houses um and and you were helping to beautify where people lived and at some level it reinforces bad behavior right Because in an ideal world some random person doesn't come and clean Russ's yard- Right 'cause Russ is trashy Russ gets out and cleans his yard because he cares enough about where he lives whether it's an 800 square foot or 8,000 square foot house right He cares enough about where he lives that he's gonna take care of his own property And if everybody does that communities get a lot safer they get a lot closer to each other um and so at some level it's reinforcing um bad behavior if somebody else comes and does it for you when it's something that you're capable of doing yourself and should be motivated to do Yeah How about don't throw trash out your car when you're driving down the interstate That's a good start How about don't litter so people don't have to do this Yeah I mean these are real simple things You know we're we're rewarding bad behavior Well how about y'all come pressure wash my driveway cut my yard I'm doing I'm doing good You know what I'm saying And look there are there are exceptions to this right If you have if you have an 85-year-old live-in widow who can't get out and cut the grass then I think it's awesome that somebody will go and volunteer to cut her grass Amen And that should happen right And so that's that's a different scenario Like I would rather see that energy put in that direction you know find out the little who the little old ladies are that need the help the little old men whatever Let's And I'm not saying people aren't helping them but I'd rather see that than um cleaning up the interstates and all that stuff Again I think they're d- I don't want to diminish what they're doing I think it's great But I feel like you're enabling the people who are littering and doing this I don't know I'm just wildly conflicted I think it enables bad behavior as y- as kind of it rewards bad behavior as you said Well and look I mean you see this internationally and I think even progressives now recognize some of the damage that was done globally in what was a well-intentioned thing like "Hey we're gonna go feed the world," right "There are hungry people we're gonna go feed the world." Or uh "There are places where there's not indoor plumbing or running water" or whatever we're gonna go fix that We did it for people and never taught people th- that skillset in a way that even today there's reliance there And so I think the challenge has always been like how do you be tenderhearted and compassionate the way that I would argue the Bible requires you to be while simultaneously recognizing that sometimes being tenderhearted and compassionate is forcing people to get into uncomfortable situations to figure it out for themselves Yeah Uh what I feel like is kinda done too and this is just from me directly here is it's raised the price of tea in China a bit 'cause now when I get to arguing about people and the things that they've done to Jackson "Well why ain't you out there like them other guys cleaning up the interstate?" 'Cause I'm not gonna clean up your mess I'm not your mama is why God bless them that they feel moved to do that and that's their ministry My ministry is putting my boot up your ass and and telling you that you've screwed up That's my ministry I mean look people were mad at MrBeast was it about a year ago 'Cause he was going into parts of Africa that didn't have wells And was digging wells And I mean I even again even really progressive voices were saying this is counterproductive because really what needs to happen in those settings is like people have the resources and institutional knowledge to do that for themselves 'cause that's sustainable long term Yeah And those wells were already dried up and no good and been robbed and pillaged and everything else from my understanding is It was all just a big waste and look at- Although I I will say that that guy tries to do a lot of good He really does He does He does I'm not hating on him Uh he he does try to do a lot of good but he gets paid very well for the good deeds he does That's true too You know with content monetization But hey I'm not a hater on that at all Thank y'all for the uh money I made the last couple months on uh my content All right Let's take a break When we come back we're actually gonna jump into the TPUSA versus Clinton uh debacle that's going on out there Don't go anywhere here on The Clay Edwards Show 1039 WYAB This is Central Mississippi's stimulating talk 1039 WYAB Pocahontas Jackson.It's time to fall into savings at Mazda of Jackson With ball games road trips and all the busyness don't miss a thing with 2.9% financing for 36 months on a new 2025 Mazda CX-5 Or get 2.9% financing for 63 months on the 2025 CX-90 One-year maintenance is included on your new vehicle purchase And take advantage of the pre-tariff inventory that's almost gone Shop online at mazdaofjackson.com or visit Mazda of Jackson I-55 Frontage Road in Jackson Looking for the ultimate reset for your body and skin At Core Wellness and Recovery you'll find next-level services like cryotherapy red light therapy infrared sauna body sculpting and advanced facials Whether you want to boost performance recover faster or just feel your best Core Wellness and Recovery delivers real results with 0 downtime From muscle relief to radiant skin this is self-care redefined Come experience the future of wellness Core Wellness and Recovery just off Highland Colony in Ridgeland Book now at corewellnessandrecovery.com Hey guys This is KC Ellis with LS Autoplex located on Highway 471N Brandon LS Autoplex known as Little Truck City is your old-school mom-and-pop-style dealership that's family-owned and operated We specialize in 4wheel drive trucks but don't worry we have cars and SUVs too Looking to sell your vehicle Bring it by LS Autoplex where we pay fair market value and we cut you a check on the spot Need your vehicle serviced or repaired We can handle that too Shop us online or set your appointment at lsautoplex.com That's lsautoplex.com Tri-County Tree Service the Jackson Metro's premier company to handle all of your tree service needs Russ Bourland and his team specialize in large tree low-impact removal Tri-County Tree Service has the right equipment to safely handle the most technical trim jobs or tree removals Storm damage can happen year-round so let them clean it up and they'll deal with your insurance claim Tri-County Tree Service By phone at 601-TREE-GUY or online at tricotreeservice.com That's tricotreeservice.com Craving something extraordinary in Jackson Manship Restaurant is where your taste buds hit the jackpot Join us for happy hour every day from 3:00 to 6:00 PM where your wallet will thank you and your stomach will sing Indulge in half-priced woodfire pizzas because why pay full price for half the fun And for just $5 dive into our private barrel bourbon picks That's right luxury on a budget Plus beat the heat with our frozen drink specials a tropical escape without the travel expenses Make your way to the Manship where happy hour isn't just a time it's an experience Are you a wine enthusiast Are you looking for the perfect bottle to elevate your next dinner The ultimate destination for wine lovers is 042 Wine & Spirits on West Government Street in Brandon The locally owned the locally operated 042 Wine offers something for everyone from local favorites to rare vintage wines 042 Wine & Spirits can help you find your next favorite wine The friendly and knowledgeable folks at 042 Wine & Spirits will help you find the perfect bottle for every occasion 042 Wine & Spirits located on West Government Street in Brandon ......... For decades you've known the name Martin's for good times great food and the best live music Now that's happening at 2 locations downtown Jackson and Livingston Check the websites martinslivingtonms.com and martinsdowntownjxn.com for the many special events and live music lineups You can chill with friends on the big patio at the Livingston location and enjoy the blue plate lunches and nightly drink specials Martin's downtown and Livingston Broadcasting live from the Men's Health & Women's Wellness of Mississippi studios this is the Clay Edwards Show Welcome back in to the Clay Edwards Show Uh we got about 5 or 6 minutes left on this hour here 6 minutes so let's just jump straight in I'm not gonna do an ad read right now Russ TPUSA verse Uh first off this is the first time you and I have had a chance to talk since the assassination of Charlie Kirk Let let me ask you this We You're g- you're here for the next hour right Uh I can stay for a while yeah Okay So w- we can peel this onion back a little slower When when that happened man take me back to 'Cause it's it's gonna be That's the moment I'll never forget That's 9/11 like 9/11 I'll never forget who I was with exactly what I was doing the whole thing is just It is f- f- like frozen in time in my brain the way I felt and everything I'm sure you've gotten threats- Yeah uh over the years You know I know I have Uh te- take us back to the the day of the assassination t- as this all this whole thing unfolded What Where were you at What were you doing How did you feel Put us in the timeline please Yeah yeah I was just I was just working Um you know I think I I happened to see on Twitter the the closeup video and I've never seen anything like that in my life Like I've I practiced law for a while and some of my practice uh involved life insurance claims and so I've seen photos that are gruesome I've never seen sort of in real time the amount of blood that was involved in that And I don't say that to be gory or salacious but- No I know what you mean it it that that alone the injury alone impacted me I think it was an odd moment in the sense that like we had seen President Trump obviously get shot in Butler Pennsylvania I didn't have the same emotional reaction to that as I had to the Kirk assassination Part of it is that Trump obviously survived I was gonna say the immediate That would be different if he hadn't of survived or hadn't got up on his own- I I think that's right Yeah I think the other part of it though is uh and and this may come across wrong is like at some level if there's gonna be a political assassination you would expect it to be someone in Congress or a president right Somebody that actually has the ability to impact policy that impacts people Charlie Kirk had none of that He had no political power other than the fact that his ideas impacted people Had influence And so the the thing that I think was disturbing is somebody that clearly doesn't have nearly the audience or scale that he's got but who has um been involved in conversations around policy for a long time is like "Hey somebody could be killed just for what they think." Um in a country that has been built off of the idea that the free exchange of ideas is sort of bedrock to who we are as a people part of what makes us ex- exceptional And so in that moment I think there was a vulnerability You mentioned 9/11 Obviously 9/11 involved 3,000 people dying it involved wars after the fact so a different scale but a similar type of vulnerability where you go "Oh my gosh like things like this can happen." To everyday people To everyday people Yeah Um and there was also this poignant moment in my brain of he's on a college campus and if you think about the whole point of college it really should be a marketplace of ideas where you test what ideas work and what ideas don't Iron sharpens iron kind of thing And so that's the that is the environment that should be most suitable to real exploration and debate of tough issues Um and so I think it was just sort of that juxtaposition of like here's a normal guy who got killed for his ideas and thoughts on a college campus um and it created a sense of real vulnerability I think it also woke up a lot of people who said like "Hey look this is not just a words versus words thing." Like we're at a moment societally where people are so angry at each other and see each other so much as their enemy that stuff like this can happen Yeah yeah That's a great that's a great explanation of it It it was just the the vulnerability and it really made me take a a step back and I I know that my friends and family all and and audience all mean well when they're like "Hey man you really need to keep your head on a swivel." And and so on and so forth you know with all the stuff that you deal with and do and say and everything else Uh and it did it made it real You make people mad Yeah Yeah Apparently So I'm very polarizing they say Uh but it it just ki- it blows my mind I won't say it kills me figuratively that that your words can anger somebody so bad that they want to kill you Like to me I'm just talking about thugs and criminals and people who have actually killed people and But it's never them that I'm really worried about It's people who feel like they had to defend them or that they get offended by the blast radius of me talking about them It's like I we have to kill this guy I w- "Oh so why does Clay keep talking about uh Black violence and Black on Black crime I wish he would shut up Oh you know what I'm gonna commit a crime I'm gonna be violent and threaten him." Like well you're mad You're gonna do the thing that you're mad that I'm talking about Well and look you know- It it blows my mind And it ain't just them I get I get I get death threats from from White people too Sure And and so what I would say is I mean like we we grew up with this adage "Sticks and stones may break my bones but words may will won't ever hurt me." There's some truth to that but uh there's also there there's a degree of falsehood to that because we're emotional people right And things do hurt people's feelings or get people angry or or fearful Um but we bought into for a little while this idea and it really started on the the left side of the spectrum in c- on college campuses that words are violence And if you allow yourself to believe that the things that Clay says and you say some stuff I disagree with Sure Um I say some stuff you disagree with right But like if you allow yourself to buy into this idea that the words that Clay says are violence then you become justified in doing violence But they also tell us that silence is violence So words are violence and silence is violence if you're if you're not You ca- you it's it's not just You can't just be against racism you have to be a outspoken anti-racist as well So if you don't agree with them publicly if you're not a outspoken ally you might as well be an enemy and that is dangerous as well Yeah I look I just think we've gotta we've gotta get to the point again where we recognize that violence is violence Like if I walk up to you and punch you in the face you have the ability to punch me back But if I walk up to you and tell you "You're a colossal dumbass," your response should be "Well I don't like you either," or whatever Yeah But you don't you don't You're not justified in in punching me in the face So I agree And so like just getting to the point where we're emotionally mature enough to recognize there are gonna be people who say things that we absolutely disagree with And we can either debate those people or we can roll our eyes and move on I mean I think that every time I'm on Facebook I'm like "Why are these random people starting fights with people you don't even know?" Right Like you are wasting your time Roll your eyes and move on Yeah I got into a Jeremy England commented something yesterday made a post yesterday about uh people P- people starting off they wanna debate you but they insult you first Like "You effing idiot why don't you debate me?" Or "You're a douchebag why don't you debate me?" Well you've already crossed into the assaults Sure Why would Why would I debate you I dealt with the same thing uh earlier this week with some little 300 followers uh sending me all kind of nasty messages trying to get me to debate him Basically he wants me to platform him Sure You know I'm like I'm just There's no- You're smart enough to know that right Yeah Yeah Like why why would I do that Sure But even if I were to entertain it the way you started the conversation off with the insults I have Why would I want to do that for you Like to introduce you to my quarter million followers uh would be the best thing that ever happened to you if you're if you're so good if your opinions are so strong you could take advantage of that like like I've done in the past But now because you've insulted me to start the conversation I'm not gonna do that We gotta take a break We'll be right back with Russ Lateno here on WYAB Actually we're going to carry the conversation on in the uh live chat during the break Y'all don't go nowhere You gotta take the headphones off for this Okay Yeah during the breaks it it sends the radio signal whatever the commercials through the headphones Okay But uh If we But we're still alive we can talk Uh I like this conversation and I don't wanna just stop it 'cause we're gonna have like a weird run of commercials here but it it is It's like if you wanna debate I'll I will debate you I don't really like the debating thing anyway Let's just talk Like you and I met up and we talked about the school choice stuff Yeah We're on the opposite sides of the same On some of And I came out of that conversation I didn't really change my mind but I appreciated the fact that we had a logical conversation and I was a- and you were interested in why I felt the way I felt And I think that's always the best way to If you're ever gonna get somebody to change their mind is to listen to how they feel about it be respectful about that and then explain why you feel the way you do put your side out there and let the uh marketplace of ideas win the day Yeah no I think that's right I mean I think There's there's this thing called uh sunk cost fallacy in economics which is like once somebody believes something or once they've invested in something It happens in in actual trading like marketplace where it's like "Hey I've invested in this stock and it's lost 50% of its value," and instead of getting out of it you're waiting for it to somehow redeem itself And I think the problem with modern debate is too many people go into it with a thought process that says "Under no circumstances am I ever gonna change my mind." And there's gotta be a willingness 1 to hear To your point hear what somebody else has to say and consider the possibility that they might be right and you might be wrong um if you're gonna have any kind of movement And I think that used to happen at a better in a better way before social media But social media has Like this conversation we're having obviously I guess on YouTube but um social media has made it such that you have an audience now So the stakes for changing your mind have gone up It's become harder to change your mind because that's seen as a pride hit or an ego hit Yeah Um right Versus if you're just having a one-on-one conversation you might go "Hey I hadn't thought of that that way." Yeah Well even If you look like you agree with the other person you lost Yeah Yeah Like you've you've lost some reputation Yeah You've lost part of your brand Um and I would say like even like the school choice conversation that we had Yeah like we disagreed on the idea of public to public um school choice like where a kid gets to leave one public school and go to another Um but we didn't disagree on the idea of like- Mm-hmm universal What's called Universal ESAs right Where like a portion of the money that students already are getting spent on by the state that would allow them to go to a private school Like I think we agreed on that part right We agreed with that So And that and that's what you You weren't aware that I did agree with you on that And we kind of came out of that It's like really it's just like if there's 2 3 thirds here there's just one third of this thing I don't agree with Yeah And so like but being able to have that conversation in a non-combative way it was like oh wait there actually is common ground Mm-hmm We just disagree on this one thing over here Well then there's an opportunity for us to get something done Yeah Well you know at the end of the day I'm a negotiator You know Yeah I'm a dealsman And uh- Well and that's the nature of that's the nature of life It's also the nature of of legislation is like you have to have trade-offs No no a- a- absolutely circling back to the the Jeremy England thing real quick So I just commented and I told the little the little story about this guy trying to argue with me I was like he started off with an insult Why would I you know grant him the ability to come on and you know just platform this guy Why would I make him famous You know what I mean So to say Not that I have not that my platform's that big but long story short And he never fails A coup- a couple people in the comments "Oh well Clay you don't You're scared to debate people You just like to argue with people." And you know what was funny is I've never been rude to a guest on this show ever Even people I've disagreed with Uh frankly it's hard to get people to come on here that disagree with me Uh but I've always been respectful I'm I I can't even think of a time that I've shouted anybody down Yeah Uh at all Maybe argue with some callers here and there that call very aggressively So it's like so it's kind of like this myth of because Clay is an outspoken conservative he must also be scared of debate uh because he doesn't interview Democrats Well f- bro where are these Democrats at that want to come on and actually debate You know so to say Well and at at some level it's like and you mentioned that you don't even like the word- Like straw man arguments that are put- Well you don't even like the word debate right And it's like well if the point of the conversation is a good faith exchange of ideas where people are open to having their minds changed those are conversations worth having If the point of the conversation is to get famous by making you look stupid- Yeah I mean no- nobody's ever had their mind changed by being made to feel stupid No Never Never Um they might give up They might well but they're at the end of the day they're angry about it Um and they're they're even more dug in to than where they started right And so yeah I mean again there's some there's some biblical truth here which is like you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar And if you want to have constructive conversations the best way to do that is not by assuming the other person is stupid but by trying to understand why they believe what they believe That's why Shawn and I have had such a good friendship that was supposed to kind of start off as a bit of a debate show We realized that we agreed on so much stuff for the most part And we also agreed that even when we get our angriest that we're gonna be adults Yeah And not get into a shouting match And in involving Shawn you know for those couple years on the show uh before they went off and did their own thing uh was really really good for me learning you know actually finally having somebody sitting across from me that we did disagree on some stuff And learning that for the most part we agreed on like real core principle things It's just kinda like these ancillary things that we disagree on Uh that was a very healthy uh growing point for me to be able to say okay maybe I'm not as bedrock about some of these things as I thought I was And then there are some things that it made me realize that I'm even more adamant about Well and there's something different when you're sitting down across from somebody versus preaching at them on the internet and you don't have to see them or meet them or whatnot right Like and you see that in other areas of life So like as an example the conversation around immigration and that's a complex conversation and I know your audience probably leans one direction pretty heavily But I would look at it and say okay a lot of people talk about mass deportation as an example of Mexican and South American immigrants But then you say well what about the fellow that serves your lunch when you go to this restaurant Or what about the the people that come and cut your grass or the- You start personalizing it And then you're like oh well I know so-and-so Yeah Right And then it becomes a lot harder to paint with such a broad brush I think that's true in the context of like republicans democrats liberals and conservatives too is like at some level if you just sit down with somebody who's like hardcore on the other side of you and you start talking about the things that they want out of life they want their kids to have better jobs than what they had right They want a house they want a car they want a safe community Like there are all these things that everybody wants like that everybody kind of views as like this is a measure of a good life And the real the real debate or the real sort of difference is how do we get there Yeah Um and like if you start from that vantage point where you don't assume that the other person is evil but they just have a different view on the way to get somewhere I think there's opportunity No I I agree and I talk about this a lot I'll come on here and I kind of paint with a broad brush but I do tell people "Look there's obviously you know nuance here." There's there's special exception I come in here and talk about democrats are evil but one of my best friends is a democrat You know Sure And Shawn and and and a buddy of mine Marvell I mean I could 2 off the top of my head 2 of my closest friends are are are democrats and think I'm wrong about a lot of stuff And that's fine Well you know we either talk about those things or we don't We talk about normal stuff Like we don't I don't ride in a car with my democrat friends and talk about politics the whole time you know We actually both like football Yeah Like there's real life stuff too that sometimes you kind of get lost in the arguing about policy and politics and culture war stuff that you forget that there's actually real life stuff that we enjoy as well And if you- Well I mean- find that common ground it makes life a lot easier A- and I don't mean to be overreligious on on your program but at some level it's like hey the Bible says that we were all created in the image of God That means democrats were created in the image of God too right The Bible says that we've all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God That means that republicans have sinned too right And so like at some level recognizing that if you have that sort of scriptural worldview it means no matter whether you disagree on a question of like immigration or whatever it is that like that other person was created in the image of God and like you they suffer with sin.Um and if you have that kind of humility going into it I think it's a lot easier to to relate to people Yeah you know I use this analogy a lot um Christians are very hardcore about the the they love to say "Gay being gay is against the Bible it's that's against the Lord's words." I'm like "Well so is having sex before you get married." Y- uh absolutely And it was like so I that's why I'm never like I don't get on the the the gay religious thing I don't that's that's their sin let them worry about that I have my own sin and I'd be a hypocrite if I sat there and talked about uh who they have sex with It's no different than who I have sex with when I'm doing it outside of marriage My sin is just as equal as as that Uh my only problem with the gay stuff is like it's the LGBTQ agenda as I you know as I refer to it as You know the the the pride parades with all the near pornographic stuff in front of children and d- drag queen story time No that's that's a whole separate thing from just your everyday run of the mill gay people And like I don't think they're separate Unfortunately they get all dropped under this big umbrella and if you have a problem with this well you must also have a problem with the 2 gay guys No I don't at all 'cause again their sin is no different than my sin Yeah I mean look I I would look at it and say at some level what happens is that the the natural human tendency is to focus on sins that you don't struggle with right So if you're heterosexual it's easy enough to talk about the sin of homosexuality because it's not something that you ever struggle with but if you wanna get uncomfortable you know talk about uh whether or not Russ is overweight right Yeah Because then that's the sin of gluttony Mm-hmm Um or the 400 pound Baptist pastor pastor who clearly is living an unrepentant life when it comes to their their dietary habits Um again the sin of gluttony and so like there's a very natural tendency to to isolate those sins that we don't personally struggle with and to ignore the things that we personally struggle with Heterosexual lust is a great example of that too Yeah And so I I don't think as as a Christian I don't think you should uh ignore what the Bible says is sinful behavior but I do think that you should operate in a way where you don't ignore your own sin um certainly 'cause that it it is hypocritical It it is and that is the one thing when you do this for 2 hours a day you will find yourself contradicting yourself a lot and and so I've learned to avoid contradicting myself I just try to be an open book and say "Look I'm k- a complicated individual as we all are There's gonna be things that I I find abhorrent but then there's gonna be things that I do that you find abhorrent." You know I try to find the common ground and just admit yes I we can all be a bit hypocritical at times But if there's some obvious stuff I try to just b- be like "Look that's" I I try I people think I'm very judgey I'm really not I gotta let let people live but the the Overton window has moved over so much that if you just wanna be left alone or just let people live that makes you far one way or the other now because the Overton window has moved so far I don't l- yeah there the problem is that there are not a ton of people who still believe in sort of what I would call American pluralism which I think is actually one of our founding values is that people get to believe different stuff All right we're coming back from break Chicken spaghetti on Mondays beef tip Tuesday pork chop Wednesday spaghetti Thursday and catfish Fridays And McBee's blue plate lunch comes with 2 classic southern sides and cornbread or a roll McBee's specials are served every weekday from 11:00 to 2:00 McBee's buzzing the Rez since 1982 Welcome to the Clay Edwards Show More adrenaline You know it's a pretty interesting time to to be alive What's the saying M- may the times you live in be interesting We've accomplished that more test top throne for your morning drive When you know you've got a problem how about tell people and be honest What's going on Going to war on cancel culture and bringing the spotlight on issues and topics from around the city of Jackson I feel like Jackson is slapping and no one else wants to talk about it The whole system is corrupt and evil It's unreal And they don't care and and everybody knows it It's just sad And fights for the soul of America I'm gonna need y'all to explain to me what a positive solution is 'cause you positive solutions only people have been in charge for a while now and I'm too many positive solutions You never Strap in Turn up the volume and get ready Jackson for unfiltered no sugar added talk radio It's award-winning podcaster Clay Boom shakalaka boom It's hour 2 of the most incendiary show on the R-A-D-I-O This is the Clay at Birth show here live on 103.9 FM W-Y-A-B We are streaming in stunning HD worldwide @SaveJXN on Facebook YouTube and X and we're on Rumble at SaveJXN If you're watching on any of those platforms hit the Like button hit the Share button if you're on Facebook If you're watching on YouTube drop a comment hit the Like It truly truly does help us with the algorithm If you like it they assume more people who watch the things that you like will like it too and they'll recommend these videos to people on YouTube which helps us grow And it doesn't cost you a penny to hit the Like button So please please please smash the Like button as the YouTubers- Like and subscribe Like and subscribe Like and subscribe Like and subscribe And uh we did We we gained over 500 subscribers on YouTube last month which I know in the big picture that may not sound like a lot but that's 500 new people that subscribed to a little old show out of Jackson Mississippi We're almost at 10,000 YouTube subs here 5 years into this and it is a it's taken a while There's not been no big one viral moment that's got us anywhere It's been just chipping away and chipping away and chipping away And I do think we'll eventually get that We'll we'll have that moment when we get you know X amount of followers and enough people see something that resonates with them But uh guys please uh do hit that Like button This segment is going to be brought to you by our friends over at You know I've been talking about it all week I want to drive it home It starts today round one the PGA Champion- Not the PGA Championship the Sanderson Farms Championship which is the only PGA event in Mississippi But not only is it the only PGA event it's the only major sporting professional sporting event in the state of Mississippi I know we can argue that college football is now a pro sport but And it always has been It has been for quite some time Yeah it always has been But uh it's the only legitimate pro-sport uh event in the state of Mississippi and it's right here in Jackson For all the negative things about Jackson this is one of the shining uh house on the hill you know beautiful moments that we have here in this city It's something we really should all wrap our arms around and get out and support if you want to keep it whether it's Jackson central Mississippi whatever there at the Country Club of Jackson And uh the first round starts today I'm going to be out there Saturday My buddy Fred Shanks my buddy Sutton my buddy Michael we're all going We got some Michelob Ultra Pavilion passes which you can get those as well at PGA I'm sorry at sandersonfarmschampionship.com And you can buy tickets You can buy the uh the Mick Ultra Pavilion It's kind of like their VIP thing There's going to be a bunch of TVs there You can miss You can catch all the college football action the golf action It's a great socializing event Just gonna be a grand time The weather's gonna be beautiful Come join us If you can't do Saturday get you some tickets for Sunday I think you just buy the ticket and go whatever day you want They're just Whatever ticket's good for any day but it's only one You You got to If you're going 2 days you got to buy 2 tickets So just FYI It's not a weekend pass Uh I do believe they do offer those But uh it's not too expensive Uh but you know it is a nice event and it does it does cost a few bucks But I think if you buy a ticket and a VIP pavilion pass it's about 130 bucks for both Which if you bought a concert ticket lately and you try to do a VIP upgrade you're probably talking about at least 500 bucks So for the money it's a really really good deal And uh parking's off site there at North Park You park there They they they bring a shuttle bus back and forth They'll keep them running all day You're not going to have to wait long to get to or from your vehicle The weather's going to be beautiful Come out there Hang out with me Come say hey And uh Saturday wear your favorite college colors It's University Day So going to be fun Russ you going to get by Uh we're going to an event tonight uh tied to it Um kind of their opening event and uh- A sponsorship party Yeah So we'll we'll do a little bit of that tonight and we'll see I I might Uh it's a good event And they- I'm trying to angle some tickets for the sponsorship party I I've been I've been working some angles that have not worked out so far But I would love to go to the sponsorship party Well we we can talk about it off air maybe Maybe so All right Well uh look so we got Russ Latino here Magnolia Tribune one of my favorite journalists in the state if not my personal favorite And Magnolia Tribune does just phenomenal work And Russ grabbed a hold of something like a dog on a bone the other day And I'm really glad he did because he brings a level of credibility and a level of scrutiny to to this topic that I think needs to be And he shines a light on it uh as one of the most influential journalists and policymakers in the state And it's the In the wake of Charlie death Charlie Kirk's death and that's why I wanted to really get Russ's opinion on that and kind of his thoughts on the whole thing before we dove into this These TPUSA chapters which is Turning Point USA for those that don't know Charlie Kirk's foundation that he founded And they Man they The growth has been stupendous since his death Thousands and thousands of new charters popping up And in these high schools where we really need to be trying to win the culture war uh just like colleges man We if we can get ahold of them at high schools they go to colleges you know kind of ready to fight the fight or knowing how to fight it And Clinton for some reason has decided that uh it's a no-go there So I've kind of laid the groundwork for you here man Tell us kind of what happened So let let me start by saying that um obviously what happened to Charlie Kirk was a tragedy a horrible tragedy I didn't always agree with him Um and I didn't always agree with TPUSA I did agree fundamentally with the idea that we should be having open debate on these issues um and that open debate is good And so-What happened was after his death to your point thousands and thousands of new chapters high school and college of TPUSA um started to form Um a couple of Saturdays ago so uh 2plus Saturdays ago um a teacher at Clinton High School sent out an email to a handful of students um and that email essentially said "Hey I know you're interested in this sort of stuff because you've talked to me in the past about wanting to start some kinda club that focuses on patriotism and sort of the exchange of ideas and debate Um what do you think about potentially doing a TPUSA chapter?" That email said explicitly this would have to be student-led Um you would have to come up with the names of other students who are interested in spearheading the effort to start this thing And there was a plan of sorts put together Some of these kids started sharing it with their friends they came back with names of people who wanted to be involved And essentially they planned to get together the following Tuesday September 16th to have a planning meeting with the teacher Well our sources say that that email got around to a wide group of people Um and one of the- the sets of hands that it ended up in was a set of parents who were very much opposed to the idea of there being a TPUSA chapter on Clinton's campus Um and that was communicated to school officials So what happens then is that on Monday September 15th the teacher that afternoon sends out an email to these students who are ready to meet the next day just saying "There will be no meeting tomorrow." Um the following day one of the students follows up and says "Well when are we gonna reschedule it?" 'Cause they're excited about doing this Um and she emails back and says "There won't be a rescheduling you need to go talk to the principal about this." Well the backstory of those few days and the way that we got ahold of this was that we got contacted by 2 sources that said "Hey look some students wanted to start this TPUSA chapter and they got shut down by the school administration." Um and we were told that there were 3 reasons given by the administration The first was that this was too political and "We don't do political clubs it's gonna be divisive." Um the second explanation which came later was "Well this was teacher-led and because it's teacher-led it violates a district policy." And then once students voiced "Hey no actually we want this," the third explanation that was given was "Hey it's too late in the year to start a new club." And so all of this unfolds- We're a month into school we're a month into school So all of this unfolds and you start to see And the only way we know this is 'cause we did public record requests on Clinton High School Um you start to see emails directly from students to the principal of Clinton High School Dr Brian Fordinberry saying "We want this." To the point that some of them are literally pressing him and saying "Tell me why we can't have this In writing please tell me why we are unable to have a Turning Point USA club." Um we get ahold of the story break it on uh social media And the response that we got from folks who live in Clinton was "Hey we called and talked to the principal and he said the reason they can't have it is 'cause they started it too late in the year." Well that night I start doing some research All right let's figure out is that true Is there a policy in place for this Read the entire Clinton Han- School handbook Nothing in there about when clubs can start Um read the entirety of the school district's policies Couldn't find anything So I wrote the principal and the- the school board attorney and just said "Hey look I've looked at all this stuff I can't find any policies that- that says that this can't be done this time of year." Um and we had posed a bunch of different questions public record requests whatnot Well they come back um the following day and release a statement that basically says "We didn't actually shut it down We just told them that it couldn't be teacher-led and that it couldn't be this year." Which is shutting it down Yeah Um and so anyway we- we've been able to get together all these public records It really looks from my vantage point like the 2 reasons they gave are pretense first of all students individually went to the principal and said "We want this club." ......... ......... ......... ......... ......... ......... ......... all of the documents ......... ......... ......... ......... ......... ......... ......... ......... ......... ......... ......... ......... ......... ......... ......... ......... ......... ......... ......... ......... ......... ......... ......... ......... ......... ......... ......... ......... ......... ......... ......... ......... ......... ......... ......... ......... ......... ......... ......... ......... ......... since 2019 The Tigers are playing well against Alabama this season but they aren't winning their first game of the season The Tigers were able to win their first game against ......... ......... ......... ......... ......... ......... Alabama on September 19th 2020 They had a 31-0 victory at home against Alabama The Tigers won their first game of the season against Alabama on September 19th 2020 The Tigers have been playing well since then but they haven't been able to win their first game of the season The Tigers were able to win their first game against Alabama on September 19th 2020 They had a 31-0 victory at home against Alabama The Tigers have been playing well since then but they haven't been able the season The Tigers were able to win their first game against Alabama on September 19th 2020 They So they make good homemade ranch at Burgers Blues Barbecue is my point Get by check them out today Madison by the way the Madison location is open right now serving breakfast Dogwood in Flowood or downtown Brandon BurgersBlues.com to book a food truck check out the catering menu or to order and have your food delivered You can do it all in one great location BurgersBlues.com Website looks phenomenal too by the way Pictures of almost every item if you wanna know what it looks like That goes a long way Yeah You know Yeah no it does Um good websites good pictures all that stuff uh is how you market stuff right Gets people salivating We eat with our eyes Uh uh yep I think that's true Our eyes and our nose Yeah Right And my my eyes are often bigger than my appetite- Well as they say Yeah no I think that's part of the problem right Yeah absolutely So Russ wha- uh your your opinion do you just think this is political with TPUSA So let me say this for uh uh to start is I think whenever Clinton put out its statement in response to our original reporting they basically said it's incorrect that we tried to shut it down but then they explained why they had shut it down so it was an odd statement The other thing that I saw that bothered me almost more than the statement was the way that the media reacted which was just to just accept at face value with no critical thinking the explanation that was given Right So they're saying "Hey the reason we didn't do this is because it was teacher-led," while simultaneously admitting in the same statement that students independently came to us and asked for Right Mm-hmm Um so one that doesn't hold water And then they said "Yeah but we explained to those students that our 'practice' was to a- approve things this year and then h- allow them to go into effect next year." I asked the question point blank "Well what does that mean that next year there'll be a Turning Point USA chapter?" And they didn't answer that question But more importantly that policy does not exist in writing Right It doesn't exist anywhere um based on our investigation And so neither one of those things hold water And if neither one of those things hold water there must be something else And our sources said that the something else was the fact that you had parents that were angry about the idea of it coming on campus and a principal who just said "Hey this is gonna be too political which is unconstitutional." So w- what I would say Russ's opinion reading between the lines looking at all the facts I know the sources that we've talked to I think the principal panicked um and was trying to find a way to keep the peace which I can respect at some level which is "Hey we don't wanna rock the boat here We don't wanna create tension We want a unified campus This is gonna create some tension so I'm gonna find a way to say no." The problem with that is yes it violates the Constitution yes it violates federal laws yes it violates state law but there's a bigger sort of fundamental problem which is the way to deal with the fact that we can't have constructive debate in this country is not to have no debate at all It's to get better at having constructive debate Yes And that starts at an early age And so if we can create a system where yes there can be a Turning Point USA chapter and simultaneously yes there can be some sort of progressive chapter on campus and students get to decide who they wanna associate with and we create an atmosphere where hopefully those groups are talking to each other engaging with each other civilly we're setting ourselves up for much better conversations in the future than what we're seeing in our country amongst adults right now And so to me instead of saying "I don't wanna rock the boat," the answer should be "How do we create an environment where people get to associate with who they want they get to say what they want and we encourage students to do so in a way that is civil?" Uh I would love to see a list of the current of the current groups on the campus And w- we've asked for that right Um I I know that there are uh at least social organizations on campus that like you know some conservatives would find uh objectionable Um you know there's a gay straight alliance club as an example I I was gonna say like it would bet but bet the farm that there's an LGBTQ alliance of some sort on there uh there's gonna be some type of civil social justice Black pro-Black group and all those are fine as long as you have the ying to the yang And and and I would say great I would say great right Yeah Um it's it what you don't wanna do is a situation where you're having viewpoint discrimination And even like the other 2 uh you know arguments which is like "Hey this is teacher-led." Well 1 I don't think that's true based on the documents that we've gotten and I don't think it's true based on their own statement at some level But the Constitution doesn't say you can't be inspired by an adult if you wanna create a club on campus right Yeah Um people can get ideas from other people And and candidly every club on campus is required to have a sponsor So one man's sponsor is another person's teacher-led group right Yeah Um and then on this this timing thing is even if that policy did exist you would have to show that it had been consistently applied and it would still have to be tailored in a way legally that it didn't deprive people of their rights So you could say like a senior uh is on campus and they're saying "Hey you're making me wait until next year I won't be here next year I'm gonna graduate." Uh that was gonna be what I was gonna say We got a great comment here on X from uh Bourbon Diplomacy which may be the best name on X by the way That's a great name It says uh "Clinton School District attends school almost year round now so when is the correct time?" Yeah I mean again what they put out through surrogates after we did our initial reporting was "Hey we've got this policy and they're in violation," but can't even point to to something in writing I mean Yeah It it seems pretextual when you can't show something in writing And when you ignore a a public record request that explicitly asked for who are the other clubs When were they formed When were they allowed to be on campus They should be able to tell us all of that unless they're just not keeping records of what clubs are on campus which would suggest that they don't actually have a policy Right So what is the next step Is uh is Magnolia Tribune uh to the point of a lawsuit Well we wouldn't be the ones to file a lawsuit right A lawsuit would have to be filed uh either by some of the students who want the club which would be the the most likely scenario if they wanted to push that far or uh you know if there were adults on campus faculty that that thought that their rights had been infringed upon at some level Um my suspicion is that neither one of those things will happen because people don't like the idea of suing their own school Um it takes a rare person Like you'll occasionally see lawsuits percolate That's like one out of a thousand people has the courage to say "Hey I'm gonna do something like this." Is is Clinton in ISD or is it part of Hinds County I should know that I don't off the top of my head Uh- Yeah yeah no I do know that 'cause they they've got their own superintendent Yeah yeah it's independent Okay I I wasn't sure I I knew I know Pearl is and I and I grew up going to Byron which is part of uh Hinds County so I just wasn't sure if Clinton was part of that or not Never actually Yeah Never needed to know that So I mean a lawsuit is poten- is possible I I don't necessarily see that You know I I think the the most likely scenario if if the high school does the right thing they're not gonna come out and admit that they violated the Constitution No government official's ever gonna be like "Hey I violated the Constitution federal law and state law." What you hear instead is the kinda stuff that you heard here which is "Oh we wanted to help you but you didn't follow this unwritten process that we expected you to follow." So they're not gonna do that But if I were the district if I was on that board of of the school uh or if I was the principal I'd be trying to figure out a way to get it started Yeah there's gotta be a way to put the paste back in the tube a little bit here before it spirals outta control I mean you're sitting here like- Well it got it got mentioned on CNN That's where I was going yeah Um so so you know Abby Phillips' program Newsline on CNN it got mentioned there Uh I expect that there will be other national outlets that will be covering this Um there's an opportunity for Clinton to do the right thing and recognize that kids deserve the right to have this kinda club on campus if they want it Um for Magnolia Tribune's part we're not giving up right We still have several public record requests that we don't feel like have been answered uh and that weren

Vi præsenterer et nyt format i podcasten: VERSUS! Her sætter vi to forskellige holdninger direkte op mod hinanden og lader diskussionen tale for sig selv. Første film i ringen er WEAPONS. I det ene hjørne finder vi en fan, i det andet, en misfornøjet filmnørd. Det er View Review mod Kino.dk's Bjarke Friis Kristensen! Handskerne er spændt, tandbeskytteren er på plads, slagudvekslingerne står i kø! Hvem vinder? Lyt med og døm selv! Gæstevært: Bjarke Friis Kristensen (Filmjournalist på Kino.dk)

Introducing the All Def SquADD Cast show “Versus". It's a podcast with the OG SquADD! Each week, the SquADD will debate topics and vote at the end to see what wins. Versus airs every Monday and you can download and listen wherever podcasts are found. Special Guest Dion Lack Kanisha Buss Courtney Haynes Donny Wilson This Week We Discuss Lose your Ability To Hear Music vs Ability To Taste Food Slow WiFi vs Only One Working Earbud  Deal W/ A Smelly Office Pet vs Weekly Office Potlucks W/ Coworkers You Don't Like Tour In Small Venues Only vs One Massive Show S/o To Our Sponsors Ava Download the Ava app today, and when you join using my promo code SQUADD, your first month is totally FREE.

Podcast for a deep examination into the career and life choices of Eddie Murphy & Jim Carrey. Patrick wants to be the next top chef, but not of the world, just, like, his kitchen. Joe tries to help him, but keeps setting things on fire. Lev uses a fire extinguisher to put it out, but will retardant or snakes emerge from the canister? Find out on this week's episode of 'What the Hell Happened to Them?' Email the cast at whathappenedtothem@gmail.com Disclaimer: This episode was recorded in September 2025. References may feel confusing and/or dated unusually quickly. 'Imagine That' is available on DVD, Blu-ray, & Multi-format (which is really just the first two things): https://www.amazon.com/Imagine-That-Blu-ray-Eddie-Murphy/dp/B001OQCV0Q/ Music from "South Park" by the South Park guys   Artwork from BJ West   quixotic, united, skeyhill, vekeman, murphy, carrey, versus, vs, imagine, that, ebert, carey, imaginary, friends, church, googah

In this episode a new study suggest cannabis has grown bigger than forestry and tourism, the ultimate show of cannabis stigma when an Ontario city paints over their cannabis sign, and pre-rolls are the new sales winner.  On Cultivar Corner, brought to you by Up In Smoke, we go or some budget weed from Versus and their White Widow..Pre-rolls are big sellersCannabis is bigger than tourismCity paints over cannabis billboardGrow stores left behind Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

On the second episode of our new Batman comics retrospective podcast, Detective Comments, Paul and Hemen take a look into face of the Joker... and die laughing! They read The Man Who Laughs and Lovers and Madmen, two early years Joker Tales that may (may not) be canon. Join them as they try to discover the origins of The Clown Prince of Crime! And remember: we want YOU to pick which theme we discuss each week! Tune into our socials or check out the text below for the remaining themes and cast your vote in the comments. The theme with the most votes gets played next week. Remaining themes: 'Batman, you loser!', 'Bat-Hamm!', 'Monsters & Mad Monks', 'Not My Batman', 'Joker's Wilder!', 'Batman: The Animated Comics', '...Versus...', 'The Men Who Made The Batman 'Vote in the comments or on our socials!Links:Check out The Comic Crush WebsiteGet Batman ComicsCheck out all our shops Sign up to our Patreon for just £2 Follow Us! On Bluesky On InstagramOn ThreadsOn Facebook

Are the people who vote for the Ballon d'Or winner actually watching women's football? The VERSUS team break down the controversy surrounding the 2025 Ballon d'Or Féminin winner and assess the prize's relevance in contemporary football culture. We also look at why players are freeing it more than ever on social, Moise Kean's arrival on the EA Sports FC soundtrack, and pay tribute to the life and career of Matt Beard. Got something you want us to discuss? Email mailbag@versus.uk.com. Host: @mayowaquadri Cast: @CoreyPellatt @AmiLouCri

Introducing the All Def SquADD Cast show “Versus". It's a podcast with the OG SquADD! Each week, the SquADD will debate topics and vote at the end to see what wins. Versus airs every Monday and you can download and listen wherever podcasts are found. Special Guest Kelly Kelz Brent Taylor This Week We Discuss Be On A Broken Ski Lift vs Broken Elevator Be An Adult That Never Ages vs A Teenager That Never Ages Only Listen To Music From The 70's vs Music That Comes Out The Current Year S/o To Our Sponsors Prize Picks Download The Prize Picks App Today! Use Code SQUADD IndaCloud IndaCloud.co Use Code ALLDEF Better Help https://Betterhelp.com/SQUADD New Listerners Get 10% Off First Month

“Ownable originality is about creating something uniquely you—something no one else can do, even if they tried.” — Rob MeyersWhat does it mean to create something that no one else can replicate?In this episode of The Storytelling Lab, Rain sits down with Rob Meyers, Managing Director of the creative studio Versus, to explore the concept of “ownable originality.” Rob shares the philosophy behind Versus—one that prioritizes culture over style, curiosity over templates, and meaning over metrics.The result? A studio that helps brands and creators make work that is not only beautiful, but deeply aligned with who they are.They discuss the evolving landscape of branded content, how more companies are creating their own original documentaries and films, and why traditional marketing models are no longer enough. Rob also explains how a founder-led, culture-first organization can scale without losing its soul—and how his team's creative autonomy fuels both client work and original IP like films, books, and games.If you're looking for a model that balances creativity, commerce, and community, this conversation will inspire you to reimagine your own storytelling strategy.In this episode, you will learn to:Define your brand through culture, not content volume or visual styleBuild a studio or agency that empowers creativity across departmentsMake the case for long-form storytelling and brand-backed originalsBalance client work with internal creative projects to retain passionLead with values and build trust as your most irreplaceable assetFor more storytelling tips and tricks,Visit my website rainbennett.com, orFollow me on TikTok @rainbennett.storyellerFollow me on Twitter @rainbennettFollow me on Instagram @rainbennettFollow me on Facebook @thestorytellinglab Subscribe to my Youtube Channel Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Podcast for a deep examination into the career and life choices of Eddie Murphy & Jim Carrey. Patrick has a grudge against Amazon warriors and it looks like he has bitten off more than he can chew (metaphorically). Joe's schedule fills up quickly when a gynecologist with the same name opens up shop and people keep mistaking him for the new doctor. Will he keep in the spirit of this week's film and say "yes" to his new patients? Find out on this week's episode of 'What the Hell Happened to Them?' Email the cast at whathappenedtothem@gmail.com Disclaimer: This episode was recorded in September 2025. References may feel confusing and/or dated unusually quickly. 'Yes Man' is available on DVD, Blu-ray, & Multi-format (which is really just the first two things): https://www.amazon.com/Yes-Man-Blu-ray-Peyton-Reed/dp/B0DZJX2RXP/ Music from "Yes Man" by Ferry Corsten   Artwork from BJ West   quixotic, united, skeyhill, vekeman, murphy, carrey, versus, vs, yes, man, deschanel, stamp, higgins, cooper, reed, cult, carey, conspiracy

On the ‘Elephant in the Dome' podcast, State Senator John Braun said farmers are often the target of an urban vs rural take on a couple of different issues.

In our brand new podcast, created by Hemen Shefie, Paul & Hemen light the Bat-Signal and take an in-depth look at the Dark Knight Detective! Each week, we'll present a themed look at one or more Batman comics from across the history of The Caped Crusader... And you'll pick which theme we discuss each week! Tune into our socials or check out the text below for the remaining themes and cast your vote in the comments. The theme with the most votes gets played next week. But in our first episode, we discuss 'Beginnings' by looking at Batman's first appearance in Detective Comics #27 and his reconstructed origin in Zero Year. Don't forget, there will also be two onus episodes on our Patreon, and you can follow us on socials for more treats as the show progresses. Remaining themes: 'Batman, you loser!', 'Bat-Hamm!', 'Monsters & Mad Monks', 'Not My Batman', 'Joker's Wild!', 'Joker's Wilder!', 'Batman: The Animated Comics', '...Versus...', 'The Men Who Made The Batman'Links:Check out The Comic Crush WebsiteGet Batman ComicsCheck out all our shops Sign up to our Patreon for just £2 Follow Us! On Bluesky On InstagramOn ThreadsOn Facebook

Introducing the All Def SquADD Cast show “Versus". It's a podcast with the OG SquADD! Each week, the SquADD will debate topics and vote at the end to see what wins. Versus airs every Monday and you can download and listen wherever podcasts are found. Special Guest Roxxy Haze Lawrence Killebrew This Week We Discuss Noisy Neighbors vs Nosey Neighbors Work With People 15-20 Years Older vs 15-20 Younger Attend A White Potluck vs 6 Hour Time Share Presentation

Podcast for a deep examination into the career and life choices of Eddie Murphy & Jim Carrey. An old nemesis tries to rebrand themself, but the hosts aren't falling for it. Lev thinks termites are causing issues with his soundboard and watches the film 'Mouse Trap' to get inspiration for how to exterminate pests. Why would he be using an electronic device made out of wood? Find out on this week's episode of 'What the Hell Happened to Them?' Email the cast at whathappenedtothem@gmail.com Disclaimer: This episode was recorded in September 2025. References may feel confusing and/or dated unusually quickly. 'Meet Dave' is available on DVD, Blu-ray, & Multi-format (which is really just the first two things): https://www.amazon.com/Meet-Dave-Blu-ray-Eddie-Murphy/dp/B001F7Q4IE/ Music from "Popcorn" by Music with Analise   Artwork from BJ West   quixotic, united, skeyhill, vekeman, murphy, carrey, versus, vs, meet, dave, rock, carey, old, union, banks, macguffin, johnson, caan

Anna Maria Lorusso"Al di là del vero e del falso"Festival Filosofiawww.festivalfilosofia.itFestival Filosofia, SassuoloDomenica 21 settembre, ore 11:30Anna Maria LorussoAl di là del vero e del falsoFinzioni e narrazioni del realeQuali sono i confini tra vero e falso nell'educazione mediatica? Questa lezione indaga i casi in cui, come accade in alcuni podcast di successo, la narrazione si allontana dai fatti in nome dell'efficacia comunicativa o della finalità formativa, riflettendo su vantaggi e rischi di questa pratica sempre più diffusa.Anna Maria Lorusso"Il senso della realtà"Dalla tv all'intelligenza artificialeLa nave di Teseowww.lanavediteseo.euPerché ci appassionano tanto i reality show? Cosa ci attira nell'ascoltare le storie di cronaca nera? Com'è possibile che le teorie cospiratorie e le fake news abbiano tanto seguito? E come tutto questo ha cambiato il nostro senso della realtà?Attraverso quattro esempi – la televisione dei reality, il true crime, i documentari cospirazionisti e i video creati dall'intelligenza artificiale – questo libro offre una riflessione critica e politica su come i concetti di realtà e verità siano oggi messi continuamente alla prova.Ogni giorno, sui social e nei media tradizionali, verità alternative ma verosimili mettono in discussione alcuni dei capisaldi del pensiero occidentale (primo fra tutti il principio di non contraddizione), alimentando così una cultura che non sa più distinguere tra ciò che è reale e ciò che è messo in scena, o inventato, virtuale o finzionale. Che si tratti delle vicende di una coppia vip raccontate come una serie tv, o di un omicidio reale raccontato come un noir, o di video virali creati dalla IA, siamo colpiti dal loro contenuto “interessante”, senza interrogarci sulla loro corrispondenza al reale. E così l'intelligenza artificiale non fa che metterci di fronte a un'abitudine all'irrealtà cui ci siamo narcotizzati da tempo.Attraversando la cultura pop contemporanea (film, serie, podcast, contenuti virali) e le lezioni di Roland Barthes, Jean Baudrillard, Umberto Eco, questo libro denuncia la perdita del senso della realtà a cui sembriamo condannati, e prova a offrire gli strumenti per tornare coi piedi per terra, prima che sia troppo tardi.Anna Maria Lorusso  è professoressa di Filosofia e teoria dei linguaggi presso l'Università di Bologna, dove è anche direttrice del Master in Editoria cartacea e digitale, coordinatrice del Corso di Laurea in Scienze della Comunicazione, parte del gruppo di ricerca sulla memoria e i traumi culturali “Trame” e delegata alla didattica per il Dipartimento delle Arti. Dal 2017 al 2021, è stata presidentessa dell'Associazione Italiana di Studi Semiotici e, dal 2018 al 2024, membro del Consiglio direttivo del Centro Internazionale di Studi Umanistici “Umberto Eco”. È stata inoltre visiting professor negli Stati Uniti, in Cile, in Australia, in Canada e in Argentina. I suoi interessi di ricerca vertono sulla dimensione retorico-discorsiva della cultura: forme di narrazioni collettive, figure retoriche dominanti, modalità discorsive di stabilizzazione, cambiamento e traduzione di stereotipi e luoghi comuni, informazione e disinformazione. Si occupa di memoria ed eredità culturale, di narratologia e narrazioni sociali, delle forme di “popolarizzazione” della storia, attraverso i diversi media. È vicedirettrice di “Versus. Quaderni di studi semiotici” e ha collaborato con l'inserto culturale domenicale de “Il Sole 24 Ore”, oltre a dirigere collane editoriali. Tra i suoi libri: Semiotica del testo giornalistico (con Patrizia Violi, Roma-Bari 2004); Metafora e conoscenza (Milano 2005); La trama del testo. Problemi, analisi, prospettive semiotiche (Milano 2006); Umberto Eco. Temi, problemi e percorsi semiotici (Roma 2008); Semiotica della cultura (Roma-Bari 2010); Postverità. Fra reality tv, social media e storytelling (Roma-Bari 2018); L'utilità del senso comune (Bologna 2022); Il senso della realtà. Dalla tv all'intelligenza artificiale (Milano 2025)Diventa un supporter di questo podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/il-posto-delle-parole--1487855/support.IL POSTO DELLE PAROLEascoltare fa pensarehttps://ilpostodelleparole.it/

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The Barclays WSL has returned for its biggest ever season and VERSUS has linked up with Sky Sports to drop the ultimate guide for a brand new season. Hosted by Mayowa Quadri, ‘Welcome Home' is a hype show for the new season that goes deep on some of the most important issues in the game and its wider culture right now. From breaking down the biggest transfers of the summer to exploring how Chloe Kelly's status as a national icon will grow the game, we've pulled together some of the biggest and best voices in the space to analyse the culture of the WSL like never before. Joining Mayowa are journalist and broadcaster Fadumo Olow, presenter and writer Marva Kreel, and football-culture content creator Tiannah Pedler. Sky Sports is the home of the WSL this season, broadcasting 90% of all live games as part of a historic five-year partnership.

Most people don't feel wealthy. But what if your day-to-day habits are quietly building serious financial strength? A recent article from Kiplinger outlined five surprising signs that you might be richer than you think. And none of them involve yachts or private jets… Let's analyze the habits that signal real, lasting wealth and what to do if you are (or aren't) on the right track.   Important Links: Website: http://www.yourplanningpros.com Call: 844-707-7381   ----more---- Transcript:  Marc: Most people don't feel wealthy. But what if your day-to-day habits are quietly building serious financial strength? Well, a recent article from Kiplinger outlined five surprising signs you might be in better shape than you realize. So let's talk about that this week, here on Plan with the Tax Man.   Welcome into the podcast, folks, as we break things down with Tony Mauro from Tax Doctor Inc., and this week, five signs that you're richer than you think, or at least, I don't know, that's the term it used in this article. I'm going to call it better off, Tony, than we maybe think. I've been talking to advisors like yourself for years, and more times than not, I'd say most advisors say usually about seven out of 10 times, and I'm going to give, maybe not so super specific, but people come in looking at that initial consultation wondering, am I okay? Right? That's the big question. And more times than not, advisors say people are in better shape than they realize. Is that what you see as well in your practice?   Tony Mauro: I'd say generally that, yes. They're not, I believe, where they want to be.   Marc: Sure.   Tony Mauro: Because obviously, they wouldn't be in there, but they're better off than they think. We seldom see somebody that's so far behind that it's impossible to...   Marc: Right, right. And I think that's the catch, right? It's kind of like going to the dentist. We all kind of go... Not to equate your stuff to the dentist, but unfortunately, it's a good analogy. People go, "I need to go, but I don't want to go, because I really don't like it." And then you wait until you've got a real problem and then it's a bigger pain. And so I think a lot of times people think, "Ah, I need to go see a financial professional, but I don't want to because going to give me bad news." And more times than not, again, people are in better shape than they realize.   So, let's run through this report. We'll put a link in the show description here for folks if they want to check it out. And we'll just do a real simple of these five signs. Where are you at? How are you guys doing with this stuff? So number one, Tony, is emergency fund. Have you prepared one? And I think COVID certainly highlighted the need for this for many people, when you were losing jobs, or not being allowed to come in, and weren't getting paid, or reduced pay, maybe put a squeeze on you if you didn't have that emergency fund.   Tony Mauro: Yeah, and this is the first question we ask clients when we're data gathering and whatnot, is to, if they have this. And most don't. Most don't. Most have heard about it, they've never done it, or they've tried it and just basically robbed it and never went back to it. But obviously, most of this types of advice, most planners are going to give you the same thing. You've got to get something like this in place before you can start investing for the future, because of things like job losses, everything that related with COVID, somebody's sick, that kind of thing. So, once you get that kind of stability, then we can kind of move on. Now, we don't have to make you wait to start doing planning until you have six months of expenses saved up.   Marc: Right. Great point. Yeah. Yeah.   Tony Mauro: It can take several years. But we got to get you at least working on it, even if it's $50, $100 bucks a month, to get money in there. And then the other thing is, I ask them, I said, "Do you even know what a month or two of expenses are?" Or do you just look at that checkbook and say, "Oh, well, we've got a little more money this month, we can spend it, and then we got to quit spending." And that goes to just personal finance there. But you've got to know those two things, and you got to get along that path.   Marc: I think the article goes on to say that the average American has about $1000 saved.   Tony Mauro: $1000 bucks.   Marc: Yeah. That's probably not going to get it done. So you got to work your way, like you said, into some sort of a groove there. And I know there's some debate back and forth about once you're retired, do you really need emergency fund? Because you are not working, so therefore you're 401 and all your different nest egg is really the emergency fund, I suppose. But while you're building up to retirement, you certainly want to have that emergency fund there.   Tony Mauro: Yes.   Marc: All right, number two on the list was, you live below your means. I'll throw in, you live within your means. I think below or within, especially in today's environment. If you can do within your means, I think again, these are steps, signs that you're doing pretty good.   Tony Mauro: And this is right out of probably the Millionaire Next Door book, or a chapter of it, is you must know, in my mind, of course, what you got coming in for your income, and then of course, a good idea of what your monthly outflows, are or your expenses. That's what we're talking about here, is living within or below your means. You still have money left at the end of every month, or at least at zero, and you're not going into the negative.   And this assumes that nothing bad or unusual is happening, but if you're in a negative every month, that means you have a spending problem, and you are not living within your means. And that's something we got to curtail, because there's no way you're going to be able to save. You come into us and say, "Hey, I've got to start saving for retirement," and we look at that and you're in a negative pretty much every month, we've got to make some changes immediately before we can start saving, because you don't even have any money to pay your bills, let alone if you get behind, which we just talked about, lose a job. How are you going to invest for retirement?   But yeah, it is definitely something that if you are living within your means, or even better, below, then you are going to be in great... I don't want to say great shape, to automatically have a great retirement. You still got to save.   Marc: Right. It's a big help, though. It's a big help.   Tony Mauro: Yeah, it's a big, big help.   Marc: Because lifestyle creep is a thing. I mean, as we make more money, we kind of want a few more things, and it's totally understandable. You work hard, blah, blah, blah, but you got to be careful not to get out of control. I was just reading something the other day, Tony, I'm not sure if you're a Gen X-er like me. I think you are. But it says Gen X-ers are most in debt right now, on an average of about $157,000, with vehicle debt being a big piece of it. That wasn't even including the house. So you got to get that stuff under control, and living within your means or below it, either way, is a good milestone there, a good marker for financial health.   Tony Mauro: I agree. I think before we leave that topic, it amazes me how many clients that they'll shop around and really feel good about trying to find whatever they're buying at the lowest price, and then they'll put it on a credit card, and they don't pay the credit card off. And I say, "But let me ask you, if you went into that same thing, just going to buy it and you're going to pay three times what they're asking for, would you do it?" And they say, "Absolutely not."   Marc: You wouldn't do it. Absolutely not.   Tony Mauro: "Absolutely not. I'm not doing that. I shopped for deals." I said, "But you really aren't getting any deal, because who knows how long you're going to take?"   Marc: You're just not paying the retail place or whatever the money because you got it cheaper, but you're paying the credit card company money.   Tony Mauro: You're paying the credit card company. So we find a lot of people with a lot of debt because of that.   Marc: That's a great point.   Tony Mauro: It just kind of goes along about that. You got to pay cash for things if possible, except for the few big things in life, because otherwise, generally that's a problem.   Marc: That's a fantastic point. It's very simple to overlook. You think, well, I kind of need to get this new... My computer's acting up for work, or whatever, and I got to get this new computer, and I need to finance it, but I'm going to shop around for the best deal. And maybe that's a higher dollar amount. Maybe you do need to finance it, but if you could save for it and just pay cash, you're just better off. You're just saving money. To your point, yeah, house, car, really big stuff makes sense, you may have to finance.   Tony Mauro: Big stuff, yeah.   Marc: Yeah. All right, number three, you invest strategically. Whether it's your workplace plan or whatever, you got a strategy, versus just, well, I threw it in the 2040 fund because my year to retire.   Tony Mauro: And I think people that, they have a head start when they come in and they say, look, I've got... Even if they've got three or four 401Ks from different employers, they're constantly investing in their current employers, whatever they have. Some of them are doing a Roth on their own, which is fantastic. It doesn't even, to us, matter as much of what they have it invested in, unless it's just all cash and they're really young or something like that, obviously we're going to advise them. But if they're already doing that strategically, they're well ahead of the game because putting money away, and if we can solve those first two problems, if they have them, then great. But that's just a sign that, yeah, they've got a great start on things, and once they get a good plan in place and can see the end goal, then they start feeling, you know what, this is achievable.   Marc: Yeah, right, exactly. It's like, hmm, I like that. Yeah, good stuff indeed. All right, well we're running through, again, these signs that you are in better shape than you realize. So we've got a couple more here to go. And again, check the link if you'd like to kind of read this article from Kiplinger.   You have multiple income streams, Tony. So it's not just, we all know diversification is the name of the game. We have that conversation all the time. But having more than one income stream, or even two. Some people will go, "Well, I've got my 401K, we're going to turn that into one, and then I've got social security, that's two. So I've got multiple." Well, yeah, okay. But what about some others?   Tony Mauro: Yeah, some others, I mean, even during the working years could be either... Could be as simple as a part-time job. It could be you've got a little side gig going on your own, a little business selling whatever you're doing, whether it's a service or actual goods. Could be rentals. We've had rentals since I was 20 years old, and it's good passive income now. All of this stuff comes with issues, meaning that it's just not free income and you don't have to do anything for it. But if you've got multiple income streams, I think it's better.   Yeah, it causes a little more, maybe stress in your life, maybe a little more to-do's. But at the end of the day, one, you're going to hopefully be making more money, and two, if something goes bad with the main gig, I call it, well, you've got at least a little income coming in from something while you figure it out. So I think it's always good to take a look at, especially today, I tell my son a lot, with AI, the way it's going and whatnot, it's just changing so fast. You got to be prepared to make some changes and try to earn money from different sources.   Marc: For sure. For sure. Yeah. Whether it's rental property or whatever else, but definitely just having those multiple income streams can go a long way towards, again, putting you in better shape than you might realize.   And then the final one, Tony, and you kind of touched on a little bit when we were talking about investing strategically, but just in general, the article talks about focusing on the long-term. How does your mindset and your behavior reflect with that? I think folks who are definitely thinking, especially sooner than later, 50-plus, you start really thinking long-term, that's going to help you out.   Tony Mauro: Yeah, and I like the fact that when clients come to see us and we give them a little quiz right off the bat, and if they answer it, whether they're nonstop watching TV and listening to the news and reacting to this short-term stuff, or whatever it may be, it's usually negative. And so, if they panic every time they're doing that and they're not focused on the long-term, for us, that's kind of a landmine. We have to try to talk them out of that if they're going to work with us. Versus a person comes in and says, "I've been doing all these things for years. I really don't pay attention to the news and I just keep putting money in and it's done fairly well for me." That's kind of more of the focus you want. With some, especially with an advisor, if you're meeting with them once or more a year, they're going to be able to help you and tell you what you have been doing. But you definitely want to keep a long-term perspective on things.   Marc: Yeah, and I think helping and having that long-term plan, again, sooner than later, gives you that runway that we need to plan out the stuff that we want to do. The new passing of the tax code and everything helped. Again, we talked about it the last couple of weeks, helped advisors. At least, if nothing else, whether you agree with it or don't agree with it, now you at least know what's ahead of you from a strategic planning standpoint for taxation and so on and so forth. And so, all of that kind of lends into just having a good cohesive strategy to get you to and through your retirement goal.   So, if you need some help, reach out to Tony. Hopefully, if you're doing some of these things, that makes you feel pretty good. You realize that maybe you're already on the right path. But find out, right? Run the numbers and see where you stand and what kind of work you need to do. Everybody can use a little bit of work, but sometimes people overreact, I think, and think, oh, if I go see an advisor, it's going to be some major overhaul to my life. And maybe it is, depending on what you've done, but a lot of times it's little tweaks, right? Little tweaks goes a long way.   So, get on the calendar, folks. YourPlanningPros.com. YourPlanningPros.com to schedule some time with Tony and his team at Tax Doctor Inc. And don't forget to subscribe to us on Apple or Spotify, whatever podcasting app you enjoy using, to catch future episodes when they come out. Tony, my friend, thanks for breaking it down and hanging out with us. Always appreciate your time.   Tony Mauro: All right, we'll talk to you on the next show.   Marc: We will see you next time here, we'll get into, as the year's winding down, we'll be almost into the fourth quarter on the next couple episodes coming up. So if you've got some questions, need some help, again, reach out to Tony, YourPlanningPros.com. We'll see you next time here on Plan with the Tax Man. Securities offered through Avantax Investment Services SM, member FINRA, SIPC. Investment advisory services offered through Avantax Advisory Services. Insurance services offered through an Avantax affiliated insurance agency. Investment strategies discussed in this episode may not be suitable for all investors. Please consult with a financial professional.

  Welcome to the Prehospital Emergency Care Journal Podcast! In this PEC Podcast Deep Dive, Rebecca Cash and Maia Dorsett interview Dr. Tony Fernandez about his recent PEC paper comparing initial prehospital adenosine doses of 6 mg versus 12 mg for presumed SVT. We explore the study's origins, dataset design, and results—including the finding that starting with 12 mg was associated with higher rates of cardioversion and fewer redoses without an increase in complications. Along the way, we discuss the quirks of EMS data, why some “standard” practices exist without strong evidence, and how retrospective studies fit into the bigger picture of protocol change. For those whose interest in study methods was piqued, here's a great short primer on odds ratios versus relative risk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWtzaKYFg00&t=175s Featured Article Fernandez, A. R., Bourn, S. S., Duncan, D., Slovis, C. M., Crowe, R. P., Treichel, A., & Myers, J. B. (2025). Comparing Prehospital Adenosine Initial Dosing of 6 mg Versus 12 mg for Presumed Paroxysmal Supraventricular Tachycardia (PSVT). Prehospital Emergency Care, 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1080/10903127.2025.2504521

Introducing the All Def SquADD Cast show “Versus". It's a podcast with the OG SquADD! Each week, the SquADD will debate topics and vote at the end to see what wins. Versus airs every Monday and you can download and listen wherever podcasts are found. Special Guest Roxxy Haze Dion Lack Young Deuces  This Week We Discuss Never Pay For Gas Again vs Never Pay For Electricity Again Run A Marathon On A Road Of Legos vs Be A Barehanded Cleaner At A Petting Zoo  S/o To Our Sponsors Better Help https://betterhelp.com/squadd Get 10% Off Your First Month Ava Download The Ava App Today Promo: SQUADD

How does status infiltrate all of our decisions, and how is status allocated in a networked society?Toby E. Stuart is a professor at the Haas School at UC Berkeley and also the author of the new book called Anointed: The Extraordinary Effects of Social Status in a Winner-Take-Most World.Greg and Toby discuss the influence of social status on various aspects of life, including consumer behavior, resource allocation, and decision-making. They explore the concept of the Matthew Effect (how status leads to more status), the interplay between status and merit, and the implications of prestige in different fields such as academia, venture finance, and entertainment. The episode also examines the role of status in creating inequality and the potential benefits and challenges of implementing measures to reduce the impact of status in decision-making processes.*unSILOed Podcast is produced by University FM.*Episode Quotes:The big shift why we trust the painter over the painting12:17: What do you do when you have to make a choice about something, but you have no real ability to evaluate its quality? Right? And, you know, that is true of so many things. Like, it is true of a hotel room you have never seen before, or a restaurant you have never been to before, or, like, you know, which of these things are going to be good? And in the book, I make the argument that what you do—I call it the Big Shift—is, if you walk into a museum, say, and you see a piece of art on the wall, I mean, you know it is in the museum, but you do not know whether it is high quality or not. But then you see the artist's name, and what you do know is, it is a Picasso, and I have heard of Picasso, and he is a very famous artist. And, in theory, he makes excellent art. And because of that, this is a very good picture. This is an amazing piece of art. But what you just did there is you took the identity of the artist and you assigned it to the art itself.Status exists only in relationships08:41: Status is a resource that is created in a social system. So individuals and groups give status to members, but it does not exist absent the social relationship. And right there, you can see the link to social networks, because flows of deferences are forms of relationships.Born on third base privilege and status56:16: So there is still today the prosperity gospel, and people who are successful often believed that it was a form of pre-ordination, like they were destined to get whatever they have, you know. But the other part of it is, you know, is best summed up by, you know, this quote I have always loved. I think, you know, the providence is occasionally debated, but it is often attributed to Barry Switzer. You know this one, and it goes: he refers to someone and he says, like, “You know, that guy was born on third base, and he has always thought he hit a triple.” Right? And that is what we call privilege these days—where you have all of these advantages. You were born with the advantages, you did not earn them, but you think you did, and therefore you attribute your status to your own merit. Versus what actually happened is you were born on third base; you did not ever hit the triple.Status on steroids in the digital age42:19: What happens when we have these digital platforms? When we have digital platforms, like anybody can get onto Spotify or Pandora or Apple Music or whatever, and they can find any piece of music literally created. Just like, you know, 99.9% of all recorded music exists on these platforms. And so you can find anybody's music. And so anywhere in the world, you can listen to the oboist—that one oboist who is the greatest in the world. So the globalization of the audience changes the nature of what happens in the marketplace, so to speak, and in a radical way. And then, if you have a cumulative advantage process which pushes people up to the top, that unfolds on steroids if you are looking at a global digital marketplace versus the way the world used to work.Show Links:Recommended Resources:Matthew EffectNetwork TheoryRobert B. ParkerWine RatingJohn Strutt, 3rd Baron RayleighRichard Wrangham - UnSILOed Episode 5Alexis de TocquevilleCaste SystemJohn D. RockefellerReformed ChristianityGuest Profile:Faculty Profile at Berkeley HaasTobyStuart.comLinkedIn ProfileBerkeley ExecEd ProfileSocial Profile on InstagramSocial Profile on XGuest Work:Anointed: The Extraordinary Effects of Social Status in a Winner-Take-Most WorldGoogle Scholar PageResearchGate Page

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Introducing the All Def SquADD Cast show “Versus". It's a podcast with the OG SquADD! Each week, the SquADD will debate topics and vote at the end to see what wins. Versus airs every Monday and you can download and listen wherever podcasts are found. Special Guest David Murphy Donny Big Irish Jay This Week We Discuss Punched In The Face By Mike Tyson Once vs Chased By A Swarm Of Hornets For 5 Minutes Have A Permanent Injury From A Crime vs A Failed Sexual Exploit Help A Struggling Man Pastor Grow Membership vs Help Your Worst Ex Find Love S/o To Our Sponsors Cash App Download CashApp Today Use Code Secure10 At Sign Up Recieve $10 FREE After You Send A Friend $5 Blue Chew Blewchew.com Promo: SQUADD Prize Picks Get $50 In Lineups After You Post Your First $5 Lineup Download PrizePicks Today Promo: SQUADD

Jaws is back in theaters and the box office has capsized. Plus loads of movie news on a special Labor Day edition of Versus hosted by Alan Ng along with special guest co-host The Angry Badger. Hilarity ensues.

Podcast for a deep examination into the career and life choices of Eddie Murphy & Jim Carrey. Joe has trouble finding the point of this week's movie since it is the size of a speck. Patrick gets lost down a rabbit hole of Whovian biology. Lev tries to invent a cancerless cigarette so he can look cool. Will he look "Tony Leung" cool? Find out on this week's episode of 'What the Hell Happened to Them?' Email the cast at whathappenedtothem@gmail.com Disclaimer: This episode was recorded in August 2025. References may feel confusing and/or dated unusually quickly. 'Horton Hears a Who' is available on DVD & Blu-ray (which looks a lot like a DVD): https://www.amazon.com/Horton-Hears-Who-Family-Icons/dp/B019WMTVO2/ Music from "The Lorax Rap" & "Green Eggs and Ham Rap" by Wes Tank   Artwork from BJ West   quixotic, united, skeyhill, vekeman, murphy, carrey, versus, vs, horton, hears, who, seuss, elephant, carey, conspiracy, carrell, burnett, geisel

You're listening to Burnt Toast! Today, my guest is Ash Brandin of Screen Time Strategies, also know as The Gamer Educator on Instagram. Ash is also the author of a fantastic new book, Power On: Managing Screen Time to Benefit the Whole Family. Ash joined us last year to talk about how our attitudes towards screen time can be…diet-adjacent. I asked them to come back on the podcast this week because a lot of us are heading into back-to-school mode, which in my experience can mean feelingsss about screen routines. There are A LOT of really powerful reframings in this episode that might blow your mind—and make your parenting just a little bit easier. So give this one a listen and share it with anyone in your life who's also struggling with kids and screen time.Today's episode is free but if you value this conversation, please consider supporting our work with a paid subscription. Burnt Toast is 100% reader- and listener-supported. We literally can't do this without you! PS. You can take 10 percent off Power On, or any book we talk about on the podcast, if you order it from the Burnt Toast Bookshop, along with a copy of Fat Talk! (This also applies if you've previously bought Fat Talk from them. Just use the code FATTALK at checkout.)Episode 208 TranscriptVirginiaFor anyone who missed your last episode, can you just quickly tell us who you are and what you do?AshI'm Ash Brandin. I use they/them pronouns.I am a middle school teacher by day, and then with my online presence, I help families and caregivers better understand and manage all things technology—screen time, screens. My goal is to reframe the way that we look at them as caregivers, to find a balance between freaking out about them and allowing total access. To find a way that works for us. VirginiaWe are here today to talk about your brilliant new book, which is called Power On: Managing Screen Time to Benefit the Whole Family. I can't underscore enough how much everybody needs a copy of this book. I have already turned back to it multiple times since reading it a few months ago. It just really helps ground us in so many aspects of this conversation that we don't usually have.AshI'm so glad to hear that it's helpful! If people are new to who I am, I have sort of three central tenets of the work that I do: * Screen time is a social inequity issue. * Screens can be part of our lives without being the center of our lives. * Screens and screen time should benefit whole families.Especially in the last few years, we have seen a trend toward panic around technology and screens and smartphones and social media. I think that there are many reasons to be concerned around technology and its influence, especially with kids. But what's missing in a lot of those conversations is a sense of empowerment about what families can reasonably do. When we focus solely on the fear, it ends up just putting caregivers in a place of feeling bad.VirginiaYou feel like you're getting it wrong all the time.AshShame isn't empowering. No one is like, “Well, I feel terrible about myself, so now I feel equipped to go make a change,” right?Empowerment is what's missing in so many of those conversations and other books and things that have come out, because it's way harder. It's so much harder to talk about what you can really do and reasonably control in a sustainable way. But I'm an educator, and I really firmly believe that if anyone's in this sort of advice type space, be it online or elsewhere, that they need to be trying to empower and help families instead of just capitalizing on fear.VirginiaWhat I found most powerful is that you really give us permission to say: What need is screen time meeting right now? And this includes caregivers' needs. So not just “what need is this meeting for my child,” but what need is this meeting for me? I am here recording with you right now because iPads are meeting the need of children have a day off school on a day when I need to work. We won't be interrupted unless I have to approve a screen time request, which I might in 20 minutes.I got divorced a couple years ago, and my kids get a lot more screen time now. Because they move back and forth between two homes, and each only has one adult in it. Giving myself permission to recognize that I have needs really got me through a lot of adjusting to this new rhythm of our family.AshAbsolutely. And when we're thinking about what the need is, we also need to know that it's going to change. So often in parenting, it feels like we have to come up with one set of rules and they have to work for everything in perpetuity without adjustment. That just sets us up for a sense of failure if we're like, well, I had this magical plan that someone told me was going to work, and it didn't. So I must be the problem, right? It all comes back to that “well, it's my fault” place.VirginiaWhich is screens as diet culture.AshAll over again. We're back at it. It's just not helpful. If instead, we're thinking about what is my need right now? Sometimes it's “I have to work.” And sometimes it's “my kid is sick and they just need to relax.” Sometimes it's, as you were alluding to earlier, it's we've all just had a day, right? We've been run ragged, and we just need a break, and that need is going to dictate very different things. If my kid is laid up on the couch and throwing up, then what screen time is going to be doing for them is very different than If I'm trying to work and I want them to be reasonably engaged in content and trying to maybe learn something. And that's fine. Being able to center “this is what I need right now,” or “this is what we need right now,” puts us in a place of feeling like we're making it work for us. Instead of feeling like we're always coming up against some rule that we're not going to quite live up to.VirginiaI'd love to talk about the inequity piece a little more too. As I said, going from a two parent household to a one parent household, which is still a highly privileged environment—but even just that small shift made me realize, wait a second. I think all the screen time guidance is just for typical American nuclear families. Ideally, with a stay at home parent.So can you talk about why so much of the standard guidance doesn't apply to most of our families?AshIt's not even just a stay at home parent. It's assuming that there is always at least one caregiver who is fully able to be present. Mom, default parent, is making dinner, and Dad is relaxing after work and is monitoring what the kids are doing, right? And it's one of those times where I'm like, have you met a family?VirginiaPeople are seven different places at once. It's just not that simple.AshIt's not that simple, right? It's like, have you spent five minutes in a typical household in the last 10 years? This is not how it's going, right?So the beginning of the book helps people unlearn and relearn what we may have heard around screens, including what research really does or doesn't say around screens, and this social inequity piece. Because especially since the onset of COVID, screens are filling in systemic gaps for the vast majority of families.I'm a family with two caregivers in the home. We both work, but we're both very present caregivers. So we're definitely kind of a rarity, that we're very privileged. We're both around a lot of the time. And we are still using screens to fill some of those gaps.So whether it's we don't really have a backyard, or people are in a neighborhood where they can't send their kids outside, or they don't have a park or a playground. They don't have other kids in the neighborhood, or it's not a safe climate. Or you live in an apartment and you can't have your neighbors complain for the fifth time that your kids are stomping around and being loud. Whatever it is—a lack of daycare, affordable after school care —those are all gaps. They all have to be filled. And we used to have different ways of filling those gaps, and they've slowly become less accessible or less available. So something has to fill them. What ends up often filling them is screens. And I'm not saying that that's necessarily a good thing. I'd rather live in a world in which everyone is having their needs met accessibly and equitably. But that's a much harder conversation, and is one that we don't have very much say in. We participate in that, and we might vote for certain people, but that's about all we can really do reasonably. So, in the meantime, we have to fill that in with something and so screens are often going to fill that in.Especially if you look at caregivers who have less privilege, who are maybe single caregivers, caregivers of color, people living in poverty—all of those aspects of scarcity impacts their bandwidth. Their capacity as a caregiver is less and spread thinner, and all of that takes away from a caregiver's ability to be present. And there were some really interesting studies that were done around just the way that having less capacity affects you as a caregiver.And when I saw that data, I thought, well, of course. Of course people are turning to screens because they have nothing else to give from. And when we think of it that way, it's hard to see that as some sort of personal failure, right? When we see it instead as, oh, this is out of necessity. It reframes the question as “How do I make screens work for me,” as opposed to, “I'm bad for using screens.”VirginiaRight. How do I use screen time to meet these needs and to hopefully build up my capacity so that I can be more present with my kids? I think people think if you're using a lot of screens, you're really never present. It's that stereotype of the parent on the playground staring at their phone, instead of watching the kid play. When maybe the reason we're at the playground is so my kid can play and I can answer some work emails. That doesn't mean I'm not present at other points of the day.AshOf course. You're seeing one moment. I always find that so frustrating. It just really feels like you you cannot win. If I were sitting there staring at my child's every move in the park, someone would be like, “you're being a helicopter,” right? And if I look at my phone because I'm trying to make the grocery pickup order—because I would rather my child have time at the playground than we spend our only free hour in the grocery store and having to manage a kid in the grocery store and not having fun together, right? Instead I'm placing a pickup order and they're getting to run around on the playground. Now also somehow I'm failing because I'm looking at my phone instead of my kid. But also, we want kids to have independent time, and not need constant input. It really feels like you just can't win sometimes. And being able to take a step back and really focus on what need is this meeting? And if it's ours, and if it is helping me be more present and connected, that's a win. When I make dinner in the evening, my kid is often having screen time, and I will put in an AirPod and listen to a podcast, often Burnt Toast, and that's my decompression. Because I come home straight from work and other things. I'm not getting much time to really decompress.VirginiaYou need that airlock time, where you can decompress and then be ready to be present at dinner.I'm sure I've told you this before, but I reported a piece on screen time for Parents Magazine, probably almost 10 years ago at this point, because I think my older child was three or four. And I interviewed this Harvard researcher, this older white man, and I gave him this the dinner time example. I said, I'm cooking dinner. My kid is watching Peppa Pig so that I can cook dinner, and take a breath. And then we eat dinner together. And he said, “Why don't you involve her in cooking dinner? Why don't you give her a bag of flour to play with while you cook dinner?”AshOf all the things!VirginiaAnd I said to him: Because it's 5pm on a Wednesday and who's coming to clean the flour off the ceiling?AshA bag of flour. Of all the things to go to! VirginiaHe was like, “kids love to make a happy mess in the kitchen!” I was like, well I don't love that. And it was just exactly that. My need didn't matter to him at all. He was like, “h, well, if you just want to pacify your children…” I was like, I do, yes, in that moment.AshWell, and I think that's another part of it is that someone says it to us like that, and we're like, “well, I can't say yes,” right? But in the moment, yeah, there are times where it's like, I need you to be quiet. And as hard as this can be to think, sometimes it's like right now, I need you to be quiet and convenient because of the situation we're in. And that doesn't mean we're constantly expecting that of them, and hopefully that's not something we're doing all the time. But if the need is, oh my God, we're all melting down, and if we don't eat in the next 15 minutes, we're going to have a two hour DEFCON1 emergency on our hands, then, yeah, I'm gonna throw Peppa Pig on so that we can all become better regulated humans in the next 15 minutes and not have a hungry meltdown. And that sounds like a much better alternative to me!VirginiaThan flour all over my kitchen on a Wednesday, right? I mean, I'll never not be mad about it. It's truly the worst parenting advice I've ever received. So thank you for giving us all more space as caregivers to be able to articulate our own needs and articulate what we need to be present. It's what we can do in the face of gaps in the care system that leave us holding so much.That said: I think there are some nitty gritty aspects of this that we all struggle wit, so I want to talk about some of the nuts and bolts pieces. One of my biggest struggles is still the question of how much time is too much time? But you argue that time really isn't the measure we should be using. As you're saying, that need is going to vary day to day, and all the guidance that's been telling us, like, 30 minutes at this age, an hour at this age, all of that is not particularly germane to our lives. So can you explain both why time is less what we should fixate on? And then how do I release myself? How do I divest from the screen time diet culture?AshOh man, I wish I had a magic bullet for that one. We'll see what I can do.When I was writing this and thinking about it and making content about it, I kept thinking about you. Because the original time guidelines that everyone speaks back to—they're from the AAP. And they have not actually been used in about 10 years, but people still bring them up all the time. The “no time under two” and “up to an hour up to age five” and “one to two hours, five to 12.” And if you really dig in, I was following footnote after footnote for a while, trying to really find where did this actually come from? It's not based on some study that found that that's the ideal amount of time. It really came from a desire to find this middle ground of time spent being physically idle. These guidelines are about wanting to avoid childhood obesity.VirginiaOf course.AshIt all comes back, right?VirginiaI should have guessed it.AshAnd so in their original recommendations, the AAP note that partially this is to encourage a balance with physical movement. Which, of course, assumes that if you are not sitting watching TV or using an iPad, that you will be playing volleyball or something.VirginiaYou'll automatically be outside running around.AshExactly, of course, those are the only options.VirginiaIt also assumes that screen time is never physical. But a lot of kids are very physical when they're watching screens.AshExactly. And it, of course, immediately also imposes a morality of one of these things is better—moving your body is always better than a screen, which is not always going to be true, right? All these things have nuance in them. But I thought that was so interesting, and it shouldn't have surprised me, and yet somehow it still did. And of course it is good to find movement that is helpful for you and to give your kids an enjoyment of being outside or moving their bodies, or playing a sport. And putting all of that in opposition to something else they may enjoy, like a screen, really quickly goes to that diet culture piece of “well, how many minutes have you been doing that?” Because now we have to offset it with however many minutes you should be running laps or whatever.So those original recommendations are coming from a place of already trying to mitigate the negatives of sitting and doing something sort of passively leisurely. And in the last 10 years, they've moved away from that, and they now recommend what's called making a family media plan. Which actually I think is way better, because it is much more prioritizing what are you using this for? Can you be doing it together? What can you do? It's much more reasonable, I think. But many people still go back to those original recommendations, because like you said, it's a number. It's simple. Just tell me.VirginiaWe love to grab onto a number and grade ourselves.AshJust tell me how much time so that I can tell myself I'm I'm doing a good job, right? But you know, time is just one piece of information. It can be so specific with what am I using that time to do? If I'm sitting on my computer and doing work for an hour and a half, technically, that is screen time, but it is going to affect me a lot differently than if I'm watching Netflix or scrolling my phone for an hour and a half. I will feel very different after those things. And I think it's really important to be aware of that, and to make our kids aware of that from an early age, so that they are thinking about more than just, oh, it's been X amount of minutes. And therefore this is okay or not okay.Because all brains and all screens are different. And so one kid can watch 20 minutes of Paw Patrol, and they're going to be bouncing off the walls, because, for whatever reason, that's just a show that's really stimulating for them. And somebody else can sit and watch an hour and a half of something, and they'll be completely fine. So if you have a kid that is the first kid, and after 20 minutes, you're like, oh my god, it's not even half an hour. This is supposed to be an okay amount. This is how they're acting. We're right back to that “something's wrong. I'm wrong. They're bad,” as opposed to, “What is this telling me? What's something we could do differently? Could we try a different show? Could we try maybe having some physical movement before or after, see if that makes a difference?” It just puts us more in a place of being curious to figure out again, how do I make this work for me? What is my need? How do I make it work for us?And not to rattle on too long, but there was a big study done in the UK, involving over 120,000 kids. And they were trying to find what they called “the Goldilocks amount of time.”VirginiaYes. This is fascinating.AshSo it's the amount of time where benefit starts to wane. Where we are in that “just right”amount. Before that, might still be okay, but after that we're going to start seeing some negative impacts, particularly when it comes to behavior, for example.What they found in general was that the Goldilocks number tended to be around, I think, an hour and 40 minutes a day. Something around an hour and a half a day. But if you looked at certain types of screens, for computers or TV, it was much higher than that. It was closer to three hours a day before you started seeing some negative impacts. And even for things like smartphones, it was over an hour a day. But what I found so so interesting, is that they looked at both statistical significance, but also what they called “minimally important difference,” which was when you would actually notice these negative changes, subjectively, as a caregiver.So this meant how much would a kid have to be on a screen for their adult at home to actually notice “this is having an impact on you,” regularly. And that amount was over four and a half hours a day on screens.VirginiaBefore caregivers were like, “Okay, this is too much!” And the fact that the statistically significant findings for the minutia of what the researchers looking at is so different from what you as a caregiver are going to actually be thrown by. That was really mind blowing to me.AshRight, And that doesn't mean that statistical significance isn't important, necessarily. But we're talking about real minutiae. And that doesn't always mean that you will notice any difference in your actual life.Of course, some people are going to hear this and go, “But I don't want my kid on a screen for four and a half hours.” Sure. That's completely reasonable. And if your kid is having a hard time after an hour, still reasonable, still important. That's why we can think less about how many minutes has it been exactly, and more, what am I noticing? Because if I'm coming back to the need and you're like, okay, I have a meeting and I need an hour, right? If you know, “I cannot have them use their iPad for an hour, because they tend to become a dysregulated mess in 25 minutes,” that's much more useful information than “Well, it says they're allowed to have an hour of screen time per day so this should be fine because it's an hour.”VirginiaRight.AshIt sets you up for more success.VirginiaAnd if you know your kid can handle that hour fine and can, in fact, handle more fine, it doesn't mean, “well you had an hour of screen time while I was in a meeting so now we can't watch a show together later to relax together.” You don't have to take away and be that granular with the math of the screens. You can be like, yeah, we needed an extra hour for this meeting, and we'll still be able to watch our show later. Because that's what I notice with my kids. If I start to try to take away from some other screen time, then it's like, “Oh, god, wait, but that's the routine I'm used to!” You can't change it, and that's fair.AshYes, absolutely. And I would feel that way too, right? If someone were giving me something extra because it was a convenience to them, but then later was like, “oh, well, I have to take that from somewhere.” But they didn't tell me that. I would be like, Excuse me, that's weird. That's not how that works, right? This was a favor to you, right?VirginiaYeah, exactly. I didn't interrupt your meeting. You're welcome, Mom.Where the time anxiety does tend to kick in, though, is that so often it's hard for kids to transition off screens. So then parents think, “Well, it was too much time,” or, “The screen is bad.” This is another very powerful reframing in your work. So walk us through why just because a kid is having a hard time getting off screens doesn't mean it was too much and it doesn't mean that screens are evil? AshSo an example I use many times that you can tweak to be whatever thing would come up for your kid is bath time. I think especially when kids are in that sort of toddler, three, four age. When my kid was that age, we had a phase where transitioning to and from the bathtub was very hard. Getting into it was hard. But then getting out of it was hard.VirginiaThey don't ever want to get in. And then they never want to leave.AshThey never want to get out, right? And in those moments when my kid was really struggling to get out of the bathtub, imagine how it would sound if I was like, “Well, it it's the bathtub's fault.” Like it's the bath's fault that they are having such a hard time, it's because of the bubbles, and it smells too good, and I've made it too appealing and the water's too warm. Like, I mean, I sound unhinged, right?Virginia“We're going to stop bathing you.”AshExactly. We would not say, “Well, we can't have baths anymore.” Or when we go to the fun playground, and it's really hard to leave the fun playground, we don't blame the playground. When we're in the grocery store and they don't want to leave whichever aisle, we don't blame the grocery store. And we also don't stop taking them to the grocery store. We don't stop going to playgrounds. We don't stop having baths. Instead, we make different decisions, right? We try different things. We start a timer. We have a different transition. We talk about it beforehand. We strategize, we try things.VirginiaGive a “Hey, we're leaving in a few minutes!” so they're not caught off guard.AshExactly. We talk about it. Hey, last time it was really hard to leave here, we kind of let them know ahead of time, or we race them to the car. We find some way to make it more fun, to make the transition easier, right? We get creative, because we know that, hey, they're going to have to leave the grocery store. They're going to have to take baths in a reasonable amount of time as they grow up into their lives. We recognize the skill that's happening underneath it.And I think with screens, we don't always see those underlying skills, because we see it as this sort of superfluous thing, right? It's not needed. It's not necessary. Well, neither is going to a playground, technically.A lot of what we do is not technically required, but the skill underneath is still there. So when they are struggling with ending screen time, is it really the screen, or is it that it's hard to stop doing something fun. It's hard to stop in the middle of something. It's hard to stop if you have been playing for 20 minutes and you've lost every single race and you don't want to stop when you've just felt like you've lost over and over again, right? You want one more shot to one more shot, right?People are going to think, “Well, but screens are so much different than those other things.” Yes, a screen is designed differently than a playground or a bath. But we are going to have kids who are navigating a technological and digital world that we are struggle to even imagine, right? We're seeing glimpses of it, but it's going to be different than what we're experiencing now, and we want our kids to be able to navigate that with success. And that comes back to seeing the skills underneath. So when they're struggling with something like that, taking the screen out of it, and asking yourself, how would I handle this if it were anything else. How would I handle this if it were they're struggling to leave a friend's house? I probably wouldn't blame the friend, and I wouldn't blame their house, and I wouldn't blame their boys.VirginiaWe're never seeing that child again! Ash I would validate and I would tell them, it's hard. And I would still tell them “we're ending,” and we would talk about strategies to make it easier next time. And we would get curious and try something, and we would be showing our kids that, “hey, it's it's okay to have a hard time doing that thing. It's okay to have feelings about it. And we're still gonna do it. We're still going to end that thing.”Most of the time, the things that we are struggling with when it comes to screens actually boil down to one of three things, I call them the ABCs. It's either Access, which could be time, or when they're having it, or how much. Behavior, which you're kind of bringing up here. And Content, what's on the screen, what they're playing, what they what they have access to.And so sometimes we might think that the problem we're seeing in front of us is a behavior problem, right? I told them to put the screen away. They're not putting the screen away. That's a behavior problem. But sometimes it actually could be because it's an access issue, right? It's more time than they can really handle at that given moment. Or it could be content, because it's content that makes it harder to start and stop. So a big part of the book is really figuring out, how do I know what problem I'm even really dealing with here? And then what are some potential things that I can do about it? To try to problem solve, try to make changes and see if this helps, and if it helps, great, keep it. And if not, I can get curious and try something else. And so a lot of it is strategies to try and ways to kind of, you know, backwards engineer what might be going on, to figure out how to make it work for you, how to make it better.VirginiaIt's so helpful to feel like, okay, there's always one more thing I can tweak and adjust. Versus “it's all a failure. We have to throw it out.” That kind of all or nothing thinking that really is never productive. The reason I think it's so helpful that you draw that parallel with the bath or the play date is it reminds us that there are some kids for whom transitions are just always very difficult—like across the board. So you're not just seeing a screen time problem. You're being reminded “My kid is really building skills around transitions. We don't have them yet.” We hope we will have them at some point. But this is actually an opportunity to work on that, as opposed to a problem. We can actually practice some of these transition skills.AshAnd I really like coming back to the skill, because if we're thinking of it as a skill, then we're probably more likely to tell our kids that it's a skill, too. Because if we're just thinking of it as like, well, it's a screen. It's the screen's fault, it's the screen's fault. Then we might not say those literal words to our kids, but we might say, like, it's always so hard to turn off the TV. Why is that, right? We're talking about it as if it's this sort of amorphous, like it's only about the television, or it's only about the iPad, and we're missing the part of making it clear to our kids that, hey, this is a skill that you're working on, and we work on this skill in different ways.VirginiaI did some good repair with my kids after reading your book. Because I was definitely falling into the trap of talking about screen addiction. I thought I was saying to them, “It's not your fault. The screens are programmed to be bad for us in this way” So I thought, I was like at least not blaming them, but being like, we need less screens because they're so dangerous.But then I read your book, and I was like, oh, that's not helpful either. And I did have one of my kids saying, “Am I bad because I want to watch screens all the time?” And I was like, oh, that's too concrete and scary.And again, to draw the parallel with diet culture: It's just like telling kids sugar is bad, and then they think they're bad because they like sugar. So I did do some repair. I was like, “I read this book and now I've learned that that was not right.” They were like, oh, okay. We're healing in my house from that, so thank you.AshOh, you're very welcome, and I'm glad to hear that!I think about those parallels with food all the time, because sometimes it just helps me think, like, wait, would I be wanting to send this message about food or exercise or whatever? And if the answer is no, then how can I tweak it so that I'm sending a message I'd be okay with applying to other things. And I like being able to make those parallels with my kid. In my household right now, we're practicing flexibility. Flexibility is a skill that we're working on in so many parts of our lives. And when I say we, I do mean we. Me, everybody is working on this.VirginiaParents can use more flexibility, for sure.AshAbsolutely. And so like, when those moments are coming up, you know, I'm trying to say, like, hey, like, what skill is this right now? Who's having to be flexible right now? Flexible can be a good thing, right? We might be flexible by saying yes to eating dinner on the couch and watching a TV show. That's flexibility. Flexibility isn't just adjust your plans to be more convenient to me, child, so that I can go do something as an adult. And coming back to those skills so they can see, oh, okay, this isn't actually just about screens. This applies to every part of these of my life, or these different parts of my life, and if I'm working on it here, oh, wow, it feels easier over there. And so they can see that this applies throughout their life, and kind of feel more of that buy in of like, oh, I'm getting better at that. Or that was easier. That was harder. We want them to see that across the board.VirginiaOh, my God, absolutely.Let's talk about screens and neurodivergence a little bit. So one of my kiddos is neurodivergent, and I can both see how screens are wonderful for them at the end of a school day, when they come home and they're really depleted. Screen time is the thing they need to rest and regulate. And they love the world building games, which gives them this whole world to control and explore. And there's so much there that's wonderful.And, they definitely struggle more than their sibling with this transition piece, with getting off it. One kid will naturally put down the iPad at some point and go outside for a bit, and this kid will not. And it creates more anxiety for parents. Because neurodivergent kids may both need screens—in ways that maybe we're not totally comfortable with, but need to get comfortable with—and then struggle with the transition piece. So how do you think about this question differently with neurodivergence? Or or is it really the same thing you're just having to drill in differently?AshI think it is ultimately the same thing, but it certainly is going to feel quite more heightened. And I think especially for certain aspects of neurodivergence, especially, I think it feels really heightened because of some of the ways that they might be discussed, particularly online, when it comes to how they relate to technology. I think about ADHD, we'll see that a lot. Where I'll see many things online about, like, “kids with ADHD should never be on a screen. They should never be on a device, because they are so dopamine-seeking.” And I have to just say that I find that to be such an ableist framing. Because with ADHD, we're talking about a dopamine deficient brain. And I don't think that we would be having that same conversation about someone needing insulin, right? Like, we wouldn't be saying, like, oh yeah, nope, they can't take that insulin. VirginiaThey're just craving that insulin they need to stay alive.AshA kid seeking a thing that they're that they are somehow deficient in—that's not some sort of defiant behavior. VirginiaNo, it's a pretty adaptive strategy.AshAbsolutely, it is. And we want kids to know that nobody's brain is good or bad, right? There's not a good brain or a bad brain. There are all brains are going to have things that are easier or harder. And it's about learning the brain that you're in, and what works or doesn't work for the brain that you're in.And all brains are different, right? Neurotypical brains and neurodivergent brains within those categories are obviously going to be vastly different. What works for one won't work for another, and being able to figure out what works for them, instead of just, “because you have this kind of brain, you shouldn't ever do this thing,” that's going to set them up for more success. And I think it's great that you mentioned both how a screen can be so regulating, particularly for neurodivergent brains, and then the double-edged sword of that is that then you have to stop. VirginiaTransition off back into the world.AshSo if the pain point is a transition, what is it really coming from? Is it coming from the executive function piece of “I don't know how to find a place to stop?” A lot of people, particularly kids ADHD, they often like games that are more open-ended. So they might like something like a Minecraft or an Animal Crossing or the Sims where you can hyperfocus and deep dive into something. But what's difficult about that is that, you know, if I play Mario Kart, the level ends, it's a very obvious ending.VirginiaRight? And you can say, “One more level, and we're done.”AshExactly. We've reached the end of the championship. I'm on the podium. I quit now, right?But there's a never ending series of of tasks with a more open-ended game. And especially if I'm in my hyper focus zone, right? I can just be thinking, like, well, then I can do this and this and this and this and this, right?And I'm adding on to my list, and the last thing I want to do in that moment is get pulled out of it when I'm really feeling like I'm in the zone. So if that's the kind of transition that's difficult. And it's much less about games and more about “how do I stop in the middle of a project?” Because that's essentially what that is.And that would apply if I'm at school and I'm in the middle of an essay and we're finishing it up tomorrow. Or I'm trying to decorate a cake, and we're trying to walk out the door and I have to stop what I'm doing and come back later. So one of the tricks that I have found really helpful is to ask the question of, “How will you know when you're done?” Or how will you know you're at a stopping point? What would a stopping point be today? And getting them to sort of even visualize it, or say it out loud, so that they can think about, “Oh, here's how I basically break down a giant task into smaller pieces,” because that's essentially what that is.VirginiaThat's a great tip. Ash“Okay, you have five minutes. What is the last thing you're going to do today?” Because then it's concrete in terms of, like, I'm not asking the last thing, and it will take you half an hour, right? I'm at, we have five minutes. What's the last thing you're wrapping up? What are you going to do?Then, if it's someone who's very focused in this world, and they're very into that world, then that last thing can also be our transition out of it. As they're turning it off, the very first thing we're saying to them is, “So what was that last thing you were doing?”VirginiaOh, that's nice.AshThen they're telling it to us, and then we can get curious. We can ask questions. We can get a little into their world to help them transition out of that world. That doesn't mean that we have to understand what they're telling us, frankly. It doesn't mean we have to know all the nuance. But we can show that interest. I think this is also really, really important, because then we are showing them it's not us versus the screen. We're not opposing the screen, like it's the enemy or something. And we're showing them, “Hey, I can tell you're interested in this, so I'm interested in it because you are.” Like, I care about you, so I want to know more.VirginiaAnd then they can invite you into their world, which what a lot of neurodivergent kids need. We're asking them to be part of the larger world all the time. And how nice we can meet them where they are a little more.AshAbsolutely. The other thing I would say is that something I think people don't always realize, especially if they don't play games as much, or if they are not neurodivergent and playing games, is they might miss that video games actually are extremely well-accommodated worlds, in terms of accommodating neurodivergence.So thinking about something like ADHD, to go back to that example, it's like, okay, some really common classroom accommodations for ADHD, from the educator perspective, the accommodations I see a lot are frequent check ins, having a checklist, breaking down a large task into smaller chunks, objectives, having a visual organizer.Well, I think about a video game, and it's like, okay, if I want to know what I have available to me, I can press the pause menu and see my inventory at any time. If I want to know what I should be doing, because I have forgotten, I can look at a menu and see, like, what's my objective right now? Or I can bring up the map and it will show me where I supposed to be going. If I start to deviate from what I'm supposed to be doing, the game will often be like, “Hey, don't forget, you're supposed to be going over there!” It'll get me back on task. If I'm trying to make a potion that has eight ingredients, the game will list them all out for me, and it will check them off as I go, so I can visually see how I'm how I'm achieving this task. It does a lot of that accommodation for me. And those accommodations are not as common in the real world, or at least not as easily achieved.And so a lot of neurodivergent kids will succeed easily in these game worlds. And we might think “oh because it's addicting, or the algorithm, or it's just because they love it” But there are often these structural design differences that actually make it more accessible to them.And if we notice, oh, wow, they have no problem knowing what to do when they're playing Zelda, because they just keep checking their objective list all the time or whatever—that's great information.VirginiaAnd helps us think, how can we do that in real life? AshExactly. We can go to them and say, hey, I noticed you, you seem to check your inventory a lot when you're playing that game. How do we make it so that when you look in your closet, you can just as easily see what shirts you own. Whatever the thing may be, so that we're showing them, “hey, bring that into the rest of your world that works for you here.” Let's make it work for you elsewhere, instead of thinking of it as a reason they're obsessed with screens, and now we resent the screens for that. Bring that in so that it can benefit the rest of their lives.VirginiaI'm now like, okay, that just reframes something else very important for me. You have such a helpful way of helping us divest from the guilt and the shame and actually look at this in a positive and empowering way for us and our kids. And I'm just so grateful for it. It really is a game changer for me.AshOh, thank you so much. I'm so glad to hear that it was helpful and empowering for you, and I just hope that it can be that for others as well.ButterAshSo my family and I have been lucky enough to spend quite a lot of time in Japan. And one of the wonderful things about Japan is they have a very huge bike culture. I think people think of the Netherlands as Bike cCentral, but Japan kind of rivals them.And they have a particular kind of bike that you cannot get in the United States. It's called a Mamachari, which is like a portmanteau of mom and chariot. And it's sort of like a cargo bike, but they are constructed a little differently and have some features that I love. And so when I've been in Japan, we are on those bikes. I'm always like, I love this kind of bike. I want this kind of bike for me forever. And my recent Butter has been trying to find something like that that I can have in my day to day life. And I found something recently, and got a lovely step through bike on Facebook Marketplace. VirginiaSo cool! That's exciting to find on marketplace, too.AshOh yes, having a bike that like I actually enjoy riding, I had my old bike from being a teenager, and it just was not functional. I was like, “This is not fun.” And now having one that I enjoy, I'm like, oh yes. I feel like a kid again. It's lovely.VirginiaThat's a great Butter. My Butter is something both my kids and my pets and I are all really enjoying. I'm gonna drop a link in the chat for you. It is called a floof, and it is basically a human-sized dog bed that I found on Etsy. It's like, lined with fake fur.AshMy God. I'm looking at it right now.VirginiaIsn't it hilarious?AshWow. I'm so glad you sent a picture, because that is not what I was picturing?Virginia I can't describe it accurately. It's like a cross between a human-sized dog bed and a shopping bag? Sort of? AshYes, yes, wow. It's like a hot tub.VirginiaIt's like a hot tub, but no water. You just sit in it. I think they call it a cuddle cave. I don't understand how to explain it, but it's the floof. And it's in our family room. And it's not inexpensive, but it does basically replace a chair. So if you think of it as a furniture purchase, it's not so bad. There's always at least a cat or a dog sleeping in it. Frequently a child is in it. My boyfriend likes to be in it. Everyone gravitates towards it. And you can put pillows in it or a blanket.Neurodivergent people, in particular, really love it, because I think it provides a lot of sensory feedback? And it's very enclosed and cozy. It's great for the day we're having today, which is a very laid back, low demand, watch as much screen as you want, kind of day. So I've got one kid bundled into the floof right now with a bunch of blankets in her iPad, and she's so happy. AshOh my gosh. Also, it kind of looks like the person is sitting in a giant pita, which I also love.VirginiaThat's what it is! It's like a giant pita, but soft and cozy. It's like being in a pita pocket. And I'm sure there are less expensive versions, this was like, 300 something dollars, so it is an investment. But they're handmade by some delightful person in the Netherlands.Whenever we have play dates, there are always two or three kids, snuggled up in it together. There's something extremely addictive about it. I don't know. I don't really know how to explain why it's great, but it's great.AshOh, that is lovely.VirginiaAll right, well tell obviously, everyone needs to go to their bookstore and get Power On: Managing Screen Time to Benefit the Whole Family. Where else can we find you, Ash? How can we support your work?AshYou can find me on Instagram at the gamer educator, and I also cross post my Instagram posts to Substack, and I'm on Substack as Screen Time Strategies. It's all the same content, just that way you're getting it in your inbox without, without having to go to Instagram. So if that's something that you are trying to maybe move away from, get it via Substack. And my book Power On: Managing Screen Time to Benefit the Whole Family is available starting August 26 is when it fully releases.VirginiaAmazing. Thank you so much. This was really great.AshThank you so much for having me back.The Burnt Toast Podcast is produced and hosted by Virginia Sole-Smith (follow me on Instagram) and Corinne Fay, who runs @SellTradePlus, and Big Undies.The Burnt Toast logo is by Deanna Lowe.Our theme music is by Farideh.Tommy Harron is our audio engineer.Thanks for listening and for supporting anti-diet, body liberation journalism! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit virginiasolesmith.substack.com/subscribe

Anthony Benenati, founder of City Yoga and That's Not Yoga®, shares his personal evolution from his earliest experiences with yoga to developing a practice that meets each individual where they are. In this conversation, he explores breaking limiting ideas about yoga, uncovering its deeper meaning, and building genuine human connection through mindful movement. He also reflects on how curiosity, learning, and purposeful steps can lead to lasting change. This is a conversation about healing, empowerment, and finding a practice that truly serves you. If you have any questions about this episode or want to get some of the resources we mentioned, head over to LesleyLogan.co/podcast https://lesleylogan.co/podcast/. If you have any comments or questions about the Be It pod shoot us a message at beit@lesleylogan.co mailto:beit@lesleylogan.co. And as always, if you're enjoying the show please share it with someone who you think would enjoy it as well. It is your continued support that will help us continue to help others. Thank you so much! Never miss another show by subscribing at LesleyLogan.co/subscribe https://lesleylogan.co/podcast/#follow-subscribe-free.In this episode you will learn about:Anthony's journey into yoga and the pivotal moments that shaped his path.Breaking common stereotypes and misconceptions about yoga.Understanding the true purpose of yoga beyond the poses.How yoga fosters authentic community and connection.The power of desire, knowledge, and action in creating transformation.Episode References/Links:Anthony Benenati's Website - https://thatsnotyoga.comAnthony Benenati's Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/thatsnotyoga Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything by BJ Fogg - https://a.co/d/3edLCLcGuest Bio:Anthony Benenati is the founder of City Yoga, The first Anusara yoga studio in California and That's Not Yoga® , a culmination of three decades of study and practice in the Hatha Yoga tradition. Anthony's philosophy is simple; fit the yoga to the student, not the student to the yoga. He believes that it isn't about the style of yoga you practice, rather, the effectiveness of that style for your body. Yoga practice should help you transform, not cause more suffering. Anthony draws from a deep knowledge of the different classical styles of modern yoga and other modalities to construct a path of healing and transformation for their student. Anthony has trained in Kundalini, Ashtanga, Iyengar, Anusara and Viniyoga. He specializes in Yoga Therapeutics and tailors the practice so your body uses its natural movements to heal itself from pain and suffering. He has taught globally and has trained thousands of students. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure and give us a five star rating and leave us a review on iTunes, Podcast Addict, Podchaser or Castbox. https://lovethepodcast.com/BITYSIDEALS! DEALS! DEALS! DEALS! https://onlinepilatesclasses.com/memberships/perks/#equipmentCheck out all our Preferred Vendors & Special Deals from Clair Sparrow, Sensate, Lyfefuel BeeKeeper's Naturals, Sauna Space, HigherDose, AG1 and ToeSox https://onlinepilatesclasses.com/memberships/perks/#equipmentBe in the know with all the workshops at OPC https://workshops.onlinepilatesclasses.com/lp-workshop-waitlistBe It Till You See It Podcast Survey https://pod.lesleylogan.co/be-it-podcasts-surveyBe a part of Lesley's Pilates Mentorship https://lesleylogan.co/elevate/FREE Ditching Busy Webinar https://ditchingbusy.com/ Resources:Watch the Be It Till You See It podcast on YouTube! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCq08HES7xLMvVa3Fy5DR8-gLesley Logan website https://lesleylogan.co/Be It Till You See It Podcast https://lesleylogan.co/podcast/Online Pilates Classes by Lesley Logan https://onlinepilatesclasses.com/Online Pilates Classes by Lesley Logan on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjogqXLnfyhS5VlU4rdzlnQProfitable Pilates https://profitablepilates.com/about/Follow Us on Social Media:Instagram https://www.instagram.com/lesley.logan/The Be It Till You See It Podcast YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCq08HES7xLMvVa3Fy5DR8-gFacebook https://www.facebook.com/llogan.pilatesLinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/lesley-logan/The OPC YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/@OnlinePilatesClasses Episode Transcript:Anthony Benenati 0:00  One of the misconceptions about yoga is that anything goes, right, and that is so far from the truth. If yoga is about anything, it's about setting meaningful boundaries.Lesley Logan 0:12  Welcome to the Be It Till You See It podcast where we talk about taking messy action, knowing that perfect is boring. I'm Lesley Logan, Pilates instructor and fitness business coach. I've trained thousands of people around the world and the number one thing I see stopping people from achieving anything is self-doubt. My friends, action brings clarity and it's the antidote to fear. Each week, my guest will bring bold, executable, intrinsic and targeted steps that you can use to put yourself first and Be It Till You See It. It's a practice, not a perfect. Let's get started.Lesley Logan 0:51  All right, Be It babe. I am so stoked for you to hear today's interview. Our guest today is actually a dear friend of Brad and mine, and he is a person we have quoted on the podcast before, and he's someone we said, we have to get him on the pod. And guess what? We did it. And also, I can't believe this is the first time he's on the pod. I feel like he'll be a regular conversation, because it's just really fun to hear him share his perspective, and he is an amazing yoga teacher. And this is as much of a yoga podcast as it's not a yoga podcast episode, because we talk a lot about what really is yoga, and what does it mean to have a yoga practice, and what is it trying to teach us? And if you think you know what yoga is I'm gonna challenge you to listen, because I think it's really easy for us to have been fed something that it's not and then not realize, like, the amazing benefits that it has. And so I'm not gonna say anymore, because this episode is just one of my favorite it's gonna go hands down and one I'll quote in the future. And I knew that when I brought him on, I just knew that we would have an amazing conversation, and this is hopefully going to entertain, educate and inspire you. So here is Anthony Benenati. Lesley Logan 2:09  All right, Be It babe, I'm really excited. This person is actually a dear friend, like I know I've said that about some guests, but usually they're a dear friend of like, a couple moments. This person I've known for like, 10 years, and Brad has known him much longer, he's been a regular in our lives. Anthony Benenati, you are one of the best yoga teachers I know, but also so much more than that. Can you tell everyone who you are and what you rock at? Anthony Benenati 2:33  Well, first of all, thank you for having me on. What an honor. Who am I? Anthony Benenati, you said my name. I am, believe it or not, a yoga teacher, a professional yoga teacher. I've been doing this for 32 years now, which, when I tell people that I teach yoga, they they have immediate this vision of what that might be. Lesley Logan 2:56  Yes, you should be in white. Anthony Benenati 2:59  I should be in white or. Lesley Logan 3:02  With a glow. Anthony Benenati 3:04  It's not very serious or, right? Everybody has their assumptions of what yoga is, which, my job is to help educate and instruct on what the practice truly is versus what it has become. The practice that sort of everybody knows now, versus really, what it truly is and what its goal is.Lesley Logan 3:29  Yeah, I feel like we could also, like, talk about that for hours, because I had someone send me a reel of a guy on a Reformer with a, like, stationary bike in his hands and feet. And it was a joke. It was like an April Fool's joke. And he was like, okay, guys like, this class, we get cardio and core and like, he's holding the bike, he's it's obviously a joke. But like someone sent it to me, and I'm like, the fact that this is so hilarious that people who've never done Pilates before are sending this to me, tells me that what people think Pilates is has strayed far from what Pilates is. So I feel like I can understand that. And I find myself constantly educating people a little bit like, well, that yes, those are Pilates exercises and so, but it's not the inherent reality of it is. And so I feel like I understand that plight, that that journey you're on, in a little bit. Anthony Benenati 4:18  You and I have had this conversation many times before, because you're so close to the source of it, and and that's what I love about what you do, what you teach, and where I am, and what I teach, is that there's a lineage, and you're very close to the source, and the closer you are to the source, the more authentic the teaching, the further down the line you get disconnected from that core source. Then everything starts to get watered down and miscommunicated. Lots of stuff gets forgotten. Lesley Logan 4:55  Yeah, well, it's like the game of telephone, like, I mean, like when you play that game in school, like, you, the further it goes down the line. Anthony Benenati 5:03  The more warped it gets. Lesley Logan 5:04  Yes, yes. And it's funny, but also, like, that is the reality. Can we take a step back? Because, like, a yoga instructor of 32 years, that is a long time. And I think, like, there's not many of you. I mean, there's many of you, probably in India places, but like, there's not many of people who've had that many decades and and have studied the way that you have like, did you grow up like doing yoga? Did you want to be a yoga teacher?Anthony Benenati 5:32  No, this story is, is pretty remarkable. No, I did not grow up with yoga. In fact, I didn't really understand what yoga was until I was literally introduced to it after I moved here to L.A. So I've been in L.A. since 1991 before that, I was in the military. I was in the Air Force. And when I was in the Air Force, I was a competitive power lifter, and I played sports all my life. So my body was pretty wrecked in my 20s. I had a shoulder surgery and a knee surgery already, and I remember I was waiting tables, and I had met this girl, and I was taken by the way she sort of carried herself. She was she walked very upright, almost Royal. And I thought, you know, it's L.A., everyone's moving to LA to become an actress. And I thought, okay, this girl, right, she's like telling her family, I don't want your money, I'm moving to L.A. and I'm going to be an actress. So I asked her, and she laughed in my face, and she lifted up the back of her shirt, and she showed me a 13-inch scar on her spine. And she told me that when she was young, she had this incredible S curve in her back, and she was in a full body cast from her neck all the way down through her torso. And I said, oh, my God, that that sounds painful. And I said how do you move? You can't, I haven't seen you bend. She goes, I can't. The only thing I can bend is my hips. I can turn my hips, but I cannot bend my back. I said, well, what do you do for relief? And she said, I do yoga. And I was like, Well, explain what's that and how does that help you? And she said, I'd love to explain it, but I don't think I can. Why don't you just come to a class? So I did, and you know, me then, I was really big. I had all this muscle mass, right? And I went to my first class, and I could not finish, could not finish the class. It kicked my butt. And I was so, my ego got, got triggered. And one of the things that's important for me as a teacher now when I teach my students is that there is, yoga doesn't see things in good and bad. Yoga see thing, sees things in does it work or not? And at the time, ego served me, because it made me go back, and it made me go back and it made me go back. At the time, the reasons because I think I was going to get it, and that's fine for whatever, for whatever reason someone enters into the practice is fine, you're there. That's the important part. We can work on the why and the why always evolves as you get along through the practice. But for me, I tell people, ego brought me to yoga and it it kept me there.Lesley Logan 8:34  Yeah, I think, isn't it interesting, like, because I'll have I work with teachers, and they're like, oh, I don't want to work with people who want to lose weight. And I'm like, I, you don't have to promise them anything you can't do. But if, if that brought them into the space, I would much rather you a non like someone who's not going to manipulate or use them or lie to them to be the safe landing for them to find a movement practice that can help them love the body that they have, you know? So I'm not here to be I won't take you if you want to lose weight. I'll just say, here's the science of weight loss, here's how I can fit in and and here's how I don't, you know, but this is what we can do together and like building that trust. And if that's what brought them in, and that's what got them to keep coming at the beginning, but then they stay coming because of how it makes them feel, and then they become a person who doesn't worry about that, because they actually care more about how they feel than how that what the scale says. Like, to me, that's kind of like that same thing. Like, I think too often people are wanting to turn away that negative energy, that negative energy in air quotes, because that's not what something is. But really it's like, you can't just, you don't, we don't get to decide how people come to us. Anthony Benenati 9:48  Right. Lesley Logan 9:49  All we can do is like, kind of be a space for them to evolve and learn the what, what, what they wanted, what they're here, what we can teach them. Anthony Benenati 9:57  Yeah, I'm glad that you said that. I'm glad that you said that to create the space, because that's exactly what it is, isn't it? It's like we want to create a safe space for them to explore them, and not come in with this bunch of judgment that I'm putting on to them so that they feel uncomfortable. I want them to feel as comfortable as they can. Starting anything new is difficult. We all know that. Let's not make it harder. Lesley Logan 10:22  Yeah, yeah. I also like that you said there's like, there's not bad or good.Anthony Benenati 10:28  That's a radical, that's a radical idea for people. In the West, we are programmed this is good and this is bad. I can even hear, you probably hear this in your students' languages too. Oh, that's my bad side, or I have a bad leg, or I have a bad shoulder. And I'm careful with that, careful with the languaging. It's not bad. It may be injured, it may be weaker, it may be tighter, but that doesn't mean it's bad.Lesley Logan 10:55  Yeah. And I, well, I, there was a years ago, like years ago. I can remember where I was driving, but I can't remember the name of the podcast, I was in traffic on San Vicente trying to get to Wilson Boulevard, and I was listening this podcast, and they talked about how, like, we have to be mindful of how we talk about our body, because our body is listening. And they have done studies that, if you like, say, I gained weight, I'm someone who can't lose weight, like, I I'm fat. All this your bod, those people who say that they actually have seen that they produce fat cells, like, that's what they do, right? Versus like, they also, like, told people, like, oh, you had this knee surgery. And the person goes, oh, I had knee surgery, so my knee is better. They didn't have knee surgery. They literally didn't give it to them. They just pretended they put them under they had controls, don't worry there's other things, but. Anthony Benenati 11:42  The placebo effect. Lesley Logan 11:44  What you tell your body like really does matter and and I studied with BJ Fogg, who's the found who wrote Tiny Habits, and he's really the leading scientist on habits that everybody has been stealing from and, not stealing, it's the wrong word, they probably study with them, but at any rate, he said there's no such thing as a bad or good habit. Everything serves you. Every like the habits you don't like about yourself, if you don't like that you scroll on the internet. If you don't like that you binge-watch NetFlix that they'll all the habits we have serve us, they provide something because your brain actually doesn't want to be around anything that causes judgment or shame. So it, it's seeking, like, oh, like, maybe it's comfortable for you to it's soothing to just binge out and watch something you get you get to avoid the other thoughts you have, or with certainty, which we all are looking for and and so he said, If you so, you can't ever say I have a bad habit or I don't want to have good habits. They're just all habits. And then there might be habits you prefer and habits you'd like to get rid of. Anthony Benenati 12:42  Right. I think in the context of the yoga conversation, yoga would simply ask, do your habits serve you? And that's another way to say it, right, whether it's good or bad, is it serving you? Lesley Logan 12:54  Yes. Anthony Benenati 12:55  So maybe at the end of the night, you've had a really shitty night and you need a drink, and most people would go, oh, my God, you teach yoga. You don't drink, right? There's another stereotype. Lesley Logan 13:06  Yeah. Anthony Benenati 13:07  But does that drink serve you in that moment? Is it going to control you? Is it going to take over? No. May it take the edge off and allow you to process the things that you're going through? Sure. Are there other ways to process it? Yes. But not everybody can just be like, you know what, I'm super stressed, and I'm just going to sit and meditate. That's not that's not realistic. Lesley Logan 13:30  Yeah, yeah. Anthony Benenati 13:31  It's not realistic for somebody, you have to meet people where they are, yeah, yeah, and make the changes gradually. Lesley Logan 13:38  Well, I mean, do you have to meet yourself where you are? Anthony Benenati 13:41  Well, yes. True.Lesley Logan 13:44  That's a bigger, that's so huge. I just, you just mentioned something I thought it would be really good timing, like, since there is the stereotype of what yoga is, especially in the West, especially in big cities, oh, actually, even now, because the way things work in rural areas. It's just franchises so like so, what is yoga really?Anthony Benenati 14:08  Okay. How long is this podcast?Lesley Logan 14:11  We can have you back for another. We can split it up. Anthony Benenati 14:13  Part two. On its most basic level, yoga is a practice. It's been, well, the iteration that we know as yoga today has only been around a couple of 100 years prior to that, prior to the last 5000 years with yoga, yoga has been a ritual, a path, a practice to transcend the known or the physical, to transcend it to, instead of saying I am my body, yogis back then would say, I am not my body. And then they would use the practice to try and extricate themselves from their body. So, a free soul, you can think of it that way, the soul that inhabits me is limited by this physical boundary, and I'm going to use the yoga practice to liberate myself from this physical, literally, prison, is how they thought of it. But things evolved, and as things do over hundreds and thousands of years, consciousness changes, and societies evolve, and mindsets change, and even language changes. So yoga now has become a physical practice to help the body and the mind connect. So there's a saying that if you keep the body to cool the mind, most people, they start thinking a lot when they stop doing. And that's why a lot of people are just doing all the time, do, do, do, do, do, and there's no room for thinking. And then when they stop doing, all of these thoughts start coming up, and they don't know how to deal with them, so they just start doing again. Which is, I guess, a way of pushing things down so that you don't have to deal with it. Lesley Logan 16:05  Yeah, yeah. Anthony Benenati 16:06  Yoga gives us a invitation to try something else. Iit's a, it's an invitation to be like, how does my body work? And how does it work better? And not for the sake of the practice itself, but how is it going to help my life? Even if you do yoga every day, let's just say you do 30 minutes of yoga every day. There's 23 and a half other hours. What else are you going to do? Hopefully your yoga practice is serving that.Lesley Logan 16:37  Yeah, yeah. 30 minutes everyone is 2% of your day. If you want to do the math, it's 2% so if you can't give 2% of yourself to something that helps you become better, the other 98% like, I love that. I love the way that you described it. I think that it's really true. And I think it kind of like takes it away. Because I think people get caught up in the process of yoga, the poses, or the styles, and that's just all process which no one really, like, in the world of marketing guys, sells nothing. No one cares about the process. They care about the transformation, the the idea of like, you know, you said, like, breaking free of this limiting thing that would be like the thing, the promise. Let's go back. You, we kind of got, you got the ego kept you going to yoga. Why did you, like, did you know you wanted to be a teacher? Like, did you, I, because I had the same thing. I went to Pilates kicking and screaming, to be completely honest, and I thought it was a bullshit infomercial workout. And then I loved it, and then I kept going back, because I felt really good. And it wasn't till someone said I should be a teacher that I even thought about being a teacher. So how did you become a teacher? I mean, like, 32 years, take us back.Anthony Benenati 17:46  That's exactly, that's exactly, right, it was my teacher at the time that had told me. He told me after class. Now this was, you know, maybe a year, year and a half into starting with him. But he said, you know, because we've had multiple conversations, not just in the classroom but outside, we'd go and have tea or whatever. And he goes, have you ever thought about teaching yoga? And I said, absolutely not. I mean, why would I? Why would I do that? I barely know the practice. He says, I understand that, and I can get you more information, but I see something in you that I think will help other people. And I think what he saw, and after teaching a whole bunch of teacher trainees myself, the most effectual teacher is someone who understands how people get to the practice. And what I mean by that is if, for instance, if I grew up in the yoga tradition and my parents were teachers, and I had been doing yoga all my life, and I never really understood the struggle of a tight body, of not being able to do the poses, of not understanding the language, of having no connection to yoga, whatsoever. Then I couldn't offer that to anybody else coming into the practice, because I would, I, some of the teachers that I train who are super flexible, for instance, they never understand what it's like not to be so it's hard to have empathy for the student that is having a very difficult time doing the most basic movement. And I think empathy is such an important factor to be a great teacher, you have to be able to put yourself in their shoes. Lesley Logan 17:47  Yeah, yeah. Anthony Benenati 17:47  Or barefoot as it, in the yoga studio.Lesley Logan 17:47  Yeah, yeah. I agree. Like, I think, I think, you know, I used to be embarrassed by, like, how I thought so negatively about Pilates, and when I realized it was actually probably the way that made people trust to even try it out, like, I also thought it was bullshit. So, you know, I got it. And then the other thing, like, I do have one of those hypermobile bodies, but I fractured my tibial plateau right before I met and I remember, like, all this fear about, like, what that meant for my Pilates practice, what that meant for my weight training, my running, everything right? Was like, fear going on. And then I also realized in my own healing, how easy I was giving it to people with knee surgeries. Because I was just like, okay, like, don't move this in time thing and so I have an injury, I was like, oh, there's actually a lot of things they can do. There's like, so much like, and there's also so much they can't do, but like, you know, like, we don't have to, like, push them, but at the same token, like, we can challenge this body because it got injured for a reason. There was an imbalance, and that's why that happened.Anthony Benenati 18:11  Correct, correct. And we're here to address that imbalance, right? A lot of times, yoga is translated as union, which is a very simple, and it's not a direct translation. The root word of yoga is actually thousands of years old, and it's yuj, Y-U-J and it means to yoke. Now this is an old fashioned term. You know the yoke when they used to yoke the horse to the cart or the ox to the cart. Lesley Logan 21:02  I'm nodding, because I did do the Oregon Trail, and that is where I learned yoga. Anthony Benenati 21:06  Okay, there you go. So that's the image that I want people to have here, and it's very important, because what you have, so yoga, at that point, becomes an action. It's a verb. It's not just a noun. What is it? But what is it doing? It's joining. But what is it joining? It's joining two different things, right? The cart and the horse. Now, alone, these two things serve purposes, don't they? But if you connect them, then you can do incredible things that neither one of these things could do by themselves. So in the yoga practice, we say one and one never equals two. It always equals three, because there's you, there's the thing, and then there's the thing you guys are creating. So it's you and Brad as individuals, and it's your marriage, which is a living entity. And it has a life of its own. And if you don't feed and nourish that third thing, not only will it die, but then you're broken apart again.Lesley Logan 22:15  Yeah. Yeah. You should become a counselor as well.Anthony Benenati 22:18  What do you think after class is about? When people feel comfortable with you, they come after class and then they start telling you about deeper issues, right, things that not the body, but the why, the why that they're here. Why are they struggling? Why are they having a hard time? I was actually listening to one of your previous podcast this morning, as we were taking me and my wife were taking a walk, Ashley, around the lake here, and we were listening, and it was the client, or the person you had on that had stage four cancer. Lesley Logan 22:54  Oh, yeah. Anthony Benenati 22:55  And I remember you said something, and it was very astute. You said that. Well, you didn't know how many, and I looked it up, we have about 60,000 thoughts a day, and you said about 95% of them are negative, right? And it's true. It's like we have these same repetitive thoughts all throughout the day, and the majority of them, the vast majority of them, are negative or repeat from the day before and the day before and the day before. And at what point do you start addressing this and start changing the narrative? Yoga is the invitation to start learning that you can that there is an issue first and then the tools to change them. Lesley Logan 23:43  Yeah.Anthony Benenati 23:45  So I love yoga as a verb, as an action, not just a thing like we can name it, and you can't just name it and make it yo. You can't just put goats in the room and call it yoga. It's not. Lesley Logan 24:01  Yeah, I'm with you on that. I mean, like, because it's cute everyone and so don't at me. It is adorable, and if it gets people in, sure, but also, like, you're now paying attention to the goat, not you, which is like, another distraction that, you know, I think, like, I think, I think it's really easy, people want to distract themselves from all that's going on. Like, first of all, you've been a teacher since the 90s, so in L.A., which means use your studio was around during lots of things. Like, you know, I don't, I don't remember when, like, the riots were, if your studio is open, but then there was, like, 911 and. Anthony Benenati 24:46  The riots werre '92 so it was just after I got here, so I opened the studio in '99 so 911 happened for us, and that was a remarkable time. Obviously, the next, Gulf War happened, and lots of other things. And, you know, the studio became a community. It became a place for people to go, even if they just wanted to sit and be in the room, let alone practice. I remember the practice after 911 people just wanted to sit and gather and cry and talk and rage and not move. They didn't want to move their bodies. They just needed community. They felt so detached.Lesley Logan 25:24  Yeah. I mean, I wasn't any, I wasn't in a practice at the time, but I remember, because we were in California, so you're so removed, but you're not, you know? And so I can see how, like, your space can be that. And I think, like, it's so cool and also so big to have us to do a practice that can be so many things for people. It can be the community that they need, it could be the safe space that they share, and it can be a constant, like, it's there, no matter when things are good or when things are bad. And we don't have a lot of those things, right? Like, there's not there's not a lot of places or things you can do even when times are good and when times are bad, and I know you're gonna tell me good and bad, but like, you know, in the in the happier, joyful times versus, like, the sadder times.Anthony Benenati 26:09  Right, now we're in a really difficult time, and we've been here before. 2008 we were here the last time this particular President was in office. We were here. And we go through these cycles, and they're not unlike other cycles throughout the history of life, and we will have more. And it's not always positive, it's not always happy, it's not always on the incline. Sometimes it takes a dip. And you and I both know that that's really where you're tested. You're tested in the dips. You're never tested when things are great, and you're never going to change when things are comfortable either. Change only happens when you're uncomfortable.Lesley Logan 26:47  Yeah, it's really true. One of the my favorite things that you would bring up when we were in class is talking about, like, you know, you can't have love without hate, the equal opposite. And I was hoping you can, like, dive into that a little bit for us. Because I think, one, I actually think since these several moments of 2008 and 2016, and and now it's really easy for people to not see good and so it makes me go, like you guys, like you're seeing all the hate. Like, are you recognizing it's equal opposite. But I also, like, I think it's hard. I think people are always waiting for another shoe to drop, as opposed to, like, noticing when things are are also going well. But anyways, I wanted to know if you could, like, just share a little bit about that, because my listeners haven't heard that, and it was my favorite things. Like, Brad brought up your, like, Saturday morning classes today in a call with people, and he said, like, there'd be like, 50 people in this room, and you know, like you would often bring that up, and it was always around the same time that, like, something not great was going on. We all just felt it, whether it was in the city or the world. And like, you have to remind yourself of those things. Anthony Benenati 27:53  It ties into the whole good and bad thing, because it's a reframing of thought. Like, you have to really reframe this idea that even, even if it's something that you don't like, it's serving something. So it's a basic function of physics, like, things wouldn't exist if it didn't have an opposite, right? You wouldn't know joy if you didn't know pain, you wouldn't know laughter if you didn't know sadness, you wouldn't have anything to reference it to. So your capacity to love is directly related to your capacity to hate, to feeling these negative, quote, negative feelings versus these positive. They're there to balance each other out, and it's the idea is that it's your choice which one you want to feed. You remember Star Wars, right? Think about the force. The force is this, is this neutral thing, and it's how you choose to use it. They were all using the same force. But the lesson was, am I going to use this to help empower and further and engage, or am I going to use this for selfish and personal and destructive reasons? Same energy, how do you use it? So rather than wasting your time on whether something is good or bad or right and wrong, it really serves you to think, is this serving me? Because, like you said earlier, at some point in your life, it served you, whether it was to keep you safe when you were a child, for instance, maybe you were in a really bad home life, and you learned coping mechanisms. You learn, for instance, maybe how to shut it out, right, and how to go into your own cave, which is, which is very easy for me to do. If things get too much, I tend to remove myself and go back into this little cave. Well, you can't do that when you're in relationship. Yeah. Well, you certainly can't do that for very long, right? You need tools like, yes, I need to go take 10 or 30 minutes to myself, but I'll be back. It's that communication, to let that other person know I'm not leaving you. I'm not not communicating with you, but I do need to take care of myself. So it's changing, the languaging around this. So it helps me to think, for instance, this bad time that we're having right now, it's temporary. Now, temporary may mean years.Anthony Benenati 27:55  Yeah, I know I had a like, a thing, like, like, a little mantra card that's, everything, everything, everything is temporary. And I'm like, and temporary does not mean two seconds, two minutes, two weeks.Anthony Benenati 30:02  Exactly. There is no time limit on temporary, but it will end. Things always do. Things always change, but it was helpful to me to look at kind of life in that different way. I wasn't raised like that. I was raised as a Catholic, so it was always guilt and shame and right and wrong and very linear thinking, very black and white thinking, very dualistic, instead of this idea that maybe it's not so black and white, maybe there is the gray. And I think we're all learning that extremism on either end is not the path. So, far right or far left, we're not going to get anywhere because we're isolating. We have to find a way to start communicating again and finding common ground and stop making other the problem. Lesley Logan 31:41  Yeah, yeah. Anthony Benenati 31:43  That's my that's my I think that goes on and off the mat. Don't look at your body as a bad thing. Don't look at it as something that you need to conquer or change, or that somehow there's something wrong with you. How can I enhance myself? How can I make me who I am, and everything that I am that may not be somebody else, but very unique to me. How can I make myself even better, a better version of me, not, not somebody else. I don't have to be somebody else. I just have to be the best me I can be.Lesley Logan 32:18  Yeah. That makes me think of like, I interviewed a happiness strategist, and I was like, you know, I was like, this is interesting, because, like, like, can you be happy all the time? And she's like, well, of course not. She's like, like, she's like, she's like, but she said your ability to be happy is as directly related to how uncomfortable you can get, like, how comfortable withuncomfortable. You can get like, that's, can you like, what's your resilience? And she, you know, and I think, like, I think a lot of people have been outsourcing so long how they feel based on, like, what's going on out in the world, and not going back to like, how can I make myself the best version? Because we can affect the people around us more easily when you were talking about other it made me think you guys Google the Heineken commercial. It's quite long, but they literally took, like, people of opposite extremes and like, they took a guy who, like, voted against gay marriage, and then they took a lesbian and they put them in a room together, and they have to, like, build a desk, right? And like, and they, a table, or they build something. And the guy, like, this one guy is like, completely, I got this. I like, I can do these things, right? And she's like, and like, so they have to work together to build this thing. And like, each personal strengths have to do it, and then they have to sit down and have a beer. And at the end, the people who like when they interviewed them before they met the person they're building with, it would be like, I don't understand transgenders. I think they have to know rights, blah, blah, blah. And then they meet someone who's transgender, but they just built this desk together, and you watch this person go, well, let's have another drink and like, so it's really fascinating that, like, if we can actually stop, you know, being on the opposite sides, we can actually be together, and you get to know people, you're more likely to hear them and listen to them and realize we're kind of like what you think has been influenced by so much, by other people who are louder and you you actually love people who are around you more than you know, you know? And so I think that's what's so beautiful about a yoga class, or even Pilates classes, they can attract people from all sides of a spectrum and have a shared experience. And you know, because, and the more they get to know themselves, the more ideally, and this may be the idealist in me, like they think about caring for others, because they can, because once you've, once you've taken care of you, you actually have the capacity to actually care about other people.Anthony Benenati 34:45  Oxygen mask, baby. It's all about putting on your oxygen mask, right? You got to put yours on first. You can't help anybody else if you're passed out. But I like what you said there, too, because Yoga does want to meet people where they're at. I remember, I had this woman in class. She always sat up front and in the beginning of class, at that time, we would chant the sound of om in the beginning of class, just to settle the class and get things going. And she would never chant, and that's fine. You don't have to, right? It's again, everything's an invitation. But she did come up to me after class one day, and we had a conversation, and I asked her why, and she says, well, you know, I'm a devout Jew, and I feel like I'm sort of disrespecting my tradition if I'm doing something I don't understand. And I said, well, I'm so glad that you brought that up. First of all, yoga doesn't care what you believe. You can believe you know, Orange is God, and you can still practice. Yoga doesn't require a belief, it just requires a willingness. And I said, well, you're a devout Jew, so what are you comfortable saying? And she said, well, shalom. And I said, Well, what's in the middle of shalom? And she said om. And I said, exactly. So from that point on, we would chant om, and she would chant shalom, and she would just hold the om. It, for some reason, it gave her permission. It was totally fine with everybody else, and then she felt included. That was a wonderful story. Lesley Logan 36:19  I love that. I think also giving people permission, right? Like, I think that's what, you know, people can have permission to move their body, but also be in practice. Like, that's why it's called a yoga practice, and I think that's what it does so well, something that, like, I call it a Pilates practice, and there are a lot of people like me who call it practice, but there's also a lot of people who don't understand that, and they don't call it that, and they're like, I gotta get this. And it's like, no, what are you talking about, like, you're never gonna like, you don't get that. Like, it's your body. Your body's different every single day. Like, there are days like, at 6am I do Pilates, and at 8am I work out with you, and my body between those two hours is very different. And I'm like, whoa. I, what happened on my dog walk that this is no longer an option. I do, I do like that. Okay, I want to go into, because I think, like, you have had so many chapters in your yoga career, and what how you are, how you are teaching yoga now, is very different than what you did for the majority on your studio and things like that. Like we talk about some, be it till you see it moments and like, kind of like, what your what are you being till you see it, right now?Anthony Benenati 37:20  You're right. I did go through a lot when you when you have a studio for that long, you know, you go through a lot of changes, including me and my original partner, we split, and then there was that moment where you had to decide who's going to fight for this, who's going to get the studio, because we both wanted it, and that was that was all about desire. Do you really want this? And how bad do you want it? And then after that, there were other things that came up every time you're being tested. And you will be tested no matter how committed you think you are to whatever it is that you think you want, you're going to continue to be tested. And it just is a way to reaffirm, do I really want to be it? Do I really want to do this? For me now, you're right. It is different. My body is different. My practice is different, and not in a bad or a good way, just different. This is the different body than it was when it was in my late 20s. Being it now is, for me, is really being about being authentic, being authentic to the moment, being authentic to my students, but really being authentic to my own inner voice. And every time I get on the mat, the first thing I tell my students is, listen, listen to your body. It's going to tell you something different today than it did yesterday. If you come onto the mat with an agenda, most of the time, you're going to be disappointed, because you don't know that your body's ready to do those things that day, that particular day, maybe you need something completely different than you thought. We have to be open to that. And then the day I decided that my time of studio ownership was over, that was a tough one. That was a really hard day. But the moment I decided to make that shift, I felt so much more freedom. Yoga had changed, you know, it really had become corporate. At this point, it was being completely watered down. People were barely doing teacher trainings and leading yoga classes, and it just became too much of a struggle to do the business of yoga versus being the teacher. You know, when you own your own business, you never are not working. That's the thing. It's 24/7 right? You don't get to clock out and go home and forget about it. Lesley Logan 39:50  Yeah, there's a reason why I like, watch White Lotus. I'm like, because I'm not where I can't work and watch White Lotus like, this is me being awesome. That's how it serves me. Even if it, like, gives me a little stress and anxiety, I'm like, but I'm not working, so I get it, no, like, I mean, like, yeah, and then I I, I'm where I'm married to someone I work with. So it's never, it's never off. Yeah, but I, thank you for sharing that, because, I mean, like, I think a lot of people, there's an aspiration to start something or do something or own something. But as you said, you've evolved. Not only has yoga evolved, but you've evolved. Your body has changed. And I think sometimes we forget that as we evolve, we outgrow some roles, you know, and like, just like you outgrow clothes, like you outgrow, like you outgrow a role, and it's like owning a studio serves such a good purpose, like a good purpose at the time, like you had a partner and a family and, like all these things. And then it also got to a place where it's like all this is changing, and I have, too, you know, but that's so hard to like, because it's like a light switch. Anthony Benenati 40:58  Yeah. Well, you know, I had felt it, but not really paid attention to it. And you know how your body does, your body will jump in there and it'll call your attention. And I literally had my one and only panic attack at that moment. It was like, oh yeah, this is a sign you are not in a good place. This, this, this, it's time to get out. It's time this, this had run its course. And that was a hard decision to really give up the thing that you worked so hard to create. But it was also learning that that was separate from who I was, that we were not inextricably connected, that we were these individual things, and we did create a third thing, but that third thing was dying, and it was time to change into something else.Lesley Logan 41:46  Yeah, yeah. What are you most excited about right now?Anthony Benenati 41:51  Oh my gosh, we are empty nesters. That's the most, 25 years of being a parent.Lesley Logan 41:59  I had someone I just interviewed. She's like, I'm a bird launcher. She's like, I've launched all my birds. They're all birds. They're all launched. Like, the positive of that.Anthony Benenati 42:10  It is so true. We are so excited about this next chapter for us, which is freedom in a lot of different ways, right? I mean, you're never not the parent, but they don't need you every day anymore. They need you when they need you and and happy to be there when they do. Like this morning, my youngest called from college, and she stayed on the phone for over an hour. And she just needed feedback. She needed to connect. She didn't necessarily need a ton of advice. She just, you could feel that she needed connection. For now, for me, it really is about this next chapter. Your lives are a bunch of chapters, and at being, you know, 50, I'll be 58 this year. It's a very I know, right? Yeah, I can't believe it myself, but this idea now that I can make choices solely for me or solely for us as a couple and not oh my god, what are we going to do with the kids, and is this child going to come? Or are they not going to come, or are we going to do this all together, that we can make these choices for ourselves, I'm really excited about that. That's the personal aspect of it. Professionally, professionally, things have changed, you know, ever since covid, everybody went online, and which is great. It's a great way to connect to everybody, but I still feel the need to be in the classroom, yeah, and we do those in persons, and we do those yoga retreats, and we do those monthly workshops, just so that people can have that feeling of connection and community again. Lesley Logan 43:52  Yeah, I think that's why we do our tours, too. Like, I love being online, because I can impact people without having to travel as much. And also, like, I need to see bodies in three dimensions.Anthony Benenati 44:03  Right. How do you make an adjustment with you can't see and touch? Lesley Logan 44:06  No, I'm literally going so if I was there, I would hold your arms still. Imagine I'm like, is your child around? Can they grab your arms and hold them? Hold their hold their arms. Okay. Now go.Anthony Benenati 44:18  That's so good. Lesley Logan 44:19  You know, but like, I think, I think that's why, like, I like the idea of, like, really reframing what's good or bad. Because, like, I think it could be so easy, like, back before the pandemic, like, oh, online is terrible. You can't have those things. But we, Brad and I used to, like, call you just be on the phone. Because I was like, I can't handle the traffic. I can't but I want you. So just, just be on just be on speakerphone, and we'll mute ourselves, and we'll be, you know, but like, when the pandemic happened, I was like, oh, I love this, because now I can have access to the people, I don't live in the same town as you, and I, Brad and I still get to have that practice with you, and I think, but also, yeah, we miss, like, actual hugs and actually seeing people, and you have to be more intentional. But I think that that, I think then we are more intentional, you know, so that is also cool.Anthony Benenati 45:08  Yeah, we really mourned the day you guys left.Lesley Logan 45:12  When we moved from L.A. to Las Vegas was during the pandemic, and we didn't actually have a mourning, because nothing was actually happening in person, the more like it was a year and a half later when things opened back up and we were not part of the opening back up that was like, so it was a delayed mourning, a delayed grief for us. Okay, obviously, we're gonna all catch up, guys. We're gonna take a brief break, find out how people can find you, follow you, do yoga with you. Anthony Benenati 45:39  Great. Lesley Logan 45:40  All right, Anthony, where do you hang out? Like, are you on the Instagram? Or is there just a simpler way? How can people do yoga with you or learn more about what you're doing? Where do you where can they go? Anthony Benenati 45:52  Well, they can go to my website, which is, thatsnotyoga.com and of course, there's a story behind that, because that's a pretty bold statement, which was intentional. One of the misconceptions about yoga is that anything goes, right, and that is so far from the truth. If yoga is about anything, it's about setting meaningful boundaries. So if you take a bunch of energy and you narrow it, you're going to increase the flow of that energy. Just think of water. Take a lake. Narrow the boundaries. It becomes a river. Narrow the boundaries even more, becomes a raging river. So most people think that if you limit their choices, then you're limiting their freedom. But I call it the Cheesecake Factory theory. Walk into a Cheesecake Factory and you sit down, and they literally throw you down a book. And they're like, okay, what do you want? And you can have anything. The book is like, an inch thick. And I just get overloaded because there's too many choices. I much prefer to go to a restaurant where they just print the menu that day and there's six things on it, and you can have this, this or this, and I'm like, great, I'll have that. The narrowing of your choices actually gives you more freedom, because you're constantly saying no to a bunch of things while you're saying yes to a limited amount of things, right? Like being in marriage, you're saying yes to Brad and no to everybody else. It's this process that continues throughout your entire day, right? What am I letting in? What am I consciously keeping away? I love that understanding.Lesley Logan 47:42  I love that. So you guys just so you know, because he didn't say it, but I'm gonna say it for him. Brad and I can do yoga online with this man. You do it three times a week. I try to show up twice a week when I'm there. And Brad, we're getting him on the 8 am wake up call. We're working on. Do you remember? Do you remember when he used to do it 6 am? I think we have to remind him that he used to do 6 am yoga. Anthony Benenati 48:03  Absolutely. Lesley Logan 48:03  When the bed was further away from the studio was the the thing. So you guys can do that. You can find that on, on, thatsnot yoga.com. You kind of just gave us a Be It Action Item. But I just want to see like, if there's any other bold, executable, intrinsic or targeted steps people can take to be it till they see it. Anthony Benenati 48:18  Okay. The the, the the triad, the triumvirate that we like to follow in the practice, is desire, knowledge, action. Those are my Be It moments. To break it down, you got to want to do something, then you have to learn how to do it, and then you do it, this whole idea of just do it, that's not going to work. Just doing something without knowing how to do it can cause you harm doing something and you don't have the real desire to do it, you're not going to put your best effort in. If you do those three things in that order, you can pretty much do whatever you want to do. You've got to want to do it. You got to learn how to do it, and then you simply have to do it, and you have to commit to doing it over and over and over again to create that meaningful change. Those are my action items. And the thing is, is, if you don't want to do it, don't do it. That's the thing. You're, exactly, more freedom. And that's whole, that's yoga's goal. Yoga just wants you to be more free. But that doesn't mean no boundaries. It means establishing meaningful boundaries, boundaries that are going to channel you in the direction you want to go. And guess what, people, you can always change your mind. You can always change your mind.Lesley Logan 49:48  I mean, that is like that needs to be on people's walls. Because I find like, you know, like, imagine if you never gave yourself permission to change your mind. You might, you might, the world might have lost a yoga teacher that day, because you would have had a panic attack and then a burnout, you know, like, you can change your mind on your schedule, you can change your mind on your goals. You can change your mind on lot of things, like, you know, and that is for the perfectionist, listening. That might be the hardest thing you learn.Anthony Benenati 50:14  I'm speaking to you, perfectionist.Lesley Logan 50:17  Yeah, oh my gosh, Anthony, obviously I could talk to you for hours. And clearly Brad is like itching to walk in this room, you guys, so we gotta let him in so you can say hi to his friend, but thank you for being here, and thank you for just sharing so much of your wisdom. I continue to learn from you. Always. I can't wait to learn more. Someday we're gonna do a joint Pilates, yoga. That is my dream. That is my vision. Maybe on the Summer Tour. Maybe you'll be our L.A. event. So see, you guys, let us know what your favorite takeaways were. Let Anthony know in thatsnotyoga. Let the Be It Pod know and share this with a friend who needs to hear it, because that's how everyone wins. You know, we all can take away something from this, and I'd love to hear what yours are, and you know what to do, until next time, Be It Till You See It. Lesley Logan 51:02  That's all I got for this episode of the Be It Till You See It Podcast. One thing that would help both myself and future listeners is for you to rate the show and leave a review and follow or subscribe for free wherever you listen to your podcast. Also, make sure to introduce yourself over at the Be It Pod on Instagram. I would love to know more about you. Share this episode with whoever you think needs to hear it. Help us and others Be It Till You See It. Have an awesome day. Be It Till You See It is a production of The Bloom Podcast Network. If you want to leave us a message or a question that we might read on another episode, you can text us at +1-310-905-5534 or send a DM on Instagram @BeItPod.Brad Crowell 51:41  It's written, filmed, and recorded by your host, Lesley Logan, and me, Brad Crowell.Lesley Logan 51:46  It is transcribed, produced and edited by the epic team at Disenyo.co.Brad Crowell 51:50  Our theme music is by Ali at Apex Production Music and our branding by designer and artist, Gianfranco Cioffi.Lesley Logan 51:58  Special thanks to Melissa Solomon for creating our visuals.Brad Crowell 52:01  Also to Angelina Herico for adding all of our content to our website. And finally to Meridith Root for keeping us all on point and on time.Lesley Logan 52:14  I'm interviewing Anthony. Anthony Benenati 52:15  Hi, Brad. Lesley Logan 52:16  Yeah, it's an interview right now. No, we're not done. You're just interrupting. We'll put this in the bloopers. He's come in twice, and I'm like, um. Anthony Benenati 52:24  What's up, buddy? Brad Crowell 52:26  I wanted to say hi. Lesley Logan 52:27  Yeah. Okay, alright, one second, let me get to those Be It Action Items. Okay. We'll talk.Transcribed by https://otter.aiSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/be-it-till-you-see-it/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Introducing the All Def SquADD Cast show “Versus". It's a podcast with the OG SquADD! Each week, the SquADD will debate topics and vote at the end to see what wins. Versus airs every Monday and you can download and listen wherever podcasts are found. Special Guest Dion Lack Roxxy Haze Rodney Perry This Week We Discuss Banned From Uber/Lyft vs Every Fast Food Restaurant Have A Partner With A Weird Sexual Kink vs Weird Smell S/o To Our Sponsors Ava Download Ava Promo: SQUADD Blue Chew Bluechew.com/SQUADD Prizepicks Download Prizepicks Promo: SQUADD

Today I'm talking to economic historian Judge Glock, Director of Research at the Manhattan Institute. Judge works on a lot of topics: if you enjoy this episode, I'd encourage you to read some of his work on housing markets and the Environmental Protection Agency. But I cornered him today to talk about civil service reform.Since the 1990s, over 20 red and blue states have made radical changes to how they hire and fire government employees — changes that would be completely outside the Overton window at the federal level. A paper by Judge and Renu Mukherjee lists four reforms made by states like Texas, Florida, and Georgia: * At-will employment for state workers* The elimination of collective bargaining agreements* Giving managers much more discretion to hire* Giving managers much more discretion in how they pay employeesJudge finds decent evidence that the reforms have improved the effectiveness of state governments, and little evidence of the politicization that federal reformers fear. Meanwhile, in Washington, managers can't see applicants' resumes, keyword searches determine who gets hired, and firing a bad performer can take years. But almost none of these ideas are on the table in Washington.Thanks to Harry Fletcher-Wood for his judicious transcript edits and fact-checking, and to Katerina Barton for audio edits.Judge, you have a paper out about lessons for civil service reform from the states. Since the ‘90s, red and blue states have made big changes to how they hire and fire people. Walk through those changes for me.I was born and grew up in Washington DC, heard a lot about civil service throughout my childhood, and began to research it as an adult. But I knew almost nothing about the state civil service systems. When I began working in the states — mainly across the Sunbelt, including in Texas, Kansas, Arizona — I was surprised to learn that their civil service systems were reformed to an absolutely radical extent relative to anything proposed at the federal level, let alone implemented.Starting in the 1990s, several states went to complete at-will employment. That means there were no official civil service protections for any state employees. Some managers were authorized to hire people off the street, just like you could in the private sector. A manager meets someone in a coffee shop, they say, "I'm looking for exactly your role. Why don't you come on board?" At the federal level, with its stultified hiring process, it seemed absurd to even suggest something like that.You had states that got rid of any collective bargaining agreements with their public employee unions. You also had states that did a lot more broadbanding [creating wider pay bands] for employee pay: a lot more discretion for managers to reward or penalize their employees depending on their performance.These major reforms in these states were, from the perspective of DC, incredibly radical. Literally nobody at the federal level proposes anything approximating what has been in place for decades in the states. That should be more commonly known, and should infiltrate the debate on civil service reform in DC.Even though the evidence is not absolutely airtight, on the whole these reforms have been positive. A lot of the evidence is surveys asking managers and operators in these states how they think it works. They've generally been positive. We know these states operate pretty well: Places like Texas, Florida, and Arizona rank well on state capacity metrics in terms of cost of government, time for permitting, and other issues.Finally, to me the most surprising thing is the dog that didn't bark. The argument in the federal government against civil service reform is, “If you do this, we will open up the gates of hell and return to the 19th-century patronage system, where spoilsmen come and go depending on elected officials, and the government is overrun with political appointees who don't care about the civil service.” That has simply not happened. We have very few reports of any concrete examples of politicization at the state level. In surveys, state employees and managers can almost never remember any example of political preferences influencing hiring or firing.One of the surveys you cited asked, “Can you think of a time someone said that they thought that the political preferences were a factor in civil service hiring?” and it was something like 5%.It was in that 5-10% range. I don't think you'd find a dissimilar number of people who would say that even in an official civil service system. Politics is not completely excluded even from a formal civil service system.A few weeks ago, you and I talked to our mutual friend, Don Moynihan, who's a scholar of public administration. He's more skeptical about the evidence that civil service reform would be positive at the federal level.One of your points is, “We don't have strong negative evidence from the states. Productivity didn't crater in states that moved to an at-will employment system.” We do have strong evidence that collective bargaining in the public sector is bad for productivity.What I think you and Don would agree on is that we could use more evidence on the hiring and firing side than the surveys that we have. Is that a fair assessment?Yes, I think that's correct. As you mentioned, the evidence on collective bargaining is pretty close to universal: it raises costs, reduces the efficiency of government, and has few to no positive upsides.On hiring and firing, I mentioned a few studies. There's a 2013 study that looks at HR managers in six states and finds very little evidence of politicization, and managers generally prefer the new system. There was a dissertation that surveyed several employees and managers in civil service reform and non-reform states. Across the board, the at-will employment states said they had better hiring retention, productivity, and so forth. And there's a 2002 study that looked specifically at Texas, Florida, and Georgia after their reforms, and found almost universal approbation inside the civil service itself for these reforms.These are not randomized control trials. But I think that generally positive evidence should point us directionally where we should go on civil service reform. If we loosen restrictions on discipline and firing, decentralize hiring and so forth — we probably get some productivity benefits from it. We can also know, with some amount of confidence, that the sky is not going to fall, which I think is a very important baseline assumption. The civil service system will continue on and probably be fairly close to what it is today, in terms of its political influence, if you have decentralized hiring and at-will employment.As you point out, a lot of these reforms that have happened in 20-odd states since the ‘90s would be totally outside the Overton window at the federal level. Why is it so easy for Georgia to make a bipartisan move in the ‘90s to at-will employment, when you couldn't raise the topic at the federal level?It's a good question. I think in the 1990s, a lot of people thought a combination of the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act — which was the Carter-era act that somewhat attempted to do what these states hoped to do in the 1990s — and the Clinton-era Reinventing Government Initiative, would accomplish the same ends. That didn't happen.That was an era when civil service reform was much more bipartisan. In Georgia, it was a Democratic governor, Zell Miller, who pushed it. In a lot of these other states, they got buy-in from both sides. The recent era of state reform took place after the 2010 Republican wave in the states. Since that wave, the reform impetus for civil service has been much more Republican. That has meant it's been a lot harder to get buy-in from both sides at the federal level, which will be necessary to overcome a filibuster.I think people know it has to be very bipartisan. We're just past the point, at least at the moment, where it can be bipartisan at the federal level. But there are areas where there's a fair amount of overlap between the two sides on what needs to happen, at least in the upper reaches of the civil service.It was interesting to me just how bipartisan civil service reform has been at various times. You talked about the Civil Service Reform Act, which passed Congress in 1978. President Carter tells Congress that the civil service system:“Has become a bureaucratic maze which neglects merit, tolerates poor performance, permits abuse of legitimate employee rights, and mires every personnel action in red tape, delay, and confusion.”That's a Democratic president saying that. It's striking to me that the civil service was not the polarized topic that it is today.Absolutely. Carter was a big civil service reformer in Georgia before those even larger 1990s reforms. He campaigned on civil service reform and thought it was essential to the success of his presidency. But I think you are seeing little sprouts of potential bipartisanship today, like the Chance to Compete Act at the end of 2024, and some of the reforms Obama did to the hiring process. There's options for bipartisanship at the federal level, even if it can't approach what the states have done.I want to walk through the federal hiring process. Let's say you're looking to hire in some federal agency — you pick the agency — and I graduated college recently, and I want to go into the civil service. Tell me about trying to hire somebody like me. What's your first step?It's interesting you bring up the college graduate, because that is one recent reform: President Trump put out an executive order trying to counsel agencies to remove the college degree requirement for job postings. This happened in a lot of states first, like Maryland, and that's also been bipartisan. This requirement for a college degree — which was used as a very unfortunate proxy for ability at a lot of these jobs — is now being removed. It's not across the whole federal government. There's still job postings that require higher education degrees, but that's something that's changed.To your question, let's say the Department of Transportation. That's one of the more bipartisan ones, when you look at surveys of federal civil servants. Department of Defense, Veterans Affairs, they tend to be a little more Republican. Health and Human Services and some other agencies tend to be pretty Democrat. Transportation is somewhere in the middle.As a manager, you try to craft a job description and posting to go up on the USA Jobs website, which is where all federal job postings go. When they created it back in 1996, that was supposedly a massive reform to federal hiring: this website where people could submit their resumes. Then, people submit their resumes and answer questions about their qualifications for the job.One of the slightly different aspects from the private sector is that those applications usually go to an HR specialist first. The specialist reviews everything and starts to rank people into different categories, based on a lot of weird things. It's supposed to be “knowledge, skills, and abilities” — your KSAs, or competencies. To some extent, this is a big step up from historical practice. You had, frankly, an absurd civil service exam, where people had to fill out questions about, say, General Grant or about US Code Title 42, or whatever it was, and then submit it. Someone rated the civil service exam, and then the top three test-takers were eligible for the job.We have this newer, better system, where we rank on knowledge, skills, and abilities, and HR puts put people into different categories. One of the awkward ways they do this is by merely scanning the resumes and applications for keywords. If it's a computer job, make sure you say the word “computer” somewhere in your resume. Make sure you say “manager” if it's a managerial job.Just to be clear, this is entirely literal. There's a keyword search, and folks who don't pass that search are dinged.Yes. I've always wondered, how common is this? It's sometimes hard to know what happens in the black box in these federal HR departments. I saw an HR official recently say, "If I'm not allowed to do keyword searches, I'm going to take 15 years to overlook all the applications, so I've got to do keyword searches." If they don't have the keywords, into the circular file it goes, as they used to say: into the garbage can.Then they start ranking people on their abilities into, often, three different categories. That is also very literal. If you put in the little word bubble, "I am an exceptional manager," you get pushed on into the next level of the competition. If you say, "I'm pretty good, but I'm not the best," into the circular file you go.I've gotten jaded about this, but it really is shocking. We ask candidates for a self-assessment, and if they just rank themselves 10/10 on everything, no matter how ludicrous, that improves their odds of being hired.That's going to immensely improve your odds. Similar to the keyword search, there's been pushback on this in recent years, and I'm definitely not going to say it's universal anymore. It's rarer than it used to be. But it's still a very common process.The historical civil service system used to operate on a rule of three. In places like New York, it still operates like that. The top three candidates on the evaluation system get presented to the manager, and the manager has to approve one of them for the position.Thanks partially to reforms by the Obama administration in 2010, they have this category rating system where the best qualified or the very qualified get put into a big bucket together [instead of only including the top three]. Those are the people that the person doing the hiring gets to see, evaluate, and decide who he wants to hire.There are some restrictions on that. If a veteran outranks everybody else, you've got to pick the veteran [typically known as Veterans' Preference]. That was an issue in some of the state civil service reforms, too. The states said, “We're just going to encourage a veterans' preference. We don't need a formalized system to say they get X number of points and have to be in Y category. We're just going to say, ‘Try to hire veterans.'” That's possible without the formal system, despite what some opponents of reform may claim.One of the particular problems here is just the nature of the people doing the hiring. Sometimes you just need good managers to encourage HR departments to look at a broader set of qualifications. But one of the bigger problems is that they keep the HR evaluation system divorced from the manager who is doing the hiring. David Shulkin, who was the head of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), wrote a great book, It Shouldn't Be This Hard to Serve Your Country. He was a healthcare exec, and the VA is mainly a healthcare agency. He would tell people, "You should work for me," they would send their applications into the HR void, and he'd never see them again. They would get blocked at some point in this HR evaluation process, and he'd be sent people with no healthcare experience, because for whatever reason they did well in the ranking.One of the very base-level reforms should be, “How can we more clearly integrate the hiring manager with the evaluation process?” To some extent, the bipartisan Chance to Compete Act tries to do this. They said, “You should have subject matter experts who are part of crafting the description of the job, are part of evaluating, and so forth.” But there's still a long road to go.Does that firewall — where the person who wants to hire doesn't get to look at the process until the end — exist originally because of concerns about cronyism?One of the interesting things about the civil service is its raison d'être — its reason for being — was supposedly a single, clear purpose: to prevent politicized hiring and patronage. That goes back to the Pendleton Civil Service Act of 1883. But it's always been a little strange that you have all of these very complex rules about every step of the process — from hiring to firing to promotion, and everything in between — to prevent political influence. We could just focus on preventing political influence, and not regulate every step of the process on the off-chance that without a clear regulation, political influence could creep in. This division [between hiring manager and applicants] is part of that general concern. There are areas where I've heard HR specialists say, "We declare that a manager is a subject matter expert, and we bring them into the process early on, we can do that." But still the division is pretty stark, and it's based on this excessive concern about patronage.One point you flag is that the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), which is the body that thinks about personnel in the federal government, has a 300-page regulatory document for agencies on how you have to hire. There's a remarkable amount of process.Yes, but even that is a big change from the Federal Personnel Manual, which was the 10,000-page document that we shredded in the 1990s. In the ‘90s, OPM gave the agencies what's called “delegated examining authorities.” This says, “You, agency, have power to decide who to hire, we're not going to do the central supervision anymore. But, but, but: here's the 300-page document that dictates exactly how you have to carry out that hiring.”So we have some decentralization, allowing managers more authority to control their own departments. But this two-level oversight — a local HR department that's ultimately being overseen by the OPM — also leads to a lot of slip ‘twixt cup and lip, in terms of how something gets implemented. If you're in the agency and you're concerned about the OPM overseeing your process, you're likely to be much more careful than you would like to be. “Yes, it's delegated to me, but ultimately, I know I have to answer to OPM about this process. I'm just going to color within the lines.”I often cite Texas, which has no central HR office. Each agency decides how it wants to hire. In a lot of these reform states, if there is a central personnel office, it's an information clearinghouse or reservoir of models. “You can use us, the central HR office, as a resource if you want us to help you post the job, evaluate it, or help manage your processes, but you don't have to.” That's the goal we should be striving for in a lot of the federal reforms. Just make OPM a resource for the managers in the individual departments to do their thing or go independent.Let's say I somehow get through the hiring process. You offer me a job at the Department of Transportation. What are you paying me?This is one of the more stultified aspects of the federal civil service system. OPM has another multi-hundred-page handbook called the Handbook of Occupational Groups and Families. Inside that, you've got 49 different “groups and families,” like “Clerical occupations.” Inside those 49 groups are a series of jobs, sometimes dozens, like “Computer Operator.” Inside those, they have independent documents — often themselves dozens of pages long — detailing classes of positions. Then you as a manager have to evaluate these nine factors, which can each give points to each position, which decides how you get slotted into this weird Government Schedule (GS) system [the federal payscale].Again, this is actually an improvement. Before, you used to have the Civil Service Commission, which went around staring very closely at someone over their typewriter and saying, "No, I think you should be a GS-12, not a GS-11, because someone over in the Department of Defense who does your same job is a GS-12." Now this is delegated to agencies, but again, the agencies have to listen to the OPM on how to classify and set their jobs into this 15-stage GS-classification system, each stage of which has 10 steps which determine your pay, and those steps are determined mainly by your seniority. It's a formalized step-by-step system, overwhelmingly based on just how long you've sat at your desk.Let's be optimistic about my performance as a civil servant. Say that over my first three years, I'm just hitting it out of the park. Can you give me a raise? What can you do to keep me in my role?Not too much. For most people, the within-step increases — those 10 steps inside each GS-level — is just set by seniority. Now there are all these quality step increases you can get, but they're very rare and they have to be documented. So you could hypothetically pay someone more, but it's going to be tough. In general, the managers just prefer to stick to seniority, because not sticking to it garners a lot of complaints. Like so much else, the goal is, "We don't want someone rewarding an official because they happen to share their political preferences." The result of that concern is basically nobody can get rewarded at all, which is very unfortunate.We do have examples in state and federal government of what's known as broadbanding, where you have very broad pay scales, and the manager can decide where to slot someone. Say you're a computer operator, which can mean someone who knows what an Excel spreadsheet is, or someone who's programming the most advanced AI systems. As a manager in South Carolina or Florida, you have a lot of discretion to say, "I can set you 50% above the market rate of what this job technically would go for, if I think you're doing a great job."That's very rare at the federal level. They've done broadbanding at the Government Accountability Office, the National Institute of Standards and Technology. The China Lake Experiment out in California gave managers a lot more discretion to reward scientists. But that's definitely the exception. In general, it's a step-wise, seniority-based system.What if you want to bring me into the Senior Executive Service (SES)? Theoretically, that sits at the top of the General Service scale. Can't you bump me up in there and pay me what you owe me?I could hypothetically bring you in as a senior executive servant. The SES was created in the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act. The idea was, “We're going to have this elite cadre of about 8,000 individuals at the top of the federal government, whose employment will be higher-risk and higher-reward. They might be fired, and we're going to give them higher pay to compensate for that.”Almost immediately, that did not work out. Congress was outraged at the higher pay given to the top officials and capped it. Ever since, how much the SES can get paid has been tightly controlled. As in most of the rest of the federal government, where they establish these performance pay incentives or bonuses — which do exist — they spread them like peanut butter over the whole service. To forestall complaints, everyone gets a little bit every two or three years.That's basically what happened to the SES. Their annual pay is capped at the vice president's salary, which is a cap for a lot of people in the federal government. For most of your GS and other executive scales, the cap is Congress's salary. [NB: This is no longer exactly true, since Congress froze its own salaries in 2009. The cap for GS (currently about $195k) is now above congressional salaries ($174k).]One of the big problems with pay in the federal government is pay compression. Across civil service systems, the highest-skilled people tend to be paid much less than the private sector, and the lowest-skilled people tend to get paid much more. The political science reason for that is pretty simple: the median voter in America still decides what seems reasonable. To the median voter, the average salary of a janitor looks low, and the average salary of a scientist looks way too high. Hence this tendency to pay compression. Your average federal employee is probably overpaid relative to the private sector, because the lowest-skilled employees are paid up to 40% higher than the private sector equivalent. The highest-paid employees, the post-graduate skilled professionals, are paid less. That makes it hard to recruit the top performers, but it also swells the wage budget in a way that makes it difficult to talk about reform.There's a lot of interest in this administration in making it easier to recruit talent and get rid of under-performers. There have been aggressive pushes to limit collective bargaining in the public sector. That should theoretically make it easier to recruit, but it also increases the precariousness of civil service roles. We've seen huge firings in the civil service over the last six months.Classically, the explicit trade-off of working in the federal government was, “Your pay is going to be capped, but you have this job for life. It's impossible to get rid of you.” You trade some lifetime earnings for stability. In a world where the stability is gone, but pay is still capped, isn't the net effect to drive talent away from the civil service?I think it's a concern now. On one level it should be ameliorated, because those who are most concerned with stability of employment do tend to be lower performers. If you have people who are leaving the federal service because all they want is stability, and they're not getting that anymore, that may not be a net loss. As someone who came out of academia and knows the wonder of effective lifetime annuities, there can be very high performers who like that stability who therefore take a lower salary. Without the ability to bump that pay up more, it's going to be an issue.I do know that, internally, the Trump administration has made some signs they're open to reforms in the top tiers of the SES and other parts of the federal government. They would be willing to have people get paid more at that level to compensate for the increased risks since the Trump administration came in. But when you look at the reductions in force (RIFs) that have happened under Trump, they are overwhelmingly among probationary employees, the lower-level employees.With some exceptions. If you've been promoted recently, you can get reclassified as probationary, so some high-performers got lumped in.Absolutely. The issue has been exacerbated precisely because the RIF regulations that are in place have made the firings particularly damaging. If you had a more streamlined RIF system — which they do have in many states, where seniority is not the main determinant of who gets laid off — these RIFs could be removing the lower-performing civil servants and keeping the higher-performing ones, and giving them some amount of confidence in their tenure.Unfortunately, the combination of large-scale removals with the existing RIF regs, which are very stringent, has demoralized some of the upper levels of the federal government. I share that concern. But I might add, it is interesting, if you look at the federal government's own figures on the total civil service workforce, they have gone down significantly since Trump came in office, but I think less than 100,000 still, in the most recent numbers that I've seen. I'm not sure how much to trust those, versus some of these other numbers where people have said 150,000, 200,000.Whether the Trump administration or a future administration can remove large numbers of people from the civil service should be somewhat divorced from the general conversation on civil service reform. The main debate about whether or not Trump can do this centers around how much power the appropriators in Congress have to determine the total amount of spending in particular agencies on their workforce. It does not depend necessarily on, "If we're going to remove people — whether for general layoffs, or reductions in force, or because of particular performance issues — how can we go about doing that?" My last-ditch hope to maintain a bipartisan possibility of civil service reform is to bracket, “How much power does the president have to remove or limit the workforce in general?” from “How can he go about hiring and firing, et cetera?”I think making it easier for the president to identify and remove poor performers is a tool that any future administration would like to have.We had this conversation sparked again with the firing of the Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner. But that was a position Congress set up to be appointed by the President, confirmed by the Senate, and removable by the President. It's a separate issue from civil service at large. Everyone said, “We want the president to be able to hire and fire the commissioner.” Maybe firing the commissioner was a bad decision, but that's the situation today.Attentive listeners to Statecraft know I'm pretty critical, like you are, of the regulations that say you have to go in order of seniority. In mass layoffs, you're required to fire a lot of the young, talented people.But let's talk about individual firings. I've been a terrible civil servant, a nightmarish employee from day one. You want to discipline, remove, suspend, or fire me. What are your options?Anybody who has worked in the civil service knows it's hard to fire bad performers. Whatever their political valence, whatever they feel about the civil service system, they have horror stories about a person who just couldn't be removed.In the early 2010s, a spate of stories came out about air traffic controllers sleeping on the job. Then-transportation secretary, Ray LaHood, made a big public announcement: "I'm going to fire these three guys." After these big announcements, it turned out he was only able to remove one of them. One retired, and another had their firing reduced to a suspension.You had another horrific story where a man was joking on the phone with friends when a plane crashed into a helicopter and killed nine people over the Hudson River. National outcry. They said, "We're going to fire this guy." In the end, after going through the process, he only got a suspension. Everyone agrees it's too hard.The basic story is, you have two ways to fire someone. Chapter 75, the old way, is often considered the realm of misconduct: You've stolen something from the office, punched your colleague in the face during a dispute about the coffee, something illegal or just straight-out wrong. We get you under Chapter 75.The 1978 Civil Service Reform Act added Chapter 43, which is supposed to be the performance-based system to remove someone. As with so much of that Civil Service Reform Act, the people who passed it thought this might be the beginning of an entirely different system.In the end, lots of federal managers say there's not a huge difference between the two. Some use 75, some use 43. If you use 43, you have to document very clearly what the person did wrong. You have to put them on a performance improvement plan. If they failed a performance improvement plan after a certain amount of time, they can respond to any claims about what they did wrong. Then, they can take that process up to the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) and claim that they were incorrectly fired, or that the processes weren't carried out appropriately. Then, if they want to, they can say, “Nah, I don't like the order I got,” and take it up to federal courts and complain there. Right now, the MSPB doesn't have a full quorum, which is complicating some of the recent removal disputes.You have this incredibly difficult process, unlike the private sector, where your boss looks at you and says, "I don't like how you're giving me the stink-eye today. Out you go." One could say that's good or bad, but, on the whole, I think the model should be closer to the private sector. We should trust managers to do their job without excessive oversight and process. That's clearly about as far from the realm of possibility as the current system, under which the estimate is 6-12 months to fire a very bad performer. The number of people who win at the Merit Systems Protection Board is still 20-30%.This goes into another issue, which is unionization. If you're part of a collective bargaining agreement — most of the regular federal civil service is — first, you have to go with this independent, union-based arbitration and grievance procedure. You're about 50/50 to win on those if your boss tries to remove you.So if I'm in the union, we go through that arbitration grievance system. If you win and I'm fired, I can take it to the Merit Systems Protection Board. If you win again, I can still take it to the federal courts.You can file different sorts of claims at each part. On Chapter 43, the MSPB is supposed to be about the process, not the evidence, and you just have to show it was followed. On 75, the manager has to show by preponderance of the evidence that the employee is harming the agency. Then there are different standards for what you take to the courts, and different standards according to each collective bargaining agreement for the grievance procedure when someone is disciplined. It's a very complicated, abstruse, and procedure-heavy process that makes it very difficult to remove people, which is why the involuntary separation rate at the federal government and most state governments is many multiples lower than the private sector.So, you would love to get me off your team because I'm abysmal. But you have no stomach for going through this whole process and I'm going to fight it. I'm ornery and contrarian and will drag this fight out. In practice, what do managers in the federal government do with their poor performers?I always heard about this growing up. There's the windowless office in the basement without a phone, or now an internet connection. You place someone down there, hope they get the message, and sooner or later they leave. But for plenty of people in America, that's the dream job. You just get to sit and nobody bothers you for eight hours. You punch in at 9 and punch out at 5, and that's your day. "Great. I'll collect that salary for another 10 years." But generally you just try to make life unpleasant for that person.Public sector collective bargaining in the US is new. I tend to think of it as just how the civil service works. But until about 50 years ago, there was no collective bargaining in the public sector.At the state level, it started with Wisconsin at the end of the 1950s. There were famous local government reforms beginning with the Little Wagner Act [signed in 1958] in New York City. Senator Robert Wagner had created the National Labor Relations Board. His son Robert F. Wagner Jr., mayor of New York, created the first US collective bargaining system at the local level in the ‘60s. In ‘62, John F. Kennedy issued an executive order which said, "We're going to deal officially with public sector unions,” but it was all informal and non-statutory.It wasn't until Title VII of the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act that unions had a formal, statutory role in our federal service system. This is shockingly new. To some extent, that was the great loss to many civil service reformers in ‘78. They wanted to get through a lot of these other big reforms about hiring and firing, but they gave up on the unions to try to get those. Some people think that exception swallowed the rest of the rules. The union power that was garnered in ‘78 overcame the other reforms people hoped to accomplish. Soon, you had the majority of the federal workforce subject to collective bargaining.But that's changing now too. Part of that Civil Service Reform Act said, “If your position is in a national security-related position, the president can determine it's not subject to collective bargaining.” Trump and the OPM have basically said, “Most positions in the federal government are national security-related, and therefore we're going to declare them off-limits to collective bargaining.” Some people say that sounds absurd. But 60% of the civilian civil service workforce is the Department of Defense, Veterans Affairs, and the Department of Homeland Security. I am not someone who tries to go too easy on this crowd. I think there's a heck of a lot that needs to be reformed. But it's also worth remembering that the majority of the civil service workforce are in these three agencies that Republicans tend to like a lot.Now, whether people like Veterans Affairs is more of an open question. We have some particular laws there about opening up processes after the scandals in the 2010s about waiting lists and hospitals. You had veterans hospitals saying, "We're meeting these standards for getting veterans in the door for these waiting lists." But they were straight-up lying about those standards. Many people who were on these lists waiting for months to see a doctor died in the interim, some from causes that could have been treated had they seen a VA doctor. That led to Congress doing big reforms in the VA in 2014 and 2017, precisely because everyone realized this is a problem.So, Trump has put out these executive orders stopping collective bargaining in all of these agencies that touch national security. Some of those, like the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), seem like a tough sell. I guess that, if you want to dig a mine and the Chinese are trying to dig their own mine and we want the mine to go quickly without the EPA pettifogging it, maybe. But the core ones are pretty solid. So far the courts have upheld the executive order to go in place. So collective bargaining there could be reformed.But in the rest of the government, there are these very extreme, long collective bargaining agreements between agencies and their unions. I've hit on the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) as one that's had pretty extensive bargaining with its union. When we created the TSA to supervise airport security, a lot of people said, "We need a crème de la crème to supervise airports after 9/11. We want to keep this out of union hands, because we know unions are going to make it difficult to move people around." The Obama administration said, "Nope, we're going to negotiate with the union." Now you have these huge negotiations with the unions about parking spots, hours of employment, uniforms, and everything under the sun. That makes it hard for managers in the TSA to decide when people should go where or what they should do.One thing we've talked about on Statecraft in past episodes — for instance, with John Kamensky, who was a pivotal figure in the Clinton-Gore reforms — was this relationship between government employees and “Beltway Bandits”: the contractors who do jobs you might think of as civil service jobs. One critique of that ‘90s Clinton-Gore push, “Reinventing Government,” was that although they shrank the size of the civil service on paper, the number of contractors employed by the federal government ballooned to fill that void. They did not meaningfully reduce the total number of people being paid by the federal government. Talk to me about the relationship between the civil service reform that you'd like to see and this army of folks who are not formally employees.Every government service is a combination of public employees and inputs, and private employees and inputs. There's never a single thing the government does — federal, state, or local — that doesn't involve inputs from the private sector. That could be as simple as the uniforms for the janitors. Even if you have a publicly employed janitor, who buys the mop? You're not manufacturing the mops.I understand the critique that the excessive focus on full-time employees in the 1990s led to contracting out some positions that could be done directly by the government. But I think that misses how much of the government can and should be contracted out. The basic Office of Management and Budget (OMB) statute [OMB Circular No. A-76] defining what is an essential government duty should still be the dividing line. What does the government have to do, because that is the public overseeing a process? Versus, what can the private sector just do itself?I always cite Stephen Goldsmith, the old mayor of Indianapolis. He proposed what he called the Yellow Pages test. If you open the Yellow Pages [phone directory] and three businesses do that business, the government should not be in that business. There's three garbage haulers out there. Instead of having a formal government garbage-hauling department, just contract out the garbage.With the internet, you should have a lot more opportunities to contract stuff out. I think that is generally good, and we should not have the federal government going about a lot of the day-to-day procedural things that don't require public input. What a lot of people didn't recognize is how much pressure that's going to put on government contracting officers at the federal level. Last time I checked there were 40,000 contracting officers. They have a lot of power. In the most recent year for which we have data, there were $750 billion in federal contracts. This is a substantial part of our economy. If you total state and local, we're talking almost 10% of our whole economy goes through government contracts. This is mind-boggling. In the public policy world, we should all be spending about 10% of our time thinking about contracting.One of the things I think everyone recognized is that contractors should have more authority. Some of the reform that happened with people like [Steven] Kelman — who was the Office of Federal Procurement Policy head in the ‘90s under Clinton — was, "We need to give these people more authority to just take a credit card and go buy a sheaf of paper if that's what they need. And we need more authority to get contract bids out appropriately.”The same message that animates civil service reform should animate these contracting discussions. The goal should be setting clear goals that you want — for either a civil servant or a contractor — and then giving that person the discretion to meet them. If you make the civil service more stultified, or make pay compression more extreme, you're going to have to contract more stuff out.People talk about the General Schedule [pay scale], but we haven't talked about the Federal Wage Schedule system at all, which is the blue-collar system that encompasses about 200,000 federal employees. Pay compression means those guys get paid really well. That means some managers rightfully think, "I'd like to have full-time supervision over some role, but I would rather contract it out, because I can get it a heck of a lot cheaper."There's a continuous relationship: If we make the civil service more stultified, we're going to push contracting out into more areas where maybe it wouldn't be appropriate. But a lot of things are always going to be appropriate to contract out. That means we need to give contracting officers and the people overseeing contracts a lot of discretion to carry out their missions, and not a lot of oversight from the Government Accountability Office or the courts about their bids, just like we shouldn't give OPM excess input into the civil service hiring process.This is a theme I keep harping on, on Statecraft. It's counterintuitive from a reformer's perspective, but it's true: if you want these processes to function better, you're going to have to stop nitpicking. You're going to have to ease up on the throttle and let people make their own decisions, even when sometimes you're not going to agree with them.This is a tension that's obviously happening in this administration. You've seen some clear interest in decentralization, and you've seen some centralization. In both the contract and the civil service sphere, the goal for the central agencies should be giving as many options as possible to the local managers, making sure they don't go extremely off the rails, but then giving those local managers and contracting officials the ability to make their own choices. The General Services Administration (GSA) under this administration is doing a lot of government-wide acquisition contracts. “We establish a contract for the whole government in the GSA. Usually you, the local manager, are not required to use that contract if you want computer services or whatever, but it's an option for you.”OPM should take a similar role. "Here's the system we have set up. You can take that and use it as you want. It's here for you, but it doesn't have to be used, because you might have some very particular hiring decisions to make.” Just like there shouldn't be one contracting decision that decides how we buy both a sheaf of computer paper and an aircraft carrier, there shouldn't be one hiring and firing process for a janitor and a nuclear physicist. That can't be a centralized process, because the very nature of human life is that there's an infinitude of possibilities that you need to allow for, and that means some amount of decentralization.I had an argument online recently about New York City's “buy local” requirement for certain procurement contracts. When they want to build these big public toilets in New York City, they have to source all the toilet parts from within the state, even if they're $200,000 cheaper in Portland, Oregon.I think it's crazy to ask procurement and contracting to solve all your policy problems. Procurement can't be about keeping a healthy local toilet parts industry. You just need to procure the toilet.This is another area where you see similar overlap in some of the civil service and contracting issues. A lot of cities have residency requirements for many of their positions. If you work for the city, you have to live inside the city. In New York, that means you've got a lot of police officers living on Staten Island, or right on the line of the north side of the Bronx, where they're inches away from Westchester. That drives up costs, and limits your population of potential employees.One of the most amazing things to me about the Biden Bipartisan Infrastructure Law was that it encouraged contracting officers to use residency requirements: “You should try to localize your hiring and contracting into certain areas.” On a national level, that cancels out. If both Wyoming and Wisconsin use residency requirements, the net effect is not more people hired from one of those states! So often, people expect the civil service and contracting to solve all of our ills and to point the way forward for the rest of the economy on discrimination, hiring, pay, et cetera. That just leads to, by definition, government being a lot more expensive than the private sector.Over the next three and a half years, what would you like to see the administration do on civil service reform that they haven't already taken up?I think some of the broad-scale layoffs, which seem to be slowing down, were counterproductive. I do think that their ability to achieve their ends was limited by the nature of the reduction-in-force regulations, which made them more counterproductive than they had to be. That's the situation they inherited. But that didn't mean you had to lay off a lot of people without considering the particular jobs they were doing now.And hiring quite a few of them back.Yeah. There are also debates obviously, within the administration, between DOGE and Russ Vought [director of the OMB] and some others on this. Some things, like the Schedule Policy/Career — which is the revival of Schedule F in the first Trump administration — are largely a step in the right direction. Counter to some of the critics, it says, “You can remove someone if they're in a policymaking position, just like if they were completely at-will. But you still have to hire from the typical civil service system.” So, for those concerned about politicization, that doesn't undermine that, because they can't just pick someone from the party system to put in there. I think that's good.They recently had a suitability requirement rule that I think moved in the right direction. That says, “If someone's not suitable for the workforce, there are other ways to remove them besides the typical procedures.” The ideal system is going to require some congressional input: it's to have a decentralization of hiring authority to individual managers. Which means the OPM — now under Scott Kupor, who has finally been confirmed — saying, "The OPM is here to assist you, federal managers. Make sure you stay within the broad lanes of what the administration's trying to accomplish. But once we give you your general goals, we're going to trust you to do that, including hiring.”I've mentioned it a few times, but part of the Chance to Compete Act — which was mentioned in one of Trump's Day One executive orders, people forget about this — was saying, “Implement the Chance to Compete Act to the maximum extent of the law.” Bring more subject-matter expertise into the hiring process, allow more discretion for managers and input into the hiring process. I think carrying that bipartisan reform out is going to be a big step, but it's going to take a lot more work. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.statecraft.pub

Introducing the All Def SquADD Cast show “Versus". It's a podcast with the OG SquADD! Each week, the SquADD will debate topics and vote at the end to see what wins. Versus airs every Monday and you can download and listen wherever podcasts are found. Special Guest Dion Lack Courtney Haynes This Week We Discuss Get An Alert When Your Parents Smash vs They Get One When You Smash Pee Your Pants In Public Once A Week vs Poop Yourself In Private Twice A Week Go On A Date & Not Be Able To See vs Not Be Able To Speak

SHOW NOTES Episode 067 • August 18, 2025     FIRST STRAIN   News ‘n' Notes:   • DCI Finals recap   www.dci.org/scores/final-scores/2025-dci-all-age-class-championships/   www.drumcorpsplanet.com/2025/08/scores-2025-dci-open-class-world-championship-finals/   www.dci.org/scores/final-scores/2025-dci-world-championship-finals/     SECOND STRAIN   Topic: Artificial intelligence, musical creation … and podcasts   www.facebook.com/SeleneKallanWriter/posts/pfbid02tfnBxuD3Wr5ntPf9mFEYkWpEMuX9FAK5QbduAjGTkpi5fDFaEzQ8Z8dhmis2bKabl   www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWpg1RmzAbc     TRIO   This episode's interview guest: MIKE JOLIN   www.linkedin.com/in/michaelpjolin/   www.facebook.com/88thArmyBand     DOGFIGHT   Internet Rabbit Hole: Extra-musical benefits of music in schools VERSUS art for art's sake   www.facebook.com/mercywithgraces.cabural/posts/24729885786618477/     CODA   Topic: Music Venn diagram   pwuth.blogspot.com/2015/08/better-person-better-musician-responses.html     FOLLOW US!   BandWagon RSS feed: feed.podbean.com/heyband/feed.xml BandWagon website: heyband.podbean.com BandWagon on Facebook: facebook.com/profile.php?id=61555170345309 BandWagon on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rhammerton1 BandWagon on BlueSky: bsky.app/profile/heybandwagon.bsky.social Rob (“HammertonMedia”) on Facebook: facebook.com/HammertonMedia   SUBSCRIBE TO BANDWAGON!   www.podbean.com/site/podcatcher/index/blog/eg706GUVzixV   WE GOT MERCH!   Visit www.teepublic.com/user/bandwagon-with-rob-hammerton -or- go to teepublic.com and search “bandwagon”   SEND US YOUR FEEDBACK!   Email: heybandwagon@yahoo.com Voicemail: speakpipe.com/HeyBandWagon

Podcast for a deep examination into the career and life choices of Eddie Murphy & Jim Carrey. Fellow podcaster Valerie Royer returns to the show to talk about another third film in a franchise. Patrick and Joe investigate the cause of this pattern and believe the number 23 to be involved. Lev decides to go to a rave as research for this episode. What did his fact-finding mission unearth? Find out on this week's episode of 'What the Hell Happened to Them?' Email the cast at whathappenedtothem@gmail.com Disclaimer: This episode was recorded in August 2025. References may feel confusing and/or dated unusually quickly. 'Shrek the Third' is available on DVD, Blu-ray, and 4K (also you can get the Shrek quad-pack if you're an addict): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01ELI90R0/ Music from "All Star Cover in Classical Latin" by The Miracle Aligner   Artwork from BJ West   quixotic, united, skeyhill, vekeman, murphy, carrey, versus, vs, shrek, third, three, 3, banderas, diaz, transylvania, princess, everett, idle, latin, rave, trolls

In this episode, we tackle the often-taboo topic of…money. Specifically, money blocks – those pesky limiting beliefs that can hold us back in business. We share our personal experiences with money narratives that shaped our views on wealth and success. From feeling guilty about charging for work we love, to the fear of being perceived as "slimy" when selling, we get real about how these beliefs can impact our businesses. You'll hear us discuss the importance of recognizing these narratives and how they can affect your mindset and performance. If you've ever felt stuck in your relationship with money or unsure about how to confidently ask for what you deserve, this episode is for you! Join us as we unpack these themes and encourage you to check in on your own money mindset. Let's break those blocks together!  

What does compassionate action feel like to you? This week we lean into the consciousness of RESOURCING ourselves as we go through the day. Versus depleting. It's a slight recaibration and I believe so much energy lives here. Unlocking the hidden potential with you,  Angela

Podcast for a deep examination into the career and life choices of Eddie Murphy & Jim Carrey. The tables have turned on Patrick when Joe calls him out for his own blasphemy. Patrick wants to atone, but the cursed numbers are threatening what remains of his soul. Lev realizes his math skills aren't as good as he thought. Will he go to night school to improve his arithmetic? Find out on this week's episode of 'What the Hell Happened to Them?' Email the cast at whathappenedtothem@gmail.com Disclaimer: This episode was recorded in August 2025. References may feel confusing and/or dated unusually quickly. 'The Number 23' is available on DVD, Blu-ray, and HD DVD (if you believe in those): https://www.amazon.com/Number-23-Blu-ray-Jim-Carrey/dp/B002CVQAXQ/ Music from "Primacy of Numbers" by Philip Glass   Artwork from BJ West   quixotic, united, skeyhill, vekeman, murphy, carrey, versus, vs, number, 23, twenty, three, madsen, conspiracy, carey, diaz, huston, schumacher

Welcome to The Force Unscripted Podcast, where Star Wars fans share unfiltered discussions, fresh insights, and genuine camaraderie in exploring the galaxy far, far away. Tune in weekly for authentic conversations that celebrate the timeless appeal of Star Wars. May the Force be with you on this adventure!------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Come visit our website and leave us a review, voice note or topics you may want discussed on the show!The Force Unscripted Website------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Be sure to follow us any where you want to get your podcast fix, as well as on Twitter (formerly known as X) where we post updates about the podcast and on Twitch, where we do our live recordings for the podcast!LinkTreeTwitter (Formerly Known As X)Twitch------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------In this episode of "Versus", catch the battle of Mara Jade Skywalker versus Emperor Palpatine between Wen'shi and Exotic.

Introducing the All Def SquADD Cast show “Versus". It's a podcast with the OG SquADD! Each week, the SquADD will debate topics and vote at the end to see what wins. Versus airs every Monday and you can download and listen wherever podcasts are found. Special Guest Dion Lack Brandi Denise John Grimes This Week We Discuss One Wish Granted Today vs 5 Wishes Granted In A Year Genius Level Intelligence vs Be A Musical Savant  Live Somewhere With The Most Extreme Seasons vs 98 Degree Location Daily S/o To Our Sponsors Ava App Credit Buildig App Get Better Rates & Pay Off Bills Faster Download The Ava App Today Use Promo: SQUADD

Podcast for a deep examination into the career and life choices of Eddie Murphy & Jim Carrey. Joe betrays the show in the most inhumane way possible. Patrick worries his milkshakes aren't alluring enough and so takes dance lessons from Lev. Is he really a world champion ballroom dancer? Find out on this week's episode of 'What the Hell Happened to Them?' Email the cast at whathappenedtothem@gmail.com Disclaimer: This episode was recorded in July 2025. References may feel confusing and/or dated unusually quickly. 'Norbit' is available on DVD, Blu-ray, and multi(ple)-format: https://www.amazon.com/Norbit-Blu-ray-Eddie-Murphy/dp/B01N0QLNOI/ Music from "Milkshake Brings All the Boys to the Yard" by Damielou Shavelle   Artwork from BJ West   quixotic, united, skeyhill, vekeman, murphy, carrey, versus, vs, norbit, newton, rasputia, racist, crewes, carey, makeup, make-up, youtube, fat, plus, sized

Introducing the All Def SquADD Cast show “Versus". It's a podcast with the OG SquADD! Each week, the SquADD will debate topics and vote at the end to see what wins. Versus airs every Monday and you can download and listen wherever podcasts are found. Special Guest KevOnStage Kevin Tate Donny Comedy This Week We Discuss Fight A Waffle House Employee vs 3 Rounds At Slap Challenge Get In Heaven On RPS vs Coin Flip Save Two Random New Borns vs A Family Member You Don't Like

Margot McNaull didn't plan to be a jewelry designer, but creating her own engagement ring sparked a mission to empower women through fine jewelry. She joins Lesley Logan to explore self-worth, the symbolism of rings, and why you don't need permission to craft heirlooms that celebrate your life. Margot's story will inspire you to see jewelry as a bold declaration of who you are.If you have any questions about this episode or want to get some of the resources we mentioned, head over to LesleyLogan.co/podcast https://lesleylogan.co/podcast/. If you have any comments or questions about the Be It pod shoot us a message at beit@lesleylogan.co mailto:beit@lesleylogan.co. And as always, if you're enjoying the show please share it with someone who you think would enjoy it as well. It is your continued support that will help us continue to help others. Thank you so much! Never miss another show by subscribing at LesleyLogan.co/subscribe https://lesleylogan.co/podcast/#follow-subscribe-free.In this episode you will learn about:What sparked Margot's shift from consumer to jewelry designer.What she's learned about self-worth through her own life journey.The psychological barrier of asking permission to invest in yourself.How the Ring Transformations program helps women reclaim their style.Why crafting heirlooms celebrates the important moments in your life.Episode References/Links:Stór by Margot Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/storbymargotStór by Margot Website - https://www.storbymargot.com Margot McNaull's Website - https://www.margotmcnaull.comGuest Bio:Margot McNaull is the founder of Legacy – the luxury ring experience where she empowers women to live a life of legacy. With nearly ten years in the fine jewelry industry and having worked closely with thousands of women, I've witnessed firsthand the transformative moment when a woman finds the ring she's always dreamed of. Margot started her jewelry design journey in the wedding world, collaborating with countless couples to honor and celebrate a pivotal milestone. However, she soon realized that the ring held a deeper significance. It symbolized a moment, a longing—a reflection of the woman who wore it, beyond just a gift from someone else. Margot's passion quickly deepened as she realized her desire to serve every woman who crossed her path. She wanted each one to feel represented in the ring design, to recognize their worth, and to know that every creation was inspired by them. Inspired by this vision, came the Legacy Experience. (https://margotmcnaull.com/legacy) If you enjoyed this episode, make sure and give us a five star rating and leave us a review on iTunes, Podcast Addict, Podchaser or Castbox. https://lovethepodcast.com/BITYSIDEALS! DEALS! DEALS! DEALS! https://onlinepilatesclasses.com/memberships/perks/#equipmentCheck out all our Preferred Vendors & Special Deals from Clair Sparrow, Sensate, Lyfefuel BeeKeeper's Naturals, Sauna Space, HigherDose, AG1 and ToeSox https://onlinepilatesclasses.com/memberships/perks/#equipmentBe in the know with all the workshops at OPC https://workshops.onlinepilatesclasses.com/lp-workshop-waitlistBe It Till You See It Podcast Survey https://pod.lesleylogan.co/be-it-podcasts-surveyBe a part of Lesley's Pilates Mentorship https://lesleylogan.co/elevate/FREE Ditching Busy Webinar https://ditchingbusy.com/ Resources:Watch the Be It Till You See It podcast on YouTube! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCq08HES7xLMvVa3Fy5DR8-gLesley Logan website https://lesleylogan.co/Be It Till You See It Podcast https://lesleylogan.co/podcast/Online Pilates Classes by Lesley Logan https://onlinepilatesclasses.com/Online Pilates Classes by Lesley Logan on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjogqXLnfyhS5VlU4rdzlnQProfitable Pilates https://profitablepilates.com/about/Follow Us on Social Media:Instagram https://www.instagram.com/lesley.logan/The Be It Till You See It Podcast YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCq08HES7xLMvVa3Fy5DR8-gFacebook https://www.facebook.com/llogan.pilatesLinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/lesley-logan/The OPC YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/@OnlinePilatesClasses Episode Transcript:Margot McNaull 0:00  You deserve something that you truly love and truly honors who you are and what you want every day. And so I just think, if you do that for yourself first, before getting into a wedding ring, you're not going to compromise on that wedding ring either. You're going to know what you're doing. Lesley Logan 0:15  Welcome to the Be It Till You See It podcast where we talk about taking messy action, knowing that perfect is boring. I'm Lesley Logan, Pilates instructor and fitness business coach. I've trained thousands of people around the world and the number one thing I see stopping people from achieving anything is self-doubt. My friends, action brings clarity and it's the antidote to fear. Each week, my guest will bring bold, executable, intrinsic and targeted steps that you can use to put yourself first and Be It Till You See It. It's a practice, not a perfect. Let's get started.Lesley Logan 0:58  Hello, Be It babe. How are you? We're going to talk about a topic that you might not think has anything to do with being it until you see it. We're talking about jewelry. We're talking about rings. We're going to talk about buying the ring for you, right? And if you're like, oh that, I don't need to do that right now, I would strongly encourage you to listen to it. I think we had a great discussion about worthiness and permission versus discussion. And my single ladies like, what are we waiting for? Right? Why are we waiting for a person to come to our life put a ring on that finger? So it was really fun. It's really powerful. And I know when you see Margot McNaull's Instagram and see all the different ways that she designs rings, I think you'll be inspired to really create your own legacy with that. So here is Margot McNaull. Lesley Logan 0:58  All right, Be It babe, this is really fun. This is a conversation I've been wanting to have for a really long time ever since I met our guest today. It's going to be fun. We've never talked about jewelry and diamonds and worthiness to buy our own. So, Margot McNaull, thank you so much for being here. Can you tell everyone who you are and what you rock at?Margot McNaull 1:55  Absolutely, thanks for having me. So I'm Margot. I started a fine jewelry company about 10 years ago, and I went straight into a big need I saw on the market, which was cookie cutter jewelry pieces and mass produced jewelry pieces, which I absolutely hated. And I, actually, when I was about to get engaged, now, I guess that's like 13 years ago now, I'm getting old.Lesley Logan 2:20  No, not at all. No, because I, I will be married this year, 10 years, and then I'm not getting old yet. Margot McNaull 2:25  There you go. We're not, we're young, we're young. But yeah, I said to my then boyfriend, I said, I don't want you to buy me a ring in North America. I'm Canadian, so we were in Canada. I said, don't buy me a ring in Canada. I want to go to India. I want to buy a ring. And he's like, okay, you know, he doesn't know anything, but he was happy to let me choose because he knew he could never. So we went to India, designed my ring, and I had the most special experience, because I got to select everything myself. And for, you know, listeners who don't know, India is like the Mecca of jewelry. That's where it all flows from. They cut most of the diamonds in the world. They're the experts. So by saying India, we're not saying, like, you know, it's not cheapening anything. It's actually, they value jewelry so much that they, they don't even manufacture 10 karat gold. They don't think that's gold. So, yeah, it's fascinating. So I go there, design it. I'm like, in love with the process, and then I come back and I see all these cookie cutter pieces, and I wanted women to have the experience I had, and that's what actually made me start the business. I was I was not in this at all. I didn't plan to be in it. My own engagement ring design led me to this, and that's how I started in the jewelry world.Lesley Logan 3:38  I mean, what a cool, first of all, I think what a great story to have together with your just your jewelry, your ring alone. I think that there is, there is so much around the ring that should have a good story, and then for you to, like, go into this business after that, having no experience like you went to school for, like, metal making or like, what did, you know what I mean, like, were you nervous about it? Did you, did it feel like a big learning curve? What was the, what was it like to go from like, okay, I designed my own ring, but now I've got to design for other people, so now I'm ordering for like, how was that? How did you do that? How was that journey? Margot McNaull 4:16  Yeah, that was a really intense journey, because it really brought out the self-doubt in me. And the best way to explain what I do to people is it's like the interior designer coming in and making it beautiful after the architect, you know, put up the house. So I'm a little bit of both. I create the structure, I design the structure and how it's going to look, but the what makes our rings and jewelry so unique is actually the little tweaks that I make. It's the, it's, you know, how I see it, and you don't actually need to be a goldsmith for that. And I, what I realize now further along in, is I actually have something very rare and unique. And there are a lot of metal workers out there, and there are a lot of people making jewelry out there that don't have that eye and don't have that ability to make something so like, you know, tweak it in just a way. Like, just today, I flipped the three stone ring, pretty unique custom ring for a client who happens to be a wedding photographer. So of course, she's like, pretty picky about what she wants. Lesley Logan 5:07  Because she's seen it all. She's seen everything. Margot McNaull 5:19  Exactly. So she's like, I do not want that. So she's doing this very cool, unique ring. And I just took, I just flipped it. So all I did was like, go one I saw it I'm like, no, I don't love it. Something's wrong. And I flipped it. And I was like, wow. So these are the little things that I realized a long, you know, it took me a long time to overcome the self-doubt, because I would look around, I would feel like I don't know anything. I don't know what I'm doing, but I think all of that stuff actually made me better at it. But yes, it was a very intense emotional learning curve, I would say. Lesley Logan 5:49  Yeah, because I think like, so here's, this is how I'm going to equate it to my life. Like, I booked commercials and gigs in in L.A. before I took a commercial acting class. Soon as I took the commercial acting class, I went on a string of, like, zero callbacks, and I finally had to go, my agent was like, girl, what is going on? You booked a bunch of stuff before you had any skill, and we gave you skill, and now you suck. And I was, that's how they they actually say things more meaner and more direct. And I said, I said, I think that the class screwed me up. I think I started thinking I had to do it in this form you lay it way when I was just being myself before with what was going on. So I'm just gonna forget everything gal taught me and try again. And I booked a couple more gigs. And then I was like, I don't actually really like this, so I'm gonna quit, but, but, like, I think that, you know, we can tell ourselves a story that we have to, oh, I want to start a jewelry business now. I need to go and take all these jewelry classes, and actually, by you owning that you see, like owning your own eye, and not putting about, like, putting your worthiness on the education or the history of jewelry-making by you just owning what your own skill sets were from your own intuition is what makes you so unique and what makes your experience so unique. Margot McNaull 7:12  Absolutely, it, once you can get there, it's awesome, but, I mean, I can, I know a lot of women struggle with this. I'm right there with you, like, you know, the learning curve and the doubt and overcoming all of that is very difficult. I think it's why a lot of people quit in business as well.Lesley Logan 7:28  Yeah, how did, so, do you, do you remember what your tools were to overcome it? Was it just like deep therapy? Was it journaling? Like, what?Margot McNaull 7:36  Honestly, great question. I feel like it took me a long time, because maybe I didn't implement like, I probably could have had some better tools and done it faster. But what it took me towards, and, you know, I feel like in 10 more years, I'm going to have this amazing story to share about what I'm just entering right now. But when I just started, so I went right into the wedding side of things. I was like, I want to work with engaged couples. Now I'm way more excited, not way more. I love working with women. So now we've really tailored the women, whether it is a woman designing her engagement ring,woman designing something for herself. But back then, I was all wedding, so I went into it thinking, I'm going to make a really cool experience for women to feel special that they have this unique piece that's theirs. The jewelry company is called Stór by Margot, which is a Gaelic word, S-T-O-R which is, my treasure. I wanted them to feel like it was their treasure and it wasn't just another piece from the mall that three other women are wearing at the same time. So I go into that, but it actually completely knocks me off my feet as I'm going through my own journey of self-doubt and realizing, you know, self-worth because it there's actually a really deep psychological issue that appears when women are looking at jewelry and talking to you about jewelry, and it is that they don't feel like they're worthy of it. And this is something that then I had to go into and realize, where do I feel, like, where do I stand? Where's my, how do I feel about my worth? Pretty low. And this is like, years into being married. Have a great husband, great family, but those things aren't going to make you feel worthy. They might help you feel good, but the only person who's going to make you feel worthy is you. And that's why I feel like it took me a really long time to kind of get out of that, but I think it brought me to this conversation, which is exciting, and I'm and I want to spend kind of the rest of my life doing is, you know, talking to women about how worthy they are. And I guess that's the benefit of the slow journey just uncovering. And like I said, I just wanted women to feel happy and excited. And now I see all of the nuances that you should see in my appointments. You can see the in the relational interactions and the doubts and the hesitations. You know. Versus the women who are like in and they're like, this is what I want. I'm getting it. I know I'm strong and but even those women have their moments, right, where you can see through it and but all of it is, I think, how you feel about yourself. Lesley Logan 10:13  Yeah, I, 100% I so agree. I, thank you for sharing that. I think it is. I used to work at a jewelry store. And my jewelry store was, it wasn't like just diamonds. It was more like unique ways of working with diamonds and stones. And so some of our designers, like Kathy Waterman, who, like, makes platinum or 22 karat gold, it looks like ivy that makes the shape of a heart, and this really unique stuff. So, like, even though she would make a few of those pieces, it felt very unique. And so it was really fun. But I would watch women come in by themselves and go, oh, this is a piece that makes me feel so special. And then they might come with their partner or a friend or a family member, and that person's interpret, like, they would almost change how they like something based on if that person would think they were spending too much money, or you're never gonna wear it, or, you know, like that, you can make that far cheaper, like all these different things from the other person's story. And then there'd be the women who came and go, I really love this. They'd write it down. The husband just come in, go, she wants that. That's gonna make her happy. That's exactly, like, so you could see these different relationships. And because I worked at that store for so long, I saw those relationships evolve together or evolve apart, you know, because, and it was really the more she felt firm at what she wanted, and the more it's not like, and I don't mean it's like, he buys her whatever she wants, or she buys for herself whatever, but like, the more confident she was, and the more, the more the partner validated that confidence and validate what they wanted, that, that actually allowed those relationships to be stronger together. And it was just really cool to watch. So my favorite people were the ones that didn't wait for someone to buy it for them, the ones they bought it for themselves. So I want to talk about that, because I know that's where your business has evolved. And our mutual friend, Lauren Zoeller, who's been on the show before, y'all, she designed a piece with you, and I really enjoyed the story of why she got that piece. So can we talk a little bit about why, why you're so excited about women mining their own diamond and like not waiting for the one ring with the one person that.Margot McNaull 12:23  So true. Okay, I love this topic so much. And like I said, our business, there's part of our business that's always going to be rooted in that one ring, because it's, it's a specialty. But where I am personally moving towards is this legacy experience of women designing a piece for themselves, and this is all rooted in what we just talked about. And the concept of the experience is we're going to walk through your own personal journey, and we're going to take all of the tidbits and pieces out of that, and I'm going to do my thing and put that into your final piece, you know, which, which I do think most of the time is going to be a ring, because the main, the good thing about a ring is you see it, right? Because you're using your hands, you're looking at it. It's a reminder, versus a necklace. You don't see that much yourself, right, unless you're looking in the mirror. So there's something about a ring that is so powerful, and it's also seems to be the thing that's always passed down, right? So creating a legacy beyond just something that you know is going to be passed down is almost honoring your journey. And what do you want to do with your life, and what you know, what story do you want to leave at the end, and just encouraging and honoring women to walk through that process and not be afraid to do that, and not like you said, tame themselves because they don't think that they're worthy to do it, or the opinion of someone else. And so what was really great about doing that with Lauren is, you know, she knows, she knows what she wants, she, she's not letting somebody else come in there and tell her what to do. And we got to create this beautiful moment of this big transition in her life, of a ring that actually goes back and the story that came out when we were talking together was just how important her grandmother was in her life, and then we got to put that into the final touches of her ring, and it's going to be her symbol forever, of her mission and how she wants to honor her grandmother. And her grandmother almost called that out in her life when she was younger, and she didn't even know what that meant at the time. So this whole experience of and then working like, I love what you said, because most people haven't worked at a jewelry store, when someone can come in and give themselves permission to just do what they want is a completely different experience and outcome. And going ahead and saying, I deserve it. I want to design my own piece. You know, whether it's a legacy experience, whether you just come one on one, say, I'm finally going to do the thing I wanted to do is very empowering. And there is something about jewelry that I mean, jewelry is one of the only things that lasts, if you think about it, right. There's something about gold and stones and where they come from, and they, they last forever, yeah, and it's really special. Lesley Logan 15:02  Yeah. I think, like, I think that's one of the things, like, what I love about what you're doing, why I wanted to talk with you on the show, is, like, we have so many women listeners. Some of them are in a wonderful relationship, some of them are on their own, and they're, as someone who has a lot of, a lot of amazing jewelry, and I get to look at it. I walk into my room all the time. I wear as many rings as possible because I just, it reminds me of who I am, but also like, yes, there is something that I do. I have no children, but I do hope that someday, you know, when I'm not here for this earth, people will will use my jewelry in different ways, or it will remind them of me. But there's something about having in my jewelry box, I have, like, my grandmother's engagement ring, and I have my father's wedding band. I have these things, and I like want to do something with them at some point someday. But there's just something about, like, we have these things that it has that memory. And if you can create something that is from you, that has all of your worthiness, and then you put it on your finger, and you get to look at it every day. It's like a symbol of reminding of who you are and the worthiness that you have. And I think it can be really easy. We've a lot of people have been raised in material possessions are like a waste of time, but actually, like, sometimes it's the only memory we have of somebody like having, like having built that in and put that together like you did with Lauren, like having that that grandmother's touch inside, kind of brings that legacy around and brings that worthiness, and like you're putting them together, I will say this quick little story. It has nothing to do with diamonds, but does have to do with the ring. We're recording this during the L.A. fires, and on my Instagram the other day the these firefighters were like searching this realist come up, this firefighters are searching in this house for another firefighter. His house burned down while he was fighting someone else, the fire somewhere else, his house burned down, and they found his wedding ring because he wasn't wearing it when he was fighting the fires. He left it at home. And they figured out what part of the house it might be at, and they search through the rubble, and they pull out this ring. And it was so emotional, because, like, they've lost everything, right? They have nothing, but they do have that. And it's just, I'm crying now because, like, even though it's not their, a diamond ring, it's this piece, it's like, gives them some sort of, like, semblance of stability and hope and memories and all that stuff that encompasses it. So I, I really do think that jewelry can have so much more than a material possession. It can have all of you, your history, your life, your journey into a piece. Lesley Logan 17:32  Absolutely, that's such a beautiful story, especially because, oh my goodness, especially because that's a miracle, because it should have melted. So that's kind of insane.Lesley Logan 17:40  Kind of insane, that, like, it should have melted it, right, it was like, in the rubble of a house, there's nothing left, and they found this band, and it's fine, and he put it on his finger and like, and he's and he's like, he's like, he's like, what's your wife gonna say? He's like, well, she didn't know I lost it yet. So now I have to tell her, it's found. But so cute, so cute, so special. Margot McNaull 18:03  So cute.Lesley Logan 18:05  So okay, so tell me, tell us a little bit more, because I think that some people may get overwhelmed by the idea of, like, designing a ring and worthiness. Let's talk about like, what, if we were to do that with you what's the process? How do we make it less overwhelming? How do we, how do we and I guess maybe even, like, what are some things that women should go through to even give themselves permission to do this? Maybe that's a better place to start. Margot McNaull 18:29  Okay, I really love that question, because I, there's one thing that we can all really relate to, and that is, you know, there's no, nobody hesitates now, it's they're, you're like, I want that handbag. I'm buying that handbag in six months. Or, you know, I need a Chanel in my closet like it's everyone has permission now to go and buy these very, very extravagant bags, right? Much more expensive ones than that. And there's no question. Nobody says, I'm not worthy of buying an Hermes bag. Right? So they've overcome that hurdle. But when it comes to diamonds, there's something that stops us. And there, and honestly, I talk a lot, obviously I talk about jewelry a lot, and now it bugs me every time it happens, everybody says, oh, I'll tell my partner, I'll tell my husband, I'll ask them for it. And it's, this is still a thing. It's like we don't feel like we have permission to buy it for ourself yet, right? Sure, a $200 silver ring you're gonna buy for yourself. But why, when you're celebrating something so big, do you not feel like I want that eternity band, you know, like I'm buying that for myself. Or even women, my goodness, well, the idea of the push present, it's like they're still not even asking for their push presents, it's like you almost died putting your kid into this world, at least get her the diamond. So, you know it's, it's, it's a permission issue, and so that's the first thing to overcome is think about that and let that sit with you and really think why do I why am I not giving myself permission? Because, sure, the easy way out is it's expensive. I have to think about it. Yeah, of course, there's a lot of things in life that are expensive that you can plan for. There's also ways to do these rings in this jewelry that are very cost-friendly, you know. And my team can help you figure that out. But there's the I think the issue is, there's, there's a stop so there's, there's a permission issue. Lesley Logan 20:26  I think that's a really, what a, you know, I'm a Pilates instructor. I'm not a therapist, and when people move, trauma really leaves by through movement. And so I've had to up level myself in areas of training so that I can spot when that's happening, and not therapies, because I still don't have that license. But also, like, notice when it's just like, leaving the body, and when it's like, hey, you know here, like, how to handle that, right? And you are, like, going to, like, making jewelry, because, like, it was a great experience. And now it's also like, oh, I also have to be able to identify and help a woman go so maybe you should, like, let's talk about why you think that you can't have this yet, like, why you're not worthy of it now. And it's true, like, maybe you do have to go, okay, I am worthy of it, and I need to buy it in a year after I've, like, that's a different story. But, like. Margot McNaull 21:16  Of course. Lesley Logan 21:16  But it I think that there's a habit, and for the single women like, you're not good, you've got it, you've got it. You have one less thing to think about. But as a married person like I was raised in a house where I hear my mom go, I've had to check with my, my husband check with this. And also, by the way, yes, households have budgets. There are things to check on, but also you could also know what your budget is to spend on yourself and you like that should be a thing that's part of a marital household like my, my husband has his money to spend on his things without checking on me. I have my money spent on my things without checking with him. Then we have our money that, you know, if it's going to be in the household, we have to discuss. But there's not permission there. It's a discussion. And I think that's a difference in that, ooh, we just talked that through.Margot McNaull 22:03  That's it. I love that's it. Jewelry is always lands, most of the time, lands on this, I need to ask permission when it really should just be I just really, I just really want them to know I want it, and it's okay, you know. And we'll decide when I'm getting it. It is not a permission. Lesley Logan 22:22  Yeah, and I think, you know, it's really, it's really interesting is, like most partners, I would like to think, I know that that's not all the case in the world that we're living in today, but most partners actually don't want to, don't want to give you permission. They, they, they want you to have what you want. You know, like, I was asking something of Brad, and he's like, you don't need permission to buy it. You just buy it. And I was like, oh, that's right. Where did that come from? How did that come back? How did that come into me? I've never asked before. Like, who did I just hang out with? You know? So, like, so I think, like, it is, I think it's worth evaluating, if you're listening to this and you're like, I can't do I don't know, like, or you're feeling resistance around this, like, I would just ask, like, are you guys having discussions in your relationship around what you'll invest in, or is one person always asking permission, you know, and like, how can we change that? Because I think that that, you know, is worthy of evaluating and putting you know, some time in journaling and discussion into, so.Margot McNaull 23:20  I love that. Lesley Logan 23:21  Okay, so you, let's like, let's go back to the I want all the women who listen to this to feel worthy and also have something that they have chosen for themselves. So you got into this idea of like, she doesn't have, she can, she can get her own ring. And this is like, with, not the marriage ring, not the left hand finger ring, but another finger ring. What is that like? Who is grabbing these? Who did you think of this for? Like, what? Tell me more about it. Maybe I'll have one. I have an empty finger. I have an empty one.Margot McNaull 24:01  I know. I remember meeting you, and I was like, I love her. She loves jewelry. No finger is unadorned. Except maybe the one we have to fill, but you have to do something with the metal from your parents ring (inaudible). Lesley Logan 24:13  Yes, yeah, we'll have to talk about that, yes.Margot McNaull 24:15  Absolutely. That's perfect. It's like the sentimental piece that you need to add. So what I love about this is there are some women who are doing this for themselves. You know, let's say after, after having a baby, they're saying, I want a ring to commemorate that. I'm like, awesome. Go for it. Good for you. Then there's women like, we mentioned Lauren, who's like, I really want to honor my journey and my legacy, which is super exciting. Now we just started, we actually just really, speaking of the left hand ring finger, we just released ring transformations, which we are incur, basically like giving permission to women to say, this ring from when I got married 10 years ago is not in style and I don't even like it anymore, and revamping it and doing something with it. Lesley Logan 25:01  I love, that. I love that.Margot McNaull 25:02  It's so good. And, you know what's fascinating is us releasing the program. It's like they knew they could do this this whole time. Us saying apply for a ring transformation is like the permission they needed, because so many more people came out of the woodwork and are doing it now, because we, because we said it, you know?Lesley Logan 25:22  Well, I think also, like, it's on your to-do list, but then you're like, it just feels daunting. You're not really sure, you know, you almost like, need the prompt. I love this. I think that's really cool. I also, um, for the women who are, you know, letting go of relationship. I have seen women get beautiful rings, like, divorced rings.Margot McNaull 25:40  Yes, I know I've done that, and there's some funny names for them, and they've done something cool for themselves afterwards, which I love. And then I also hate, you know, because I don't want to just focus on this one finger. I hate when women say, like, you know, if I have a ring on that finger, then someone always ties it to a relationship. And then there's this whole other tangent of, why is this piece of our body belonging to someone else? It's like, I feel sorry for the single women who just want to wear a ring, and if they go on either side, right, people be like, oh, are you with someone? It's so frustrating. Lesley Logan 26:13  Yeah, no, it really is. Also like, I don't know. Maybe it's because I live in California, and people can judge how they want to, but like, I, whenever I wore a ring on that finger before I was married, it wasn't like people, it stopped anyone. Like, I got engaged, and I got more people asking me out on the first date at the Whole Foods in WeHo which, by the way, is where everyone is gay. So I should have been, like, left alone. So, so I would just say, like, I don't think anyone's actually that observant anymore.Margot McNaull 26:39  So true. So true. Yeah? Like, they should have permission to wear whatever they want on whatever finger and celebrate themselves in whatever way they want, right? And it's so interesting, because it's like, at, some women are waiting for that to happen, for that moment, for that someone to give it to them. And like, if you're listening right now, you do not need to wait for that, you know, do it for yourself. And if you do it for yourself first, and that happens later, it's probably going to be even more special because you're honoring yourself first. Lesley Logan 27:09  Yeah, oh I'm into that. I'm so into that. So ladies, put a ring on that finger and just put something that makes you feel powerful and wonderful and special. You know, it's just be it till you see it. And I think oftentimes, like the acting as if you are worthy before you might feel it is also helpful, because it's like, okay, if I did feel worthy, what would I do? What would I wear? What would how would I say yes to this? Would I would I be concerned about putting a ring on that finger or buying myself the ring that I've always wanted? You know, I think that that, and then all of a sudden, you you can, like, start to step into those shoes easily. And so when that ring is ordered and put on that you it doesn't feel foreign. It doesn't feel like something you're embarrassed about. Yeah.Margot McNaull 27:53  Yes, you're gonna love it so much more, too, because I've been working with a lot of couples for many years now. Like you said, they're partial therapist, partial ring designer. And honestly, if you don't go through that process first, you're not going to honor yourself enough in a way to actually get a ring you want to wear. You're going to compromise in ways that, and this is a piece you have to wear forever. This is where now, when, you know, people come without their partners, it kind of freaks me out of it, you know, like when the wearer of the ring isn't there, it'll, because it's so how do you nail all those details without the person wearing it? It's going to be on their body everyday maybe. So you deserve something that you truly love and truly honors who you are and what you want everyday. And so I just think, if you do that for yourself first, before getting into a wedding ring, you're, you're not going to compromise on that wedding ring either. You're going to know what you're doing. Lesley Logan 28:45  Yeah, yeah. And I think, like, what a symbol of a ring, if you've compromised all the way, like, you know, like, what is, what's going to happen? What's the be it till you see it, if everything to the detail of the ring is a compromise, you know? Versus like, I like this. I want this, yeah. Oh, my, oh, I could talk to you forever about jewelry, like, I really could. I got a new emerald, by the way, I'll have to show it to you.Margot McNaull 28:46  Ooh, yes, please. One of my faves. Lesley Logan 29:07  It's so pretty. It's like, I like, I put it on my finger, and I was like, I said, my friend, my the person who made my wedding ring. I was at her house, and I she had it out, and I was like, what is this that I don't need but I truly want? And I put it on. I was like, well, just look at that. And I was like, put, I tried to put, I was like, well, maybe I'll put the pink one on, you know? And then I was like, no, it's the one, I want, the green one. So I just wore it. And I sent a picture to Brad. I said, hey, babe, what do you think about this? And he didn't respond. And I was like, well, you know, silence is admission, like, it's permission. So this is like, I like, and so I bought it. And he's like, oh, what'd you get? And I was like, well, I hope you like that green one. Margot McNaull 29:55  I love that. Yes, I need to see that with your hair, too. Like, green emerald.Lesley Logan 30:00  It is so bright when, when we're done recording, I'll grab it. So anyways, okay, we're gonna take a brief break, because we could talk jewelry forever. But I want to find out some Be It Action Items from you and where people can work with you. Margot McNaull 30:11  Amazing. Lesley Logan 30:12  All right, Margo, where do you like to hang out? Where can people find you, follow you, connect with you, work on a ring with you?Margot McNaull 30:18  Yeah, let's do it. So our I'm most active on Instagram @StorbyMargot. So that's S-T-O-R-B-Y Margot with the T. And my two websites are storbymargot.com and margotmcnaull.com which will be you'll have them up, but my personal brand website, which is more women-focused, and then Stór By Margot is more tailored to the wedding side.Lesley Logan 30:37  Wonderful. Okay, we've talked a lot about some really good stuff, but Be It Action Item, it's the bold, executable, intrinsic or targeted steps women can take who are listening and the few good men, by the way, we do have a few good men. Margot McNaull 30:51  Love it. Lesley Logan 30:53  We always call them out, they're listening, that they can take to be it till they see it.Margot McNaull 31:02  Love it. Okay, so I'm glad you gave me some time to think about this, but came down to don't give up on yourself, because to go through what you need to go through to be that strong, successful, driven woman, you have to go through some pretty dark valleys, and you do have to look at things in a way that other people maybe don't want to. It's easier not to look at those things, but then you're going to come out with a less powerful message. So the thing that I reflected on was going through a decade where many times I wanted to quit. Well, I'm I very much am not a quitter, I would say, like, I'm more of a beat myself up and keep going. But there would have been times where it would have been easier to quit, and I didn't quit, and instead I had to, like, look deep and figure out what was so uncomfortable and raw. And that's where I'm coming out of, I feel like, in a way. And you know, it seems like 10 years. When you start a business, I mean, you know this, when you start a business, you you'd think you'd be a long way in at year 10, right? Or you look at other people and you're like, man, look how well they did. And honestly, I feel like it's just the beginning, because of all of these things I had to figure out. And if you do not want to look deep into yourself, and you do, do not want to do deep work, definitely don't start a business, because I really, I feel like it's really similar to having kids. It takes a lot out of you, you know, I did both at the same time. So, hence, the very deep, dark valleys of self-reflection and what purpose I wanted to have. But that's what I thought about be it till you see it is I just kept going through the darkness, and I just keep having faith in the process. And that's what I would say in terms of being it till you see it. Because even, I mean, I'm very excited soon to be moving to the U.S. but. Lesley Logan 32:56  Yeah. You're being it until you see it on that U.S. move for, I think, few months after I met you. So it's kind of amazing that it's happening. Margot McNaull 33:06  I'm so excited expanding the business into the U.S. and but in, like some of you know, in Canada, we had the longest shutdowns. We had some of the longest shutdowns in the world. In from 2020-2022 we were still closed January 2022, can you even believe that? Lesley Logan 33:22  It's insane. Margot McNaull 33:23  And running a business at that point in time, you had to be great. And so I was thinking about, you know, life would have been a lot easier if I had given up, but I wouldn't be here today, and I wouldn't be talking about this message that I'm so excited to keep sharing and encouraging women with and so that's my Be It for you, for sure. Lesley Logan 33:44  Yeah, I love that, and it's true. Like, if you don't want to get to know yourself and go through all the dark valleys, there's good too. But like, you don't get the good without the dark. Like, that's just how the world is, how everything is in our lives, then go work for someone else, where you can clock in, repeat things and clock out, because it's, yeah, running, every single day, I learn something about myself. I'm like, oh, I wish I could take that back. I wish I could do that differently. Okay, I get to do that differently next time, but I have to live with what I did this time. Margot McNaull 34:19  Exactly. Lesley Logan 34:20  Yeah, it's, it's interesting, a journey it's a journey. But ladies and gentlemen, please consider, one, your worthiness, for this episode. Two, get the ring that you want for any finger. And three, share this with a friend who needs to hear it. You know, share this with a friend who's like needs to remember that they like are truly married to themselves and and that is how we can, I think, uplift each other and helping those around us feel worthy as well. So Margot, thank you so much. Y'all make sure that you tag any takeaways with Margot, the Be It Pod, share with a friend and until next time, Be It Till You See It. Lesley Logan 35:04  That's all I got for this episode of the Be It Till You See It Podcast. One thing that would help both myself and future listeners is for you to rate the show and leave a review and follow or subscribe for free wherever you listen to your podcast. Also, make sure to introduce yourself over at the Be It Pod on Instagram. I would love to know more about you. Share this episode with whoever you think needs to hear it. Help us and others Be It Till You See It. Have an awesome day. Be It Till You See It is a production of The Bloom Podcast Network. If you want to leave us a message or a question that we might read on another episode, you can text us at +1-310-905-5534 or send a DM on Instagram @BeItPod.Brad Crowell 35:46  It's written, filmed, and recorded by your host, Lesley Logan, and me, Brad Crowell.Lesley Logan 35:52  It is transcribed, produced and edited by the epic team at Disenyo.co.Brad Crowell 35:56  Our theme music is by Ali at Apex Production Music and our branding by designer and artist, Gianfranco Cioffi.Lesley Logan 36:02  Special thanks to Melissa Solomon for creating our visuals.Brad Crowell 36:06  Also to Angelina Herico for adding all of our content to our website. And finally to Meridith Root for keeping us all on point and on time.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/be-it-till-you-see-it/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Introducing the All Def SquADD Cast show “Versus". It's a podcast with the OG SquADD! Each week, the SquADD will debate topics and vote at the end to see what wins. Versus airs every Monday and you can download and listen wherever podcasts are found. Special Guest Young Deuces Dion Lack This Week We Discuss Drink Water That Always Taste Fishy vs Eat Food That Always Taste Fishy Give Up Your Phone For A Month vs Live In Solitude For Three Months Have The Power To Shrink vs Grow

Introducing the All Def SquADD Cast show “Versus". It's a podcast with the OG SquADD! Each week, the SquADD will debate topics and vote at the end to see what wins. Versus airs every Monday and you can download and listen wherever podcasts are found. Special Guest Chinedu Unaka John Grimes This Week We Discuss Hit By A Slow Moving Car vs Jumped By Elderly Gang Do Naked & Afraid In Australia vs Be Homeless In Chicago During Winter Eat One For Every Meal; McDonalds vs Indian Food S/o To Our Sponsors Better Help https://betterhelp.com/SQUADD 10% Off Your First Month!

This week The rollout boys cover Drake's wireless fest while discussing how they feel about "What did I Miss" a week later. Who wins a Versus between Twista and Mystikal. Also they try to figure out what's the beef between Nicki and Jay-z. Of course they do a deep dive into the Clipse Album!!! As always, the culture from a Midwest point of view #WWTB

Introducing the All Def SquADD Cast show “Versus". It's a podcast with the OG SquADD! Each week, the SquADD will debate topics and vote at the end to see what wins. Versus airs every Monday and you can download and listen wherever podcasts are found. Special Guest Kanisha Buss BT Kingsley Mike Damn This Week We Discuss Bionic Arm vs Bionic Leg Live Somewhere It Constantly Snows vs Constantly Rains Spend A Day With Future You vs Past You

Introducing the All Def SquADD Cast show “Versus". It's a podcast with the OG SquADD! Each week, the SquADD will debate topics and vote at the end to see what wins. Versus airs every Monday and you can download and listen wherever podcasts are found. Special Guest Roxxy Haze LouLou Gonzalez Brandon Broady Courtney Haynes This Week We Discus

Lesley Logan and Brad Crowell reflect on the inspiring conversation with values-driven changemaker Kate Galli. From standing up for animals to staying grounded in joy, this episode explores what it takes to lead with purpose. Learn how Kate uses her voice, energy, and optimism to drive meaningful change—while still staying connected to community, compassion, and self-care.If you have any questions about this episode or want to get some of the resources we mentioned, head over to LesleyLogan.co/podcast https://lesleylogan.co/podcast/. If you have any comments or questions about the Be It pod shoot us a message at beit@lesleylogan.co mailto:beit@lesleylogan.co. And as always, if you're enjoying the show please share it with someone who you think would enjoy it as well. It is your continued support that will help us continue to help others. Thank you so much! Never miss another show by subscribing at LesleyLogan.co/subscribe https://lesleylogan.co/podcast/#follow-subscribe-free.In this episode you will learn about:Exercises for managing lower back pain in Pilates classes.Kate Galli's journey into plant-based living and how it deepened her purpose.How she transitioned from being an “angry vegan” to a compassionate advocate.The ABC Method's role in fostering mindset shifts and habit change.Why identifying core values is essential for aligning with your goals.Episode References/Links:Ask Iliza Anything Podcast - https://beitpod.com/askilizaeLevate Workout and Q&A - https://lesleylogan.co/elevatewaitlistAgency Mini - https://prfit.biz/miniOPC Summer Tour - https://opc.me/tourUK Mullet Tour - https://opc.me/ukCambodia October 2025 Waitlist - https://crowsnestretreats.comTaylor Made at Pilates Anytime - https://www.pilatesanytime.com (use code: LLogan for a 30-day trial)Submit your questions - https://beitpod.com/questionsKate Galli's Website - strongbodygreenplanet.comHealthification Podcast - https://beitpod.com/healthificationEp. 528: Stephanie O'Dea - https://beitpod.com/stephanieodea If you enjoyed this episode, make sure and give us a five star rating and leave us a review on iTunes, Podcast Addict, Podchaser or Castbox. https://lovethepodcast.com/BITYSIDEALS! DEALS! DEALS! DEALS! https://onlinepilatesclasses.com/memberships/perks/#equipmentCheck out all our Preferred Vendors & Special Deals from Clair Sparrow, Sensate, Lyfefuel BeeKeeper's Naturals, Sauna Space, HigherDose, AG1 and ToeSox https://onlinepilatesclasses.com/memberships/perks/#equipmentBe in the know with all the workshops at OPC https://workshops.onlinepilatesclasses.com/lp-workshop-waitlistBe It Till You See It Podcast Survey https://pod.lesleylogan.co/be-it-podcasts-surveyBe a part of Lesley's Pilates Mentorship https://lesleylogan.co/elevate/FREE Ditching Busy Webinar https://ditchingbusy.com/ Resources:Watch the Be It Till You See It podcast on YouTube! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCq08HES7xLMvVa3Fy5DR8-gLesley Logan website https://lesleylogan.co/Be It Till You See It Podcast https://lesleylogan.co/podcast/Online Pilates Classes by Lesley Logan https://onlinepilatesclasses.com/Online Pilates Classes by Lesley Logan on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjogqXLnfyhS5VlU4rdzlnQProfitable Pilates https://profitablepilates.com/about/ Follow Us on Social Media:Instagram https://www.instagram.com/lesley.logan/The Be It Till You See It Podcast YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCq08HES7xLMvVa3Fy5DR8-gFacebook https://www.facebook.com/llogan.pilatesLinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/lesley-logan/The OPC YouTube Channel https://www.youtube.com/@OnlinePilatesClasses Episode Transcript:Brad Crowell 0:00  I was thinking, passion doesn't necessarily equal anger, even though it's associated with high energy. And then you just said the word compassion, which is more in line with what we want. Compassion still includes the word passion.Lesley Logan 0:14  Welcome to the Be It Till You See It podcast where we talk about taking messy action, knowing that perfect is boring. I'm Lesley Logan, Pilates instructor and fitness business coach. I've trained thousands of people around the world and the number one thing I see stopping people from achieving anything is self-doubt. My friends, action brings clarity and it's the antidote to fear. Each week, my guest will bring bold, executable, intrinsic and targeted steps that you can use to put yourself first and Be It Till You See It. It's a practice, not a perfect. Let's get started.Lesley Logan 0:53  Welcome back to the Be It Till You See It interview recap where my co-host in life, Brad, and I are going to dig into the empathetic convo I had with Kate Galli in our last episode. If you haven't yet listened to that interview, feel free to pause this now and go back and listen or listen to this and go listen to that. It's kind of fun how the episodes work like that. If you're in the OPC app, you can easily see them and pick and choose. If you're in an Apple app, it kind of serves you in whatever order you're at so there you go. But it's quite fun. We'll get into her thing. I actually, because of her, have been putting tofu in my breakfast. So, yeah. Brad Crowell 1:29  Oh, love that.Lesley Logan 1:30  This is a woman. This is the person who said. So today is June 26th 2025 and it's National Handshake Day. So finally, a day that's not a fucking nightmare. If you listened to last week, this should be more uplifting. National Handshake Day. This is they always start with the thing, and it drives me crazy. Brad Crowell 1:48  Every year on this day. Lesley Logan 1:49  On this day, it's just like, it's like chatting before it happened. National Handshake Day is celebrated on the last Thursday of June each year, falling on June 26th this year. And yep, yep, we covered that already, and we're glad that this common greeting is getting a place in the spotlight after all the year that it has been around. Not only is the handshake the most universally recognized form of greeting, but it also has come to mean different things in different cultures, which is why learning more about it will come in handy. Pun intended. Throughout history and across different cultural contexts, the handshake is in practice, an expression of peace or goodwill, and is almost like a common language that binds us together the world over. That's a way, that's a weird sentence. It's no wonder, then, that we want to make a big deal about this innocuous gesture. Sociologically, the handshake has come to be a symbol of things hidden below the surface, as you can tell a lot about the person the way they shake. Brad Crowell 2:45  By the handshake. Lesley Logan 2:46  Yes, perhaps for this reason, secret handshakes have also become popular, giving people a sense of belonging to a particular group. However you view the handshake, one has to admit that it deserves its own day. Brad Crowell 2:58  It sure does. Lesley Logan 2:59  Just owing the sheer frequency of its use in our daily lives.Brad Crowell 3:02  Yep, yep. Sans Covid, when no one did any handshakes ever it was the wave.Lesley Logan 3:07  Well, now, and now everyone does fist bumps or like people don't shake hands, like there's like the germaphobes will never shake hands. Brad Crowell 3:11  Yeah, never again. Lesley Logan 3:13  I will be honest. I almost rather go for a hug than a handshake, like, I just feel kind of weird about it, mostly with women, obviously. Second, I don't really. Brad Crowell 3:25  Hi, friend, handshake.Lesley Logan 3:26  Hi friend. Also, I gotta be honest, I fucking hate a dead fish handshake. And I also do not give me the bunny hand, like I'm gonna kiss it, you know, some, some girls, yeah, like they give you their hand. They give you their hand like this, and then you're supposed to like, like, I don't know what I'm supposed to do with that. I'm supposed to say, What am I supposed to do? Brad Crowell 3:32  She's supposed to take it underneath and kiss their hand.Lesley Logan 3:50  Yeah, but, but you're giving it to me. I'm not gonna kiss your hand. Brad Crowell 3:54  What? Why not?Lesley Logan 3:55  No, no, not even yours. So I get but I was listening to Iliza Shlesinger's podcast, and she was talking about how, like, hand, she obviously, because she's got kids, and so she's always sick. She's like, comedy shows. She's meeting people, and so, like, they have rules about no hugging, no handshakes. And she's like, we used to shake hands to make sure the other person doesn't have a gun in it. So like. Brad Crowell 4:14  We did? Lesley Logan 4:14  That's what she said and she's like, such a historian.Brad Crowell 4:17  Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. Lesley Logan 4:17  You know. Brad Crowell 4:18  I know what she's talking about. Lesley Logan 4:19  Tell me. Brad Crowell 4:21  In the Wild West, it was like the under the table situation. And also you specifically used you shook with the right hand only because I think the left hand was used to wipe your ass.Lesley Logan 4:33  Right because it also assumed that most people are right-handed, and then you use right hand for your gun. Brad Crowell 4:37  Yeah, exactly. So I'm pretty sure there's some history, some historicity to that claim. Lesley Logan 4:44  Yeah, yeah. Brad Crowell 4:47  But anyway, luck us, definitely.Lesley Logan 4:49  Everyone's left hand was just covered in shit back then.Brad Crowell 4:50  I think that's not quite the same thing, but yeah.Lesley Logan 4:58  Oh my God, thank God we don't live back then, guys, it must have smelled like shit. Like, just whenever I think about whenever I, like, look at, like a castle situation, I'm like, this place reeked of shit. There's no way.Brad Crowell 5:11  Also probably like, ice, fricking cold. Lesley Logan 5:13  Oh, well, that and when we were at the one castle in Scotland, like everyone, including kids, was given like, liquor every day because it helped kill the germs that were like in the water and the food or something like that. So and most people were like, just not enough water for the peasants. They just drank anyway. Brad Crowell 5:27  The king had a shit hole in his throne. Lesley Logan 5:30  Yes, he did have a shit hole in his throne. That's why they call it a throne. And in front of people, they would just get up and pick up their skirt and sit down on the toilet and take a pee or take a poop or whatever. But, you know, anyways, and then, besides the gangrene that was going on. Back to this. Brad Crowell 5:43  Weird. Lesley Logan 5:45  I will just say I would love to shake your hand, but you got to shake it back. And also don't squee. The men who squeeze really hard to make sure they I know that they're strong. It's like, well, now you're, what I know you are as a dick. That's what I know. Like, there's, it's a, there's a there's a talent to the fucking handshake.Brad Crowell 6:01  There's a lot you can know. All right, let's move on. So upcoming event. Lesley Logan 6:05  We are doing a lot very, very soon. Brad Crowell 6:07  All right, stick with us here right now. It is June 26th so in just a few weeks, July 9th, we're gonna be hosting an eLevate workout, a Q&A workshop. So if you don't know what eLevate is, no biggie, that is Lesley's mentorship program for Pilates teachers. Okay? It's a 9-month program. It's an amazing way for you to get to the method more across all the different pieces of equipment, and it will 100% change your confidence. I mean, like night and day, dramatic difference, and it's perfect if you're a new teacher or you've been teaching for a really long time. This is a great program. We've been doing it for years, and it's probably our favorite program run. We're going to be doing just a Q&A and hang so a workout and you could ask questions. July 9th.Lesley Logan 6:49  Alumni will be there and they'll answer your questions, and they're great. They do have the kindest of hearts like, that's why they come.Brad Crowell 6:54  So come, go to lesleylogan.co/elevatewaitlist elevate waitlist.Lesley Logan 6:59  And that's live online, and then also live online on July 17th is Agency mini Mini.  Brad Crowell 7:03  That's right. Lesley Logan 7:03  Agency Mini number 11. Brad Crowell 7:05  Profitable Pilates is back. Lesley Logan 7:08  And it's prfit.biz/mini and it is a three day business coaching workshop. There will be two events that have live times on them, but you can off, obviously, watch replays wherever you are. It's really, really great. Look, the summer is slow for most Pilates instructors, except for like, the family travels, but it's a perfect time to work on your business and get your questions answered so that the last half of the year can be what you want it to be to set you up for next year. So prfit.biz/mini to get on the waitlist, and that way you'll get the early bird pricing. And then in person, we're coming out.Brad Crowell 7:42  OPC Summer Tour kicks off July 25th in Phoenix. We're gonna do a massive rectangle. We're gonna do Phoenix to San Diego, all the way up the coast of Vancouver, that's right into Canada. Then we're gonna cut across through Calgary, and then back down to Vegas. From there, I don't know. I think it's like close to 5000 miles, I think.Lesley Logan 8:01  You are planning this Hon. I literally, I was, people are like, where is this at? I'm like, I don't even know. Brad Crowell 8:01  We have 19 stops. Lesley Logan 8:01  Oh, whoa, 19. Brad Crowell 8:01  Yeah. Lesley Logan 8:02  This is almost as big as winter tour. Brad Crowell 8:07  It's, it is almost as big as winter tour.Lesley Logan 8:14  But a little shorter, thank goodness, because I don't think I could do two full month long tours, but this is good.Brad Crowell 8:20  This was a little over three weeks. So. Lesley Logan 8:23  Yeah. Brad Crowell 8:23  It's gonna be amazing. Lesley Logan 8:23  And we're going to Canada. Brad Crowell 8:23  We're going into Canada. I'm excited first time for us to tour up into Canada.Lesley Logan 8:27  Get the dogs paperwork ready to go into Canada and get them back in the States.Brad Crowell 8:34  Yep, yep. And then in September, we're getting on a plane.Lesley Logan 8:38  Oh, did we tell them where to go? opc.me/tour Brad Crowell 8:40  Go to opc.me/tour opc.me/tourLesley Logan 8:45  And then in September, we're getting on a plane. We're going to the UK. We have two cities in the UK. It's our Mullet Tour. And mullet means business in the front, Pilates in the back. And so we'll have a business workshop each day, and then Pilates workshops each day. Don't worry, there's more Pilates workshops and business workshops, but U.K., we're trying. We got to help you out.Brad Crowell 9:04  2/3 Pilates 1/3 biz don't worry that'll work.Lesley Logan 9:08  And there's a workout so you can get a 2-day pass at Leeds. There's only three spots left at the time we're recording this. Don't know what that means when it drops in your ears. Brad Crowell 9:15  That's true. Lesley Logan 9:16  And then Essex also space super limited. But we did open up day passes so you can buy a Tuesday-only pass or Wednesday-only pass. Brad Crowell 9:22  Yeah, or you can get both. Lesley Logan 9:23  Or you can get both, you'll save if you buy both. So opc.me/ukBrad Crowell 9:28  opc.me/uk and then finally inLesley Logan 9:31  We're going to Cambodia in October.Brad Crowell 9:32  October we're heading back across the world, and we want you to come join us. It is obviously our favorite place to be. Lesley Logan 9:39  We're gonna go to Scotland, come home, go to Chicago, go to Cambodia. Brad Crowell 9:46  Oh, yeah, we're going to P.O.T in Chicago. Lesley Logan 9:46  Yeah, we are, we are. We'll tell them about that later. They haven't announced that yet, so until they announced that, we can't announce it. Cat's out the bag.Brad Crowell 9:53  Oops, anyway, yeah, come with us. Go to crowsnestretreats.com crowsnestretreats.com to come hang. I mean, I've already been on a bunch of conversations with people talking about it. I know people are worried about travel right now, international travel, especially with like, the perception of Americans around the world due to our government making stupid decisions. Lesley Logan 10:17  We actually have been treated very well. Most people are worried for us. So they're not, like, they're they're mostly worried, and also, like, we've already gone there and come back during this administration and have had not any problems, so we don't anticipate any problems. So we also did it during March of 2020, and were, the threat of getting in the country, so it was real, and we walked right in.Brad Crowell 10:38  Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, the conversations we've been having with people haven't been that. The conversations have been more about like, are, you know, is it going to be problems for Americans traveling? Honestly, I still think it just comes down to you being cool or being an asshole. If you're an asshole, you're gonna have problems. Lesley Logan 10:56  But also, if you're an asshole, you're not listening to this podcast. Brad Crowell 10:58  Yeah, that's probably true. Lesley Logan 10:59  Pretty true. Brad Crowell 11:00  Send this to an asshole. Send this episode.Lesley Logan 11:00  I don't, don't. I was actually even worried, personally, was worried about our Canada tour stops. I thought, will they sell? We have to spend so much money on lawyers to make sure we can do everything appropriately. AndBrad Crowell 11:07  We're almost already sold out in Vancouver.Lesley Logan 11:17  Vancouver is almost sold out. So like, I will say, I actually think most people understand that we, the majority of us, are not happy with how things are going, and we are not these people. So just, just know you'll be.Brad Crowell 11:32  Yeah, but it's also like the experiences that we've had, during tumultuous times, have not prohibited us from traveling, right? So, you know, we would encourage you to, you know, get on a call with me if you have any questions about it, worried about it, come join us. Cambodia is going to be epic trust me. Lesley Logan 11:53  Oh, yeah, it's so beautiful. And also, when we're there, because we've gone so many times during administrations like this. It is like the most you don't, you're so relaxed, you don't really even you don't the news can't even really get to you, because even if it does, you hear chickens, and then you hear the birds and the parrots, and you're sweating and the motos, and you're like, I'm so far from that, like that there's nothing I can do about that while I'm here. Brad Crowell 12:17  It's called a retreat for a reason. Lesley Logan 12:21  It's really helpful. It's really helpful for your heart. I mean, I always I'm so relaxed. Brad Crowell 12:28  I'm already getting warm fuzzy feeling. Lesley Logan 12:30  I know. So come, crownestretreats.com to snag your spot.Brad Crowell 12:34  All right. And we did have an audience question this week. Thank you for sending this in. We had, I don't know how to say this, um, ayeletregev6703 ayeletregev6703 on YouTube asks, hi, during a class. Lesley Logan 12:50  Hi.Brad Crowell 12:51  Hi, during a class, what kind of exercise would you offer to someone who can't do the teaser due to lower back issues? Well, great question. Thank you for asking. Lesley Logan 13:01  Yeah. So first of all, if, first of all, the way I teach Pilates is that every exercise is going to be accessible to people at some point when they're ready. So my teacher, Jay Grimes, always said, you want to bring people up to an exercise, don't bring exercise down to a body, right? So if someone has lower back issues and they can't do the teaser, I actually wouldn't modify the teaser necessarily for them. I would have them repeat an exercise that was safe for their back, that would build up their strength, their stamina and their connections. Brad Crowell 13:24  They should just quit. Lesley Logan 13:30  Shut up, and that way, first of all, they can keep moving. And then second, it would be figuring out, like, is this lower back issue permanent? Is this like a chronic issue? They're never it's never going to go away. Is it what it is? Brad Crowell 13:50  Surgery kind of thing. Lesley Logan 13:46  And so then it's like, should they, should they even be doing flexion at all? Should they, can they do teaser with their feet on the wall? Should they just always do something else, or is it just that they are not, they're of a tight back and just not ready for it, yet? Because then we can roll like a ball into teaser, roll like a ball in a teaser, right? And that's a great way of doing it. So what I think is really important is there isn't one way to answer this question, because I don't know who we're talking about.Brad Crowell 14:09  It's true. So that's a little tough, but I do think you know the whole idea, as a non-Pilates teacher here, the whole idea of Pilates is that it's a system, right? And what I know from sitting on the sidelines and watching the eLevators come through our house, literally, our house, and work things out, is that that if they're if they can't do teaser, because they're just not there yet, that's okay. It's totally okay. They don't need to do teaser, right? It's not like, you know, teaser, to me, is like handstand in yoga, you know, it's not necessarily like changing your world. It's part of a system. It's one of the poses that you yeah, sure you want to get to it eventually. But if you, you know, if you can't do teaser, it doesn't mean you can't do Pilates, right? So, you know, if you take that approach to it, you can, you as a teacher, can help them get to that pose over time, and you can help them get to that if that's their goal, that's fine, you know. But there might be other things that you want to take them to, first because of their lower back issues,Lesley Logan 15:18  Yeah. And I, first of all, well said, babe. So many people are like, Go, Brad, but, but I think, like, you know, here's the thing, clients come to a class and you specifically about a class. And so everyone thinks that, oh, everyone in the class is doing the exact same thing. Like I was talking to someone in eLevate, they're like, oh, but I need everyone to, like, do it at the same time, because it looks really good. And I was like, uhm.Brad Crowell 15:42  We could skip all that. Lesley Logan 15:43  We don't care what it looks like as a beauty, a form of beauty, I care, are they connected? Brad Crowell 15:48  Right. We're not synchronized swimming here. Lesley Logan 15:50  Yeah. And so if that's the way you're teaching your classes, some people will like that. But to be completely honest, a lot of people are not going to actually get the benefits of Pilates in that fashion, in that form. So it's really important. Brad Crowell 16:02  The 1980s are calling. They want their synchronized workouts back.Lesley Logan 16:05  Yeah, so what I, so I would, this is how I always started every class, not every exercise is going to be for you. So when in doubt, leave it out. It's actually brave and courageous to replace what you can't do yet with something that you can, something that you did that was challenging, right? And if you need specific assistance with an exercise, we can talk about it. We can give options at the end of class that you can use. And so with this person with lower back issues, maybe they need to take a private or stay after class one day to figure out what is their teaser. So maybe it is a modified teaser, but maybe it's actually double straight leg stretch, or maybe it's that they do swimming instead, right? What is it that they do? And then that way they are empowered to be autonomous and independent. And I promise you, it is going you will survive people doing different things at the same time, because they're gonna feel so good, and they're gonna come and go. That was the best class, and it's gonna make you love what you're doing, because now you're actually affecting real change in them, and not just like, well, let's just bend their knees and now they can do it, right? Like, that's, like, that's a Rachel Taylor Siegel, highly recommend everybody watches Taylor Made on Pilates Anytime you can use LLogan for a 30-day trial. It's in the Legacy Project. And what I learned from Rachel Taylor Siegel, she said, let's talk about modifications. She said modifications are like borrowing money from the bank. Some loans have higher interest rates than other loans, right? So if you get an SBA loan, you're looking at a couple percent, like real low, and so it's really easy to pay that loan off over time. In fact, that loan allows your business to grow, and so that kind of a loan is like going not just accelerate you, but just strengthen your business, gonna allow you to create a really good foundation, right? Versus a payday loan, those like 40% interest loans, or 30% interest loans, or the credit cards, the ones we get in the mail with our amazing credit score. It's like, why would I sign up for this 35% credit card? Are you crazy?Brad Crowell 18:09  Yeah, I did get one for for 29.99 Yeah, or 30. It was like, it was like shocking. Lesley Logan 18:19  That's it when I was in college and college when I had no credit. Brad Crowell 18:22  I never saw one that high ever. Lesley Logan 18:22  I guess that's true. I think it was like 18%. Brad Crowell 18:23  Yeah, they were like, 20% everyone's like, oh my God, they're stealing from you. Now they're, now they're like, 30 and it's normal. I'm like, holy cow, bananas. Lesley Logan 18:30  Yeah, you'll know, yes, so, but that, so just take that bananas and then think about that as a modification for an exercise. So now we're stealing from them. Now we're actually not providing them with the ability to ever not need that modification. In fact, they will have to keep just like those payday loans.Brad Crowell 18:45  Ever not, never, not. So they will always need the modification. Lesley Logan 18:45  Yeah, just like, well, if you let me finish my sentence, it was going to be just like when you do the payday loans once, what I've heard, what I've understood, is why they're so bad is that once you need them, you automatically need the next one and the next one, because now you're like, stuck, you're stuck and you're in debt. So my dear, thank you for this question. I hope it gave you something to think about. If you're an OPC member and you have a lower back issue, you can actually film yourself doing an exercise. You, actually, it could be any issue, but you can film yourself doing an exercise, and I can give you feedback on it. We don't answer client questions in OPC because it's all about you. So there's that. But if you guys have questions, go to beitpod.com/questions to send in your win or your questions, we'll answer them here, and we'll shout your wins out on Friday. beitpod.com/questions. Brad Crowell 19:30  Stick around. We'll be right back. We're gonna dig into that convo with Kate Galli. Brad Crowell 19:38  Okay, let's talk about Kate Galli. Kate is a health coach, author and podcast host who's passionate, who is passionate about helping vegans and plant-based curious people live the with strength, confidence and joy. After years of working in both fitness and in the mindset space, Kate now helps others create meaningful lifestyle changes by aligning their health goals with their values. She's the creator of Strong Body, Green Planet, and host of the Healthification Podcast, where she shares strategies for powerful, compassionate living through her signature ABC method. Kate focuses on building habits that not only feel good, but also do good for the mind, for the body and for the planet.Lesley Logan 20:24  Okay, I thought she was so cool, because, first of all, a lot of what she is talking about with her journey of being a vegan, and then where she's at now is a lot of be it till you see it in like being vegan-curious or plant-based curious. I think a lot of us could lend ourselves to at least, if you're not going to go full vegan considering, like, what changes you can make for the planet. I think we all have to be considerate of that. You'll also be considerate of your body and what you're allergic to and all those things. So don't at me. I can't eat that because I got this allergy. I see you okay. In fact, Kate sees you because she's not an angry vegan anymore.Brad Crowell 20:59  Yeah, that's the thing that was like, I, actually, I'm not gonna lie, like I was listening to it. I was like, okay, you know, I'm in and then she shared her story, and I was like, wow, you know. And if you, if you, if you haven't gone back and listened to the episode, it is gut-wrenching and powerful. And she says it quickly, relatively quickly, but it's worth a listen. So go back and take a listen to Kate's story. Lesley Logan 21:25  I think the cadence of this episode coming out after Stephanie O'Dea's slow living episode is really important, because there's a couple things like, that, I'm like, I'm thinking about with Kate that kind of can go back to Stephanie. First of all, you cannot shame or judge yourself into a goal, right? And so and and, and. Brad Crowell 21:46  Nor can you shame others into a goal.Lesley Logan 21:49  Correct. And Kate said, we get this drive and this focus and this purpose, we just go and go and go. And she's like, it's effective until it isn't. And that's the same thing that, like Stephanie was saying, like, we we, like, want to go, like, so fast, but like, things will happen in time. And so she transformed in this, like, angry vegan. And then she became more compassionate, because she realized her approach was actually not effective in convincing anyone. In fact. Brad Crowell 22:13  Also, she was like, fried emotionally, like, so fried. She was like, I can't, I can't even be the angry, you know, like, person that I was anymore. I just can't do it.Lesley Logan 22:24  Yeah, I think, like, how many of us have been, like, so passionate about something that we get angry? I know I do. I know I do not talk politics with some of my family members because I get so angry that they cannot see the perspective that I see it from. I just can't I, like, literally, I'm just like, I'm losing, I'm missing out on that part of my life, because I need to figure this out for myself, because I cannot be compassionate in this moment. But you know what? I'm giving myself permission, that's okay. But I think it's like, she, she really, where she was able to change to is being a lot more compassionate, and then that allowed her to be more helpful in helping other people see ways that they can become vegan, or ways that they can make things a little bit more plant-based, or be or just change the way that they want to work out so that they're now it's almost like, it's like, you can't, you don't get, you can't get bunny like, bees about honey, like that kind of a thing? Brad Crowell 23:22  Yeah, you did mention that on the interview, and then you apologized for all the vegans out there who aren't necessarily in a honey. Lesley Logan 23:29  I know. Brad Crowell 23:30  I had a good laugh about that. Lesley Logan 23:32  Well, some are not okay with honey.Brad Crowell 23:35  Yes, no, it's you're, you're not wrong, but I just thought it was a really funny analogy in the moment. But you're right. You know, you get more bees with honey than you do, you know, without. So, you know, it's the kind of like the kill them with kindness, kind of a yeah approach. And I think.Lesley Logan 23:51  I really hated that growing up, my mom always, like, kill with kindness. And I'm like, that's not working.Brad Crowell 23:59  But, but, you know, she talked about the frustration with the relationship with her father, and how, like she was able to learn from her mom, you know, and how her mom's approach shifted her own approach, you know, out and about in the world.Lesley Logan 24:22  Yeah. And I also want to say, because she said, whatever we care about yelling at people about how wrong they are is never going to get them to want to join us. I just want you to know that, like I still believe you should protest, because it's not about convincing the person driving by. It's about convincing the politicians we're protesting again. So I just want to say protests matter, but. Brad Crowell 24:39  Yeah, they do. Lesley Logan 24:40  But if your neighbor isn't seeing how the way that they're voting or the way that they're eating or the way that they're you know, mowing their lawn in the middle of the night is affecting things that you care about. Yelling at them isn't going to get them to stop. You do have to figure out. You have to understand a little bit more about why they think the way they think, or why they do the way they do, so you can actually have a compassionate conversation that allows them to see how what you're trying to offer them is going to help the same goal that they have.Brad Crowell 25:08  That's actually really interesting. And I wonder about the etymology of these words here now, because I was thinking passion doesn't necessarily equal anger, even though it's associated with with high energy. And then you just said the word compassion, which is more in line with what we want. Compassion still includes the word passion. So, you know. Lesley Logan 25:29  Do you ever want to take, like, an etymology class? I want to take a handwriting class. They don't teach kids anymore, but I want to learn, and I want to take an etymology class.Brad Crowell 25:40  Well, so, but you know, like you can still be passionate without being angry. You can be compassionate and have passion, you know. So I think, you know, shifting her approach has sounds to me like a it's made her more effective, and it sounds like just a happier person.Lesley Logan 26:01  Yeah, she she is so lovely. Brad Crowell 26:04  So, good for her. Lesley Logan 26:04  And I will say, like, ever since I've talked with her, I've been really more thoughtful about, what are we eating? Do we need that? How? How do I get 150 grams of protein a day if I'm not having chicken? What does that look like? You know. Brad Crowell 26:18  I love that you were digging into how to get protein. You were talking about on the episode of like. Lesley Logan 26:24  Yeah, I asked her. I was like, I need. Brad Crowell 26:26  Like, what do I do? What's a side? What's a dessert? What's it? What? How do we do this? You know? And she, she did make the parallel between, you know, like, let's say there's like, a muscle dude at the gym, and if he decides to go plant-based, switching from like, steaks to, you know, she said he's got to be eating something comparable in, you know, that's going to fill him up, or he will just lose weight. You know, there's no question about that, but there are ways to do it, and that's what kind of, that's when the conversation really went down that rabit hole in a good way. Lesley Logan 26:26  Many, many bodybuilders who are plant-based like. Brad Crowell 26:26  I mean, Eddie. Our friend Eddie is like, six-three and was, like, a football player in the, you know, he's.Lesley Logan 26:37  Yeah, I think he's like a be it till you see it. You have to, like. Brad Crowell 27:09  In the military, guy's a beast. You know, he was a vegan for, I don't know, I think seven or eight years, like, solid. But he would eat like, half a freaking lasagna a night, you know,Lesley Logan 27:20  Right. Like, you have to get calories Well, and that's all kinds of calories, but I think it's just being intentional. And I think what I again, why I wanted to have her on, is it's a be it till you see it approach, like she has those baby steps, which allows you to, kind of, like, figure it out.Brad Crowell 27:35  Well, when she was talking about the ABC method, I thought it was pretty clever. She said, she, you know, when she was going through this personal transformation, she came up with this method that helped her prioritize her happiness and find a more effective way to pursue her purpose, more effective meaning people would listen. And she said, moving from angry, which was ineffective, to compassionate, which is effective. Her method is called the ABC method, and so A stands for awareness, B stands for brainstorm, and C stands for commitment. So she's, awareness, she's recognizing the negative trajectory of continuing down her current path. B, she's brainstorming, identifying ways to stop the habits that she used to do. And specifically she was talking about posting on Instagram, like posting angry stories, setting herself up to be attacked, even though she believes very strong, strongly in these things, you know. But and then she shifted, and she said, hmm, I wonder if, instead of sharing all the negative stories, I could share positive stories and see how that would have an impact. Right? So she began sharing happy stories and making vegan recipes, sharing vegan recipes that actually taste amazing to you know, like present an option that, instead of creating shame and like frustration, trying to guilt people into, you know, whatever, instead it's like, hey, did you know that it can actually be amazing? Did you know that it can taste awesome? You know? And so she started sharing recipes, and she said her third step is commitment, making a public commitment to the new approach, you know, drawing a line in the sand and saying, hey, I'm making this decision. So good for her. I love that ABC method. You know, I thought that was I thought it was clever. I thought it was a great way to, like, actually create a line in the sand of your life and be like, I've made this decision to change this thing. Lesley Logan 29:41  I think it can be used for so many things. Her ABC method, it's so you can just, it's just great. And it's also part of, like, how we learn, just, it's from the mindset training that I did it's very aligned with, like, how people's mindsets can be changed. Loved it. Loved it all.Brad Crowell 29:57  Awesome. Well, stick around. We'll be right back. We're gonna dig into those Be It Action Items. Brad Crowell 30:03  Welcome back. We're gonna get into these Be It Action Items with Kate Galli. What bold, executable, intrinsic or targeted action items can we take away from your convo with Kate? She said, if you want to make it easy to incorporate plant-based proteins into your meals, she shares she's got a 5s strategy, okay? She describes it as a way of setting it into your meals. Here are the five S's, star, scatter over, stir through, side and source. What does this mean? Star means plant-based protein is the main component of the meal, meaning lentils in a curry, or marinated tofu. So you've got your star ingredient, effectively, that's what the star means. Scattering over by adding plant-based protein sources such as hemp seeds or pumpkin seeds over your regular meal. So once you've got your meal, you can put something on top of it, and that also adds more protein. You can stir it through mixing plant-based protein, plant-based protein powder, say that five times fast, into a meal or a drink. I mean, this is pretty straightforward. Think about like a smoothie in the morning or soup or cereal. Lesley Logan 31:13  I even, even I put protein in my coffee because I'm trying to get so much protein in, I put it in my coffee with my creatine and my fiber, guys, because, you know, like, that's just a hard thing to get to.Brad Crowell 31:26  And the collagen.Lesley Logan 31:27  Yeah, like, I put it all in there, and it's in this my tasty coffee. And it's actually gotten me to stop going out to get coffee, because they won't have what I need to put in it. And I got to put all this in it. So.Brad Crowell 31:33  That's true. You could also have it as a side, having a portion of a plant-based protein on your side, such as edamame or crispy chickpeas. And I know you're a huge fan of crispy chickpeas. We literally got some after this interview, ourselves. Lesley Logan 31:50  I'm obsessed with crispy chick. I wonder how we can make it ourselves. I'm sure we could just do an air fryer. It is, guys, 50 chickpeas is like 10 grams of protein or something like that. Maybe it's only six, but I think it's 10. At any rate, it's like, two handfuls and it you're fuller than if you had snacked on some chips, right? And I got.Brad Crowell 32:08  It's also not like, it's not bad for you, like, you know, deep fried chips or something. Lesley Logan 32:12  And it's good for the environment. I can't have potatoes, so I have been, I like, have been like, over here, what? I just want to snack on a little munchie, and I can have those. Brad Crowell 32:22  Crispy chickpeas, all right. And then source. Finally, the last S is source, using sauces made with protein-rich ingredients, which could include, like self silken tofu, or you could put edamame inside the guacamole. Lesley Logan 32:36  Yes, where is this town that we used to get that guacamole that had edamame? Brad Crowell 32:40  Oh, it was, it was they have one. Lesley Logan 32:43  Oh, True Food. Brad Crowell 32:44  True Food. Lesley Logan 32:44  True Food. Yeah, and then they mess with those chips. So annoying. But the edamame with the. with the guac with edamame is there, and it's great.Brad Crowell 32:54  Pretty tasty. I dig it. But yeah, what about you? Lesley Logan 32:56  Okay, she said, if you haven't, if you haven't figured out what your personal values are, you need to because you gotta elicit them. She said, your values are the emotional states you're naturally drawn to, like love, freedom, truth or integrity. And so when you are planning your day or making decisions like, your values are these filters for those things and you need to align them with your most important goal or vision, and so even more importantly, align them with your daily actions. We actually talk about values a lot in Agency. Talk about it a lot in our business, coaching retreats and things like that. And so I love this. In fact, I just led a values webinar for Agency members. It'll be in the curriculum so you can figure out what are your values? Because it's like, well, what are, what are, how do you choose them? Like, I have to, you know, have to have names for it. What is it? So you can, Agency members can check that out. But I love this Be It Action Item. Elicit your own personal values if you haven't yet. Kate Galli.Brad Crowell 33:49  You know, it's funny. I thought it was interesting to compare this to a business, right? We talk about this for business owners, you got to know your mission, vision, values. I never thought about it once about my personal values. Lesley Logan 34:04  What? Brad Crowell 34:05  Yeah. Lesley Logan 34:06  Brad? Really? Brad Crowell 34:08  Well, in the same way I've never been like, here are my five values that matter the most to Brad. You know, I always think about it through the lens of my company first. So I thought it was interesting. Lesley Logan 34:20  We gotta do that. You gotta, you gotta do the exercise.Brad Crowell 34:24  We gotta do the exercise, y'all, I gotta sprinkle in some values. I'm gonna, I'm sourcing them now, but I'm gonna sprinkle them in, scattering them over.Lesley Logan 34:31  It won't be that complicated, because, I mean, we have different values, but my values were how the business's values came about. They were like, they're not exactly the same, but it's like another word for it that would be more business-like than what my personal values are, but I think that you get to, you get to do the exercise. Keep us posted on your Be It Action Item, babe.Brad Crowell 34:54  Sounds like a plan. Lesley Logan 34:54  I'm Lesley Logan. Brad Crowell 34:54  And I'm Brad Crowell.Lesley Logan 34:54  Thank you so much for being here. How are you going to use these tips in your life? We want to know, we want to know what you what your takeaways are. We want you to send them in to the beitpod.com/questions, share this episode with a friend who needs to hear it. That's how this podcast continues to grow, so we can continue getting amazing guests. Brad Crowell 35:15  And if you haven't yet, leave us a five star review, please. Lesley Logan 35:16  Yes, that is like a gift. Brad Crowell 35:16  It's a huge gift.Lesley Logan 35:19  I know it's hard to do. I know it's hard to figure out where to do it, but if you could just do it, because here's the deal, we want to get some amazing guests, but we actually have to tell them where our podcast stands. Because people are busy, and they want to know if it's even worth their time. And so every download matters, but also.Brad Crowell 35:36  And every time you share the episodes, it matters every time, every time. We're so grateful. So thanks for doing all that. Lesley Logan 35:42  Yeah, all right, until next time, Be It Till You See It. Brad Crowell 35:44  Bye for now. Lesley Logan 35:46  That's all I got for this episode of the Be It Till You See It Podcast. One thing that would help both myself and future listeners is for you to rate the show and leave a review and follow or subscribe for free wherever you listen to your podcast. Also, make sure to introduce yourself over at the Be It Pod on Instagram. I would love to know more about you. Share this episode with whoever you think needs to hear it. Help us and others Be It Till You See It. Have an awesome day. Be It Till You See It is a production of The Bloom Podcast Network. If you want to leave us a message or a question that we might read on another episode, you can text us at +1-310-905-5534 or send a DM on Instagram @BeItPod.Brad Crowell 36:28  It's written, filmed, and recorded by your host, Lesley Logan, and me, Brad Crowell.Lesley Logan 36:33  It is transcribed, produced and edited by the epic team at Disenyo.co.Brad Crowell 36:38  Our theme music is by Ali at Apex Production Music and our branding by designer and artist, Gianfranco Cioffi.Lesley Logan 36:45  Special thanks to Melissa Solomon for creating our visuals.Brad Crowell 36:48  Also to Angelina Herico for adding all of our content to our website. And finally to Meridith Root for keeping us all on point and on time.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/be-it-till-you-see-it/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

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