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Stuck In Your Life or Career? Could be Your Subconscious Sabotaging You with Dawna Campbell We all want to feel valued, both worthy and appreciated. The subconscious works is that from the moment you were conceived till the day you exit this earth, it records every moment. So it records all of the events. And it records how you feel moment by moment to those events, and puts those feelings and emotions to the events. Then a template to create a reality. About Dawna Known as the Mind Whisperer, Dawna combines her past knowledge, wisdom, and experience to assist you in creating and restoring a life of happiness, prosperity, and love.  Dawna has over 25 years combined years of professional experience.  As a former Financial Advisor, her book, Financially Fit, is a #1 Amazon International Best Seller bringing together the world of money and the energy body, and the souls essence.  She is a professional speaker sharing her techniques during interactive workshops and maintains an international private practice.  Dawna has shared the stage with Lisa Nichols, Dr. Joe Vitale, Sharon Lechter, and David Meltzer.  Her personal Heart Centered Healing philosophy is to create a world that is a better place for all to live.   www.dawnacampell.com www.thebusinessofbusinesspodcast.com Full Transcript Below Stuck In Your Life or Career? Could be Your Subconscious Sabotaging You with Dawna Campbell Sun, 8/8 5:47PM • 40:02 SUMMARY KEYWORDS eating, energy, breathing, feel, feeling, body, dairy, food, world, stress, people, changed, mindset, day, find, create, fed, pattern, diet, serotonin SPEAKERS Terry, Dawna, Roy Barker   Roy Barker  00:00 And we are the podcast of course we bring you our personal journey, my personal journey Terry support in trying to get healthy. You know, as I've been aging, I think the wellness factor is, you know, it's finally a realization I know I need to deal with. So we don't want to outlive our wellness. I don't want to be a burden to anybody for certain. So we are going through, you know, some changes in our diet, trying to exercise more, be more active and just be more mindful and thoughtful about what we're doing. We know that we're not alone. So that's main reason we started this podcast. So not only do we talk about our journey, but we also have guests and professionals from time to time. Today is no different. Terry, I'll let you introduce Dawna.   Terry  00:44 All right, Dawna Campbell is a professional speaker, international healer and bestseller author. She teaches trains and mentors heart centered business owners, how to align your inner balance to gain infinite prosperity in all areas of your life. As a former financial advisor Dawna's book financially fit is a number one Amazon international bestseller bringing together the world of money and the energy world of the soul's essence. She is also a contributing author to other best selling books, including one habit to have in a post COVID world and cracking the rich code with Tony Robbins and Jim Britt. Dawna shares her techniques that she has learned all around the world from yoga, yoga, yoga, healers, Zen Buddhist monks and a medicine woman while maintaining a private practice. This has earned Dawna the title of the mind whisperer for creating instantaneous results in the areas of health, wellness and relationships. Dawna has over 25 years of experience and has shared the stage with notables such as Lisa Nichols, Dr. Joe Vitale, share Lecter Lecter and Kevin Harrington. She has been featured on Roku TV, Yahoo Finance, Fox News, NBC and the Los Angeles Tribune. Her personal heart centered healing philosophy is to create a world that is a better place for everyone. Dawna, welcome to the show.   Dawna  02:14 Thank you. And thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here with you today.   Terry  02:19 Yeah, well, I am so excited to talk about this. I mean, I don't even know where to start, because I have so many questions in energy healing and financial advising on like that meshing of those worlds.   Dawna  02:38 Yes, and I, the former financial advisor, we would look at client's portfolios and talk about net worth, and how much their assets appreciated, and the value and if they had enough for their goals. And as I transitioned into the world of healing after my own journey, clients, I realized we're saying the exact same thing, I want to know that I felt worthy that I'm enough that I was valued and appreciated when I was little. And then one day a couple years ago, it clicked that it's the same words we're using. So it has the same vibrational frequency behind it. So if you didn't feel like you are enough, on the inside, you didn't have enough on the outside financially. And money by itself is just energy. And it doesn't do anything until you apply energy to it. And the energy that gets applied is how you feel about yourself on the inside. So when I started working with clients, whether it was in the area of health, for what was going on with them physically, or if it was in a relationship, whether it was marriage, or family, or even in the areas of wealth, whatever, we shifted and changed every single time their finances started improving, because we were changing the route of how they felt. So everything in their life became better.   Terry  04:05 Wow, interesting. That makes a lot of sense. I mean, you know, some of our guests that we've had, we've had functional medicine physicians, I mean, it's all about going back to the root of everything. Yes, it is.   Roy Barker  04:22 So what are what would be some of the main I guess some of the main areas that you see as that route and the reason I ask is because you know, I have trouble staying on a good eating a good balanced eating plan. And so you know, I've at points in time I've tried to think back, you know, of any trauma or something that was undealt with or, you know, the negative energy. I feel like for the most part, you know, until I have a podcast equipment malfunction, I'm usually I'm usually pretty, pretty positive. I have to admit that I have thrown a shoe every now and then, you know, for stuff. But, you know, so I just, you know, I think about me personally. And always, I don't mind using myself as an excuse or as the subject because, you know, I want to, I want to try to find the root of this poor eating or, you know, just kind of fallen off because like, we'll do good for two, three days, we've done good for months at a time, but it is like, you know, the minute something goes wrong, it's like, everything goes wrong, and it's just you're not back on track. So or for me, anyway, yeah.   Dawna  05:36 Right. So the way the subconscious works is that from the moment you were conceived till the day you exit this earth, it records every moment. So it records all of the events. And it records how you feel moment by moment to those events, and puts those feelings and emotions to the events. And then from that it starts giving you a template to create a reality from because it's like the coding or the system. And that becomes automated. Now, when we understand and take a look at what is at the root of it. What we want to do is see how you feel in this moment when things go wrong. And then all at once you're eating more food, and you did great for like three months. But now it's like this, because there's an energy there, which is an emotion or a feeling. So we start there in the consciousness. And then we find going back by asking questions, where it first started in the subconscious where that energy was, and where it got locked in your body. Now, it may not be a traumatic event. And it may not even be an event that's associated to what you were doing, because we're following the feeling and the emotion to unlock it out of the body to stop causing harm. And then we invite in the emotion and feelings that we want to have health, goodness, kindness, it might be prosperity, it might just be feeling better, it might just be happiness, and we invite those energies in to take the place of what we're taking out. And this my job is why I'm called the mind whisper is to help you find what was hidden to you and change that frequency. So is the subconscious creates a new pattern moving forward?   Roy Barker  07:30 Interesting. Okay. And you said that sometimes it's not a traumatic event, it's just a is it? Is it still tied to an event? Or is it just kind of like maybe changes in life or something not like physical changes, but you know, like, as you progress through age, things just change   Terry  07:51 the same feeling goes with,   Dawna  07:54 right? So say somebody was working on their finances. And they wanted to know and understand why they weren't getting more. They were wanting to create more, but it just didn't happen. And I'll use myself as an example. And I remember when I was sitting there going, Okay, I need to go from this level of my business to this next level. But I'm not getting it. I'm not there. How come? How does this feel? Well, I'm frustrating, of course, well, where do I feel the frustration I have in my body. And I felt it kind of in my heart, but also in my stomach. And when I traced it back, I went, when did I feel that before and I instantly recall the time that I was shopping at the store with my mom, I asked for an item. And I got told no, and all the reasons why we couldn't afford this, you know, $2 item. And, and I was made to feel less than and not worthy in that moment, because I asked for something. And that was wrong to ask for it. So my subconscious brain associated feeling less than in that moment that was unrelated, and created that pattern that I couldn't ask for something that I wanted, because I was always less than, and I was made to feel ashamed for it. And when I changed that, I changed it to Well, I want to have happiness. So I wanted to experience that happiness. And what I discovered was, I was worthy whether I had the item on the outside or not, and that I was always enough and that something on the outside didn't validate me or who I was and when that changed the next level of business. Okay, because we changed the frequency on the subconscious side. So the event still happened, how I felt about the event was completely different and That changed everything else in my world.   Terry  10:03 Wow, I felt that I felt that feeling that you were talking about I mean, just with being told no. And the reasons why. And I mean, I have felt that and I can't even put my finger on it. That's bizarre. I've never had it explained. So well, you know, because I'm not I'm like on a quest to find out about energy and what's going on with me and different things like and ROI as as well, you know, just different things. As far as like the eating habits, as well, and just being healthy all together, because, you know, he said, he says, I'm his support, but he's my support as well, it's not, it's about me being healthy. Also, you know, we just, we both, we both want it.   Dawna  10:54 Absolutely. And I will tell you, one of the biggest places where most of the locked energy is at is in the stomach, in the guts. And there's a couple of reasons for that. The first reason is that when you were conceived, you're were connected to your mom, by an umbilical cord. So she fed you nutritionally in that. So that was the start of our eating patterns. But she also fed you emotionally with every thought feeling, and emotion she had, that also went straight into your stomach. So that's why it's called the second Ray, because you were fed all of those things energetically. And that went into your cells as your cells multiplied to create you. And then you were connected by your father through DNA. So whatever he went through that portion of the DNA that you have, if his also the same thing, so that's where the whole eating pattern really does start was when we're being formed in the womb. So some of the work we get to go back to that time, not necessarily, if you know things about what happened when your mom was pregnant with you, that's great, but how things might have felt and how we can clear out some of that energy that's not yours, that started your pattern when you were first born.   Roy Barker  12:13 It's funny that you say that, well, we've learned a lot about the stomach that it you know, a lot of, I guess a lot of things start there, a lot of the, with the stress, stress has the effect on it, but so like when I'm eating good, and but my, you know, my triggers tend to be late at night. But it's funny, because like, Okay, before we go to bed, I'll feel hungry, and I want something, you know, I just want it, I don't need it. But I get this empty feeling kind of in my stomach and in my chest. And it's weird, because we've talked about this, like, it's almost like that I have to be full to feel, I guess that safe and comfort or whatever, where you can go lay down and sleep. I don't know how, how any of that related, but sounds like there may be something to to that same, you know, to that feeling that I get relating back to this.   Dawna  13:11 So what we would do is explore that feeling of emptiness, and then identify when it really first started and what was going on in your life around that. And whatever those events are, we would take a look at that. And then we would find out what it was that you needed. Because we can put in what was needed at that time to release the emptiness. And if it was empty, you need to be filled with something right. So we can do that. Because physics says there's no time or space. So when we make those changes, then you go to bed feeling full, satisfied whole and complete without the emptiness. You're not craving the food.   Terry  13:52 Wow.   Roy Barker  13:53 Yeah, that's awesome. And yeah, I probably need to do it. Come on. So, you know, let's let's just talk about energies in themself. You know, we, we have talked some about it we, you know, I think Terry actually had talked to someone I guess it was, did your sister recommend or something? Yeah, the energies. But, you know, it's an interesting concept. Because the older I get, the more I feel like, you know, the universe is does have an effect on us and the energies that we put out, you know, sometimes we receive that back, it's the energy of weaken, we get to make the decision. If this is going to be a failed day or not, typically, you know, if we believe it is then it will come true. So can you talk a little bit about all of those energies and how they kind of relate?   Dawna  14:53 Yes, um, how we feel creates the next moment and the next moment and the next moment after that. So if you're in the energy of stress or worry or anger, then you're going to keep repeating those moments. And if you're eating at that time of stress, worry, anger excetera, those are the emotional components, you're feeding yourself. And then it's going to break down your entire digestive system. I know this because I got to experience it firsthand for myself for over two years, and I can talk about that. But if we're in the state of the happiness, the joy, the peace, the balance, then what happens is, our body is more relaxed, it becomes healthier. And if we're eating in that state, we're able to properly digest our food, instead of on the run in the car, driving around in that state. And how you get up in the morning is probably one of the most important things that you can do. Let me get a clean piece of paper here. Very first thoughts you have when you wake up are incredibly important. Now I'm one that likes to stay in bed as long as possible. Before I get up and run around and get ready for the day, but I always make sure I have plenty of time. But I used to get up out of the bed going, Oh gosh, I'm so tired. And I just want to stay in bed and I want to sleep in. And I changed my mindset, doing some of the work that I do. But I learned about a week and a half ago, that March 31 in Japan numerology is like the luckiest day of the year. Now, when I found out I found out on March 30. So I went, well, tomorrow's March 31. It's going to be the luckiest day of the year. So I got up on March 31. Going, it's the luckiest day of the year, I need to celebrate something. So I started celebrating all of my small little wins, self validation, and all of that, and I had a really great day. And I went, Oh, that works really well. It's April 1, it's the luckiest day ever. So now every morning since then I wake up, and I start thinking, Oh, it is the luckiest day ever. What am I going to celebrate? How am I going to celebrate? And what happens is immediately my mood is lifted up. I'm instantly happy. I get up, I go on about my day. And then I'm like, early to everything. And then all of these amazing things fall into place. What happened to my diet by doing this? Guess who's now drinking wheatgrass juice? Who does a pumpkin seed protein mix? And started eating salad at lunch? Oh, wow. Never would I ever do that. Because I have a hard time digesting salad after my own digestion issues. But now I've been eating salad every day. And I'm like, Hmm, this is starting to work. Just by thinking that it's the luckiest day ever.   Roy Barker  17:58 See, and I wake up in my day starts with Can somebody get this dog off. I have cats, they just got an 80 pound foot pillow down there that you know you like pinned in, you can't even get up. Now. That's interesting. Because, you know, we've talked a lot on this show, too, about that mindset, and that it's and I give my priest as much credit for this as possible, because he told me once that our minds are like grinders, and we get to choose what we grind. If we're grinding negative stuff all day, it's just gonna continue where if we grind positive stuff, it will just continue to multiply. And the other thing I think, too, it's not only the because things are gonna happen to us outside of our control, but I think it is, it's related to how we handle it, you know, if I'm already if I'm already having a spell, and something new comes on top of it's like, you know, you just to your breaking point. Whereas, you know, like dogs barking in the background. But whereas, you know, if things are going good and you're happy in that mindset, it just seemed like you're able to handle things a little bit better.   Dawna  19:15 And mindset is only a part of it. Because the 10% we are consciously aware of the other 90% is hidden in the subconscious and is continually playing kind of like background noise, but we don't hear it. We don't know. But it's out there and it is other people might pick up on it. But we ourselves don't hear it and we're like a radio tower. It's always being broadcasted out. So we don't always know all of that we're sending out. It's kind of like when you're getting ready to go to like a sales meeting, and you're walking down the hallway and you know, if it's going to be a really good sales meeting, and everyone's gonna be congratulated, or nobody made their sales numbers and you're kind of all in trouble. You feel that loss Before you start walking down the hallway to the meeting, all right, well, that's exactly how it works in our energy field. And what you're feeling is, is all the subconscious thoughts, energies and emotions leaving the person's body. And so mindset, yes, to be consciously aware of how we're going to start our day. But there's that 90%. That's that tape loop that's always playing in the background.   Roy Barker  20:23 Interesting. So, if we're always putting that out, let's talk for a minute about the old, saying, it's the We Are the average of the five people that we surround ourselves, you know, do we soak up that neg negative or positive energy from somebody that we are around in that subconscious?   Dawna  20:47 Because what happens is, is you are in a shared energy field with them. And if you hang out with five people, and they are not of the same mindset, as you are there, always a lot of anger or chaos or drama around it, you start absorbing that that goes in your energy field. And then pretty soon you have anger, drama and chaos in your life. And you're like, how did I get here. And if you were around five people that were of a different vibrational frequency, a different mindset, a different feeling, then that's going to raise you and elevate you, as well. And one of the Buddhist monks, I think it was one of the Dalai Lama's said, the very most important thing that you can do is to be mindful of the company that you've keep. And that's when we have friends, we vibrate here, and then pretty soon some leave, and then new ones come in, but they feel different than the old ones. And then you are no longer talking to the old friends, because you're talking to the new friends. And it's just because of how energy attracts vibrationally through the law of magnetism. Wow.   Roy Barker  21:53 Okay. Yeah. What No, it is, I mean, and you just, you just feel better. And, you know, you can tell those people that, you know, we call them, you know, the energy suckers, but it's like, you know, you can be all pumped up, and then there's people you can get around, and when you leave, you just feel like a wilted flower, like they just suck.   Terry  22:16 have nothing left,   Dawna  22:18 you're depleted, you have to go to sleep for the next four hours. Yes.   Roy Barker  22:22 So how does, you know some things that we always talk about too, is our exercise patterns, our sleep patterns? How does all of that play into this as well?   Dawna  22:34 It does, because how you digest your food will affect your sleep patterns. Now, in order for us to sleep, we have to have the proper mix of melatonin which is produced in the pineal gland in our brain. In order to have them bright melatonin, we have to have the right amount of serotonin to produce the right amount of melatonin. So this is just a continual cycle. Most of the serotonin is produced in the digestive system. So if you are not eating the correct foods to produce serotonin, you're going to get depleted. And every time we use our electronics, whether it's our phone, video games, zoom all of it, we get a little surge of serotonin flashing through our brain, and if it doesn't replace through the digestive tract and what we are eating, then we become depleted if we get too depleted in serotonin, we become depressed. But if you have the right mix of serotonin, then Melatonin is properly synthesize, and you have a balanced sleeping pattern. So the sleeping is out of balance, or you can't sleep or you're constantly waking up, it could be your diet.   Roy Barker  23:48 You know, we've, I don't think it's too early in the process to say that we, we've been thinking about the cutting down on our meat protein, and we have kind of been looking, I guess, the last week or so we've been doing pretty much plant base. And because, and we've been doing the, I guess the intermittent fasting for this reason, we've been, you know, again, told a lot of times that our body spends about 80% of its energy digesting our food. So if we eat all day long, it's constantly doing that and I was just st talented this morning that I just wake up feeling so much better. And the other thing we're doing, we're quitting eaten, you know, like at six or seven, so I don't get to have my 10 o'clock, you know, Taco Bell snack or pizza or whatever, you know, whatever we can find laying around so I'm sure that has something to do with it. But the other odd thing is I have an arm that I have some inflammation in some of the tendons and I said you know eating good. The inflammation it's like it just disappeared overnight. I mean, like magic,   Terry  25:05 like two days, or   Dawna  25:07 I don't that's Yes, because the diet plays such an important role. And we don't think about it. By eating more of a plant based diet, you're eating food that is created by lights. And light energy is what we need in our body, for our soul for our spirits. Interesting. You can still eat meat, be mindful about the meat. And I say that because it also depends on your blood type, which I learned, oh, when I lived in the ashram, which is a spiritual living community, it was vegetarian. And, and actually almost 100% vegan by the time I was there, and I was a particular blood type, I'm Oh, positive. So about six months of being completely vegetarian, I started craving red meat. And I didn't know why. And I thought it was because of the iron content. But I found out that there's an amino acid in red meats that Oh, positive, or Oh, blood type people need it. And that it wasn't wrong for me to eat meat if I was craving it, because it said my body needed something from it. So occasionally, I would eat meat. I remember asking energetically once, what was the best diet for me? And I heard fruits and vegetables, nuts and seeds, sometimes meat. So I went to go do that. I thought it was gonna starve. Because what was not on there was dairy, or Great. Well, it's a slow process and to do it, and moderation, including moderation.   Roy Barker  26:42 Yeah. And that's kind of the plan we've adopted is it's not, you know, we don't have any conviction against me, or anything that we're saying never ever again, but I think it's more of that controlled, and, you know, maybe trying to have a nice piece of fish if you just really crave something, but   Terry  27:01 and trying to cut things out, you know, some I mean, just trying to clean our refrigerator out from all the dairy and the meats. And I mean, all of that stuff, there is so much so we made the decision. And then, you know, spent most of our time trying to clean out the fridge. But I think we're there I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you.   Roy Barker  27:19 Oh, no, no, no, I was just gonna say the the other part of that is the dairy and so is how dairy relates. We had a guest on and the episode hasn't aired yet. But when I started researching some of his work, it was very interesting to find that mammals are the only are humans are the only mammal to drink another mammals milk. And, you know, if they said that   Terry  27:45 thought about it like,   Roy Barker  27:46 Yeah, but they said it had. They said, Really? To be honest, if you aren't lactose intolerant, you're probably the the exception not the rule that we should all you know, after some form of infancy, we should all get that way. So I guess, what are the how does that affect our our energies?   Dawna  28:12 With a Jheri, depending on the type of dairy, dairy does cause inflammation in the body. And now our milk today is so different than what it was 20 or 30 years ago. And how it's processed in children is even different. They're doing things now not only with the additives and the hormones, but they're adding sugar, to milk to sweeten it to have children and other people drink it because it tastes sweeter. That sugar causes inflammation, and they're adding it in there. So we don't always know what's in the the milk, or the products. There's food coloring in cheese, cheese is not naturally orange, the food coloring has heavy metals in it that's needed, which is the binding agent to make the food coloring stick like aluminum. So you don't know that there that's in the food calorie that's in the cheese that we're consuming. And so all of these things will put those toxins into the body. And with you really want to make a big change to your diet, the number one thing that you can do is to take out food coloring. And if you look at every thing that has food coloring in it, you will have a very clean diet. Every cracker, every processed food has some form of food coloring in it. And cheese has food coloring in it if it's not white, and there are some brands that have a natural food coloring called a nano and that's okay. It's a natural color and kind of like what Hannah would be but for food, but it's not the other coloring that we would have been like American Jeez, yeah.   Roy Barker  30:03 Yeah. And that that was the hardest thing to get. I'm sorry. I didn't mean taco week. I was just gonna say that that was probably one of the hardest things for us to do was to actually take some leftover cheese and put it in the trash because I mean, that's my Yeah, we're cheese, that's my go to snack, there's not a meal that we don't have that doesn't have cheese all on it. But also, I think not only for the dairy qualities, but tends to the what we found be all very high in salt, which you know, but I will say that is my favorite thing. My favorite tomato paste tomato sauce is you can take taste it when they have put a lot of sugar in   Dawna  30:53 ketchup, as a lot of sugar in it.   Roy Barker  30:57 So what are some recommendations that, you know, I know that if if somebody's got a problem, they really need to sit down to have a session with you. So you can kind of work back and find this, you know, where, where their energies may be affecting them. But are the subconscious may be affecting their energies. But what are some things that we can do, you know, maybe just Top of Mind three or four things that we can try to start practicing every day, that should really help us not only in the health and wellness, but our overall life.   Dawna  31:33 A couple of things, the first thing that you can do is when you are eating, make sure you're eating out of happiness and joy, and not out of stress or worry. And if you're going to feel or be rushed, while you're eating, it might be better not to eat more blue, some protein drinks, to be able to do that for less amount of time, instead of eating, when you are eating, put down the fork in between bites. And don't be on your electronics at the same time. Yes, we have those away, and just sit and eat because when the body's in that state, you're going to digest your food a little bit more properly. So there's some things like that, that you can do automatically. One of the things I love doing is a breathing exercise. Now I don't do this when I'm eating, but it helps shift the energy inside. So we need to feel depressed or angry or anxious or worried or in those stressful states, what we want to do is release that out of the body. Now when we breathe out, we breathe out co2, which is carbon dioxide, which is all of the toxins our body no longer needs. And when we breathe in, we're breathing in oxygen and all the things our body does need. So what we do in this breathing exercises you breathe in, but you're going to breathe in happiness or joy, it might be calmness and stillness could be serenity, kindness, and you're going to breathe out the stress, the worry, the anxiety, the depression, and I do this, I set the timer on my phone for about two or three minutes, and I close my eyes. I breathe in happiness, my read out bitterness. And I will sit there and do that over and over with the same words. And then the next day or the next time I do it, I might choose different words, whatever it is that I'm feeling. And that's going to change your body physiologically. And when that happens, it's going to put you in a calmer state, you'll become more focused, you'll have a lot more clarity, and you might not be hungry. And if you think you're hungry, or you need to fill yourself up with something, drink a glass of water, especially if you're angry, or you're getting frustrated, drink a glass of water, you could just be dehydrated. And that water will flush through the body. making those shifts and changes as well just like the breathing will do. And you will it'll go back into that calmer state. And then you can take a look at what's going on.   Roy Barker  34:07 Yeah, and talking about the breathing. You know, that's something that I've really recognized about myself is holding breath and stress not ness. And it doesn't have to be like a bad stress. It could just be intense. I've noticed it like, you know, when I really get into a spreadsheet and things are rolling and doing this. It's like, you know, I have to actually say take a breath. I used to have a sign over my desk that said breathe and people would laugh and say you have to remind yourself to breathe and be like, Yeah, sometimes that but even when I'm breathing, I think I'm a very shallow breather. So I think there's a lot of there's a lot of truth to that we need to really take in those big deep breaths to help our body and you know, if you look at yoga and some other things that you know, we can control a lot of different things with that breathing I think and that's why they really They work on not only the body movements, but that breathing technique as well.   Dawna  35:05 Absolutely. And the thing to also remember is that even if you stop breathing out of stress, your skin is still breathing. But because you have so much stress running through the body, when that air comes in through the skin, it will have more of a stressful state to it, even if you're holding your breath, versus being in the calmer, more relaxed state. And if you stop breathing, like in meditation, which does happen sometimes for people, the air that's coming in comes in through peace and balance, and stillness instead of stress that way. So it also depends on that emotional state to how the air comes into you. Okay,   Roy Barker  35:50 well, awesome. Well, we appreciate you taking time out of your day to be with us. And, you know, I think that you've mentioned a few things, but one of our closing questions is always, you know, what is what's something, the one practice you feel adds the most value to your day, it could be an app of habit, just anything that really, that you use quite often   Dawna  36:13 that I take a two minute break, doing one of those little mindful exercises every three hours. So when they're I have a break in between things, I stop, I leave the room. And I go sit and do something just to re adjust and recenter myself, doing like the breathing exercise, sometimes I just focus visually on something. Because every time you do that, it clears the mind allows you to have more focus and gives you more clarity. And then when you come back and you start working again, your work, it's just done. And it's it's completed and you're in a better elevated mood, and the stress and the frustration, even just sitting in a chair for a period of time, leaves the body. And that's that would be my number one go to and I do that throughout the day about every three hours. Okay,   Roy Barker  37:07 awesome. That's, that's good.   Terry  37:09 Really good advice I was gonna ask you about. So you're available for sessions online? Can you tell us what, what you offer on your website?   Dawna  37:22 Yep, absolutely. If you go to Dawnacampbell.com. And that's dawnacampbell.com. There's a section on there that says sessions. And when you pull that up, I do offer a complimentary 1530 minute type session connection reading with me if you want to know more information or how the process might work for you. And then from there, we would determine what type of session or session packages you might need based on the complexity of what it is that you're working on and what you want to shift and change. And then from there, we just schedule and if we do packages, you have priority scheduling. So I personally schedule you on my calendar. And we work through step by step sequentially over however many weeks each session average is about an hour. All right,   Roy Barker  38:11 that's awesome. Well, y'all reach out to Dawna and you have such an impressive list that we're going to get you to recite, I know that you've got your book, your book sitting next to you there. And then I know that you've written some chapters for some other books. And anyway, you've got a lot going on. So tell us all about where we can find some of your writings out.   Dawna  38:35 Okay, so some of them are on my website at DawnaCampbell.com. But if you go to social media, most everything is posted on my business Facebook page. So that's Dawna Campbell 811. You can also find me on Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Twitter, and everything gets cross posted there as well. So anything that I have recorded anything that is there, it's any show that I've been on, it's all in those feeds. Okay,   Terry  39:05 and financially fit is your book that you've got yes   Roy Barker  39:08 Yes. All right. Well, awesome. Well, Dawna, we appreciate all the great information y'all reach out. See if she can help you with your subconscious and your energies. I know. You know, we feel better just talking to you for this little little amount.   Terry  39:26 Breathing a little deeper. Yeah, exactly.   Roy Barker  39:29 All right. Well, that's gonna do it for another episode of Feeding Fatty Of course, I am Roy. I'm Terry. You can find us at www.feedingfatty.com. We are also on all the major social media platforms. And a video of this interview will go up on YouTube when the episode goes live. So be sure and check that out. If we're we're also on all the major podcast platforms, iTunes, Stitcher, Google Spotify for not only one that you use, please reach out we'd be glad to get that added. So until next time, take care yourself www.dawnacampbell.com www.thebusinessofbusinesspodcast.com

"If I only knew then what I know now..." We've all wondered how we would do things differently if given the chance for a do-over. Here's how Rand Fishkin applied the lessons learned from the past to the launch of his new startup, SparkToro. This week on The Inbound Success Podcast, SparkToro Founder Rand Fishkin talks about starting over. Rand rose to marketing stardom as the Founder and CEO of Moz, where he became known as one of the foremost experts on SEO in the world.  When he exited the company a few years ago and founded SparkToro, he reflected on the lessons learned from his experience at Moz to develop a fresh new approach to everything from raising investment funding, to speaking out about issues some might consider controversial and the development of a marketing strategy for his startup. Check out the full episode, or read the transcript below, for details. Resources from this episode: Visit the SparkToro website Get Rand's book Lost and Founder Follow Rand on Twitter Email Rand at rand@sparktoro.com Transcript Kathleen (00:00): Welcome back to the inbound success podcast. I am your host Kathleen Booth. And this week I am incredibly excited to tell you that my guest is none other than Rand Fishkin. Welcome Rand. Rand (00:26): Thanks for having me, Kathleen. Great to be here Kathleen (00:28): To say that I'm excited is an understatement. I, this is, I'm just going to throw it out there and this is embarrassing, but I have had a marketing crush on you for a long time. Rand (00:39): Marketing crush. One of the most unusual types of crushing. Kathleen (00:42): I mean, you have to really be a marketing nerd to develop like marketing crushes and I truly have one. So I will just tell a brief story about how and why I developed this crush. And then I'm going to ask you to tell a little bit about yourself. So I, I started reading your content when you were at Moz and I always just loved, loved it for two reasons. One is, it was incredibly substantive. There's a lot of crappy content out there and I've been a marketer for a long time. And I don't like to waste my time with stuff that isn't going to teach me something new. Kathleen (01:17): And I just always felt like I learned something when I read your content, but I loved also your delivery and the fact that you let your personality shine through and you, weren't afraid to be kind of fun about it. And that's what first you know, turned me on to the content you were creating. But then I think what really cemented it was actually when you left Moz and you wrote your book Lost and Founder, I was a business owner for 11 years. I owned a digital marketing agency and I had what I would call a less than glorious exit. You know, there were a lot of failures along the way. I even actually toyed with writing a book. It's the first time I've ever said this to my podcast listeners. I toyed with writing a book called full frontal failure about like how important it is to just own it and put yourself out there and how, like being an entrepreneur is so lonely and nobody talks about the bruises and the, you know, the bad parts and I saw your book and I read it and I was like, Oh my God, this is what I'm talking about. Kathleen (02:18): So it really spoke to me and then you started SparkToro and I was so fascinated and impressed by how you built the audience first. And really again, what putting out incredibly substantive content, I loved everything you did with Jumpshot while it was still available. Anyway, so I mean, I could go on and on and on, but that was kind of my journey following you. And I've always just loved how unflinchingly, honest you are. And the most recent example of that is the amazing blog you put out about why you left Moz's board of directors and, and you've always been a champion of diversity, and I love that it made room for two women of to join the board. So I'm going to stop now, cause this is getting a little awkward. Rand (03:04): No, no. I mean I think what's, you know, what's wonderful, Kathleen is I always felt like the the contributions that I, that I wish, you know, resonated more in the world are exactly the ones you're talking about, right. Transparency around entrepreneurship and around the hard parts of broken relationships and broken systems and you know, work around diversity and equity and inclusion and those kinds of things. And yet, you know, mostly for better or worse, right? Mostly what I'm known for is like, Oh, you really helped me learn keyword research. Kathleen (03:45): Whiteboard Fridays. Rand (03:49): I'm, I'm very grateful and honored to have helped people with those things as well, of course, right. That, that built my career and, and helped build Moz. But I think there are, there are lots of places to get that information and to your point, it, it can be pretty lonely and challenging to find real people telling real stories about the painful and hard parts of work and life and and recognizing what opportunities they've had and which ones maybe they didn't earn. Which, which has certainly been the case with me too. So, Kathleen (04:29): Yeah. And I would add to that and helping other people perhaps avoid some of the pitfalls you did. I love that you shared your term sheet and lost and founder. You know, I, I actually sent that to a friend of mine right after I wrote it. He said he was starting to look at maybe taking on investment. He had a completely bootstrapped, very, very successful software company, but he didn't have a succession plan. He didn't have children who wanted to take over and he wanted to retire. And I said, I have a book, you have to read, read it before you take any investment. And I just think that's, so what a gift to be able to like, pass that on and allow people to, to avoid some of the things that you've had to encounter in your journey. So thank you for that. Rand (05:09): Oh my gosh. I'm honored. Thanks. Kathleen (05:11): Yeah. Well, the big reason other than the adulation I'm pouring on you, that I wanted to have you here was that I, the thing I think is so interesting and what makes me want to ask you like a thousand different questions is that you are somebody who has started and grown a very successful business in Moz and learned a lot along the way and SparkToro's a more recent journey. And you know, we always say like, Oh, if I had only known that, then what I know now, and you kind of had that opportunity a little bit with SparkToro. So that's really what I want to dig into as someone who has been there, done that and seen both the good and the bad of growth and what works with marketing and what doesn't when you decided to start SparkToro, can you, can we, maybe we could start by having you walk me through, what were the lessons you pulled from your earlier experiences to put together? What, in your mind was the plan that would work for a brand new company from a marketing standpoint? Because of course we talk about inbound marketing on this podcast. Rand (06:16): Yeah. let's see. I had a bunch of things that I really wanted to do very differently. And some of those, some of those, I kind of outlined at the end of Lost and Founder, but you know, I wanted to fund SparkToro differently. I knew that I wanted to raise investment because I didn't, you know, to your point around leaving a company and not having a financial exit, right. I didn't have a financial exit from Moz. And so, you know, I needed to I had a nice severance agreement, but otherwise right. Had to start getting income pretty darn fast. And I knew that I wanted to build a company that could be successful, successful, meaning for its employees and its customers and its shareholders be successful for all three of those groups without having to be hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue. Rand (07:16): And so the VC model just does not really allow for that, right. It is you know, Moz is a company that got to $50 million in recurring revenue and is considered kind of a, like frustrating mediocre plateau, you know, of a, of a company, because it just won't, it won't go away and die, which would be fine, right. In venture capital world. It's fine. If 98 out of a hundred companies that they invest in die or right. Or could it get to a fast growth rate and North of a hundred million dollars in revenue? That's fine, too. Everything in between is no good. Right. Kathleen (07:56): That's so funny because I feel like if you talk to any startup founder, well, I don't know any, but most 99% of startup founders would say $50 million company. Yeah. Sign me up. Like that sounds great. It's weird. Rand (08:09): And I think almost all of us, in fact, all of us should feel that way, but the venture capital asset class has biased a lot of people to think like, Oh yeah, that's, that's not good enough. And that's pretty, that's pretty dumb, right? Because what we want, what we want as a society and as people, and as human beings who are familiar with how capitalism and economics interact and politics, we should want lots of little companies, right? What makes a sector robust? What makes an economy vibrant is competition and lots of diversity of, of, you know, different companies owning parts of the market and innovating as a result of that. What you absolutely don't want. The last thing you want, if you want a healthy economy and a healthy politic and a healthy sort of income equality you want, you do not want Facebook owning 90% of social media, Google owning 95% of search Amazon owning, you know, whatever it is. Rand (09:16): Percent of e-commerce 50% of e-commerce, right? Those are negative externalities and the results of you know, a sort of system that gravitates toward the most powerful. And that is bad for everybody, right? Bad for entrepreneurs, bad for employees, bad for consumers, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right. So I knew that I wanted to build a company that could be successful without the forced venture type of outcome. I knew that I wanted to keep the team really small. I don't like building big teams. Casey doesn't either, both of us have worked at, you know, companies that are like at Moz when it was like 20 people and 25 people. That was great. 50 people. Okay. Still, all right. 75, Ooh. I'm not feeling as great about this hundred, 200 plus really I'm not a match for what the kind of working environment that I like. And so, yeah, that was another intentional decision to, to longterm. Keep the team small. We knew we wanted to build an audience before we launched a product. We knew we did not want to launch an MVP. We wanted to launch a very robust sort of impressive product. That would be remarkable to a lot of people. The first time they tried it. So all those things are very different. Kathleen (10:40): Yeah. Let's talk for a minute about building an audience before you build a product. That's something that I'm personally passionate about. I, I spent two years as head of marketing at IMPACT. And I, after I exited my agency, I always said I would never be in an agency again. But I stayed in IMPACT because that was Bob Ruffolo, the CEO, his vision was to build a media company around the agency. And I was like, that is interesting to me and that model was build the audience and then, and then we'll have products we can roll out to them. So it's not exactly what you're talking about, but it's that same mindset of, if you have a really passionate audience, it unlocks so much opportunity. I'm interested in knowing like, how did you go about that with SparkToro? I kind of saw it from a reader standpoint. Cause I think I've read every one of your blogs since the beginning, but maybe explain to my listeners a little bit about why you chose that approach and then how, how you approached it. Because I think a lot of people have a hard time understanding how exactly you would go about doing that. Rand (11:38): Yeah. Yeah. And I did it quite differently than with Moz, right? So Moz was like blog five nights a week you know, try and get traffic to all those posts, try and get good at SEO earn, you know, links to those posts. And then, you know, slowly build up this sort of content and SEO, flywheel and SparkToro was essentially built on the back of what I call social media marketing and digital PR. Right. So I did lots and lots of and continue to do lots and lots of podcasts and webinars and conferences and events and guest contributions and you know, get interviewed for other publications platforms, blogs, media channels, research reports get quoted in news, like all, all that kind of stuff. Right. Essentially leverage the power of other people's platforms because SparkToro, when it launched had none of its own and also leverage the social media platforms that I carried over from us. Rand (12:40): Right. So I didn't, I didn't get to carry it over, like my, you know, my content library and all the search traffic, but I got to bring with me, you know, some of that social media presence and, and that following on like Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram that essentially kickstarted the SparkToro audience and the sort of what, what started as our beta invite list and then became our early access customer list. I think for any startup, for any business that's trying to build its audience and email addresses the most important thing to capture, you know, getting website visits, getting social followers yeah, those are okay. Not, not like a problem or anything, but an email address is so incredibly valuable. You can do so much with those direct communication, you know, broadcast communication. And of course all sorts of, you know, stuff on the ad platforms too. Rand (13:43): So we, over the course of about 18 months, which was essentially the development time, the R and D and testing and beta process for SparkToro we had about 15, 16,000 email subscribers who said like, I want to get notified at launch or like I'm interested in being a beta tester if you'll have us. And that helped us. And even though we launched in April of 2020, like the worst possible time in the last hundred years to launch a company we did manage to get our first, I think almost 150 ish customers via that, that list of folks. Right. Who said, like, I'm interested in what you're doing. And so that platform has done through, you know, social broadcasting. I published probably, I mean, you, you, you read them all. So I think over the course of 18 months, I don't think I published 30 blog posts even right. Fairly small limited number, but I probably did a hundred. Yeah. You know, interviews and conversations on other people's this sort of digital PR approach to things. And I would do that again. I think that's a, that's a great way to play it. I mean, you know, obviously we're having a podcast conversation. Kathleen (15:01): That's very meta. Rand (15:05): Yeah. Which is a little bit of the reason that's so valuable is because when you don't have an audience of your own finding the audiences that are, that potentially will resonate with you and leveraging them from other folks, platforms is a super valuable way to go. It also worked really well because we had that sort of free signup funnel, you know, before launch, it was give us your email address to get notified at launch. And after launch, it was tries searching SparkToro for free, and then, you know, register to create a forever free account. And that that funnel has also been very successful for us. So, you know, I'll be on a webinar, I'll be on a podcast. I'll, I'll do a video live stream or something I did when a couple of days ago. And you could see like the spike in Google analytics, right. Cause lots of people are paying attention to podcasts. We're having a conversation and they're like, Oh, let me go try this SparkToro thing. Right. So it works really well. As long as you've got your funnel optimized for that type of acquisition. Kathleen (16:05): It's interesting that you say, you know, you, you were successful because you essentially identified other people who had audiences and you were able to draft off of that a little bit. I'm going to put a pin in that. Cause then we're going to come back to what SparkToro does. Cause I feel like that's the perfect segue before we get there though. So I want to make sure I understand correctly. You had about an 18 month development period during which the product was not publicly launched. You mentioned you wrote 30, let's call it 30 blogs. In addition to doing your digital PR, I do want to add as the reader, that, that sounds simple, but it wasn't because these were not just opinion pieces or, you know, 10 ways you can write a great subject line. These were blogs that included a lot of original research that you did in conjunction with the Jumpshot data, as well as some real thought leadership around what was happening with Google and, and being able to get clicks in search results. Maybe you could talk a little bit more about that because I do feel like that was one of the reasons that I avidly followed you, was the quality of the information in those blogs was not to be found anywhere else. I couldn't find that information elsewhere. Rand (17:17): No I didn't. Yeah. I think that's absolutely right. So, you know, part of my thesis around building a successful whole marketing flywheel is going and finding a way that you can contribute unique value that your audience cannot get elsewhere. Right. And you know, I've written about this and I talk about it all the time and when you know, startup founders and marketers ask me like, Oh, well, where should, where do you recommend that someone new to marketing start building their their funnel, their channels, their, their, their flywheel. My recommendation is always something you're passionate and interested about somewhere where your customers actually pay attention and somewhere where you can add unique value that no one else is providing. And so this was, you know, this was sort of my stab at what, what can I do uniquely? I had this relationship with Jumpshot. Rand (18:07): I had been using their their data at Moz. I've been really impressed by their click stream data quality. And so I continued that relationship sort of helping them by being a vocal supporter and proponent of their day of using their data. And in exchange, they gave me a bunch of, you know, research time. So they, you know, they had someone super friendly guy named Sean who worked with me on their, on the R and D side of Jumpshot. And I'd be like, Hey Sean, can you pull this data for me? And he'd pull it, send it over, I'd put it into Excel and play around with it and produce some nice looking charts and graphs and publish that and try and try and tease out the interesting bits of like, Oh, here's the distribution of where web traffic is coming from? Like, you know, more than two thirds of all web traffic is controlled by the alphabet corporation, right. Rand (19:00): Between Google and YouTube and Gmail and Google maps and yada yada, yada, that entity was referring more than two thirds of all web traffic to sort of the top. I think we pulled the top 20,000 or so websites. Right. so that feels a little monopoly. Yes. Great. It's sort of, yeah. Sorta dangerous. And then you look at, you know, web search as a whole, and of course, Google at the same time was trying to claim to who was at the attorneys general of the United States who were looking into it from, I think like 40 some odd States, quote your research as part of that. Right. So, you know Congress through what's his name? Congressman David Cellini I think is the, the representative who's looking into an a, on the house subcommittee for antitrust and, you know, they're, they're asking Google, all these questions and Google is giving them these clearly obviously BS lie responses. Rand (19:59): And so I'm able to call that out, right. I'm able to look at the data and be like, Nope, you're lying to Congress. I don't know if there's consequences for that. Apparently there's not, but yeah. Let's not go down that road right now. Cause I'm yeah. If you would like to take away women's rights, apparently it is totally cool to lie to Congress, but, you know but yeah, so being able to call out, you know, Sundar, Pichai, Google CEO, and say like, look, the thing, the thing that you told Congress under oath is provably false. Maybe, maybe Congress wants to do something about that. Right. You know, maybe that's going to come back to bite you in the butt. I hope it does. Cause I, you know, I don't think that's acceptable behavior. And I don't think any of us should, should, should accept that, but, but these are kinds of things, right. Rand (20:47): That it did, it did two things, right? One, it brought a lot of folks like yourself to SparkToro subscribing to the, the blog, paying attention to the publications. And it also helped create in my opinion, a very accurate narrative around how do we, as marketers break free from the duopoly of Facebook and Google, like, can we do other things, other marketing things, can we pay attention to other channels? Can we spend our dollars and time to go find other publications in people and sources of influence that reach our audiences and not exclusively rely on these untrustworthy and potentially risky partners. And that obviously serve SparkToro's interest as well, because fundamentally at the core of SparkToro is I'm trying to solve this problem. Right? The, the reason I created the company is because I'm frustrated with the Google Facebook duopoly. Over-Marketing Kathleen (21:51): Well, let's take a minute and actually have you explain what SparkToro does cause we kind of skip that part in the beginning and I'm gonna make sure we don't completely miss it. Rand (22:01): Yeah. Fair enough. I, I don't love to be self promotional, which is a little, Kathleen (22:06): But I mean it's germane given what we're talking about. I'm the same way, but yeah, Rand (22:09): Yeah. Right. Is that weird? You, you like, you should, that, that's the goal of marketing and you know, Kathleen (22:16): I always say marketers are terrible at marketing themselves. I'm I'm, I've been trying to get a personal website launched for the last two years. And I don't know if it'll ever go live because having to write my own website copy is like the most insane form of torture about myself. Rand (22:33): Open offer. I have been working with a wonderful technical writer. I'm a woman out of the UK on some of our case studies for SparkToro. And she is amazing. If you want someone to interview you and then turn that into your copy, Kathleen (22:47): I will get her name from you because I can't, I cannot write about myself. Rand (22:51): I love working with consultants and agencies. I know that's weird. Like startup founders is supposed to want to build that strength internally. I don't, that's one of the things I did at Moz that like, we always tried to hire instead of work with consultants and agencies. I think that was a really dumb move. At SparkToro I'm using tons of agencies anyway. You would ask, what does the company do? This is very fair. Right? So trying to solve this problem around Facebook and Google's do opoly over online marketing and advertising. And if you're in e-commerce Amazon sort of makes how to try opoly. Essentially what we realized is that the, the challenge comes in when folks are asked to understand where they can reach their audiences outside, they're outside those platforms. So like, Kathleen, if you and I start a new company to sell, I don't know bone broth, we're like, Oh yeah, let's, let's do the, the, the bone broth thing. Rand (23:53): And like, w we'll we'll we'll make lovely stuff and then we'll sell it online. And where do we reach people who are interested in things like, you know, paleo and keto diets, right? Cause that has a big overlap with it. And people who are big into like college enrich foods and people who are big into cooking. I don't know the result though. And where do we, where do we find those communities? Like, okay, I, I know a few recipe websites, but are those the right places or not? And so what you want to be able to do ideally is go find all the people online who are talking about whatever bone broth or collagen or keto diets, or I don't know, maybe you have a big affinity overlap with yoga instructors or something, right? You want to go to those communities, go find those people and then figure out, probably figure out like their home address so that you can break into their house and steal their phone and log into it, right. Rand (24:55): Get their unlock code, log in and then see all the things they were browsing and reading and watching and listening to and following. But of course that's illegal and super unethical. And so the next best thing to do, because surveys and interviews don't work for this. Like that's the way most marketers get this data. That's how I got it before. And it does not work because people just can't. It's not that they don't answer, honestly. It's just, they can't remember. You know, if you ask someone like, Hey, tell me a hundred people you follow on Twitter. What? No, I can't. How am I supposed to remember that? I can tell you maybe like five, Kathleen (25:34): Right? The classic story. When I used to own my agency, I had a client I worked with who said, Oh, we, we train all of our sales people to say, how did you hear about us? And one of the most common answers we get is, Oh, I saw your ad in the Washington post. And my client was like, I have literally never advertised in the Washington post. You know? Rand (25:51): And this, this speaks to another fundamental problem, which we found with a ton of you know, agencies and consultants who would work with businesses. And you, you go talk to the executive team and they'd be like, all right, I want you to get us placed in the wall street journal. Why the wall street journal, like we're selling bone broth here. I golf with our customers every weekend. They read the wall street journal. You get us covered in the wall street journal. Like, no, my friend, I look, you you're getting super biased responses. And like you and your golf buddies, I'm sure do read the wall street journal, but that is not sample size of three. Yeah. Right. And so apart from breaking into people's houses, what the other way to do that? We saw a few really, really smart businesses marketing teams and customer research teams who had their engineers basically take a list of their customer's email addresses, send them through a service like full contact or Clearbit and get all of their social accounts. Rand (26:54): So like, you know, here's Kathleen and here's Rand and here's, Rand's LinkedIn account. And here's his Facebook page of it's public. And here's his Instagram, if that's public and here's his Twitter and here's, Kathleen's, you know, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, Reddit, Quora, Medium, blah, blah, blah. And then they would crawl those social URLs. If they're public and extract all the data, they could like everything that's publicly shared by that person online just like Google. And then they would aggregate it together and be like, okay, our customers follow these social sources. They listen to these podcasts, they're sharing these YouTube channels. They're sharing these articles and websites. Now we can put our data together and go advertise and market in smart ways in smart places. And Casey and I were like, Oh, that's genius. Kathleen (27:44): Amazing. What is incredible? And also, are you kidding? Rand (27:48): You custom built with like three engineers on your team over nine months, this process, just to get that one piece of data. No, that's unfair. We should build that for the whole internet. Right. Let's just build that for everybody. So now you can go to SparkToro and sort of instantly, you know, search for any audience and discover what they read, watch, listen to and follow Kathleen (28:11): It's awesome. And, and I can, I will add, as we go through this conversation, I am a customer currently. I was actually one of your beta users at a different company. So your funnel works because I am the living breathing example of it. But now going back to, so you had 18 months, you created this awesome content. One of the things that really struck me that you said was you partnered with Jumpshot and, you know, they have this data and they assigned a researcher to you. And, and the reason that struck me is that I imagine there are probably a lot of people listening, especially if there are people who are engaging in, in creating a startup who are saying, that's great, Rand Fishkin could do that because he's around Fishkin. And he worked at Moz and people are going to give him anything. Kathleen (28:57): But I think the truth is though that the, at least the, the lesson I extracted from what you said is about partnership. Like if you are somebody who doesn't have a huge following, if you are somebody who doesn't have access to a ton of proprietary data, who out there is in an adjacent space to you, is complimentary, who does. And I mean, I did this in my last job because I worked for a small cybersecurity startup that had like no web traffic. And we put on a, a four day virtual summit on IOT security and the partners we had were unbelievable. Nobody had heard of us, but they had all heard of our partners. And my whole deal was, I'm not going to charge you to be a sponsor. You're going to get a speaking slot. All I ask is that you promote this and am going to put in all the elbow grease, right? Kathleen (29:43): Like I'm going to do the marketing. I'm going to get like 500 people to come to this thing or whatever it was. And I think to me, like, I love that example of Jumpshot because you don't have to be a Rand Fishkin. I think you just have to understand what's in it for the other partner and the fact that you were able to shine a spotlight on their data and give them visibility. You know, there's, there's something for everyone out there in terms of figuring out the right partnerships. So I feel like that's a really valuable lesson. Rand (30:10): Yeah. I was going to say a lot of, a lot of amazing data is public or publicly available. I a guy just emailed me in the, in the SEO space. Jeff, what's his last name? Jeff Baker, I think. And he had put together this study where he analyzed a bunch of SEO tools. It just use their public, like, you know, he subscribed to the free trials or paid for a month of access or whatever. And then like did a big comparison and published it on. He pitched it to search engine land, which is a big publication in the, you know, search marketing world. They accepted it, you know, despite that he didn't, it's not like he had a big history with them. He didn't have a big following previously. He pitched it to them. They published it. He emailed me and was like, Hey, I think you'd be interested in this. Rand (30:51): Would you share it? I was like, yeah, this looks great. And did really nice work here. Right? It's small sample size, but excellent methodology. Sure. I'll share it with my audience. Right. I posted it to Twitter and LinkedIn, it got picked up by a bunch of more people like great, you know, he had no special, you know, relationship previously. I think there's opportunities like that to find unanswered or unasked questions in virtually any topic and field, and then expound on that take advantage of that, that opportunity in the market, underserved opportunity in the market to create unique value that your audience can't find elsewhere. And if you do that even just a few times, you know, I am not talking about publishing every night or every week, you can publish, you know, five times the year and be very successful with this kind of thing. If you become known for providing that source of information, data opinion you know, analysis that is unavailable elsewhere. Kathleen (32:00): Well, and I would also say having a point of view, which is something that you've done consistently on everything. Yep. And this is a, this is something I want to explore just for a minute, because you know, having, having owned an agency, I've talked to so many business owners and, and, you know, heads of marketing having worked at other agencies like hundreds, hundreds over the year, the years. And there's a lot of, I feel like this is the third rail for so many of them. Like there are a lot of people who just firmly believe you don't take a position on anything period. End of story. I am not one of them, I believe in taking positions. But then there's this whole other gray space in between of like how, how firmly can you plant your flag in one direction or the other? Kathleen (32:45): And a lot of business owners get very afraid of offending anyone and then kind of shying away from that. They become, I always refer to it as like the milk toast of marketing. You don't offend anybody, but nobody really likes you that much either. So I would love to hear your thoughts on, because I think I do think it takes guts. You know, and what you take a stand on has to match your personal passions and what you truly believe in because you are putting yourself out and taking risks. So maybe talk through a little bit as the owner of the business, how you thought about this and, and how in your head, you reconcile the risks of taking controversial positions with what you see as the, the kind of things you could gain out of it. Rand (33:27): Yeah. So let's see, I think about this in sort of three ways. I think about it from a an ethics and philosophy sort of perspective. Like, am I a good person? Am I doing good things for the world? Am I prioritizing the goodness that I do for the world over a personal greed, right. Making more money? And if the answer to that becomes no, then I am obviously the definition of evil, right? Evil is not like I'm going to go murder people. You know, like that that's almost never happens almost all evil, at least in our society exists because people trade the courage of doing what they know to be the right thing for money or power or influence. Right. And that there's, that's evil. So I think about it from that perspective and on that vector, this is just an incredibly easy answer, right? Rand (34:28): Like you, you should obviously do it the second way. I think about it is from a marketing and branding perspective, which is essentially what kind, what do I want to be known for recognized for appreciated for what kind of audience do I want to attract? Who do I want to you know, bring to my community and who would I like to keep out of my community? And from that perspective, it, it also is a relatively easy answer, right? Like, I, I want people I'm happy to have you know, what would have been classically called political disagreements on like, well, what should the tax code look like? Or how should we do zoning and you know, a neighborhood or well, what about, what about investments in whatever it is, you know, military versus environmental spending versus regulation on mining, like, okay, those are all political conversations that I think are, are reasonable. And then there are unreasonable political conversations like, well, should we allow blacks and Jewish people to live? That's not a political conversation. Right? I of, that's not, that's just human, right. Rand (35:42): That's not an open for debate conversation. Right. And I think unfortunately there has been a a rash of sort of, well, don't you want diversity of thought and diversity of thought just means a diversity of thought to me is like a look I'd like to be white supremacists and not get criticized for it. And so can we just agree to, let me be like that? No, we cannot agree on that. That is an untenable well position. We're not, I'm not okay with it, so right. I'm I am, I'm happy to turn away those audiences and build a, you know, build an audience around that. That resonates with my perspective. I also think about it from a third perspective, which is what does the structure of the business that I'm building forced me to accept and allow me to work with them. Rand (36:37): And so this was one of another really big reason. I didn't want to raise venture capital because yeah. Makes sense. Yeah. Right. Like in the venture backed world, you do not that you need to be milk toast, but you are absolutely pressured to build a giant market and building a giant market often means attempting to turn off almost no one. Yeah. Right. Attempting to be uncontroversial in a lot of ways. And and I don't think that's a healthy or right thing. I am. I mean, I'll definitely say, I think probably a lot of Americans and a lot of people all around the world who are facing sort of this nationalist, autocratic surge in politics that we've been seeing globally. Right. A lot of, a lot of those folks, a lot of folks are frustrated that like these sorts of issues have become so front of the top of mind for so many people all the time, I, I feel that frustration too, right? Rand (37:43): Like I'm, I am absolutely in the world of, gosh, I, you know, I really disliked a lot of previous administration's policies and like things in the United States, but I never felt like they were going to absolve us of our democracy. And now suddenly we have to worry about that. And that that's very frustrating. I don't like that. So I think that this these sort of three things have guided me towards an ability to say, okay, the structure of my business, the way that I want to attract customers and market to them and the audience that I want to build. And my philosophy and ethics are all in alignment. I don't know that every business owner gets to do that, but yeah, I hope I hope they do because they should. It's absolutely. It's, it's obviously the, the best way to go. I need more people Kathleen (38:38): That hits the nail on the head, because I know I've always said this, like when it comes to taking a position, there's not like any one position everybody should take. I mean, that's where the owner of the company, the founder has to kind of a very much align with them as a person and you are going to attract the people that are naturally attracted to that same position. And so it is, it is interesting, but I think it takes a lot of guts and I really commend you for it. And, and you're right. Yeah. I don't think you could do it if you had traditional investment in your company. Rand (39:09): Yeah. I mean, I certainly could, but it would put me in conflict with some of the goals and expectations. It could create strife and you know, who knows if I would be able to maintain that longterm. I think, you know, as a, as a key example, right. You can see with with Facebook and Zuckerberg, this sort of like and, and Larry and Sergei and Eric Schmidt and Sundar Pichai at Google, you can feel this sort of tension between like, they sort of know what the right thing to do is, but they're really scared about doing it because of fears of a combination of like political interference from, you know, people who's in who's interested is not, and market fears around, you know, where, what their users will do, what their customers will do, and the fact that they have to generate billions of extra dollars of revenue every quarter. Kathleen (40:07): Yeah. Yeah. It's a prison that they've grown into over time. I think. Rand (40:12): Yeah. I mean, we, we amplify that, like there's a lot of, there are a lot of people I'm sure there are people listening to this podcast right now who equate a person's worth with their productivity and their economic entrepreneurial contributions, right. And their financial success. That is a pretty terrible metric of a person's worth, right? Like we all know we should be measuring people's worth in the kindness that they bring to the world around them and the way they build relationships and how they and, and fundamentally all human beings are worth while. Right. All of us have, that's why human rights exists. And, and reducing that to this late stage capitalist model of like, you are how much money you make. That's, that's a bad way to go friends. Kathleen (41:08): And this is why you are widely known as the nicest guy in marketing. Is that, so that is the word on the street. I'm just gonna, Rand (41:16): Or a significant number of people on Twitter who disagree. Kathleen (41:19): Oh, well, there's a significant number of people on Twitter who disagree with everything. So so going back for a minute to, you made a point about digital PR and again, I'm going to just sort of put this through the filter of, there are probably a lot of people who think, Oh, well, that's easy for Rand Fishkin. Cause he's everybody knows who he is so he can get the interview. So any advice for founders who don't have the reputation as to how to go about doing that? Rand (41:47): Yeah. Yeah. So this is an area where I think before you start your company, it is hugely valuable to build up your expertise in a niche and to build up a network as well. Right? So that doesn't have to be through, you know, blogging. It could be through your social channels. It could be through video. It could be through hosting your own podcast. It could be through unique research that you do. It could be through one on one consulting and help that you give people whatever it is, right. But build your expertise and then use that expertise to build your network so that you are known for having that talent and being able to contribute in those ways. Once you do that, then it is so much easier to do all of the forms of digital PR and, and earning amplification getting attention. I cannot recommend it enough, but I think for whatever reason, there's this sort of sense of in the entrepreneurial world. Like I start my company, I build my product and then I figure out how to market it. No, Kathleen (42:52): Oh, backwards. Rand (42:55): That's not how you do it. Right. First, if you build up a community of people who care about the problem you're solving, even before you have the product that solves it, your launch and your growth will be so much easier. Right. So don't, you know, I'm not, I'm not saying this from the perspective of like, yes, I obviously have the privilege of, you know, the 20 years that I spent at Moz building up a, a reasonably sized following in this sort of niche of digital marketing world. But that, that can be a relatively easy, easily achieved, not necessarily the same degree, but easily started down the path of, and you don't need 15,000 people on your email list if you have 1500 or 150, that is still such a better starting point than zero. Yeah. Kathleen (43:41): Yeah. Yeah. I love that. So when you think about the future of SparkToro and where you're going to go from here, what how do you think you're going to grow it moving forward? Is it still the same strategy of digital PR and really great content? Or are you changing anything starting anything new? Rand (43:59): I, so I really, Kathleen, I really desperately want to invest in self hosted self created episodic content. Like what I did with whiteboard Friday at Moz, right? Like a series, probably something with video. Cause I'm reasonably good and experienced with video. Maybe involving a whiteboard too. I don't know. But the what's holding me back right now is, is time and bandwidth and investment dollars. Right. So I know that, you know, if I was going to do something like that, I'd probably want a video producer that's super challenging during COVID just, you know, by for one thing. And it's also a really hard to make the time available when it's just me and Casey working on SparkToro. So I think, you know, it might be next year when we're, you know, able to grow enough, to be able to bring in another hire or to invest in a, you know, whatever a content agency that helps me produce that that content with some consistency. Rand (45:00): But I, I do think that would be a very valuable thing. And even doing that something like once a month, you know, having a monthly episode of a, whatever, 15 to 30 minute video series on topics related to things that are of interest to our audience, that probably would do pretty well. So episodic content I think is, is very under invested in because it's hard to start. It's hard to get the motivation to keep going. It, it generally doesn't, you know, take off immediately. Like it's a, it's a slow burn, slow build process, but it is something we really want to invest in. Kathleen (45:37): I love that. Well, I will watch it when it starts tell me then I'm in the Rand super fan club clearly. Rand (45:47): What I love, I love what I love about it is like the, it almost works like the Netflix model, you know, where you, you see one episode of the show and you're like, Ooh, that was really good. I kind of want to binge watch all of them. Right. And if there's a big catalog, you just get all this engagement and yeah, I'd like that. I think that model has legs. I don't see a ton of people investing in it. So I'd like to do something like that. Nice. Kathleen (46:13): Well, we're going to come up to the top of the hour and I have a thousand more questions I want to ask, but we don't have time for it. So what I'm going to do is shift gears because there are two questions that I ask all of my guests at the end of every interview. And I don't want to end without having the opportunity to find out what you have to say about this. The first one is this podcast is all about inbound marketing. Is there a particular company or individual that today you think is really kind of setting the gold standard for what it means to be a great inbound marketer? Rand (46:47): Ooh. Okay. Kathleen (46:49): You can name more than one if you want to. Rand (46:51): Yeah. I mean, there's a bunch of folks who have been really impressing me lately. Let's see. So I don't know if you follow Melanie Deziel. She wrote a, she, yes. Yeah. Okay. So she writes, she just published, I think earlier this year Content Fuel Framework which I think, Hey, look at that. Hey Melanie, look, I'm promoting your book. No, I, I, I think, I think the world of Melanie she's extraordinary and she just she just keeps contributing in, in such a remarkable ways. I think she's keynoting content marketing world, the digital version, this week. Kathleen (47:30): Wow. That's awesome. Rand (47:31): Isn't it incredible. So amazing stuff from her. I've also been really impressed with, do you follow Nandini Jammi on Twitter? She's @nandoodles. Kathleen (47:43): I feel like I maybe even touched base with her about coming on the podcast. Rand (47:48): Oh, amazing. Yeah. So she is my God. She's so impressive. Like she's kind of my hero. She's she's been working on kind of a, a, a new version of brand safety and advert and helping advertisers save money and optimize their spend away from manipulative and sort of trolling. And I don't know what you would you call it, like sort of non-factual you know, Macedonian creatives. Kathleen (48:24): This is why, so I know her not through the podcast, but I'm in week four at a new job. And my company is, amongst other things, we solve for publishers. We have an anti malvertising software. This is why I know her. Rand (48:40): Got it right. She was one of the cofounders of Sleeping giants. Now she's the co founder of check my ads. And so they, you know, she, but she writes about and talks about all these topics on, you know, national media and and, and online. And she's just extraordinarily smart. I think she, she's a what I would say she's like a very sharp edged person on Twitter. And like many folks, right? She's, she's, she's much more sort of heartfelt and, and a little more, you know, leans into kindness off of Twitter, which, which we probably all do when we're not limited to 280 characters, but I think the world of her I'm super impressed with her work. Sarah Evans from, she's @PRSarahEvans on Twitter. She has a newsletter. She does amazing work in the PR field, especially for early stage companies. Super impressed with her. Yeah. So that's awesome. Kathleen (49:36): I love all of those and none of them have been on the podcast. So I'm going to have to reach out to them now and ask them to come on. Rand (49:41): I have so many recommendations for you Kathleen. Kathleen (49:46): We're going to talk. Second question is the biggest challenge I hear a lot of marketers say they experiences is that keeping up with the changing world of digital marketing is like drinking from a fire hose. How do you personally keep yourself educated, stay up to date on all of these changes? Rand (50:03): I built my own tool for it. I dunno. I dunno if you have checked out, but we have this thing called trending on SparkToro. It's just sparktoro.com/trending. And when you go there, it's basically like the 25 most diversely shared articles, every 12 hours by digital on Twitter. So we essentially just built a little system, you know, where people OAuth their account, their Twitter account, into the trending tool. It's free. It's not like part of our paid package or anything, but yeah, like, I don't know, seven or 800 marketers every day, read, trending, and check it out. And so, yeah, it's fun too cause people reply and be like, Oh, so cool. Our article was on trending today. Rand (50:51): You can get traffic from it. And you can, you can go there once a week or once a month and click the, like, what was the most shared article this month, this week, any given day. And that has been super useful. Like really it helps Casey and I just kind of stay on top of everything going on in digital marketing world. With very little effort, like we don't have to scroll through a bunch of feeds. We can just like, Oh, all right. That one looks interesting. That's cool. Kathleen (51:20): So it takes the firehose and turns it into a little garden hose for people. Rand (51:24): Exactly. Kathleen (51:25): I love that. Yeah. well we are now coming to the top of the hour and so unfortunately we're going to need to wrap it up. If people are listening and they have questions for you want to follow you or connect with you, learn more about SparkToro, what is the best way for them to do that? Rand (51:42): Sure. So my email address is rand@sparktoro.com. I'm pretty fast on email. I am most active on Twitter where I'm @Randfish. And if you are interested in trying SparkToro for free forever, it sparktoro.com. Kathleen (51:57): Awesome. All right, there, you have it. We, we could go for 10 hours, but we only had one. If you enjoyed this episode, as much as I did head to Apple podcasts or the platform or your choice, and I would love it, if you would leave the podcast a review because that's how other people find us. And if you know someone else who's a kick ass inbound marketing person, tweet me @workmommywork because I would love to interview them. That is it for this week. Thank you so much, Rand. This was amazing. Rand (52:25): Great to be here. Thanks for having me, Kathleen.

If you're a fan of the show, please support us!What?? No show notes?!That's right! This chat was more a story and less of a lecture or a technical discussion. So it's low key on the documentation. But you should check out Rally. Here's the site, the Rally Instagram page, Alan's Instagram profile, and a direct link to the LCBO search results for their ale. 

What? No booze on flights? Tom Brady's new Bucs jersey got us all thinking... Malcolm Jenkins is set to join CNN as a regular contributor. 

So here's the thing. How do we MLMers use modern and current marketing techniques and trends without having to bother or pester friends and family, but still grow a profitable business? How do we recruit A-players into our down line and yet still have time for our busy lives? We'll find out this and more on Downline Automation Radio.                                 What's up Downline Automation Radio? Woo. It is Monday and I am excited to be here. Oh, so much to tell you guys, so much fun stuff happening right now. Where do I start? Let me start with a story. Let's start with a story about me and my experience as a trainer, what that was like.                                 And I love training people. Don't get me wrong. I love trainings. It's one of my favorite things to do. I'm not a teacher. I don't like teaching. I love training. I love this industry and explaining this industry and breaking this industry down. But if you ask me to set foot in a classroom and just teach a bunch of kids or even adults, I'd be like, "Oh, this is so stupid." But I'm passionate about this. So let's get to it.                                 I had reached a certain level of success in my first business where I was starting to be asked to do trainings, like travel around and do some trainings which was fun. Very exciting, very good for the ego. Very bad for the ego, too, in a lot of ways for me. I have an ego that tends to get out of control quickly and I really have to work to not let that happen.                                 And it definitely did. It definitely happened through that process. And I learned a lot through it. I'm a better person for it, but that's not what I'm trying to tell you. Let me get back on track. Sorry. There was so much fun. There was so much enjoyment in training, but this is what it looked like for me.                                 Monday night, I would go out and I would contact. Tuesday night was training. So for three hours, I was showing the plan and then doing a training session afterwards. And this is hotel meeting style, right? We're doing hotel meetings, like 50, 60, 70, 100 people sometimes. Not huge meetings. I wasn't that big a deal. I was really fairly low on the totem pole, really. But it was great. It was a great experience.                                 So I would do that Tuesday night. I would do it again Wednesday night. And again Thursday night at different locations. I would do one 20 minutes from my house, another one an hour from my house. And then another one was another hour away from my house in the other direction. And I would do these three times a week. And I did that for months on end, trying to grow teams at each one of those hotel meetings.                                 And let me tell you what I learned. It's a freaking waste of time. What? How do you say that? I ran all over God's creation, trying to do that. And it was exhausting and I would teach the basics of the business, the four habits, the four this, the three that. Whatever they asked me to teach that week that the local team thought that they needed or I thought that they needed. And I would teach that and then I would go home. And then I would get up the next day, go to work and I'd work all day and then I'd put on my suit and I'd run out to the next hotel meeting. And I would go do it again. I did that three nights in a row for three weeks or three nights a week for months and months and months on end.                                 And if I wasn't teaching, I was still there to support my team, to answer any questions that they had, try to provide support for their growing teams. And it was exhausting and it was expensive and it was time consuming. And what ended up happening was the more I taught these things over and over and over again, the less excited I got about them. It became old hat. It became, yeah. I mean, duh, four habits, go out, contact somebody, add them to the list, show them the plan, follow up, get them started, boom. Rinse and repeat. Over and over and over and over again.                                 And I remember thinking, "Oh my God, is this what I got to do for the rest of my life in this industry? I got to teach the same thing over and over and over again?That's not exciting to me. That's not going to get me out of bed." And my teaching, my excitement went down and the quality of my teaching went down and soon, I wasn't asked to teach anymore. Fairly. I'm not upset about that at all. I just was just phoning it in. I got bored. I have a problem with boredom. I will get bored.                                 So this time around, as I'm automating my business, bringing it back to current day, and this is why I'm excited to share with you, I'm thinking about this. Like, "Okay, you're excited now you're teaching all this stuff, Ben, but how do you bring it back so that you don't get bored again, teaching this stuff?"                                 And so I thought long and hard about it. I looked around at what my different options are because I see a lot of upline leaders in all the different businesses that I follow and look at. I like to learn from the other leaders in the industry. Not just in my own upline, I like to look around and get different ideas and see which work for me and which ones don't. I always honor my upline and what they teach, but not everybody knows everything.                                 So I look around and I see a lot of people, maybe this is you too, they're doing Facebook lives. They're doing Zoom calls with their team. Or they got Voxer going on and messages going back and forth. And they're constantly in the state of training somebody. They're constantly answering your questions. They're constantly going, "Here's where you go to find this information. Here's how you do this. And let me answer a question. Here's how you do this. And here's how you do this."                                 And it seems exhausting to me. It seems like it has got to be horribly boring, to be perfectly honest with you. It seems awful. Right? And then the other ... So some people have figured that out, right? Some people are like, "Okay, I don't like this." So they save all of their trainings on Facebook in a group, put them up there, tag them. And after three months, it becomes so difficult and confusing to use Facebook groups and pages to find the information that you need, because there's been so many videos and so many posts and the tagging system is wonky at best. And how you name it doesn't necessarily translate to what somebody is looking for. And so you end up like people are like, "Oh, forget it." And so they move on. So they move, they go, "Okay. Okay. Okay. What have we got to do?"                                 And then some people take it another step, "Well, let's just warehouse them up on a site and put them in categories online. We'll put them into four or five categories online and make a membership site people can go to, and they can just scroll through this stuff and figure out which one they want." But they still have to guess on the category and they still have to guess based upon the title of the thing. That's better, that's about as good as it gets, right? For a lot of teams.                                 Okay, cool. From my own personal experience, those sites are really not great for me. I have a hard time finding the information. I have a hard time finding the energy to search for the information, right? It doesn't really guide you through the process. There's a getting started section, but it's still not quite enough to really truly run a business. And so you're stuck learning your upline's teachings, which are now a year and a half in and he doesn't want to go back to teach things he's already taught before, because they're up on this website.                                 You're coming in, you're like, "Wait, I don't have the basics. I don't understand what he's talking." It's confusing. And it doesn't work real well. So what's the alternative, what's the solution? And that's what I thought about these last two weeks.                                 A membership site is the way to go. And I'm building a membership site for my team. Now stay with me because this is also for you. Inside that membership site, it's going to be 30 days, unlocked each day, a training. Exactly what you need to do that day to move your business forward. Exactly what you need to accomplish in a bite size achievable goal so my downline is not getting overwhelmed. They're not like, "Oh my God, look at all these videos. I got to watch 17, 20 hours of video just to do this? What? No, man."                                 Here's a five, 10, 15, 20 minutes at the max video, explaining to you what you need to do today in order to set up your business and get you moving and making money. I'm putting that together for my team. It's almost done. All the structure is laid out, we're just finishing up some of the content copy. And then from there, we are going to do something really cool that's going to help you out.                                 Tell me, Ben, how are you going to help me? Well, here's how I'm going to do it. I'm going to take that site. I'm going to clone it. I'm going to make it available for you. I'm going to take out all the things that are specific to my business and my company. Listen, again, I go back to this. I said it in an episode one and if you didn't hear it, go back and listen. I have no intention of pitching you to join my team on this podcast. None. This is a business pitch-free zone. You'll never get pitched for me on this business. I'm not going to tell you what business I'm in. I'm not going to tell you where my application funnel is. I'm not going to tell you all these things, but what I am going to do is I am going to build this website for you.                                 I'm going to build this membership website for you and I'm going to make it available to you. I haven't figured out exactly how I'm going to make it available to you, where the price point is or is it going to be a paid membership or is it going to be a onetime fee? Definitely lifetime access. I don't know. I have to figure that all out. But that part I'm figuring out this week. I'm going to talk to some of my mentors and really get to the bottom of that and nail it down.                                 But it's going to be available for you and you can give it to your team and you can sell it to your team, whatever. Okay? I don't care what you do with it. I really don't.                                 But what I do want you to do is use it for your team. Okay? I want this industry to change. So while I was running around as a trainer, getting bored, teaching the same old stuff, same old stuff. If I had had this, I could have just recorded a video. Here's the four basics. Here's the four habits. Here's the nine course, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, boom. A video for each one. Now I don't ever have to teach it again. Here it is. And each day, it breaks it out.                                 They're going to get it. They just have to watch a video once a day. And then it prevents overwhelm for them. That's why so many people quit in this business. It's overwhelming. They got to learn all this new jargon. They got to learn how to sell. They got to learn how to market. They got to learn how to close. They got to learn how to go to these meetings and they got to work on themselves. It's a lot guys. It's a lot.                                 And if you can find ways to relieve that overwhelm for people, that's an offer in and of itself. Think about that. Think about if you can say, "Listen, man, relax. It's okay. Here's a 10, 15, 20 minute video. You're going to watch one a day. That's it. We're going to work you into the pace. We're going to teach you slowly. You don't have to do anything else than what that video says. And if you have questions, we'll figure it out. But there's this. You have questions? Look it up on this website. It's frequently asked questions and we've labeled it and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.                                 And here's the training aspect of it. If you're looking for training and how to chat bots, if you're looking for training in funnels, if you're looking for training on copy, if you're looking for training on traffic. It's all here and it's all broken down and explains exactly what each piece is."                                 How much of a competitive advantage are you going to have? Put that on your application funnel right there. That's a huge advantage. Who else is doing that in your upline? Anybody? Is anybody in your upline doing that, solving those problems? Or are they just going, "Read these books, listen to these audios and show up to these meetings and make sure that you're making a list of 100 names." No, man, it's too much for a lot of people, too much for a lot of people which, I mean, I have my own feelings about because I feel like you should be getting some better people that aren't overwhelmed by that. But that's just my own personal feeling on that.                                 I don't like to work with people that are easily overwhelmed. I'll be honest with you. I like working with people that are hungry and go getters and pros and I don't have to do a lot of handholding. I can just say, "There's the information, go get it. It has everything you need. Come back to me after you've ingested all that information. And then let me know if you still have any questions." And if they do great, great. Now there's an opportunity to do an additional training. Now there's a chance for me to take it a step further and be like, "Okay, well, that was the basics. Now let's get into the nitty gritty of it, right?"                                 So when people come back to you with a question, it's an opportunity to create content for your membership site. You're missing something. They come back with questions. You're missing a detail somewhere. They're telling you, "Okay, that was great. But you created a problem for me. And I don't know how to fix it because this is what I don't know." Fix it for them. Boom. Here you go. Let me solve this problem for you. Now you're even more valuable to them.                                 The loyalty, the comradery, the teamwork that is created out of that is so powerful because what they get for most people is from their upline is, "Make a list of 100 names." Man, girl, you're doing so good. Girl, you're a winner here. You're going to make it, but I need a list of 100 names.                                 I already gave you a list of 100 names. Well, you're going to make it, girl. You're a winner. You're a star. I love you. You're powerful, but I need a list of 100 names and it goes on and on and on and on and on. And that's why people are just like, "Okay, well. I'm done, right?"                                 So can you teach people how to generate traffic to your offers? You can teach them how to make offers and you teach them how to drive traffic to their offers. If you can do that, it's game over man. It's just a matter of time. And that's how I feel like. That's the most exciting thing about this business for me right now is it just feels like it's just a matter of time. I don't remember feeling that. I remember feeling stressed out. I remember feeling anxious and stressed, am I good enough, am I not going to be able to do this? I don't feel that anymore. I don't feel that anymore. I feel like it's just a matter of time.                                 And you just keep doing these things. Keep putting this content out, keep building the things that automate the process. It's just a matter of time for people to find it and the word gets out. And when people find it and the word gets out, it's going to be amazing. Amazing.                                 This kind of funnel. I'm not the first person to develop this idea. I'm not an original on this. One of the people that I've been studying who has been doing this for a while, gets two to three applications a day. A day. Two to three people a day ask him to join his business. What would that look like if that started happening for you?                                 I'll tell you what it will look like for me. I'd been doing the hallelujah dance all day long, all day long., Every time one of those boop, hey, somebody asked to join your team. Cool. Am I going to accept every single one of those people? No. No. They're going to be the right fit. So I'm creating the right culture for my team.                                 I'm going to share an application funnel with you guys. I'm currently building it. I've got the last two pieces for my own application funnel to build this week and it will be done and up and running. I'm not going to tell you what it is, because again, this is not a pitch fest. I'm not here for you guys to join my team. I'm here to better the industry and to make this a better place for all of us.                                 Okay. So I'm going to give you that stuff, too. Just hang in there with me as I build this stuff, it's taking me a little longer than I really wanted it to. But that's because I don't know what the hell I'm doing. I'm having to learn. And I'm having to go back and fix things and be like, "Oh yeah, that doesn't work. Okay. So let me fix that." And that's okay. That's totally okay.                                 I don't mind that at all. I enjoy that. I enjoy that. I enjoy finding out and being able to track the data, like, "Oh, this doesn't work. So now I need to fix it." We talked about it in the last episode. So I'm starting to ramble, but listen guys, I'm pumped up for you. I'm so excited that you're not going to have to do the same trainings over and over and over again but you're going to have access to this stuff and that it's going to be amazing.                                 And I can't wait for all of you to have it. I can't wait for you guys to see it and experience it for yourself. It's unbelievable. So listen, keep hanging in there with me. Keep hanging into this podcast. I promise in the next couple of weeks, some really amazing things are going to be coming out. It's going to be so exciting. Hang in there with me, stay working, stay true and keep believing.                                 Hey, thanks for listening. Please remember to subscribe and leave feedback. Would you like a copy of the book that changed everything in my network marketing business? If so, you can get a free copy of Network Marketing Secrets at downlineautomation.com.

Jesus walked towards his cousin and stood in front of him. “I come to be baptised. Please baptise me.” “What? No, no I cannot!” John staggered back, “You should baptise me! I am not worthy to baptise you.” “John,” Jesus started to say, “I need to fulfil this from my father. He says I am to be baptised and I must obey.” John opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. He sighed and stared at his cousin, “I will baptise you.” He whispered. Jesus walked into the cool water and bowed his head in respect, ready to be baptised. John lifted his hand and prayed."                            ___________________________ Today we are sharing a devotional from our book "Travel through the bible; devotional for kids" The story is when Jesus gets baptised. You can find the story in Matthew 3: 13-17 Tune in to Listen.... Written by: Esther Special effect editing: James Wagner music credit: http://www.purple-planet.com/  Email us: stories4gigi@gmail.com Read the story on the blog Write to us: GIGI KIDS PODCAST                     PO BOX 6505                     Upper Mt Gravatt QLD Australia 4122

WE'RE BACK! Didja miss us? What??? NO!?! Well... here we are anyway. This week-- James and Stev catch up from their Steve-imposed hiatus (explanation in the show), and then flip the GQF nd debate the hard-hitting topic: Which is better... a belt, or suspenders?

This week, we'll focus on two things: why college athletics should NOT start in Fall 2020 and a conversation with Henry Stoever, the President and CEO of the Association of Governing Boards in Washington, DC. Secondly, I wrote an article titled "Without A Vaccine, There Is No Way College Athletes Can Play This Fall" recently. I realize that headline is jarring. What? No college athletics this fall? How can you say that? How can you make a pronouncement like that? I get it. It was tough to write. I'll explain more in the podcast. President Stoever discusses the laser focus Trustees need to have today on institutional mission and values, and how that translates to surviving and thriving in the Coronavirus era. It is a conversation worth every minute, as Trustees must fulfill their fiduciary responsibilities at the highest levels today. I hope you'll join us! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/karen-weaver/message

Episode Notes Join us for the penultimate episode covering Season 1 of Rebels. We cover Episode 13 “Call to Action”. Next time, we will cover episodes 14 and 15 together to wrap up this season.On this episode: - A clone army of Keanu Reeves vs. a clone army of Gary Buseys - Buff Grand Moff Tarkin is queer representation - We talk a lot about both Legends and Current Canon novels - What? No that can’t be right. We only talk about Star Wars TV on this podcast… - Differing Imperial Managerial styles

www.commsolutionsmn.com- It's all coronavirus all the time! Who needs a little break? We do. So what are we going to do about it? We're going to go back in our minds about six weeks and pretend like our country never came to a screeching halt at the mercy of this disease. Don't worry, this will be a short-lived vacation from reality, as we're already swamped with stories about local governments snatching freedom from the hands of its residents... just wait for it. The government owns a lot of land... I mean, like  of land. They set aside national monuments and thousands upon thousands of acres around them. National forests, state parks, military bases, and government buildings litter the topography of our nation. States, counties, and cities are constantly feuding with the federal government, and local government is also fighting with the state government. The land comes off the tax rolls, and often ends up as recreational or off limits to the public altogether. The Feds own almost 85% of Nevada and almost 65% of Utah. That's insane! The states set aside a ton of land for themselves as well. The state of Minnesota owns 24% of the land!  Obama declared 5000 square miles in the Atlantic Ocean a national monument. What? No one owns the ocean. They use eminent domain to take whatever they want from landowners. Why is the government in such a heavy acquisition mode? Meeker County had to turn down the DNR, who was trying to acquire land in the county. They said that once sold, the DNR will own it forever. Why is it so hard to hold on to your property when the government wants it?  We also think it's high time that we give Andrew a little diagnosis for ADD. How did he fare? You'll have to listen to find out!  Have you checked out our Spotify playlist? At the beginning of each episode Jason quotes some song lyrics that have to do with the subject matter of the podcast. Andrew never knows what they are, but now he can… and so can you! We’ve launched the Spotify playlist: “Community Solutions Music From the Podcast!” You can listen to Roundabout from Yes after listing to Episode 30 on Roundabouts… or kick back and enjoy a rocking playlist just for the thrill of it. We add a new song every week. Subscribe and enjoy! Don’t forget that you can also subscribe to our podcast on iTunes, Google Play, and Spotify!

Megan joins Brandon & Hailey to fill out their brackets! What? No this isn't Court Kings, we are doing brackets over fast food! Go ahead and grab a Caniac Combo or a Happy Meal and enjoy this episode of Comedy Code!

“It came up casually in conversation. He died. What? No one thought that would be something I would have liked to know? It happened years ago, but to me it was like yesterday, every day. I relived the abuse daily. It affected so many facets of my life.” These are the words that Rebecca Schimke used to open the doors on a story she shared for Sexual Assault Awareness Month last April, 2016. We sat down with Rebecca, at the time a United Way employee, for this podcast interview last April. Rebecca shared her experience with sexual assault as a child, what it felt like to tell her story, and what happened after.

Episode transcript:PAUL SANTIAGO: Thank you for being on the show. I really appreciate it, Renee.RENEE DALO: I'm so happy to be here. This is going to be great. PS: How long have we known each other? We've known each other--RD: For so long.PS: Yeah, but it's just from a distance all the time.RD: We're at the same networking events all the time.PS: Yeah, we just never get to chat, so this perfect for me.RD: Yeah, we never have a sit-down.PS: I've always wanted to talk to you, because you're always the most colorful person in the room.RD: Oh, you're so sweet.PS: And always catches my attention. RD: I love that, thank you.PS: So yeah, of course. And thank you for being here, really appreciate it. Before we start, I would love it if you tell the listeners and the viewers something about yourself that they would probably be surprised to know. RD: So I have been to every state in the contiguous US at least once, if not twice. Because when I was younger, I was a musical theater actor, and so I toured the country in a bunch of shows. So I've literally been everywhere except for Hawaii now. But I can't really tell you where anything is, because all I've ever seen is the inside of the tour van and the inside of the theater. So super well traveled, minimally.PS: Nice. But you've tried to hit the touristy spots of every--RD: Yeah. When we were in Memphis, we didn't have time to go to Graceland. I've driven by the sign that says "Grand Canyon" four times. This is just life on the road. You're always off to do another show and you're always off to do something else. So I always joke with my husband that eventually I'm going to make him get an RV and show me all the things I missed in my twenties. Even though I was right there, it's just we couldn't go.PS: We've always thought about renting an RV, but me and Stella, my wife, we're not really outdoorsy people.RD: Oh yeah, no, I'm not an RV person. I'm a Four Seasons person. I'm a room service, down comforter person for sure. Stella and I are the same, I think, in that, and you as well. But something about, I just feel like getting an RV and seeing the country is the way you do that particular thing.PS: Yeah, it's easier. And it's probably the most American thing you could ever do, going around the country, right?RD: Yeah, I agree, yeah.PS: And it always confuses me, because I always felt like the most American thing you could do is just hop on a plane and just fly and travel. But no, it's just getting into the nitty gritty, and do it like Walter White.RD: I don't think we're going to make any meth.PS: Okay, hopefully not.RD: That's next level, I'm not going to do that particular thing.PS: Okay, so I'm always curious about how people start out, and I really want to know what your origin story is. How you started, and what got you into this industry. And also, what you're up to right now.RD: Sure, so how did I go from being a musical theater actress to a wedding planner? So when you're an actor, especially in New York City, a lot of times you're working hospitality as a side job, and that was very true for me. I worked in a lot of fine dining restaurants in New York City. And then when I moved to LA, decided didn't really want to do musicals anymore, kind of didn't want to live out of a suitcase anymore. That life, really, it was great while it was, but then I was approaching 30 years old, and I thought, "I kind of want to lay down some roots somewhere." And I thought LA would be as good a place as any. So I got a job in hospitality. I opened a restaurant, which is one of the restaurants at The Grove, which is a big outdoor mall here. It was a big deal to open this place, they built it from scratch. And I was part of that opening crew. And in the time that I worked there, I went from hostess to waiter to bartender to banquet server, banquet captain, banquet manager. And so what ended up happening is that I was running the banquet rooms at this restaurant, they were six rooms, and I was one of the people that ran them. And I ended up doing a lot of weddings that way, because it wasn't a luxury venue by any stretch, but people would have weddings there, and they would always give them to me because, "Oh, Renee can do the weddings, she's good at that, she's good at the weddings." At the same time, that was in my season of life where all of my friends were getting married. So I planned a lot of weddings as a hobby right around that same time, because they were like, "Well, you're doing it at work, and you seem good at this. Can you help me?" So what ended up being-- I planned my best friend's wedding 12 years ago with $7000, like no money whatsoever, like nothing. What ended up happening is that people who were at that wedding, or people who knew my friend would say, "Oh." I would get random emails from people that were like, "Oh, can you help me plan my wedding? I was at this wedding," or, "I heard you do this." And so I created a business before I even realized what I was doing, because I was getting emails and referrals from people that I didn't know. I remember one time, I got an email from this girl who said, "Jeanette sent me to you." And I was like, "Who the hell's Jeanette? I don't know this person." So I realized that I liked it, and I was good at it, and people were coming to me for it, and so I probably should do it. And then it was a few years after that that I really started my business now, which is Moxie Bright Events. So it took me a few years to get really clear that it's a business that you could run and make a living. But I've been doing it for so long at that point, that it seemed silly that I wasn't doing it professionally. But that's what I did. After I got married, my own wedding planner, because I got married in Philadelphia, said to me, "I don't understand why you're not a wedding planner in Los Angeles." And I was like, "Well, there's so many." And she was like, "So who cares?" And it was that weird-- sometimes you just need that one person to say the one right thing to you. And it's so simple, but having Erin say to me, "Who cares? Just go do it. It doesn't matter if other people are doing it too." I was like, "Oh, you're right." So yeah, it sounds silly, but it kind of just happened.PS: Yeah, all you need is that one person to push you. And fortunately for us, it's someone close to us, so it's easier to be like, "Oh, okay, I'll give it a shot." Because they know you already.RD: Yeah. She said, "You needed me less than any client I've ever had. I don't know why you don't do this professionally." And I was like, "Oh, I don't know." But again, this brings me back to what we're talking about today, is I had a lot of limiting beliefs about myself and about this work, and I had to work through those in order to be able to do this at the level that I'm doing it now.PS: It's funny, because when you said your friend got married for $7000, which is pretty much nothing.RD: Nothing.PS: Stella and I got married, our budget was $6000.RD: I love that. Well, how long ago was it though?PS: I have to answer this correctly. It was 10 years ago.RD: Yeah, see? My friend was 12 years ago. So back then, you could make something of that a little bit, a little bit more than you can today.PS: Well, it was bare bones. We got married in a church, and our reception was at an Indian restaurant, an Indian buffet, which is $10 per person or something like that.RD: Oh yeah. This wedding that I did for $7000 was in a photography studio. The power went out, because I didn't know enough to check the power. So when we plugged in all the lights and the DJ plugged in, all the power went out. And the DJ came up to me during the ceremony and whispered in my ear, "Do you want to have lights, or do you want to have music?" And I was like, "What are you talking about?" And he's like, "We have a power outage." And I just started crying, because I was like, "I don't know." Now, I would check the power. But it was so bare bones, minimal, minimal everything. We had a craft services caterer do dinner, it was crafty. It's so funny.PS: Those things make you really, really stronger when it comes to accepting challenges as soon as you start out. How do you feel about that? When you start out your business, should you take more risks when you start up? Or should you take more risks when you're a little bit more confident?RD: I think we should always be taking risks. I think if you own a business, I believe that inherently, you are a risk taker. I just think entrepreneurs have to have that little bit of-- we have a little bit of crazy up in our brains where we think, "I'm going to try this." And I think that if you are someone who really loves safety, maybe owning a business is not for you, because there's not a lot of safety happening all the time. I think at the beginning, you've got to throw yourself into the fire. Honestly, at this point, I tell my clients or potential clients, there's nothing that rattles me. Your venue, God forbid, could burn down around us and I'm still not going to yell. Nothing gets to me, I've seen it. But the only reason I can say that is because I had a wedding where the power went out my very first wedding. So once you've lived through it and nothing bad happens, you figure it out, nothing can rattle you. But at the beginning, I think, just starting is a risk, right? So calculated risks, of course. Smart risks, hopefully. But you've got to take risks, there's no way around it, I think.PS: Yeah, because once you take risks, I guess your senses are sharper, you're more aware of what's happening around you. For us, when we started out, we had our first fist fight in a wedding on our third wedding, and it was the groom and his groomsman in the bathroom. RD: Of course it was.PS: Yeah. So after 10 years of doing this, after nine years of doing this, I'd be like, I know exactly what to do and how to handle a fist fight, or prevent someone from-- yeah.RD: Oh man. Courage is a muscle. Everyone thinks courage is some value that, oh, this person is courageous, they're brave. That's just a muscle. If you never exercise it, it's going to atrophy just like anything else. So jumping into that fist fight, or knowing enough to not jump into that fist fight, that's the things you learn on the job. There's no other way to learn this job, I think. PS: And I feel like for people who are starting out, well, at least for me, when I was starting out, I didn't really have anyone to ask, or have anyone to mentor me about these things, what to expect. So I feel like when you're starting out also, make sure that you approach the people who have been longer in the industry, just so they could give you tips. Because I feel like people want to see other people succeed, at least the good business owners, right?RD: Oh yeah. And I think too, the climate is so different now. When I was starting, yes, I did have support, I did have a mentor, I had some really good friends. But there wasn't all the podcasts and the blogs and the education, the online education. There's so many other ways to get knowledge nowadays. Yeah, find a mentor, and then really listen to them. Intern with someone and follow them around, soak it up, don't just take it for granted. Because sometimes the best business people aren't necessarily the best educators, but they still have a lot to share. But you just have to be the person that's super aware of them and what they're doing and how they are presenting themselves in the world.PS: I love that, I love that, because that's actually my main problem right now. I know a lot about business, but I guess I don't know how to say it or how to ask people online. If I'm in a Facebook group, I ask them about something, and they react differently, and then I reread it, I'm like, "Oh crap, I said it wrong," or something like that. Now my question is since we're already talking about this, and you've been saying that you tell your clients, "Nothing can faze me, the building would be burning down." So the way you say stuff, I feel like it's really important, right? So our topic for today is the power of language in your business. So why does the language really matter in our business? RD: I think it's two things. So one, obviously we're using language all day long. I used to call this the power of words in your business, because I think words gets it down to the base level, right? Because we're communicating all day long, we're communicating when we talk to each other, but especially via email, and especially on our websites, there's words everywhere, right? So we have to choose them carefully. And what I know about modern life, because I know, and I do it myself, is that I try to be super casual and approachable and friendly. But oftentimes, what that means, especially for women listening, it means that we sometimes use a lot of unintentional subconscious limiting language, right? And what I mean by that is if you're ever talking to someone, just about anything in life, and you say something that's kind of a bummer, or you say something not great, and they go, "Oh my God, I'm so sorry." And it's a weird phrase, right? That we use. We use "I'm sorry" a lot for things that we have no control over, nothing to do with, no jurisdiction over. We just say "oh, I'm sorry" as a way to express empathy, right? But it's a weird phrase, because you're taking responsibility for something that isn't yours. And it's just one of the many ways. If you ever answer a client email, how many times, just off the top of your head, have you answered a client email with, "Oh, so sorry, sorry for getting back to you so late."PS: We don't say sorry, we say "apology". We apologize. RD: Yeah, which is great. When I first started talking about this, I went through my Gmail, my business account is a Gmail for business account. In there, you can search your mail, and I searched the word "sorry" just to see what would come up. And it was hundreds of emails, hundreds of times I had said. And in most of the time, it was like, "Sorry for not getting back to you within an hour." I was apologizing for something that was ridiculous. "So sorry it took me a minute to research this." What? No, that's my job. So the language we use matters, because we are subconsciously giving our clients and other vendors and everyone we talk to, we're letting them see who we are through the words we use. And if we're starting with "sorry, I'm so sorry", it already puts you in a position subconsciously, their trust is eroding in you, right? They're thinking, "Oh, this person, they didn't get back to me? Oh, they think they were late getting back to me?" It's these little things, it's super micro, but it's the reason I always want to talk about it, because I think so many of these little tiny things that we do, when you add them up, end up really coloring how someone else looks at you, how they view you. And if we can make these tiny changes, then over time, it's going to have the most impact, because it'll start just becoming the way you talk. Like you said, we don't use "sorry", we say "apologies". That is a different thing, those two words mean very different things when you're taking them in as the person who they're being said to.PS: So it's so funny, because I use "I'm sorry" a lot when I email, right? And I know this person who's a grammar Nazi. Stella, my wife. RD: I'm a grammar Nazi, too. PS: So she's like, "Never say you're sorry. Always say apologize, apologies." My goal is, since English is our second language, I want people to know that we know how to speak proper English. No offense to the Californians, but California English, there's California English. Water is "waa-d'r" here. So there's a thing. And it took me three years to adapt to the California English, because I wanted to make sure that, at least in my head, it's a little bit more flawless, and eliminate my accent just so I could blend in a little bit more. But just heading towards the proper English, which is British English, I don't know, without the accent, just the correct pronunciation.RD: Right. I'm from New York City, so my actual accent is ridiculous, you would laugh. The accent I was born with is crazy. And I do the same thing, I work very hard on not sounding like I'm from any particular place.PS: So I think me too, my Filipino accent is wow, once you hear it, you're like, "Oh, wow." So that's the thing. I feel like heading towards the proper English would benefit your business as well, you as a person. Because now, more than ever, social media has evolved into this thing where people spend a little bit of their time with, now it's just everywhere. People, when they're not doing anything, once they're on their phone, you know they're on social media.RD: Oh, for sure.PS: And the way they talk reflects their personality now. RD: Have you ever gotten an email from a vendor or from a client where they're using text talk? Where it's like, "C-Y-A," and you're like, "C-Y-A? Cya. See ya. Okay, got it." Honestly, me, Renee, when I get language like that, I always think, oh, this person must not be very smart. That is just where I go to. And so consider, if you're listening, and you're someone who emails in text speak, maybe that's how you're being perceived, right? We all have these predispositions to how we think of someone when we hear them talk or when we read what they write. So I love that you said you're really trying to go with the correct English, because you want people to take you seriously. You want people to know that you're smart and you're capable, and so therefore that translates to you in proper English. For me, what I want to communicate with my emails and my language in general is that I'm capable and that I'm in charge, right? Because I'm a wedding planner. So for me, my emails can't be too soft, because otherwise I don't think I'm sending the right message. One of my clients left me a review last week. Can I cuss?PS: Sure, yeah.RD: She said in the review, "Renee is a badass." And I honestly walked around all proud all day that I was like, "I'm a badass." Because as a wedding planner, I am the captain of the ship, right? So my emails have to come from a place of authority. So if I'm sending emails that are like, "I just wanted you to read this timeline. I don't know, I think that they think that maybe we should do it this way, but I don't know, what do you think?" And just like, "Let me know when you get it," and then like, "Just no big deal, whenever you have a sec." If I sent emails in that tone, no one would ever respect me or take me seriously or listen to me. So my emails, my communication, has to be pretty clear and direct, and dare I say, almost masculine. And I don't use a lot of phrases like "I think". At least I try not to. I know I say that more when I'm speaking, I say, "Oh, I think da da da." But I hardly ever say "actually, I think", because that also makes it sound like I'm surprised by my own thoughts. "Oh, I had a thought, actually. Get ready, I had a thought, guys." I try not to say the phrase "does that make sense?" Because what I have found with "does that make sense" is, especially when it's a client email, right? So a client will email me 12 questions in a row, right? Which is pretty typical for me. And I'll answer every single question. And if at the end, I say "does that make sense", and I read this in a book and it stuck with me, so "does that make sense", it's saying two things. It's saying to the person you're communicating to, "Are you smart enough to understand what I've just said?" Which is insulting, right? Or, "Am I so crazy nuts that I can't communicate properly what I'm trying to get across to you?" So I have now really tried to get rid of "does that make sense". Instead, what I say is, "Look forward your thoughts on this." Or simply, "Thoughts?" Question mark. What are your thoughts on the things I just explained? Right? Because we have to be really clear on what we want people to take away from the interactions that they're having with us, right? I know that I in the past had tended to overexplain something, feel weird about it, and then say, "Oh, that was too much of an explanation, I know, but hopefully it made sense." Well, if you don't think you're making sense, rewrite the email. Just rewrite the email. We don't need all of the fancy rigmarole. But I do think with social media, like you said, I think we're moving toward a place with our language, just as a culture, where we're super getting super casual. PS: Super casual.RD: And I don't know that I hate it, I definitely don't hate it. But I also wonder, I don't know, on some people's Instagrams, like Jenna Kutcher for example. Do you follow Jenna?PS: Yes.RD: Jenna writes these really beautiful captions to her Instagram pictures. And they're frequently paragraphs, right? And they're like a little mini blog post, and she's always really expressive. And I think that is her authentic voice, I don't think someone else is writing that for her. I think that's how she feels, what she wants to communicate that day. But I also can sense that some other accounts who follow, and the reason I mention her is because she's a huge account. Some other accounts that I also follow who are smaller, who are looking to others maybe for guidance, are using that same sort of authentic speak as, quote, unquote, air quotes "authentic speak", and I wonder if it is authentic to them. Because I think we all have our own voice. I know when I write something that sounds like me, it gets better responses from people, people can hear it in my voice. I think if we're all moving toward this casual social media authentic-y speak, that it's all going to sound like the same voice.PS: So before we move forward, let me go back to when you said "does that make sense", that phrase. Is there a deeper impact when you email it, as opposed to saying it to someone's face? Or is it--? Okay.RD: Yeah, I think so. I think the words that we write have a lot more weight than we give it credit for. Because 99% of the time, my communication with my clients is email. And that's the way I run my business. So I'm not dying to jump on the phone with people. Which is funny, because I'm a podcaster, and you would think that I love talking. And I do, but something about getting my workday interrupted with a phone call is really off-putting to me, I just want to get my work done. So more often than not, I'm emailing. I feel like if you say it in person, if you say "does that make sense" in person, that you're possibly reacting off a visual cue, right? If someone's looking at you like I'm looking at you now, obviously it doesn't make sense. They're telling you with their face, "I am confused." So it's easy to say, "Does that make sense? What part should I go back over?" But if your emailing "does that make sense", you have no visual cue. What you're hoping is they've read the email and you haven't confused them, but you don't need to say it in that way. "Does that make sense" is a really triggering thing for me. When I read that a while ago, I was like, "Oh my God, I do that." The other one is the word "just". "I'm just a wedding planner." How many times have you heard someone say that, when you say, "What do you do?" "Oh, I'm just a DJ. I'm just a..."PS: Yeah.RD: It's so damaging.PS: It is. It's very like you're not really proud of what you're doing. Some people, when they say that, they actually mean it. So that's okay, right? Whenever he says, "I'm just a doctor." No?RD: Can you imagine? "I'm just a doctor?" Have you ever? I believe this is a systematic problem with the wedding industry, because I know for a fact within the world of events, weddings are sort of looked down upon as not as serious, not as lucrative, not as whatever. Which I think is a bunch of BS. but I know that in the wedding indistry, because I talk to so many other vendors, I think we all suffer from a little bit of impostor syndrome. And I think that's where that comes out, right? When you're talking to someone, and they say, "Oh, I'm just a blah blah blah," I'm always the idiot in the group who is like, "You are not just anything. You are amazing."PS: Oh, good for you.RD: I've been calling it out, right? To be like, "How dare you say that about yourself?" But I think when we feel self-conscious, when we feel not enough, when we have the impostor syndrome, it comes out in these little ways. PS: So here's my struggle going back to "does that make sense". Because the first time I heard that, I'm like, "Is this person mocking me? Do they think that I'm an idiot?"RD: Exactly.PS: And then I realize that everyone is using it, because I'm trying to mold my California English. And I've been using it for quite a while. And so I was actually talking to one of my guys, we were at a shoot, and I was trying to explain it to him, what we're going to do. Instead of me saying, "Does that make sense?" I asked him, "Okay, do you understand what I said?" Is there a difference? Because with "do you understand what I said", I actually wanted to make sure that he understands, because we're parting ways, and he's going to reception, I'm going to the-- is there a difference?RD: I would probably, in the future, say, "Do you have any questions for me?" Because it's more open-ended and it gives them more agency to participate, right? Because "does that make sense" is yes or no. "Do you understand what I said" is yes or no.PS: And then he never understood.RD: He didn't. See? "Do you have any questions?"PS: Okay.RD: And oftentimes, especially when I'm dealing with my assistants and stuff, if it is something that is different, unusual, anything out of the normal, I will say, "Repeat it back to me." Because I'd rather have them take ownership of it, even if it's wrong, right? Even if what they're repeating back to me isn't right. And then I can go, "No, that part's not right," and sort of help them and educate them in that moment. Because I think we can be asking better questions, I know we can all be asking better questions of people. But I think "does that make sense" needs to be fully retired, just get it right out of there.PS: Yeah, there's a lot of words, phrases that shouldn't be used, coming from me observing.RD: What else do you think? What else shouldn't be used?PS: Man, right off the top of my head. I'll think of something. But there's a bunch of words that irritate me when someone says it, then I'm like, "You're not using it right." Because we came here 2008, so I was 28 years old when we came here.RD: Oh, I did not know that.PS: Yeah, so that's why I spent three years talking to people on Yelp, the telemarketers, I would just talk to them on the phone. Stella said, "What are you doing?" I'm like, "I'm trying to practice my English."RD: Oh, I love that.PS: So I was just trying to convince them that I'm from here. So, okay.RD: That makes me so happy, I love that. PS: So now here's another struggle of mine. My authentic language, the way I talk to people, is different from my business language. Because we came from Filipino to English to California English, and now California English, we kind of need to dial it down a little bit more, because we're trying to cater to, I guess the higher end market, who doesn't talk like that. So my question is what's the difference between using authentic language, as opposed to speaking or writing off the cuff?RD: I love this. So oftentimes on social media, I will see fellow wedding vendors who I know wrote a caption off the top of their head. And the reason I always know it is because they frequently assume that the reader understands where they're coming from, understands the wavelength that they're already on. So sometimes the off-the-cuff ones sort of tend to start in the middle of a thought, or I'll read it and go, what are they talking about? I remember, this is a a while ago, someone posted a photo, it was a candid photo of a fire pit, right? But the caption said, "This place would be great for a rehearsal dinner." But it was a fire pit. And I stared at it for a few minutes and I was like, what is happening? It was geotagged with a location, so in theory the person posting wanted to communicate that this location would be great for a rehearsal dinner because of this cozy fire pit. But what we needed as the reader was the whole thought. We needed you to start us at A and end at Z. "One of the things my clients always ask me for is a cozy spot for their rehearsal dinner where people can really gather around and talk. And this restaurant, with this cozy fire pit, has that for you," right? So that's the way, you have to sort of connect all the dots for people. When we write something off the cuff, especially Instagram captions, I think sometimes people think, "Oh, when I see this image, it makes me think of the following thing that I'm going to put in this off-the-cuff caption." And then you read it and you're like, "I have no idea what they're talking about." Because we're not in your brain. You have to draw the full picture for people, you have to connect all of it together. But you still have to do it in your authentic voice in a way that doesn't seem so business-y. Because I'm sure you follow those more business-minded accounts that are like very stilted language and everything sounds like business, and you're like, "Well, that's no fun," right? So on social media, what the people want to see is the person behind the brand, so they want to hear from you and Stella. They don't want the voice of "Boffo Video does good video." So it's a really specific new skill set that we all have to have because it's part of our businesses now.PS: I've tried so hard to stop saying "I can't". Those things, it's so hard, because you see it on social media. And I have to be honest, if I were to just speak my authentic language, I probably wouldn't even post anything, because I'm too lazy. But I have to. So whenever I'm on social media, the first five posts I scroll through, I absorb the way they speak, and that's what I just type.RD: One of the things I think we can all be doing for our businesses is really drill down how your business sounds, right? How your business, what your business cares about. So for Moxie Bright, which is my wedding planning business, we really care about hospitality, we really care about taking care of guests, we really care about those moments at a wedding that you can't even predict that are going to happen, that are going to be awesome. So a lot of times when I post something on my Instagram, I'm calling out those moments, right? I'm calling out that moment of amazing service or I'm calling out this moment of friendship between the bride and her bridal tribe. I am specifically angling because it's coming from my head, my viewpoint, what's important to me, right? So I'm always putting it through that lens. I feel like if someone else were to look at the same images on my Instagram, they'd probably come up with a million different captions, because of what's happening in their brain, what's important to them, and what goes through their lens. When I'm doing posts for my education brand, for my online courses and stuff, that's a completely different language, because I'm talking to different people, I'm talking to other wedding planners, I'm talking to them about making more money, about being better at their jobs. It's a completely different audience, and it has to be a completely different language. Now for me, right now those are on the same account, right? So you can literally look through my Instagram and think, "Oh, here she's talking to clients, here she's talking to other wedding pros." But for instance, I call my students rockstars. So if you're a student in one of my classes, I'm going to address you as, "Hey, rockstar," no matter what. I don't know how it started, it felt right and I went with it, and now it's a thing. And I think to that, you have to honor that too, what feels right? I'm definitely not someone who's hashtag blessed, right? You're not going to see that on my account, it's just not my thing. You're more likely to see an F-bomb on my account with a (makes explosion sound) emoji.PS: Yeah, that's the thing. I guess it's just so hard to come up with an original idea, I mean an original text, in such a short span of time. Because I feel like people who post on social media, at least the ones who are really good at it, schedule everything.RD: Oh yeah.PS: And I suck at it, because you know what I'm really good at scheduling? Podcasts. Everything else, I suck at.RD: See? There you go. Scheduling is much easier, because then you're not having to come up with a caption on the fly. I use Planoly, and I schedule at least two weeks out if I can. I took a social media break this year, I didn't post at all for the month of June. I just wasn't feeling it. And I was like, "I'm not going to force myself. The world's not going to end if I don't put up a square every day." And I didn't do it. And then I got back to it when it was time. And then I was able to be like, "Okay, let's write some fresh captions." For me, I don't stress so much about the caption. It could be because my background, I have a background as a writer as well. But I look at the picture and I go, "What is this? Oh, okay." Sometimes it's so simple. I think my post today was a wedding bouquet from two years ago, and I think I wrote, "Never tired of this gorgeous bouquet from Shindig Chic." That's it, because it doesn't always have to change the world. Sometimes it's just appreciation for this beautiful thing. And that's okay, too. You don't have to write the mini blog posts that Jenna Kutcher is writing. By the way, Jenna Kutcher is writing those from a sales language perspective. She's writing those to convert. She's selling things. Even if you don't think she's selling anything on that post, girl's still selling something, because she's got an entire empire full of things to sell. So if what you're doing as a service provider is wanting to get people to contact you, right? Wanting someone to like you enough to reach out. Then all you really have to worry about is talking to the right people, being your true self, and hopefully the right people will be attracted to you. Because you're not trying to sell a course or preset filter. She's got a ton of products.PS: Oh yeah. And she's really good at posting something and asking, "How's your day going?" And I'm like, "Oh my gosh, she's talking to me."RD: And at the end, you're like, "I think I need her podcast course." And you don't know what happened. You don't know how it happened. She's very persuasive.PS: She's really good at that.RD: That's a whole other language. We don't need that. If that's not your goal, that's not what you need. You just need to be putting things out there that are authentically you. I post a lot of photos of food on my Moxie Bright account, because I love food, my clients love food. And I've had people say to me, "You post a lot of food." I'm like, "Uh huh, okay, thanks for noticing." What, am I not supposed to post the things I like? I'm going to post what I like.PS: Yeah, it speaks to your followers, it speaks to your tribe.RD: Yeah, but I also like it. If my followers decided suddenly they liked, I don't know, what's something I don't like? Country music. I don't really love country music. But if they were super into it, I still wouldn't be posting it. Because I'm just like, "Not my thing," right? I can't talk about something I don't know anything about. I feel bad now that I said I don't like country music. I like some country music, you guys.PS: To be honest, when I started editing wedding videos here, and some of the clients, it was like, "Oh, we want Brad Paisley." Before the whole copyright thing, I fell in love with country music.RD: Did you?PS: Yes, but I'm not deep into it. I'm kind of like you. I appreciate country music.RD: I like all the girl singers. So if there's a girl singer, like Martina McBride, I'm into her, love her. Faith Hill, love her. Any girl who can sing, I'm in. But no, the guys, I don't know anything about.PS: Okay. I'm the reverse. Well, you know what? I know Shania Twain. Because I'm Filipino, so we sing a lot. So now my question for you now is, since we were talking about "I can't" or "slay, girl" or whatever. Because for me, on Instagram, it's me who's talking. Stella, she sucks at social media, she doesn't want to do that, because she hates being on social media, so I do all of the captions and stuff. So when there's, "Oh, wow" or something like that that's weird, it's never going to be her, it's just always me.RD: I love it.PS: My question is how can we stop using limiting language in our business and life? How do I get to stop?RD: Well, I think first, you have to have the awareness that you're even doing it. So a lot of times after I talk about this topic, I've presented this at conferences and stuff, I'll get emails months later from someone who's like, "I was at your talk, and I went through my email, and oh my God, I've been saying 'sorry' and 'just', and I've been doing it all." And I'm like, "Yeah girl, you got to figure it out." You have to first understand that it's happening, right? There are some, especially when you're writing, there are some tools. So if you use Google Chrome, which you should all be using, because I love it, there is a plugin. The name of the plugin is called Just Not Sorry, which is great. And it literally will underline for you in your emails if you're using any word that is a limiting language word. But the other thing that's fun too is that sometimes you actually are apologizing for something, and sometimes you're like, "Oh, so sorry, this email got missed" or whatever, it'll still underline it. It doesn't necessarily understand the context. But it will tell you, "Hey, are you sure you want to use the word 'just' here?" "Just" is a big one. "Just" is the one that people go, "I don't use that," and then weeks later they say, "Oh my God, yes I do, it's everywhere." Of course it's everywhere. Because it's our culture, right? It's in our vernacular to use these words that make us sound soft and approachable and agreeable and easygoing like everyone wants to be, especially in California, super chill all the time. And I get it, but that doesn't necessarily mean it has a place in your business. Because you have to understand, you have to determine and figure out for yourself how you want to be perceived, right? Because a lot of times, I'll talk to, especially groups of women, and I hate to keep saying that, but as a woman, it's a big deal for me. And they'll say, "Well, I don't really have control over how I'm perceived." Absolutely false. You 100% have control over how you're perceived. You can script that for yourself. You can make that happen for yourself. But first you have to have the awareness of it. So one, awareness. Two, tools like Google Chrome plugin. Three, start noticing it in other people, too. And it might make you less liked for a minute to be like, "You just said," call out your friend, be like, "I thought we weren't doing that anymore." Because it's pervasive, it's everywhere, and so it isn't just a quick fix, it is an ongoing thing. The other thing that I did for my assistant and for anyone who's in my inbox is I have a little, small document of "these are words we don't use". This is language Moxie Bright does not use, right? And even in my interactions with my clients on their wedding day, in my employee handbook, there is a list of things we don't say. So if someone were to come up to one of my assistants, a guest on the day of the wedding, and ask them a question, and if they don't know the answer, they're not allowed to say, "I don't know." What they're supposed to say is, "Let me find out." And that's the biggest example I can always give. It's taking that negative "I don't know" and turning it into something open and curious and positive, which was, "Let me find out. I'll go find out for you," right? So that person is then taking ownership of whatever the situation is. They are coming to someone else who might know more, finding out the answer. Saying "I don't know" is closing a door. That's like what you said, we don't want to say "I can't", right? I can't. Well, maybe you can't right now because you don't have the right information, right? So what do you say instead of "I can't"? Are you retraining yourself to think a new thing?PS: Well, the "I can't" that I'm talking about is the RuPaul Drag Race "I can't".RD: Oh.PS: Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. But if we're talking about the "I can't" that you're talking about, I usually say, "I'll see what I can do."RD: Yeah, I'll see what I can do, exactly. Perfect, it's perfect.PS: "I can't." RD: I need to watch RuPaul's, I haven't watched RuPaul's Drag Race yet. But it's come up a lot lately, and so I feel like the universe is telling me to watch it.PS: Oh, they have a really, really extensive vocabulary of all the really fun phrases that people use.RD: Someone referenced a death drop to me the other day, and I was like, "I don't know what a death drop is." And then I Googled it, it was like, "Oh, that looks painful."PS: Yeah. I've seen comments that say "typing from heaven because I'm dead right now" or something like that, because the thing is so beautiful. So now I really want to ask you about this, because that kind of language attracts a certain kind of tribe, a certain kind of group, right?RD: Totally.PS: If I want to charge more and target the more luxurious market, should I continue saying that? If I were someone who does that.RD: I think if it's authentic, you should.PS: Okay.RD: I think in our industry, we have a really effed up thing about luxury, I believe. Every luxury client I've ever had has not come to me from social media. They have come from 100% personal referral from someone who's a friend of theirs. There's a little tight-knit Beverly Hills group that I work with all the time. Some clients, I've done all of their events, and then they refer me to their best friends, and that's how it works. Those people never read my reviews. They don't care. They want a personal referral, and they want you to show up and be professional. I think this marketing to luxury market doesn't really work. I hate to burst everyone's bubble, but I think be your authentic self. Listen, if you are-- let's just say I start watching RuPaul's Drag Race, and I feel compelled to post about it, I'm probably going to use that language because it's fun, right? It doesn't mean that that's who I am as a human every day of the year, and I have to say "slay" on all my posts, right? But I think it's fun to let people in to see who you are a little more. I'm a huge fan of the Canadian sitcom Schitt's Creek, which everyone, have to watch it immediately if you have not watched it. So lately, all of my Insta stories have had GIFs of the character David Rose making faces, and I've never explained it, I've never said, "I'm a huge fan, and so this speaks to me now." I'm just doing it. And I've got people message me on Instagram, "Oh my God, you watch that show, too?" I'm like, "Yeah, of course I do." But it's a way to let people in authentically without having to have a big deal about it. I'm sure the moment will pass in a few months, I'll be moved on to some other show, it's fine. But it's like you have to be able to play. And if you want to use "slay" one day, then you slay. But as far as a luxury market, I don't think they're looking for anything specific. I think they're looking for people who are really good at their job, who their friends have already worked with.PS: Okay. I was thinking about that.RD: I don't know how to tell you to break in. Everyone's like, "How did you get that first Beverly Hills client?" I'm like, "Through her yoga teacher." Through her private fancy yoga teacher. So you just don't know.PS: So let me know what you think, too. Because I feel like as long as you're authentic, social media caters to, especially if you want to target higher paying clients, right? Social media caters to the people around you. And if the vendors who know these luxury market clients like your personality, then it's an easier sell, right?RD: Absolutely.PS: Instead of targeting the luxury people.RD: Yeah. Think of it this way. It's like dating, right? If you want to impress someone, you put your best foot forward. So this is a different example, but I'll use it anyway. My friend who is the private yoga teacher, she works with very high-end clients. Russell Crowe used to be a client of hers. She used to go to his home and teach him yoga. And one day he was looking for a masseuse. And she texted me and said, "Who do we know who'd be good for Russell to get a massage?" Right? Because it has to be the right person. At that level, when you're talking about that person, that level of celebrity, that level of luxury, it can't just be the person we saw on Instagram who we think might be cool. It has to be the right person. When we went through a list of people that we knew, and she was like, "No, that girl drives a-- no, that girl's bad, she'll talk too much," or, "Oh no, that guy has a weird energy," right? There's nothing you can do at that point. You just have to be who you are, and you'll be right for someone. And it's the same with your language. You just have to talk the way you talk authentically in full complete thoughts ideally on social, and the right people will be attracted to you. And you know what? The other cool thing is you'll repel the wrong people. I think we spend a lot of time worrying about who we're attracting, but sometimes I'm like, "Who am I unattracting? Who am I sending away?" Good for that too, right? Because just in using not only limiting language, but inclusive language, right? If you're only posting the same kind of couple all the time, right? Perhaps you're sending a message that you're not open to working with everyone. Same thing with your language. If you're only ever talking about brides and grooms, brides and grooms, brides and grooms, you're leaving out a whole other section of people who are getting married.PS: So it's pretty much just curating. When it comes to business, you just make sure you curate. Be yourself, but you curate.RD: Yeah. Curate inasmuch as you feel comfortable curating. I'm certainly not someone who wants, you see those Instagram accounts of "everything's pink and white". And you're like, "How are you doing that? That's so much effort." I'm not about that life, I don't have that kind of time. But definitely curating your words is so important to me, because I know that none of us are spending enough time thinking about it. We're all just going off the cuff and saying what we think, and saying what we feel, and writing what we feel. And in the end, we're ending up too much in our feelings, and too much in our apologies, and too much in our self-doubt, and not enough standing in our power with our words, and really, intentionally communicating clearly and effectively and efficiently and with authority, what we mean.PS: Okay. I like that, because I feel like social media has changed the way. Before, when we started out, the "about us" page is the only page that tells about you. Now, social media. In the "about us" page, you're like, "I like riding horses and eating hamburgers." Now everything is out there.RD: It's true.PS: People are addicted that they can't stop just shooting out information about themselves, that I feel like when it comes to curating, when we talk about curating, at least for me, I feel like curating is cleaning up. You invite someone to go to your house, and the first thing, once they open the door and see your living room, you're like, "Shit, there's so much stuff on the floor and I need to clean up." So curating is kind of like that. Just make sure that when people Google you, they see a really nice-looking-- doesn't have to be perfect, but just clean. RD: Yeah. I love that you said, too, about the curating. I feel like when we say the word "curating", people are automatically like, "Ew, I don't want to." But what I hear in what you're saying, obviously correct me if this is incorrect, is that you feel like there is a fine line between sharing who you authentically are and who you want to work with, and the kind of work you want to put out there. And then there's people who really overshare, right? And they're telling you, or the people who go on Insta story and Insta story their entire day every day, they're living in some weird reality show that they've made for themselves, where this is their breakfast, and then they're walking the dog, and then they're answering emails, and then they're getting a haircut. And it's like whoa, hold on. What I like to think of for these things, because I'm certainly not someone who wants to Insta story my entire life. I was an actor, I got that amount of attention back in the day, I'm good. I always think if I want to share something that seems kind of tricky or seems kind of maybe challenging, or I don't know. I just always think, is this thing that I'm sharing, is it something that is a wound, an open wound, or is it a scar? Have I learned something from it, right? If it's like a client cancelled their wedding, and we're in the thick of cancelling it, and emotions are high, I'm certainly not going to go on Insta story and be like, "Here's how to cancel your wedding." No, there is a time and a place, right? You have to talk about that once the moment has passed, when it is a scar. The people who overshare, the people who do that thing where you're like, "That is aggressively TMI, I don't need to know all that," I think they're operating from a different place where they're not. And that's what I think we mean by curating. Come at it from a place of what is it that I want to share and teach and educate, or just simply communicate about, and not from a place of, "This just happened, and I'm gonna sound off on it," right? PS: Yeah. So I was talking to a social media expert, I was talking to someone, and we were talking about-- because when I post something on social media, especially the stories, because I always believe that Instagram feed has to be clean, that's about your company. And your stories is where you get dirty. And by dirty, I don't mean sending--RD: Yeah, you can play a little fast and loose with the stories.PS: Yeah, but then when I post something on stories, I just go about my day, right? I take photos of a tree or, "Oh, I'm going to this restaurant." But I never post until the next day. Because I want it to be purposeful. "Oh my gosh, that experience at the restaurant is the highlight of my day," and that's the only thing I'm going to post. So I feel like people need to learn to step back, because the pressure of posting something right now is just tremendous that it's not really healthy anymore.RD: I agree.PS: And I feel like I should have one episode, podcast episode about mental health, because it's just so draining. Especially for me, because I'm not really a very public kind of guy. If I had a choice, I'd probably not post anything. But the pressure of trying to put something out there, yeah.RD: Yeah, I agree with you. Posting while you're in the moment of something takes you out of the moment. You're no longer in the moment, you're now looking at it from a distance, going, "How are people going to react? Oh, what should I say about this moment?" Just be in the moment, man, just post later. I tend not to post when I'm at networking events like the ones you and I have gone to for so many years together, because I don't want people know where I am. There is a weird part of me that is like, "If someone were to follow me around, they could, if I were posting in real time." And I know that sounds very paranoid, but that's just how we are, that's how I am today.PS: I actually saw and read an article, oh, I think it was online, a forum, and I started implementing it. When we go on vacation, I wait two days before I post something. Because we're on our way back, and we just started our vacation online, just so no one's going to know that oh, their house is empty, no one's in the house, stuff like that. It's me being paranoid.RD: But then again, these are all things we have to think about when we're talking about our businesses and our social media. It's such a different world now than when we started.PS: Yeah. So now my question for you is, if I want to change my copy, my language, how do I go about that for my business?RD: So first, I think you have to drill down what your core values are as a business. Mine are online, you can look at my core values on Moxie Bright, on the website, on the "about me" page. But I think once you have those core values, even if you don't publish them, even if you just write them down for yourself, right? Then make sure that all your language points to that. For me, I always want my language to be really uplifting, outgoing. I don't like passive voice. So if you don't know that means, not you, but if your listeners don't know what that means, active voice is like, "I am eating a sandwich." Passive voice is "I am going to eat a sandwich", right? I always want to be in the active voice. I want all my copy, all my Instagram captions, even if I'm talking about something that happened in the past, I still want my reaction to it, my comment on the image, to be in active voice, because it's important to me. It's one of the things, one of my pet peeves. Even when I listen to podcasts, when people say, "We're going to talk about blah blah blah." Just talk about it. You're already here, we're in it, just do it, right? That's just my impatient New Yorker, I think, coming out. But so that's something that's important to me. It's important to me to not use limiting language. It's important to me to communicate in a voice that allows people to easily feel comfortable with me being in charge. Because again, that speaks to what I'm doing for a living. If I were someone in a more creative primarily field, maybe if I were an interior designer, or maybe if I were a photographer, maybe my language would be a little more creative, a little more flowery, because you want to communicate that I have that sort of creative spirit. I'm not so concerned with that for what I'm doing currently. I more just want to be seen as an authority. Because it helps my clients trust me, and then it automatically takes out so many problems in the long run, because they're like, "Oh, Renee's got this," right? Because all of my language and my demeanor speaks to that. So that's what important to me. It doesn't have to be important to other people. But that's one of the reasons that I'm so passionate about this topic, is that I find it so prevalent in our industry. I've been at so many networking events standing next to someone, and someone says, "What do you do?" And they go, "I'm just a wedding planner." And it makes all my skin crawl right off, right? I'm like, "You're not just anything. You're a business person, you're a CEO, you're the president of your company, you're the founder, you're the creative force behind your company." We're so much more than the titles we give ourselves. Because everyone wants to be modest and humble. And I get it, you don't want to be a jerk. But also, you have to own your shit, you have to own your own expertise. Because as a business owner, nobody's going to give that to you, right? No outside force is going to come in and say, "Paul, you're the CEO now." And you're going to go, "Oh my God, am I? I made it." It's like, "No, we're making it ourselves," right? So it might sound arrogant sometimes, and you don't have to say it all the time, but you have to believe it. You have to believe that you are the CEO, whatever inflated title you think is too much, you have to behave as though that's true. PS: I love that, because for us, we've been doing this for nine years, our business has been existing for nine years. And we've never seen ourselves as the owners, right? So for the nine years, we've been just slaving away, making sure that we have work for everyone and blah blah blah. But then, just one moment, we were talking to our friends, and they're like, "You're the CEO, you have to do CEO shit. You can't just do secretary stuff, just hire a secretary. Do owner stuff." And the way that you say that to yourself, it makes you feel more empowered. People who say that they're just wedding planners, and they go to conventions, you're not just the wedding planner, you're already at a convention, that means you're serious. This is a real, real business. So yeah, people have to own up to--RD: Yeah.PS: Yeah. I love that.RD: You have to change your mindset, and you have to learn. It's going to sound so woo-woo, and I can't believe I'm saying this, but I believe it. You have to vibrate at a higher frequency for stuff like that. You just have to let yourself be up here unapologetically. And because, listen, at the end of the day, our businesses are our babies, and we are solely in charge of them. So if something in your business isn't working, it's our responsibility to fix it. And sometimes, it literally just is-- the mindset is off. Your mindset isn't working in your favor, right? And but again, this mindset is pervasive, it comes out in our language. So when I hear someone say, "I'm just a wedding planner," I'm thinking, oh, what's going on with them, right? Do they not have a supportive spouse, maybe? Maybe their spouse is saying, "Well, this little thing you're doing is just for now." Maybe they are not natural leaders. Maybe they have to work on their leadership for their team. Maybe they just have to change their mindset around money, right? We didn't even get around the topic of language around money, but it's the same deal. It's learning to control the language that you have around all of these things. Because once you start acknowledging it and changing it, then it becomes second nature, and you don't have to say to yourself, "Oh, I said 'just' again." Right? Now, when I say "just", I think, oh, did I say it? As opposed to I'm always saying it, and I'm training myself out of it.PS: Yeah, I love that. So my last questions, it's plural because-- it's actually just one question.RD: Okay.PS: So it's basically what language should you use for rejection when you feel like the couple doesn't really fit with you? For example, I saw last night, I saw online, someone asked, "So what do I tell the couple if I see a lot of red flags?" Before they sign, how do I talk to them and say "eh"? RD: I, in the past, have said-- well, first of all, I don't give anyone any sort of pricing or any information until I've spoken to them. And I firmly believe that that is the way everyone should be doing this, because what we do is so personal that it's really hard. It'd be hard for me to send out a price sheet and have someone be like, "I choose you." You'll be like, "Wait a minute, who are you? What is even your deal? I don't know if I want to work with you." So first, we have a conversation. And if I see a lot of red flags, oftentimes I won't send them a proposal. What I'll send instead is an email that I think I have in my canned email that's letting them down easy. And I just say, "It's been really lovely speaking with you and getting to know you. Based on what you told me in our conversation, I don't think that I'm the right fit for you." And I don't necessarily give them reasons, right? Because it doesn't matter, because they're not going to change. Or more accurately, nothing that they can say at that point will change my mind that I don't want to work with them, right? So I had a client, or not a client, but a potential client, many years ago, describe herself as a bridezilla six times during the consult. And she would say it and then laugh, like haha, like it was the funniest thing. I never laughed, I was just taking notes. And she didn't have her fiance on the call. She never even told me his name. She never referenced him, like "my fiance Joe". She just said "my fiance" as if that were his name. By the end, I said, "I'm sorry, you never gave me his name." And she goes, "I didn't?" And I said, "No." She was, "That's funny," and then went into something else. And I was like, it just was clearly not for me. So I wrote her an email and I said, "It was really lovely getting to know you. Based on our conversation, I don't think I'm the right fit for you. Here's who I'd recommend for you." And I always send at least two referrals to people that I really genuinely think could handle that situation, right? That I think they'd be a better fit for. And I don't necessarily feel the need to overly explain myself. In that particular case, she did write back and asked why. And I said, "One of the things I love as a wedding planner is working equally with both halves of the couple, no matter what that couple looks like. And because your fiance wasn't on the call and didn't seem very present in the proceedings, I just know that it's ultimately not going to be a good fit for me." And I never heard from her again. So I think when you're strong in your convictions and you know your core values, and you know the people you want to work with, it's much easier to say no to the ones you don't. But I also don't think we need to be writing diary entries about how much we don't want to work with them. I think that's when it pays to be super almost masculine in your responses, just like it's a hard line, right? Because the other thing you can say is like, "I don't think we'd be a good fit because you said something about being a bridezilla." And then she'd be like, "Well, I was just kidding," and blah blah blah.PS: That's it.RD: Then you're opening it up for more drama. It's a no.PS: Okay.RD: It's hard though, hard to do that.PS: It's super hard. I feel like the person who posted that online, he was just afraid to piss him off or break their heart.RD: Yeah, of course, you don't want to be a bad person. And also, not all of us are in a position to say no to the money. But then again, once you have a bad client that you've taken for money, you always realize that's bad money. You don't want that money anyway.PS: I think it's good that people have us, people like us to tell them that it's money now, but it's going to be a headache in a few months.RD: I feel like everyone has to do it once, and then they go, "Oh yeah, that was bad." Yeah, that was bad.PS: Okay, so the last one, the very last one, because I said language for rejection, right?RD: Yes.PS: What language-- how do you say-- how do you deal with a really livid couple when you did something wrong? Or you didn't do anything wrong, and they're super mad, how do you talk to them?RD: So I always try to figure out where they're coming from. Oftentimes, it is not about us, and the hardest thing as a business owner is to not take things personally. Weddings are emotional, right? A lot of times, we are getting the brunt of something that happened with someone else. And I know as a wedding planner especially, so many times I'll get an email that's like, "We're behind and da da da da, and this and that." And I have to read it and go okay, this person feels panicked, because they think something's not happening that should. I always deal with the facts first. I take the emotion right out of it. In fact, sometimes I actually ignore the emotion, right? Especially if they're coming at me hot, I'm just like, "Okay, what are the facts here? The facts are this person feels scared, this person thinks that A, B and C was not done. That is incorrect, A, B and C is done, here's the proof of when it was done. What else can I help you with?" I always try to move it forward, especially because my clients, or some other brides or grooms or whomever, tend to get a little worked up. Sometimes I always tend to just go okay, don't take it emotionally. Sometimes you got to close the email, walk around the house a little bit, walk around your office, burn it off, come back and be like, okay, what are they really saying, right? Because it's hard when someone's like, "You didn't do something." If they're pointing fingers, "You're bad at your job." And they might not have said that, but that's the tone, right? It's hard to divorce yourself from that and be like, "Okay, well, that's their opinion. Let's deal with the facts." And listen, if you didn't do something that needed to get done, or there was a misstep, of course apologize, absolutely apologize. And oftentimes, what I try to do is I make it right and then apologize. Fix it before you even-- fix it, just whatever it is, fix it. And then go back and say, "You know what? You're right, that did not get done, but it is done now, and here is the outcome." Because basically, all those emails are, all those communications are, is them throwing up a flare going, "Oh my God, something's really bad, we have to fix it." And so your job is to just fix it. Just fix it, fix it first. The other thing with communication, and you didn't ask this, but I'll just say it now. So many times, our clients are frustrated with us because they don't know what we're doing. And oftentimes it's eas

From one career intention to another (3:50)The pervasive but poorly supported failure narrative (4:00)Working in the standardized testing world and a shift in thinking (4:30)Who is at fault? (4:50)What? No ideas for an alternative? (6:00)Testing and accountability as commensurate with one another (6:35)Test-based accountability is not the source of the problem (6:50)Schools deserve an appropriate accountability system (7:30)Effective organizations use forward-facing accountability mechanisms (8:30)Forward-facing issues fail to be emphasized in schools (9:20)Is backward-facing accountability beneficial? (9:40)Is backward-facing accountability even possible? (10:45)Destined or expected to repeat the past, year after year (11:40)Are schools’ accountability practices truly backward-facing? (12:30)The pitfalls of backward-facing accountability (13:20)The positives embedded in accountability (13:55)Imposed accountability (14:35)Operating in, and ignoring, a context of ongoing change (16:40)Identifying effectiveness as a prerequisite for accountability (17:25)Research and logic do not support A-F grading of schools (18:30)Both effective and ineffective schools do exist (19:30)Student benefit at the center of school practices (21:30)Accomplishment vs. measurement (22:20)Hopes and dreams (23:20)Hopes and dreams and the level of “mission” (24:00)Hopes and dreams for a higher test score? (25:20)Higher test scores or “getting ready for life?” (26:20)Parents need to have meaningful conversations about their children (31:25)Mission vs. mission statement (32:20)For-profits and non-profits have a handful of missions (33:30)Public schools tend have more than two dozen missions (33:55)The biggest issue facing public schools today (35:20)Next steps for TestSense (37:05)True accountability’s potential as a national movement (37:35)Legislative solution or legislative support? (38:00)Mrs. Carlisle – a great teacher (40:25)Growing up with a disability and Mrs. Carlisle’s wisdom (40:35)Accountability processes and frameworks do not need to be unwieldy (42:20)www.testsense.com  

Planes, trains, and automobiles! And boats. Oh, and hovercrafts and lorries. And canal boats? Is that right? Apparently it is! What? No automobiles? Are you serious? But we've already said that they're in it. What a joke. Let's try this again: All the transport solutions you could possibly want (except cars), squeezed into an enjoyable management simulation. Start off with just a unicycle and a wicker basket, delivering bread for your local baker, and work your way up to become the sinister, all-pervading transport conglomeration we all wish we could be. That's what this game is!As is tradition, Chris and Ashley amble their way through an hour of conversation that is at once rambling and incisive. Listen in this week for some deep cuts on the dark predilections of The Sims players in the olden days, lots of Rollercoaster Tycoon-based chat, why Chris should have been playing Railroad Tycoon instead of this, and precisely how tall the fence behind Ashley's childhood home was! Exciting, we know, and that's just a vertical slice of all the goodness in this episode!If you want to give Transport Tycoon a bash, head on over to OpenTTD and fill your boots.Apologies for Ashley's grump at the beginning. He says it's hard to deal with Chris' unrelenting upbeat positivity in a world rapidly falling into decay. Happy Thursday!If you like what you hear, come and say hello to us at any of the places below. We are dying to hear from you all:Twitter: @thisgamewhereYouTube: This Game WhereFacebook: www.facebook.com/thisgamewhereMusic for this episode is by Stevia Sphere from the album Cell Division. You can find that and many more great tunes on their Bandcamp at: https://steviasphere.bandcamp.com/

Connect with Barry Ratzlaff online in the following places:Instagram: @ratzlaffbarryHosted: Andrew Bracewell @everydayamazingpodcastProduced/Edited: Justin Hawkes @Hawkes21Full Transcription of this Interview:Andrew Bracewell: This is the podcast that finds the most elusive people the everyday amazing kind that you know nothing about. I'm hunting these people down and exposing their beauty to the world. I'm Andrew Bracewell and this is every day. Amazing. Barry Ratzlaff: Get off social media. Stop looking at Instagram pictures of people who have perfect bodies and are purveying these perfect lives because that is such a negative thing for your brain.Andrew Bracewell: Happy New Year, everybody. I'm grinning ear to ear because today's guest is one of the reasons I get up in the morning literally. But more on that later, when something is delicious, I mean really delicious. I will often attempt to describe it by saying It's like two tiny humans are having sex in my mouth. Whether or not the metaphor is accurate, my excitement in the moment is effectively communicated, and the person to whom I am speaking knows why I'm losing my mind. That's how I feel about today's guest, but we're not going to eat him or have sex with them. We're going to talk to him because in addition to the fact that he's highly intelligent, he has helped countless people change their lives by shaping the way they view their nutrition, fitness and overall health, including me. Barry Rats Laugh is a gift to mankind. But before I let him speak, I'll give you a short synopsis of what he does in some of his life accomplishments. Together with his wife, Janna, they own proactive transformations, a boutique health and fitness facility operated on their property in the Fraser Valley, their mantra. Helping people achieve their best body in a healthy way. Some of Barry's certifications and accomplishments include a C E certified personal trainer. He's an A C E certified health coach. He's certified in fitness and sports, nutrition certified and overuse, injuries and rehabilitation certified in low back disorders. In 1999 Barry was the body for life champion. In 2003 he was the Ice Atari best body champion in 2000 Very trained The Body for Life, Canadian champion, and in 2001 he trained the body for life. First runner up. That is quite the pedigree, Barry, Welcome to the show.Barry Ratzlaff: Thanks, Andrew. Good to be here.Andrew Bracewell: How does that sound? Hearing all of that that read out. Are you amazed by yourself? Just sell the copilot B s. Well, it's difficult to hear positive things about ourselves. It is. It is. So that is actually quite the ah, the list. And I want to start by asking you a little bit about your journey into the health and fitness industry and how it came to be that you're in the place you're in today.Barry Ratzlaff: Well, I was, uh I'm also a ordained minister. He But you know that. And I spent a lot of time in the church.Andrew Bracewell: You marry and bury people I didBarry Ratzlaff: for a long time. I am married and buried. I married your ah, one of your associates. Yeah. So I did that for a long time. And that lifestyle is not a healthy one. Working with kids. I was youth pastor. I worked with, uh, mostly junior high and some senior high kids. I did it for 15 years, and through the course of those 15 years, we eat a lot of doughnuts and you drink a lot of pop and you have a lot of late nights with Doritos on buses heading to youth events. And it's it's it's a gong show, physically like you're just getting fatter and fatter and more and more tired. And you just keep yourself going with sugar.Andrew Bracewell: This was like eighties and nineties orBarry Ratzlaff: Ah, yeah. I graduated from Bible school in 91 my first church was up north in Fort McMurray in 92 0 wow. I didn't know for a fact or Mac. Two and 1/2 years. Yeah, my personal hell. ButAndrew Bracewell: I have more on that later. Yes, exactly. TheBarry Ratzlaff: place where you could be nothing other than Pastor Bury. All right. It was awful. Anyway, so, uh, through the course of the of my pastor eight years, I just got more and more out of shape when I had a few attempts at getting into shape over the period of time where I would and I didn't know much. I've been lifting admitting the gym since I was 13 yearsAndrew Bracewell: old. Yeah. So you were a child athlete, right? Early? Yeah. I read about these kindBarry Ratzlaff: of won all the athlete of the year awards through elementary and high school. A big wrestler back in the day. And when the B C championships got a scholarship sf you which I turned down, I didn't want to wrestle anymore. It was just It was misery, like physically punishing that I enjoyed the physical punishment. But you're always dieting. You're always restricting your nutrition to keep your weight class right. It's just like boxing. You're constantly moving, moving down away class, trying to be competitive. And so I just did that for all of my high school years and said, I'm kind of done with this now I just want to move on. Where was I going with that? It was competitive athlete. All through those yearsAndrew Bracewell: you're in Fort Mac and for Mr Berry, And the original question was, How did you journey out of the Pastor Berry mode into?Barry Ratzlaff: So it's your today, tried a few times, get to get into shape, And it was always without any nutritional knowledge. And back in the day, like in the nineties, there wasn't a lot of you walk into a health food store. You walk into a bookstore, you didn't see a lot of good information about how to do this. The Body for Life book hadn't come out yet, which was really the very first user friendly book that came out. The first system don't want Hey, I could do this to Before that. It was like Arnold's encyclopedia bodybuilding, right?Andrew Bracewell: But that was only good for the guys. The gym rats who were who were living that lightBarry Ratzlaff: was only good for them. And also bodybuilding, weightlifting resistance training at that time and before was considered an underground activity that was not worth anything and set for meatheads. So if you were Oh, yeah, okay, if you're a linebacker for a football team or you want to be a big, thick, no neck wrestler, then you go to the gym and pump iron. But everyone else in the world should really avoid it because it's dangerous. It'll hurt your joints. It'll make you a meathead. Women will get huge and muscular and disgusting if they lift weights. So that was the common knowledge or the common wisdom of the day. And it was completely wrong, which we know now because everybody's getting into it. But back then, that's how it was. And so, uh, I had made attempts to get into shape. I remember didn't want a 98. My my local gym, too, burnt down shortly after. It wasn't my fault, but he didn't hurt down shortly after it had a get in shape contest. And I'm like, Good Lord, I'm gonna do this because I want Oh, they had a very nominal price. Whatever it was like one month, three membership in a egg of grapes. Suddenly it was just It was really dismal. But I was youth pastor. So if you waved anything in front of me, I'd be gone for it. Like Holy crap, I could win grapes. I'm doing this. And so I I did that and I starved myself down to this. But £215 not a really impressive look. Kind of soft and flat because I was starving for three months.Andrew Bracewell: It should be noted, we need to give people perspective on what, 250lb? Because 250lb for you, Junior 15 215lb for you is actually kind of small.Barry Ratzlaff: Oh, I was a bone rack. Yeah,Andrew Bracewell: because you've walked around before At what? To 265 to 270Barry Ratzlaff: today. Walked around to 265.Andrew Bracewell: And when you are a lean, mean machine, you've been to 235 to 240. 240? Yeah. So to 215 is actually tinyBarry Ratzlaff: way underweight for me. Yeah, So I in a classic fashion which so many people are familiar with, I dyed it down to this specific weight that I thought I should get to it. Not even about anything about body composition, how much muscle I had or just get down to this. Wait. How's how late can I get and quickly snap a picture before I lose my freaking mind? And as quickly as the pictures done, get me in the car and I'm going to in W for, like, five team burgers because I want to get the party started. And so I did that, and so literally IAndrew Bracewell: was actually teen burgers. Did you actually do that?Barry Ratzlaff: I was straight to in w. Had hadAndrew Bracewell: not Big Mac's, not Cooper'sBarry Ratzlaff: to team burgers to teen burgers. And awesome, I think onion rings. That's amazing. A coke it was in. SoAndrew Bracewell: a cool 2500 calories. So this this isBarry Ratzlaff: and this could be will be segueing into this later. But that that waas, that's the microcosm of everyone's diet experience, which is I'm gonna I'm gonna be disciplined, and I'm gonna totally just beat my body and make it my slave and I'm gonna be fantastic and just don't get to my goal and I will fall apart because it's completely unsustainable. And once it's like Frank the Tank and old school, once the beer hits his lips,Andrew Bracewell: it's so good. It's so good. Next thing he'sBarry Ratzlaff: streaking down looks, orders the quad. That's that's most people's that experience, which is ice restrict myself. And then I lose my freakin mind through a season like we just came through. How many times did I hear from people? You know what? I'm just gonna I'm January 1. I'm gonna be back on the wagon. You'll see. For now, I'm eating this entire tray of parties Chocolates. It's like, Okay, I get it.Andrew Bracewell: The highs and lows of New Year's resolutions. Yeah. So backBarry Ratzlaff: to the story, which is I. I won that contest, got my bag of grapes in my free month, and within six months I was back up to 60 to 70. Within 10 months, I was at 2 80 So I just my body. So your body is a very intelligent machine. It knows exactly what it shouldn't shouldn't do. And when you restrict it in a way that's very aggressive. It is lying and wait just like a tiger to pounce on. You mean metabolically and take you back up that that ladder is faster. They canAndrew Bracewell: because it's been starved. And so now it wants to. It'sBarry Ratzlaff: an evolutionary reality that our bodies are designed not to do that. They're not designed to be restricted like that. They will fight back. They fight back with a vengeance. And when they fight back, they come back in a way that we had. You think you feel good again like Oh, yeah, this is fantastic. I do love doughnuts and pasta and breads and entire loaves of bread and one sitting.Andrew Bracewell: This is fantastic.Barry Ratzlaff: But you don't realize within a very short period of time you put on 2030 £40 I'm back to where I started. So I was back to where it started and a little more right and that you hear that story again and again. So I gained all the weight back and a little extra because your body is defending itself. It's just doing what supposed to do. So then I was reading. That year was 98 United States had the body for life conscious back then was called body of work. Bill Phillips, his brother Shawn Phillips. They put this out? Yes. Um, experimental Applied Sciences had this contest out and I was looking through magazines. Saw the article. I went, Ah, I want to do it so bad. But I can't. It's only American citizens because he was giving away a Lamborghini. Oh, so it was only us start $250,000 car and it was this incredible thing. And if you've gotten, if you want, you got to be part of a movie. He was making a movie called Body of Work and he flew Flee down too. Colorado. And it was just crazy. So I wanted to do that, But it wasn't available to Canadians. So the next year 99 I hear from my gym manager a Did you hear that body body for body of work is now available to Canadian soon a Canadian version and I went okay. It is game on, but I didn't have the knowledge to do it, so I thought, OK, on. I've been down to 2 15 before. I'm gonna go hard again So for about two weeks, I started doing the same process. Restrictive nutrition and exercise up the ying yang just overkill. Just cardio, cardio, cardio and, you know, lifting weights and just just not really knowing exactly how it all works. But just throwing as much as I could against my body to see what I couldAndrew Bracewell: publish. Were you in competition like you started immediately in competitionBarry Ratzlaff: as soon as they were playing around with your body to see what you don't know, I wanted to jump right in because all you had to do was take a picture with him with a newspaper. Young people familiar with thisAndrew Bracewell: back in the day. That's what youBarry Ratzlaff: did. You did. You see, it's time stamped. Yeah, and ah, And long as it was a three month window, you could you just start and finish?Andrew Bracewell: It was a body mass index. Was it or was a fat loss, orBarry Ratzlaff: what were they preferred that you do scale weight and body mass index and you send that in and then they would be able to judge from your photos if you were telling the truth or not. If you were just trying to take them for a ride. And so I started, and I realized two weeks in. This is not going well, like I'm not gonna I really want to win this because for me, as a youth pastor, the prize was $10,000 plus a trip to Maui. Let's two year sponsorship.Andrew Bracewell: It's like 35% of your years withBarry Ratzlaff: $3000 ring and a $5000 your package. It was crazy was about $35,000 worth of stuff all together, which for a youth passed.Andrew Bracewell: That's a year. So I'm like, My God, I haveBarry Ratzlaff: to win this! And in my brain, you said you can't win. But my brains always been the kind of Brandon goes. Course I can. I just have to figure this out. So I decided I went around to local gyms, and there's only a few of the time V. R. C. There was Cedar Park Fitness Center, which was Gators after the fact. And then there was, you know,Andrew Bracewell: there are worlds andBarry Ratzlaff: there was, but this world's was long gone, you know? Where the Savoy? Yeah, the world's Jim. Yeah, And what they rose Gold's gym actually, that's right. Yes. Yeah. I was a member of their little while.Andrew Bracewell: That was the real monkey cage.Barry Ratzlaff: It was Don Schultz said that place. And it was Yeah, it was like the guys who consider themselves real lifters. There's chocolate replacing the raps and everything. Like Ruin was grunting and yeah, just a testosterone house, which I kind of like, but they didn't last. They didn't Didn't make money. So So I went around to the gyms that were in the area, and I walked in the gym and I'd look around. I'd pay, though, drop in fee. And I just look and go. Who here is amazing? Like, who looks fantastic. And I pick him up and I'd wait from the finish, their work out. I don't interrupt your workout, and I'd sit by the front door if they had a juice party. But wait there. And I asked him, Can I? And I ask you a few questions and buy you a drink, and they're like, Yeah, for sure. They'd sit down, and so I just asked them. So how did you do this? You look amazing. Like what? What's your routine? What's your nutrition and they'd start telling me they they didn't. Back then, no one was guarding secrets and there was no personal trainers in town.Andrew Bracewell: And no one's asking people those questions back then. Either know today you'd probably get a bit of a guarded response because everybody's doing it. No one wants to reveal, soBarry Ratzlaff: you'd get a little bit of a reference to a website or to an instagram account. Or sure, Do you think this guy's June or I'm doing F 45 Mark Wahlberg?Andrew Bracewell: It is my peach plan. Back off. Yeah, SoBarry Ratzlaff: I saw Mark Wahlberg humping of 45 today. And as soon as I saw him pumping, I said, He's an investor. Oh, and then I saw Yesterday another one comes up on my instagram Gap. Mark Wahlberg, investor and going for investors. Sure, that's last flogging that thing likeAndrew Bracewell: a naked dolphin anyway. But did you know that all dolphins turn? You've never seen that? It's quite the sight. Do you swing it by the tail of the head? How do you do that? Well, we can show you later. That's a live demo. Gonna get letters about cruelty to dolphin. Yeah, keep going very just going.Barry Ratzlaff: I love the dolphins. Love the war when Dan Marino was at the helm, That's okay. So I went to three or four places, talk to three or four guys that I thought were in incredible shape. And then I had one guy in my in my gym Gators Jim. Brian Wong was his name. He was this this Ah, Asian bodybuilder guy. And he was just freaking out A real like, chiseled and just huge. And every time I saw him, I went has got the craziest body like it's crazy. So I talked to him and he kind of laid it out for me. Okay, Okay. All right. And I kind of put it together, But I still was defaulting to my old habits. I couldn't help it. It's like No, no wisdom dictates. Restrict your calories, do lots of activity. That's how it works. So I kept going down that path, starving your body water, working right, So not taking into account any of the clerk balances and intake and, you know, it was crazy. So I didn't remember this date. This changed my life. In essence, this is what set me on a new path of a new career I worked out. It was probably three weeks into the process, and I worked out worked up the way I always do, just also the wall prank, that just sweating till I was dizzy. I could hardly stand up, had no energy, left my body and I went to the juice bar. They're Gators. Jim and I sat down and Brian was there. He had been watching me work out, and he talked to me earlier a couple weeks earlier or a week earlier. And he's so he sat beside me. He goes, Hey, very you're doing the, ah, the body of work contest, right? That's it. Yeah. Hey, guys, how's it going? Said I think I'm doing pretty good, but I don't totally know. I feel just dizzy all the time and weird, and I've told the story many times and the Gators gym at that time. They sold these oatmeal cookies that were literally the size of a dinner plate, like they were huge, probably 800 calorie cookie. He reaches across and he holds it up to the owner, says, Put it on. My tab passes to me and he goes eat that. I said, You're kiddingAndrew Bracewell: me. I can't eat that. He goes. How manyBarry Ratzlaff: calories do you think he just burned in your workout? I watched you. I said, I don't know. He goes. You're probably 800 to 1000 The way you train. I want 1/2 Crazy said, Eat that. You gotta start feeding this system the system and I want. Really? So I ate the cookie, sat there. He made me eat it, didn't give me any pause, ate the cookie and went home feeling just wow. Amazing. Then I started understand all the things that I'd learn from these people that I talk to you, that there's a system that your body wants to subscribe to it and it works. And you can gain muscle and lose fat at the same time. People always say you can't do it. Same time I did. No steroids, no major products. I gained almost £20 of muscle and lost £50 of fat in a 14 week period. It was insane. I was being accused by guys. Watch me going. You're on juice, man. Oh, yeah. He's old juiced up here. I'm talking about me behind my back. Well, he's old. You still man, like No, not eating like a savage and training intelligently.Andrew Bracewell: Wow. So that was the beginning of your health. Fitness journey career. You eventually dropped the pastor thing. We don't have to get into the specifics of what you did there. But what year did you all of a sudden say Okay, Barry, Rats laugh, and it should be noted. Janet does this with you. Your wife? Janet. When did you say we are fitness trainers or health coaches or whatever? You call yourself a the time. Was that 2001 too?Barry Ratzlaff: S o I received. The prize is beginning of 2000. And as soon as I got home from Hawaii, they had a publication in the Muscle and Fitness magazine or the whatever the GS publication WAAS and Ah, my phone started to ring because they just they allAndrew Bracewell: theBarry Ratzlaff: published was named not phone numbers and stuff and contact info. But I started getting calls from all over the world. I'd be sleeping too. Am I get a phone call from New Zealand?Andrew Bracewell: I might have read your article that somebody like you look fantastic. Sort of. You know, it's It's a different top. There's times where and what time. So I too am a bit sorry, man, I didn't mean to do that. Okay? Can you just give me a few tips? Three chips quickly. OK, I'll tellBarry Ratzlaff: you what I did. And they stood, The phone started ringing, and I started having coffee with guys. And it happened, Maur and more and more. And so, Genesis, you need to start. You're taking a lot of time out of your scheduling. This is operating money. Sure. And I'm a youth pastor. Right? The whole idea is service for nothing. Like your life is worthless. Give it to the Lord and you may or may not get something back. We'll see. We'llAndrew Bracewell: rewards are eternal. They are. When you see the crown that you're gonna get, you'll be so excited. Yeah, but I've never worn a crown. I know, but you're gonna love Oh, my God. I love you so much. You put language to things that are in my head all the time. Just do it so much better than me. Well, there you go. SoBarry Ratzlaff: the phone was ringing. I was going out with people for coffees, and I was basically giving them my system and not charging. And then I started charging little money for it. And the first time I charge somebody, I felt so guilty. I think I charged him 50 bucks for, like, an hour and 1/2 and he just There you go the next time. And did I tried for 100? Yeah. There you go. And then I tried for 1 50 Yeah, absolutely. Totally worth it. You know, like, Okay, this is stupid. I have to I have to get certified as a trainer, so I can do this for real and charge these people for real. And so yeah. So the Jan and I decided we put our heads together, said, Let's just get certified and get her personal train certificates. And we did that. And we kind of launched while I was still a youth pastor. But knowing that things were changing in my life, I've been a youth pastor for a long time, and my energy and will to keep up and contend with kids was was kind of coming to a close, and, ah, and then the church I was part of her. That time had a big shake up in it. You know, the leader wasAndrew Bracewell: kind ofBarry Ratzlaff: going down the signs and wonders trail of kind of kookiness. And I just wanted to get out so bad. And ah, and then all the stars align. I said, You know what? I'm done the Remember the day this is this is gonna off topic, But you gotta edit this out.Andrew Bracewell: We're not in Italy on go. Yeah.Barry Ratzlaff: So I got a phone call I had worked at the at this church that I was in for eight years. I had never had a meeting with an elder. Not once, because I just did what I supposed to do. And I had an amazing youth group, a big team of volunteers. That was awesome. We had a great thing going, so no one ever bug me. They said not Leave him alone. He's doing great. Kids love him. The staff love him. It's great. I got a phone call.Andrew Bracewell: Hey. Yeah, Yeah. Berry. Yeah, this is Dave here. Ah, from the oldest board would load up a coffee with you just to discuss a few things to see howBarry Ratzlaff: your ministries going. His voice is cracking. I'm going. You're such aAndrew Bracewell: piece of shit. You You're just I know exactly.Barry Ratzlaff: I don't know exactly where he's gonna go. I knew that what I was because I had been teaching on a certain thing. Brian McLaren. A new tank. Yeah, that stuff called wind. And they're all offendedAndrew Bracewell: that there is no such thing as a new dime crystal. It's awful. So IBarry Ratzlaff: went to the meeting with the elders with my resignation letter in my pocket, walked into Tim Hortons. There they were, these two guys looking pretty nervous. They thought they'd kind of strong hand me a bit and, you know, saying Can we get you back in line? And And they said they talked about McClaren first they talked niceties. I'm going. Just get through. It just gets through that crash. I want to talk to you about my life. Then they got to the second part, which was likeAndrew Bracewell: so basedBarry Ratzlaff: on what we understand, McClaren and a new Christianity all stuff DoAndrew Bracewell: you think you can still work atBarry Ratzlaff: our church and hold those views? Because we'd love to have you as part of ourAndrew Bracewell: team, but we feel like you're shifting. I said Nope, I can't.Barry Ratzlaff: And I pulled my resignation of plotting the table said, There's my two weeks. Thank you, gentlemen. Enjoy your day. And I walked out and they just sat there with white faces because they didn't want to lose me. But they did. And I thought, this is fantastic. So I walked down the street from the Tim Hortons on the corner of South Frazer waiting. Glad when there and ah, I got about 100 feet past store and walk and feel like a 1,000,000Andrew Bracewell: bucks. I just quit a job. Oh, yes. Oh, God, Like it should be noted at that time in your life. You got young Children, four young Children, four young Children. You're you're not floating in money. No, you're you're living relatively paycheck to paycheck.Barry Ratzlaff: When I ever went to take vacations, a few of my client's razz me about this. I would go to the auctions, and at that time, in the most lucrative thing that I could flip was a mobility scooter, and some might find these mobility scooters at the auction. I'd fix them up putting batteries, and I'd sell them at a big profit so I could take my family on vacation. Would have enough money to do that. That's how he funded my fun stuff with flipping things.Andrew Bracewell: Wow. Yeah. So that's quite the story. I meet you in 2007. And so when I meet you in 2007 you've now been operating in a new way For, what, 45 years, then?Barry Ratzlaff: Yeah, we saw. That was 2001. I finished at the church. 2003 for good. And 2003. We hung basically hunger shingles. Got a website going. I remember the first guy. This is crazy. The first guy that walked through my door to be trained, uh, rob deck. He's a helicopter pilot with with chinook. He sat on my kitchen table. He wrote me a check for the full value of 36 session program the body for life program, and watched him signing this. Check this. I'm like, this is one dude, and he just wrote me a check for $1700. That's what I got paid every two weeks ofAndrew Bracewell: the church. Like this is if I could get like, I'm withBarry Ratzlaff: these guys, I'm I'm going golden and my very first client, Rob Dick. He won the Canadian body for life.Andrew Bracewell: That's so so cool because I had no one you coached. You coached him and doing that? Yeah. Okay,Barry Ratzlaff: now he's just another one.Andrew Bracewell: I knew you had done that. I just didn't know who you would coach. But that's the guy you coached to. Yeah, Okay.Barry Ratzlaff: And I coached on the guy in Chilled like Rob, Best former gym owner of gators. And he won the Canadian body for life. So we actually five champions. You're a little old, Jim.Andrew Bracewell: Not everybody in life gets to experience this, unfortunately, But the thing that you just alluded to that ah ha moment that you can have in life where you get paid fair value for the value that you bring her for your time. Yeah, It's quite a life changing moment to experience that not everybody gets to, but clearly for you, that was significant. And and I have experienced that as well.Barry Ratzlaff: So it was huge, and it's very difficult to accept that. Like, to believe you're worthy of that money. Absolutely. It just doesn't seem right.Andrew Bracewell: Hey, you. You touched on something. Really? I want to circle back to because there's a whole rabbit hole that we can go down. You talked about how, when, in the early part of your journey, your old mind thought, work hard, starve yourself And somewhere along the way, your new mind with your cookie story, and then thereafter learned that work hard and actually give your body a bounty. All right, good nutrition. And that is something. If I could explain that, that's a similar experience I had with you. So when I met you in 2007 and we don't have to get into the all of my story, well, maybe we can if you want, but my old brain thought the same thing. Starvation is nutrition, but that is not the case. So can you just dive into that a little bit and then also speak to the significant transformation, or maybe the ups and downs of the nutrition world in the last 20 years of you, as you've observed it from your chair?Barry Ratzlaff: Yeah, the ah, the value of nutrition cannot be overstated. It's easily 78. 80% of any successful short term and long term program is nutrition. It has to be your body's designed to use fuel in a way that makes sense to it. If it doesn't get what it needs, it's gonna basically shut itself down. It'll it'll turn itself off in and you won't get anywhere. Um, everyone has those experiences of plateaus and in their routines, plateaus, and some of them are normal. Some of them are very, very damaging. So the idea of understanding a your metabolic level like Where's What are you burning at rest in a given day? Well, I'm sitting here talking to you,Andrew Bracewell: which is different for everybody, right?Barry Ratzlaff: It's different for everybody, particularly for folks. So when I get people come to the gym doors that I know how it's called metabolic damage. So they have done dieting. They've done Kato. They've done all these horrific things to themselves and some of them not so horrific. Some of them truly are very, very damaging. They really need a start up there. They're burning, you know, 1500 calories a day when they should be burning 2500 calories aAndrew Bracewell: day because they've trained their body to live on starvation. Their bodies furnace is running at such an incredibly low.Barry Ratzlaff: They haven't trained anything. They've just caused a huge reaction in their system. The bodies is defending itself. It's just going into this retreat mode where it's gonna hold on to any calories it gets rather than burn them off,Andrew Bracewell: right? If you only want to give me 1200 calories, then I will learn how to operate off 12. And I haveBarry Ratzlaff: to, and it happens within 7 to 10 days. So so that's why I'm such a huge proponent of Sai clicked. Cyclist. Nutrition and every user were dieting. It's cycling contrition, so eating up and eating down and knowing where the line is and making sure the eating up enough to keep your metabolism stoked eating down enough that if you're trying to get off some body, thought you could do that, but only in a very short period of time. It's it's really a 5 to 7 day window that you can cycle through before your body begins to catch on. So, like, for instance, body for life, I keep referring to that people. It's funny. Whenever I talk to people body for life, they go,Andrew Bracewell: Oh hey, yeah, I did that program back in the day I'm like and yeah, I got I lost, like, £40 I felt fantastic. And I started stopped doingBarry Ratzlaff: it because of the next thing came out. Whatever it was, South Beach came out. And And Tony, whatever his name is in the PX nine year P 90 X came out. You know, the next thing came out and people think, Oh, all these programs revolving the human species must be evolving. So I have to change with the times like and then, uh, didn't you read the title of the book body for life Like It's for life? This works for life. I've been doing it 20 years. When I first had the this Ah ha moment began eating like this where I was eating 5 to 6 times a day on o'clock, measured amounts knew it was going in. It was going out. I was still working in the church at that time, and I go down to the staff room. I had I bought a blender, brought it in there. I have my own box of shakes there in the cupboard and remember is blending. One day one of the secretaries came in. She goes, she kind of looked at me with this sort of not really disdain, but, like, really, really, that's what you're doing. I know all about diets and she goes, How long can you keepAndrew Bracewell: that up? I said, Honestly, well, would Weight Watchers have been a thing at that time? Yes, like that's I remember Weight Watchers. So maybe her experience with dieting was probably something like that, which is heavy restrictionBarry Ratzlaff: going way back. Like you even reference still ity that that Atkins was 1972 started in 1972. Resurgence in the nineties and all the way through James Fix and his running, you know, his extreme running the guy who ran himself to death and had a heart attack. There was stuff all along the way. That was basically they were potholes for people to have these experiences of restriction, to lose weight and then to realize they couldn't do it. They blame themselves, and the diet industry lies heavily on that, that we will blame ourselves for it not working, and then we'll come back again and try harder next time because, well, I failed last time because I am a failure, not the program was a failure. If the program solid it is, does it is supposed to do? And it it has some degree of longevity built into it. It should work for anybody, really. But that's not how it worksAndrew Bracewell: so well, Call it cyclical dieting that fair. So you've embraced cyclical cyclical dieting for the last 20 year. So years. In that time, you've also now observed all of the fad diets, and you alluded to some of them. Whether it's Atkins, Kato, South Beach, I could probably think of a couple others if I scratch my head. Yeah, Paleo Haley. Oh, yeah, yeah. How has that have you? How have you had to deal with that in terms of your clients and your street conversations? And how has that impacted your business and whatever the parties, you're right where you're sipping cocktails and everyone has an opinion on something.Barry Ratzlaff: Everybody has an opinion because everyone has a body and everyone's a mouth and everyone's a smartphone. Put those together and you gotta just a dynamite box for people to have this knowledge about how you know what works and what doesn't the thing about. So let's let's pick on a current one, and I'm not picking on on purpose. I'm picking on it because I've seen too many bad stories or I seen the stories and poorly too many times. So it's Kato. Now People come to me and say, What do you think about Kato? And the thing I always say first is it works. It works like a hot damn if you're trying to get your body fat reduced. If you don't care about losing muscle mass, you don't care about losing your metabolic potential. If you're just trying to get lighter, you can't get better than kitto. You'll you'll lose fat at a shocking rate. But you'll also lose water, which is a big piece of the puzzle, because when you lose carbohydrates, carbohydrates and water bond in your system toehold in the muscle tissue, so you lose water. You lose a big monument that way. But the payoff at the end, or the payout at the end of that process is always always a nightmare. So two stories Ah guy, I know I won't see the place where he's employed, but I saw him at his place of employment about two years ago, and I saw him. And he's normally about £340 for here and £30. And he was maybe 200. I was like, Oh, my goodness. What have you done? He goes a I know, right? Look at this. Crazy. He's touching this. Get on his stomach. It's all floppy in loose and thinking. Maybe he has to have some surgery on that. And I said, So what you do. And he goes, I did. Kato got in a Keogh plan and just dropped 100. And whatever was £140. I'm like, Dude, you look amazing. Like you're You look amazing. And so then I inserted my caveat, which is No, I'm proud of you. Amazing job. Can I ask you a question? Yes. Is this sustainable? Can you do this for the rest of your life? He goes, I don't know if I can eat whole cream and bacon for breakfast every day. And avocados and and steak fat like like I know, I know. So I'm asking you, can you just forever. No, I can't. It's okay. I said, Are you thinking of transitioning into Ah, balanced lifestyle, Ingles? Yes, I am. I said king. Promise me this that you will phone me when the time comes and we can have a discussion. And I can help you set up a plan to get this thing done right? Because I will. I will. I said I won't charge you. I am so vested in this that I want to give this to you as a gift of Don't. Don't do this, man. Don't go down that road. I've seen it too many times. She goes okay. I will. I will. We lost touch. I didn't see him. He got transferred that story to another store. And ah, about a year later, he was then transferred back to the store and I saw him and I went Oh, my goodness. He was 3 50 I saw him and I I walked up and said, Hey, how's it going, man? He goes, Hey, and you could see the look of shame and defeat in his eyes because I hadn't changed at all over that year. But he had put on 100 and £50 and ah, hey, just he was a defeated human being and the chance of him being able to recover from that and get the weight down in a healthy way. Extremely, extremely low possibility ofAndrew Bracewell: that. So I would suggest from my anecdotal experience, which is not as vast as yours but as I've observed many of these bad diets from the sideline, I fortunately, you know, met you years ago when I did and embraced. What I would say is the right long term, holistic, healthy way of tackling the conversation of health and fitness. But what I've seen in the others is that the focus is weight loss predominantly without having to put work in in the gym. Is that a fair statement of a lot of those? Because my experience has been tackled the nutrition piece. But then along with the nutrition piece, is you gotta work your ass off in the gym. And if you're not willing to work your ass off in the gym than long term, it's not sustainable because our bodies are meant to move and work and anything that says you don't have to move and work is a trick that that's my own. Is that fair?Barry Ratzlaff: Absolutely early. Atkins early Kato. Others variations of Kitano called dirty heat or psych like Ito, where people are trying to make it a process where you could do this for life and you can incorporate exercise extreme exercise. And you can break muscle tissue down like we do in the gym and have it rebuild because carbohydrates are a fairly essential process part of that process. Um, yeah, that's a very fair statement to make.Andrew Bracewell: So where I go with this in my brain is that I look at the evolution of, you know, mankind and I think Okay, so let's go back 405 100,000 years ago, whatever we did not have to work to move in, that our body movement and physical activity came as a byproduct of what had to happen. Every day we were connected to the Earth. We had to work the ground, you know, work, work, the livestock. I mean, just to live and eat required physical exertion. And then we go through this metamorphosis evolutionary experience in life, and today we don't have to move. You and I could sit here on a chair in a lethargic state and be just fine with computers and smartphones and whatever else we want to add to that so I find, because of my own health experience and the fact that I was obese at a point time. My life. I find myself having these conversations now with our Children who are growing up in an even more lethargic state than I grew up in. And it's interesting because I don't think working out is a natural thing. I don't think a human just wakes up one day and says, I want to go push. Wait, So I'm gonna go for a run so we maybe have toe work. We have to convince ourselves that we need to do this because of the lethargic state that were in there were naturally living. And I'm having this conversation with my Children and they're even fighting me on it. But my fear is that if we don't train ourselves early that we need to do this, then you know we end up in a place that we don't want to be in. It's just Ah, this is a convo that were in every day, and I think we're here because of where we've come evolutionary on evolution basis.Barry Ratzlaff: Oh yeah, and I mean there's in the last 30 40 years There's been a huge movement in the school system to move away from physical activity as legislated. So my son was here for Christmas, and he's a personal trainer, Victoria. He was reading a book called Spark, and he was very excited about it. He was telling me a little excerpt from it. Basically, it's based on a gentleman's research down in Idaho where it's I think it's Idaho. It's the only state that has legislated physical activity in the states. Still, most of them moved away. They've cut those programs, so they've gotten rid of art. They've got rid of music, and they got rid of a visit. This guy was really interesting to visit because the neurotrophic value of exercise. So in this little enclave in Idaho, where these students air forced to forced to exercise their grades, are off the charts better in some of their math scores than Stan. Chinese schools, like these kids are killing it, and they're discovering that what happens to the brain when it's forced to B e, the bodies used in a way that you know, resistance training, intense exercise. It's the only way you can create these. These neural pathways in these chemicals, your endorphins in your serotonin and all these good things. They're supposed to be part of who we are, and they really helped build the brain in a functional way, an i Q way. And so there were just We've moved away from very, very valuable pieces of who we are as human beings, thinking they were not straws we don't need that would get the car and driver were going. Who wants to walk, well, well, ourselves around the mall, there's escalators. Take us up on the flights of stairs. There's all these things not knowing that we're shooting ourselves in the foot literally, um, physically. And we need to get back to the basics of why it's important for all this work to happen for our bodies. Fascinating for sure.Andrew Bracewell: You have a unique chair that you sit in in what in your vocation and what you do on the way, I'll do my best to describe it, and you can tell me if I've done a good job of it a little happy Speak to it. But my observation of you is that the majority of your clients are high level achievers in their varying areas of profession. And these people sit with you 34 times week for an hour or more, and you get to dialogue with them. And I've often thought that is fascinating that six, maybe five days, a week, eight hours a day or more. You're with high level achieving humans who have chosen to put their fitness and health versus a priority. What is that? What is that like to be in that environment 24 7 IBarry Ratzlaff: would say it's ah, it's encouraging in a in a weird way. You think? Oh, man, you're on these people, these these these humans, they're they're worth hundreds of millions of dollars and they're out there pulling strings. You know, in the real world that they're in control of some really cool stuff and they walked through my door and the door closes and agent, I just see the relief would go across your face there like a They're in a safe place, a place where they could be themselves. They can tell me what's going on inside of themselves because they know I have, ah, counseling pastoral history. And that piece of me didn't die like I still have a passion for understanding, helping and loving human beings in a way that gets them to a new place.Andrew Bracewell: That's the Lord Berry. I know the spirit of peace is in my hut. Gonna touch you in a way you have imagined. Okay, E i e I know it doesn't take much to get you off theBarry Ratzlaff: tangents air their attention there. So these guys come through the door and it's I just trained guys. I do train. Currently, I have one female, which is your wife, and you come together as a couple, but mostly guys and they come in andAndrew Bracewell: they should be noted. Your wife trainsBarry Ratzlaff: My wife trains the ladies? Yes, she works with ladies. Shay works, but the lady isn't at work with the gentleman.Andrew Bracewell: It seems to be the best system we could very old fashioned. Arranged.Barry Ratzlaff: It is. It is. Yeah. Yeah, it just saves us from from issues. Sure, Yeah, yeah. From issues that could be life altering. So we don't want to go down those paths. So they come through the door and the it's it's fantastic because they get to be riel. They love this. The pieces of it that I find very curious. They love me, telling them what to do because in their lives no one tells them what to do. They make the rules. If they can't make the rule, they'll buy a new rule like it's it's pretty cool. So they walk through the door and they kind of go, OK, Dad, what are you doingAndrew Bracewell: today like All right, here we go.Barry Ratzlaff: And off we go on our little journey or fitness journey. But it's way more than a fitness journey for these guys. It's always way more there. Is there so much more? In terms of the they need a place where they can be themselves. They need a place like cheers where everyone knows your name. Or at least one guy knows your name, your true name. And ah, we'll hear you out. You could tell me stuff thatAndrew Bracewell: you get it all right. Like you're you're in the therapist here Stuff? Yeah,Barry Ratzlaff: but every month I hear someone say I not even my wife knows this. Sure,Andrew Bracewell: but except me, honey, I don't talk to bury that way on DDE.Barry Ratzlaff: I'm totally good with it, like and I'd have no no needs toe feel like Oh, yeah, this is great. Having this insider information, it's like, No, it's like you're what you're telling me is in the vault and to guess what, We're all the same. And that's not a piece that makes me feel really good when these guys air coming up. Now what that way is that we are all the same. We all walk the same earth and we have the same issues. It doesn't matter if you have $100 million or $100 you face the same shit and it's how you deal with it that counts. Right now, these guys deal with things very differently. Their minds. So this is This is a note I made earlier in coming into. This is when I see and I was talking to one of my clients essay about this very factor, which is when someone walks through the door of the gym and I can usually tell how they're gonna react to pain. The way a person's pain response is is often how they'll function in life and most Taipei's. When you give them pain, it's sparked something in them. It doesn't shut them down. Most people get pain. They're like,Andrew Bracewell: Oh, that hurts. That hurts that IBarry Ratzlaff: I don't want to do that. That's that's uncomfortable, but a type A or like a really achiever. They feel pain, and it actually sparks curiosity.Andrew Bracewell: Yeah, I don't I don't even not toe push back on your comment. But I think it would be unfair to say Taipei's because there's there's people, maybe who aren't Taipei's who are high achievers. Yeah, I put that you agree not to pick what you're saying, but I know what I know. The spirit of what you're trying to say. People who are capable of a lot respond differently than those that are not. Is that it or not? Yeah, yeah,Barry Ratzlaff: I've had clients that that one is specific. Who every time I put a weight in his hand and he would do a rap as the way it was coming up, he was literally be saying outAndrew Bracewell: loud, out, out, out, out, out, out, and doesn't go down. Oh, out, out!Barry Ratzlaff: And he lasted two weeks and quit because for obvious reasons, yeah, versus a guy who I'll say, OK, this set is 10 wraps. He'll look at me and I like a challenge like 10. I'm giving you 12 and off he goes and he'll get his 12 like it just doesn't matter what number give. It's always more always moreAndrew Bracewell: the pattern in these people's lives just manifesting itself in the It is in the weight room.Barry Ratzlaff: Now on the inverse someone who has had not much success in life, who gets their physical self under control. They begin to see a spill over into all of their life. I heard it again and again and again like I don't know what's happening. But as I'm getting in better shape, I'm way more productive at work. Things were going so much better. My relationship with my wife, my family, is getting better like what's happening to me like it's like your body's doing what's designed to do, the chemicals air flowing. It'sAndrew Bracewell: well, I I'll, so I'll share a piece of my story with you. But I mean, I So I encountered you twice, encountered you first in 2000 and seven, and the things that I learned with you in that moment, I didn't stick with it. And, you know, we were with each other for maybe a year and I went away and I continued in some unhealthy living. But I came back to you in 2012 and the transformation I went through in 2012 I think at my highest I was £235. I was over 30% body fat. I was, by definition I was obese and I was 29 years old and I have been told I was pre diabetic from a doctor who scared the living shit out of me and thank God that he did, because had he not I probably I had this false confidence in my brain. Even though I wasn't amazing, I still thought I was amazing. I still have that to this day. Really. But in that moment I was like a soft bowl of pudding, and I probably thought like I was a middle linebacker, you know? But I needed to have the shit scared out of me. I did came back in 2012 point of the story being the transformation I went through with you in that let's say 6 to 12 month period in that second time back, and I've been with you ever since. But through the fall of 12 the first half of 13 I remember I went from £235 down to 182. I got my body fat index below 10%. I'm not living at that level today, but I went there and it changed my life. It so for me there was, you know, something that occurred in the gym spilled over into into the rest of my life. In the my family health, the health of my career, the way I engaged with humans, just my overall well being mental well being actually snapped in that, you know, in that space that we had together in the gym,Barry Ratzlaff: it's powerful. I mean, the rock calls it his anchor, right? The gym is his anchor. People think it's because he's he loves weightlifting or is addicted to it. Or, you know, he's a huge, muscular guy. But with that guy scheduled the things that he does on a daily basis, the anchor is it gives him his mental stability. It gives him the ability to do all the things he does, comes from his resistance training. Yeah, there's no mystery there and the world is starting to wake up to it. It's taken a while. Like when I first started lifting. That was 13 of 30 years old. When he first got into training, it was still an underground thing. People looked at kind of scoffed at it. Remember talking to people, body for life. And they say, Do I have to do the weight part? Like the weightlifting part?Andrew Bracewell: That's kind of gross. What other partisans? Yeah, I don't want to do cardioBarry Ratzlaff: kind to cardio new body for life. You have to modify it for you. It's not really gonna give you what you want, but okay. But now people are starting to to come awake to it. And unfortunately, as humans always do, they've gone just far, far too extreme with it. Power lifting was never meant to be competitive in the sense of repetition wise, it's Yeah. I want to go there right now because it gets me going real hot when I start thinking about those things. Yeah. WeAndrew Bracewell: don't wanna get you angry, Berry. No, no, no, no. So I had a conversation with somebody else. We're not gonna say names, but somebody else who's a client two years. We're discussing the fact that you were gonna be on the show. We both, you know, admire and love you and the conclusion. So the question we asked herself were like, Well, what? What makes very different wise, Very amazing, Because there's, you know, there's a 1,000,000 trainers in the world. Everybody's a trainer. I mean, you must feel like that in your industry. Literally. Everybody's a trainerBarry Ratzlaff: we started with. There was none in Abbotsford. We're the first ones. People saying Can you actually make a living doing that? IAndrew Bracewell: said, I don't know. I don't know.Barry Ratzlaff: So it worked. But now it's Yeah, everyone's got a personal train certificateAndrew Bracewell: I've got. I've got up European Swiss ball in my basement and I've got padding and I've got dumbbells that range from £3 all the way to £14 I'm gonna get in the best shape of your life. There's people are gonna listen This they're actually gonna feel conviction. Thio Shit. He's talking about me. I might be Oh, and keep doing what you're doing. Cut the air. Beautiful. Just the way. So here's the Here's the conclusion we came to as to why Why is very rats off? Amazing. Why is he not just one of the others? And it was this. You have all the knowledge you have, the physical knowledge nailed. So when it comes to how to lift weights, how to train, how to grow muscle, you know, you know that you know the body very, very well. You also have the nutrition piece absolutely hammered. And the evidence is in the 20 years of proof of successful clients and people who have made significant changes to their body. But more so than any of those two things, it's very obvious that you care the most about the mind. And I don't know if this is something. You just woke up one day and said, I need to care for the human mind more than you know. I don't know what the conversation is. I don't even know if you've ever thought of this or would agree with it. But I would suggest that when somebody trains with you, their brain is as important to you as anything else. What do you What do you think about that?Barry Ratzlaff: Absolutely. I mean, the first thing was, someone walks to the door they're not, Ah, a client in the sense of a person I make money from. I don't even Janet when for the 1st 3 or four years she had to force me to ask for money because I wasn't I didn't care. I get it. We have to pay bills. But I I was so excited to work with people one on one in a sincere it was almost a pastor or a relationship without the religious crap. It was human, really into human. Let's let's just sort of put our minds together and see what we come up come up with here and ah, so yeah, I I really love it. And when I get a client coming through who's not really willing to open on that level, it's kind of disappointing, Like I realized pretty quick on this person. They don't want to go deep. They just want to get their workout in, and often that relationship won't last that long, but fromAndrew Bracewell: because you only have so much time. You don't want to give your time to somebody who's not. It was not all fully engagedBarry Ratzlaff: now, and because we are holistic beings, the mind, the body the spirit, whatever that may be, our completely connected. And so we can't pretend that just lifting weights is gonna make me a healthy human. It's like, absolutely not like your brain is 80% of the equation. If your brain's messed up and it's thinking like some really bad shit about who you are, how you function amongst people boat your relationship with your wife for your kids or whatever, you're not gonna be healthy. That's not health.Andrew Bracewell: And you see that, right? I mean, I can't even say that you've seen that you have to speak about other clients. But in me, let's say there's a direct relation to be in terms of where the person's brain is that and then their physical output. Oh,Barry Ratzlaff: yeah, moments. Yeah, I've seen it in you. When you went through the process over the last year and 1/2 of purchasing the company and the stress load you're carrying, um, the effect it had on you and your wife like put strain on everything and it shows up in how you perform in the gym. And you know what, Jim? Performance as I say the guys all the time. That's secondary just let the weights be the weights every any given Sunday. Give it a week or two. You'll be back up to the weights you're pushing before. Don't sweat it. Do the routine. Get the chemicals flowing. Feel good. This is good. We're doing a good thing here. And then two or three weeks later Oh, I feel fantastic and you're crushing it again. And it's not supposed to be.Andrew Bracewell: Yeah, What's that? You always say this to me. Your cause, your muscles don't know that the weight they don't only whale the resistance. The only No intensity, right, Right, So you could be having a shitty day and whatever doing dumbbells at £70. And you know, you could do nineties or 100 but your your muscles don't know the difference between that. They're under full load and they're maxed out. That's all they know.Barry Ratzlaff: Fibers. They're they're doing that they're doing. They're very, very best for you at that point. And if they're doing their best, that's all they can do. It's your brain. That's the problem. Your brain sees the 60 on the dumbbells or the 80 and you start beating yourself up. What's your problem? look at that. You're a piece of sheer. So weak. Well, you need, sir. Beat yourself up likeAndrew Bracewell: No, don't do that. Like I haveBarry Ratzlaff: days. I tell guys I have days and actually learn this from from Schwarzenegger, cause I remember reading an article way back in the eighties about him and he and he said, Ah, there, days he goes. He's the first proponent that Ah, weightlifting is 80% mental. It's all in the mind. And so he said he'll come to that. He'd come to the gym and he kind of get his warm up, down and get ready in his first sets and realized I'm not here today mentally. And you'd leave. I'm like, What? No, no, no Pushed through. And it started to embrace that idea that Yeah, there's days when I go to the gym when I'm not present, so I'll walk in. I'll do my warm up. Something's not right. My head somewhere else. Go back to the house, live to fight another day. Come back the next day, feel a 1,000,000 bucks and crush it. So but my clients will that prove a can't just showAndrew Bracewell: up like you know what I don'tBarry Ratzlaff: feel so good. I'm gonna go and come back tomorrow, Uh, can't fit you in. But okay,Andrew Bracewell: so if you were to write a memoir or a book, as I alluded to earlier in which he spoken to you, you've spent a lot of time with a lot of high level people in a variety of industries. What would be the theme of that memoir in that? What would be your commentary on? Is there a similar thing that all of these humans do? Or is there a trait where you go? Yeah, they're totally unrelated. Different industries, different professions. But there's this one or two things that are just common. Is that Is that something that exists or no,Barry Ratzlaff: I would say the most pivotal piece and all that would be what they truly believe about themselves or what they truly have embraced about themselves. That someone else has taught them so for, ah, high achiever. For the most part, these people believe a they can do these things. They believe they're worthy of success. Um, when the money comes, they're okay with that. They know how to work with it. They can manage it. And they feel worthy of that. And when it comes to the gym, they kind of think, Yeah, I'm here because you know what you're doing. And if I work with you, this is gonna be fine. We're going to get somewhere vs a mind that's been beaten down. It doesn't believe anything good about itself and sees nothing but negative around itself. And all those things have a way of manifesting too, you know, financial trouble in relational trouble and all down and poured nutritional habits. The all our site Click it so and they'll spiral down in this pool so that you're spiraling up with positive self image or you're splattering down. And so there's one trait these guys would carry and the few women have worked with its Their minds are strong. They have their self image is intact and they believe good things about themselves. Not not cocky, kind of like you're you're just a dick about about yourself, but actually good, positive things that yeah, you're you're a good human, and what you bring to the table is valuable. It's worth something, and you have something to offer. And so they they believe that. And it has a way of manifesting in their life in success.Andrew Bracewell: It never ceases to amaze me how I feel like no matter what the topic in life, everything always boils down to the health of the brain. Oh, absolutely, it's just mind blowing. Absolutely. I think our world has opened up more to that conversation there. We're more aware of it now, so it's getting talked about more. But it's just fascinating to me that you could be talking about something that you think has nothing to do with the brain. And then at the end of the day, just it all boils down. Two to the health of the brain.Barry Ratzlaff: Mental health is it's a burgeoning field. It's crazy to say that because we've had self help books and psychology books around for for 50 years, but it is. It's a burgeoning field, in a sense that people are becoming aware that mental illness. Um, and we used to think mental illnesses like you belong in Riverdale like off to the mental house with you, right? But mental illness has got, you know, so many layers on so many levels, and whatever your level is, it's it's legit. What you're feeling what? The way you're talking to yourself, the voices in your head, the voice of your father in your head, voice of your boss in your head, all conspiring to this sort of ah stew of either positivity or some really, really nasty negativity that old don't have kept your life. It'll make you incapable of doing certain things and achieving certain things.Andrew Bracewell: And it's also possible that you can be feeling really shitty in your brain and down on yourself, and you don't have a mental illness. You're just in a really shitty state. And so what do you What do you say to somebody? Or what would you say to somebody? Because the majority of the world, I think it's not the people that have the healthy self image image right, and they struggle to find their fitness path and have confidence in the gym and eternal life Run. What do you What do you do with that? Like, what's the What's the first thing to try to overcome? If someone's just so they're shit kicking themselves so much in their head that even if they put the right thing in front of them, they're still gonna have a hard time because in their head they're just pieces of shit.Barry Ratzlaff: I think the first action step is get off social media. Stop looking at Instagram pictures of people who have perfect bodies and our purveying these perfect lives because that is such a negative thing for your brain. It's complete horseshit. It iss it's so, so destructive. And I think about our kids, Um, and not just teens. I think about kids. Your your kid's age. Yeah. Who are exposed to this already? Yeah, they're grading themselves from judge themselves against these images and thinking, Well, why don't I look that way? How come I don't have a $1,000,000 I'm 19 years old? You know, like Billy Isla? She's a millionaire and she's 19. Like how come I don't have that? It's so unhealthy. So the first thing I'd say to somebody who's struggling with self image stuff is stopped feeding yourself the negativity and it might come in is positivity like, Oh, this is a This this person has amazing instagram account. You've got all these things going that seems really positive, but you spend it and becomes negative because you're not those things get rid of that stuff. That's that's poison to your brain. Second, find to human beings that you know love and trust and hold on to their evaluation of you. They're the ones that matter so that your mom, your dad, your brother, your sister, your husband, your wife and they've been saying for years.Andrew Bracewell: What are you talking about? You're awesome. I loveBarry Ratzlaff: you. You're perfect. The way you are. Get the other voices out of your head. Hold onto to that. Say you're amazing and hold on to those because that's all accounts we had to pick her life. Who are you? You're you're champions for you. Your cheerleading section, You got everything that's the place to start. And then then once you kind of got your the the the atmosphere around your clear. Now start looking for examples of what you think you could be capable of, Like what I did back in the day when I went gym to gym and said, I want to talk to these guys because they're doing what I want to do. So why would I read a book or try to make it up myself when I could talk to them. They they're doing it right now in front of me. Find people who are doing what you think is, you know, lets your passion and you know that stuff that

Sandra Samoska tells us how she dealt with her dogs having a romantic interlude that went on too long. She is loving her T-shirt that says "Sorry I'm late, I didn't want to come." She shares with a a crazy coincidence and the best advice she's ever been given.  Find Sandra on her blog, Outnumbered by Sandra Samoska. Follow Sandra on her Facebook page, Outnumbered by Sandra Samoska, Instagram @outnumberedbysandrasamoska, and Twitter @outnumbrd4kids. Subscribe to the show so you don't miss a laugh! Follow Fancy Free on Instagram, & Facebook. Request to join the Fancy Free Facebook group and go answer the question of the week!   Transcript: Joanne Jarrett: You are listening to the Fancy Free Podcast, where my girlfriends and I tell our most embarrassing, funny stories so that we all feel less alone in our imperfections. I'm Joanne Jarrett. And today I have with me a new friend that I met through a writer's group I'm a part of on Facebook. Her name is Sandra Samoska and Sandra is a writer, blogger, wife, mom of four, and a doer of all things. So she and I have a lot in common I think. She writes about faith and family and she teaches a women's Bible study and she spends most of her time caring for her little and not so little anymore people. Sandra, thank you so much for joining me on the show today. Sandra Samoska: Oh, absolutely. Thank you for inviting me. Joanne Jarrett: Yeah, so much fun. Well, fill in the blanks. What did I miss about who you are and what you do? Sandra Samoska: I am a stay at home mom. I'm married. I have four children. I met my husband in junior high. Joanne Jarrett: What? Oh. Sandra Samoska: Is that insane, or what? Joanne Jarrett: Yes. Sandra Samoska: We went to high school together and started dating our senior year and then we ended up going to two different colleges but stuck with it, with one another and got married almost 16 years ago now. Before I had kids, I actually did have a life. I was in journalism. I did journalism for a little bit and then after I got married, we moved. I started working at a consulting company for the oil and gas industry, which that's kind of what you do in Houston is oil and gas. And then after I started having children, I decided to stay home with them and luckily I still have a position with that company as a consultant. So I still have my adult time where I can kind of use my brain for something other than kids' schedules. And then I got into writing for fun, not just for work and journalism. Back when my youngest was little, my husband finally said, "You love to write, you should do something." And I did. Joanne Jarrett: As you know, the point of this podcast is to take someone who looks like they have it completely all together from the outside and show our listeners that nobody as this fancy as they look. So we can all feel a little less alone in our imperfections. What not so fancy story do you have for us today? Sandra Samoska: I have a lot of not so fancy stories. It's kind of embarrassing, but there was one that I just, every time I think about it, it makes me laugh out loud and people actually bring it up to me sometimes when we're in casual conversation, which isn't awkward at all. So, we have dogs and I don't know if you have dogs, we're a dog family. Joanne Jarrett: We have one dog, so we have singular dog. Sandra Samoska: Just the one? Oh, I'm so jealous. Joanne Jarrett: Well I decided I might need to get her a dog and then I dog sat for two weeks for another golden doodle and they didn't do anything together. I was like, "She does not need a dog." Sandra Samoska: That's smart. You tested it out first. I love that. It's wisdom. Joanne Jarrett: It was a happy accident. But it worked out for me. So you have multiple dogs. How many and what kinds? Sandra Samoska: Currently we just have two, which is great. When this particular embarrassing thing happened though, we had three, and before that we had had four. So we're slowly moving down to a more manageable, I feel like, number. Right now we have two, they're called black mouth cur, which is a hunting dog. My husband likes to hunt. Unfortunately, he likes to go hunting without his hunting dogs, which makes me a little bit upset because I feel like that's why he got them in the first place. Sandra Samoska: About three years ago we had three dogs. We had the two we had now and one older one that my husband had gotten before we got married. And the older one, her name was Rose, she was about 50 pounds, 15 years old, and she kind of had that, I'm queen of my domain and everything I see attitude, she mostly hated everybody except for my husband. She wasn't mean, but she was just kind of like disdainful, you know? We were all just kind of existing in her space. Joanne Jarrett: Like a cat? Like kind of just, I'm too good for you standoffish? Sandra Samoska: Yeah, very much. Very much like that. But she was like getting old and she had, you know, was partially deaf and arthritis and her legs would go out from under her and we were just like, "It's okay, Rose. Just hang on." You know? So we had her and then we thought that she needed friends and so we got a second dog and his name is Davey and he's a black mouth cur and he is super sweet but very, very deeply stupid. He's just a very dumb dog. But I mean like super sweet. Sandra Samoska: Like he loves us but just not smart. And he was kind of afraid of Rose and he would like slink under the table if she looked at him. So they weren't like friends by any means, but that's okay. We loved Davey. And then we got a third dog and her name is Jill. And Jill, even though that she's the same breed as Davey, she's a lot smaller. So she's only 35 pounds. And my husband assured me when we got her, super awesome, important breed and really amazing. And wouldn't it be wonderful if we could breed her one day, which I was not a fan of, but I was like, okay. But Jill felt like she should be the queen of the house. And even though she was kind of usually content to let Rose be the puppet queen, she kind of ruled from the shadows. Sandra Samoska: So we kind of had this interesting emotional dynamic going on. Now Rose and Davey, the older one and the boy, they were both fixed, because Rose had been a rescue dog and Davey was really too dumb to breed. But Jill was not fixed because my husband and my daughter ganged up on me and they were like, "No, puppies, wouldn't it be wonderful?" And I thought, "No." But okay, so we've kind of let that go. So Jill was not fixed. So Jill goes into heat right? And is like an emotional powder keg. I had no idea this was a thing. But dogs get hormonal too. Joanne Jarrett: Oh, no, really? Uck! I just thought about their period going everywhere. Does that happen too? Sandra Samoska: That happened, and someone suggested some kind of doggy pad and I said, "No, I'm drawing the line. I'm not changing a dog pad, the dog must go outside during this time period." It was ridiculous, like ridiculous. But before the bleeding starts is like this PMS period for dogs. Joanne Jarrett: Right, while they're fertile. Sandra Samoska: Right. Joanne Jarrett: Oh, gosh. Sandra Samoska: And so it made her super cranky, not with people, but she had less tolerance for Rose's shenanigans. Joanne Jarrett: Oh no. Sandra Samoska: So one morning I had gotten two of my older children onto the bus and I was starting to kind of get breakfast for the younger two and my husband's getting ready for work and evidently Rose, the older dog, looked sideways at Jill and Jill decided to take offense and like charged in and jumped on Rose and they start wrestling in the living room and everything. And even though Rose is bigger, she's not as strong and so, fur is flying and my husband comes in and breaks them up and sends Jill outside. And so, we're kind of trying to tend to Rose who, I mean she wasn't seriously injured, but it was a little bit shell-shocked. It was crazy. And we sent Davey, Davey, who's like in love with Jill, we sent him outside. We're like, "Okay, y'all go outside, let us take care of the older dog." Joanne Jarrett: Calm her down, Davey. Sandra Samoska: Right. Calm her down. Like you need to talk her through this because she's having a moment. And so my husband leaves, he really abandoned me on the field, it's how I feel at that moment. But he goes to work because that's what he does. And I'm kind of taking care of the kids and I look out the back window and I see that Davey apparently has gotten excited by the girl on girl fight and he's trying to mount Jill and he doesn't know what to do because he's very dumb and he's like on her back and on her leg and on her face and I don't even know. Joanne Jarrett: Oh, my goodness. Sandra Samoska: And I look out there, and I'm like, "Well, Jill can handle herself. Clearly she knows what she's doing. I'm just going to let that go because I'm not a dating service for dogs. So that is not my job." Joanne Jarrett: I got other things to do. Sandra Samoska: Exactly. So I go and I keep kind of caring for the kids. That's what I do. And a little bit later I kind of hear this weird noise coming from the laundry room, which is where we have a doggy door, that goes into our backyard and we can shut the door into the rest of the house so that the dogs can't come in. And so I hear this weird noise coming from the laundry room and I kind of opened the door and Jill is standing really still with like this weird look on her face right inside the doggy door. And I'm like, "What's going on? Are you okay?" And I get closer and I see Davey standing outside the door and they are attached like through the doggy door, Joanne, and they're attached together. Joanne Jarrett: Oh, no way. How did they even do that? Sandra Samoska: What? Thank you! Right? Joanne Jarrett: Yeah. What are the odds? They have to be infinitesimally small. Sandra Samoska: They're like fused at the inappropriate place, through the doggy door. I was like, "What do I do?" And so, my kids are coming, "Mom, what's happening?" "No, no, stay back. You don't need to see this." And I call my husband and I'm like, "Okay, this seriously, one, this is your fault. Like these dogs are yours. You left me. These are totally your fault. And what do I do with these dogs stuck together? Do I pull them apart? Like I don't want to get in the middle of that." Joanne Jarrett: That's right. There are so many reasons why that could be a bad idea. Sandra Samoska: Right? I don't want to break anything. I don't know. So my husband, who is giggling inappropriately, he's like, "I don't know, call our friend." We have a friend that's a vet. And so I said okay. So I hang up with him and I call my friend's cell phone, who's a vet. And she of course doesn't answer because she has a life. Joanne Jarrett: She's busy being a vet. Sandra Samoska: She's busy working. And so I said, "Okay. So my sister works for a different vet." And so I called my sister's office thinking, "Okay, well maybe I can get some help over there." And luckily a doctor actually answers, which what are the odds, right? Usually the doctors don't answer the phone. Joanne Jarrett: Man, that was lucky. Sandra Samoska: But he answered and I didn't know him. But he's like, "Okay, what can I help you with?" And I said, "Okay, well, so my dogs are kind of stuck together. Their bottoms won't come apart." And I'm thinking, "Please for the love do not make me use the word dog penis in this conversation. Don't." Joanne Jarrett: Did you feel like you had to reassure him first, "This Is not a prank phone call." I really literally need help with this. I'll send you a picture if you need photographic evidence. Sandra Samoska: I'm like, "I don't know what to do and I have this problem and they are stuck." And he's like, "Oh, okay. Well, how long have they been stuck together?" I'm like, "I mean, I don't know. Like a few minutes maybe. I don't know." And I'm thinking like my whole life really. Joanne Jarrett: Less than an hour, more than 30 seconds. Sandra Samoska: Okay, I've been staring at this atrocity forever now. I don't know how long. And he said, "Okay, well, they should probably separate on their own in a minute or two, but hold on, let me check something." And he kind of, I don't know, Google search, ask a friend. I'm not sure what he does. Joanne Jarrett: Uh-huh. Whipped out the textbook. Sandra Samoska: He says, "Well, unfortunately it could take an hour or two. And I'm like, "Okay, what?" Joanne Jarrett: What? Are you kidding me? Jill is like, "I cannot do this for an hour." Sandra Samoska: I know, like the look on her face. I just, I was like, "I'm sorry, baby, I don't know what to do for you." So the doctor said, "Well, just leave them alone." Joanne Jarrett: Did you happen to peek around at Davey? I want to know what Davey looked like. Was he smashed up against the house? Like, I can picture his jowls like smashed up along the wall of the outside of the house. Sandra Samoska: He'd like twisted his body somehow so that he was still like one leg up, you know, because he was inserted and the rest of him was like sideways. Joanne Jarrett: Okay. Neither of them are going to be able to walk for a week. Sandra Samoska: I was like, "You know, that's not comfortable." And I'm not about to shove Jill out the doggy door. I mean, I don't know. Joanne Jarrett: She's somewhat in the safety zone. You don't want to throw her back out to the wolves. Sandra Samoska: Right. She's like, "Get me away!'. So the doctor says, "Okay, well, just leave them alone and they'll come apart when they can." Like this is a thing. Like they just like get stuck like this. I'm on the phone, and I said, "Okay, well so it turns out that they're stuck together through the doggy door." Silence. There's silence on the other end of the line and the doctor's like, "So, they're tied together through the doggy door?" I was like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. So one is on the inside of the door and the other one is on the outside of the door." And I'm pretty sure he put me on mute, because it was like dead air, nothing, nothing. Joanne Jarrett: I'm crying. Sandra Samoska: I mean, Joanne, the kids are coming in, "Mom, what's Jill doing?" I'm like, "Stay back, stay back." And I'm listening to this dead air. Joanne Jarrett: I am not ready to have the birds and the bees conversation with you guys right now. Sandra Samoska: Right! And the doctor comes back and I kid you not. He says, "Okay, first you need to take a picture. Because, that's hilarious." Joanne Jarrett: You're like, "Oh yeah, veterinarians are humans too." Sandra Samoska: Oh my gosh. So then he's like, "There's nothing you can do just that's all. That's all I have for you." And we hang up. And like 20 minutes later my sister calls and she's like, "Oh yeah, the whole office is laughing at you right now. Right this minute. Our whole entire ... the doctor got off the phone with you and was like, 'Let me tell you what's happening.'" Joanne Jarrett: Productivity has come to a screeching halt while we laugh about what's going on in Sandra's home right now. Sandra Samoska: It's true! And then they called their sister clinic, where my friend works and I get a phone call from my friend, the vet, saying, "Hey, I heard you had an eventful morning." Joanne Jarrett: So now the veterinarian's offices are calling each other. Sandra Samoska: They are. They're just like, "let me tell you about what happened." And they're all, "Did you get a picture?" I'm like, "No, pervert. I did not take a picture." Joanne Jarrett: You're like, "Must she lose all of her dignity in one day?" Sandra Samoska: Oh my gosh. I feel like that would be like doggy porn. Like, I don't know. There's probably some kind of watch dog out there for that. Joanne Jarrett: Apparently that's where you draw the line. Sandra Samoska: It was fantastic. Joanne Jarrett: Oh my gosh, I have to blow my nose. I'm a mess over here. Oh, that's so hilarious. So how much longer did it take before they separated? Sandra Samoska: They got separate really not too much longer, and then she kind of went and took a nap and I'm pretty sure Davey went and found a beer. I'm pretty sure he had to go find a beer. Joanne Jarrett: And a cigarette. Oh my gosh. Sandra Samoska: Amazing. Joanne Jarrett: Wow. That is awesome and hilarious. I love, I love that the veterinarian's offices were calling each other like, "You guys will never believe this. This will surely make your day." Sandra Samoska: Right? Joanne Jarrett: So there's some kind of anatomy issue where there's a ... thank God that doesn't happen to humans where there's a ... what the heck? I mean, I'm a physician, so I'm like, I thought I was pretty up on anatomy. Although I did have to look up dog anatomy when I wasn't sure if my dog had a vaginal infection or a bladder infection and it turns out they pee through their vagina. Did you know that? I'm like, what? Sandra Samoska: I did not. Joanne Jarrett: Well, I mean, I Googled it, so I could be wrong. If you're a veterinarian out there, and I'm wrong, email me. But I was like, that seems like an odd design. I mean, I guess I understand why they would... Getting stuck together ensures a more effective transfer of genetic material. You know? Sandra Samoska: Seems like an odd design to me, but I'm not in charge. Joanne Jarrett: Yeah, we're not in charge. Thank goodness. I don't want to be in charge. Especially of stuff like that. Oh, that's so amazing. I love it so much. Poor Jill. Sandra Samoska: Poor Jill, poor me. Joanne Jarrett: So how was their relationship after that? I'm wondering, you said Jill was pretty smart, so she probably knew it was Davey back there. Sandra Samoska: Yeah, they're fine. We got her fixed shortly thereafter, because I said, "I'm going to have to draw a line here. This cannot happen again." Joanne Jarrett: We can't keep getting these two clowns stuck together. Sandra Samoska: This is not what I signed up for when I decided to stay home with my children. This was not in the job description. I'm done with this. Joanne Jarrett: Yeah. Sandra Samoska: So now they coexist very peacefully. Joanne Jarrett: I wonder if Jill have nightmares about it. Davey's like, "Why do I love looking at the back of the house so much? What is going on with my brain?" Sandra Samoska: Well, now she'll sit in the laundry room with her head out the doggy door and block Davey from coming inside because he still slightly scared of her. She sticks her head out and is like, "No." Joanne Jarrett: She is a smart dog. She's like, "I am not going to be caught unawares with my bottom anywhere near that doggy door ever again. In fact, you have to give me the password before I let you in here." Sandra Samoska: Oh gosh. Joanne Jarrett: That is great. I love it. Oh gosh. Yeah. So many things. So many things in parenthood and domestic life are like, I could say I look at my husband probably every week and go, "This is not something I signed up for." I really, the things that happen, but I think that one takes the cake. So now, every time I think I didn't sign up for this, I'll just think about you trying to figure out what to do with your poor dogs through the wall of the house. Sandra Samoska: At least I'm not having to explain to my children about the dogs and their reproductive system. Joanne Jarrett: Okay. So now that we're talking about reproductive systems, you have another sort of reproductive system related story regarding Sunday school teachers. Can you tell me about that? Sandra Samoska: Oh my gosh. Okay. So we go to this church and we love it there. My husband's gone there since he was a child and my in-laws go there. And so it's wonderful. We love it. But when my oldest daughter, when she was, I'm guessing maybe two or so, we had her in Sunday school, so she would go to Sunday school while we were in service. And one day I went to go pick her up from Sunday school and the teacher, she's like, "I need to talk to you." I said, "Okay." And so she kind of steps out of the classroom away from all the other children- Joanne Jarrett: Don't you hate hearing that? It's like, "Oh no." Sandra Samoska: Worst nightmare, right. You know something horrible happened. And she said, "So your daughter was talking about this show she watches with the crack brothers and she said they had power dicks." Wait, what? The what? And she said, "You know the crack brothers with power dicks?" No, no, no, no, no. And she said, "Oh yes, that's what she said." And the little boy next to her, when the teacher tried to say, "Oh no, I'm sure that's not what they're called." The little boy next to her said, "Oh yeah, dicks, you know dicks." So she's looking at me and like what are you showing your children, you crazy woman? And I was like, "No, it's on PBS. It's educational." And she's like, "What?" "No, no. So do you know the Kratt brothers, the Wild Kratts, it's a show about animals and kids and they have power discs, discs." And she's just looking at me. It's on PBS. I promise. Joanne Jarrett: That reminds me of one time I took my oldest daughter was, I think she was right around two years old, because my youngest daughter was still in a baby bucket and they're 22 months apart. I took her to the story time at the library and the librarian was reading this about a duck and she said, "Can any of you children think of a word that rhymes with duck?" And so my total extrovert, verbal, engaged two year old yells the F word out at the top of her lungs. And I'm like, it's crickets, total silence. The librarian looks at me like, "Oh my mistake." And then she just kept on reading and I was like, "Okay, how do I play this?" Because, my daughter does not hear that word at home, but probably some people in there are thinking, "Well, of course she hears that word at home." I was like, "No, she's just a really smart little girl and she picked a consonant out of the air, right?" Sandra Samoska: A consonant, yes, oh my God. Joanne Jarrett: I was like, "If I gather my kids up and run out of here, then they're going to really think that we are doing some crazy shenanigans at home. So I'm just going to sit here and try to recover my dignity." But I never went back to story time again. That was it, first and last time. Sandra Samoska: I mean, no, you're labeled, they put your picture on the wall. Joanne Jarrett: I like those don't accept a check from this woman. Do not allow this woman or her child to come to story time. Oh Lord have mercy. This is my 20th podcast interview I think. And you're the first person who's ever made me cry. Sandra Samoska: I'm so glad to hear it. Joanne Jarrett: My nose is just like dripping. And one of the reasons why I love to tell embarrassing stories to other people is because when people tell me their embarrassing stories, then it's like I keep it as a gem in the back of my head and it'll come back to me at random times and I'll just start laughing out loud and my kids know this about me. So they're like, "Which one are you laughing about now, Mom?" Jill and Davey are forever going to live in the little funny story area of my brain to be surfaced at random times throughout the rest of my life. Sandra Samoska: I'm so glad to hear it. Joanne Jarrett: Yeah. So you've given me a great gift. Joanne Jarrett: Okay well now that I've recovered my composure somewhat and I'm breathing normally again, what have you been loving lately that you think the listeners would love too? Sandra Samoska: My very favorite thing that I own right now, this is a silly thing, it's not really serious, but my husband bought me a T-shirt and it says, "I'm sorry I'm late. I didn't want to come." And he bought it for me because I'm slightly introverted. And for the most part, I prefer to be at my home. I have to go places all the time because I'm one of those people that volunteer for a lot of things and just I'm always going and doing things. And so it's coming so handy because I wear it all the time. Joanne Jarrett: Yeah. Well I think you and I are the same person. Like I am the sociable introvert that can't say no. They'll make an announcement at church. "Oh, we're looking for Awana's leaders." And my husband's like gripping my hand so tight. Like, "Don't you dare, you just keep your mouth shut." You know? Because if I volunteer for something then I'll be like, "I'm all out of words. I can't do this today. What is wrong with me? Why did I volunteer?" Sandra Samoska: Yes. And it's exhausting. And you finally get home and you just lay on the couch in your pajamas. Don't talk to me. Joanne Jarrett: Exactly. Like I know I look like I'm here, but I'm not here. I'm alone in my head and I can't come out right now. You have four kids. So that's a lot for an introvert. And I'm an extreme introvert, but I'm very sociable, so I don't mean to be deceptive, but people don't realize that I'm an introvert until I explain what I've got going on. I guess it's complicated. But anyway, sounds like maybe that's what you're like too. And I have one extremely extroverted child who needs a lot of face to face engagement. Joanne Jarrett: And I finally had to start saying like, "What's more important? I need to give my daughter what she needs." And my husband's pretty much like that too. And I need to give my husband what he needs so I have to cut way back on all of these people pleasing things that I'm doing that aren't as significant to the lives and souls of my loved ones. You know? Have you kind of experienced that too with four kids in your house? Sandra Samoska: Yes, I can totally relate to that. And I think as they're getting older, some of it is getting a easier because more of them are in school. And so I have these pockets of time where I literally schedule alone time. No. Joanne Jarrett: So smart. Sandra Samoska: So that I can like recharge and I try really hard not to put tasks in there. I don't know if you're like this, but I'm kind of a doer, I like to check things off my list, [inaudible 00:25:26] done. Joanne Jarrett: Heck yeah. Sandra Samoska: But you only have so much time. Joanne Jarrett: That's the reason why I'm late everywhere I go because I'm also an optimist. So I'm like, "Oh, I have to leave in five minutes, let me unload the dishwasher and forward the laundry." And then I'm late. And I'm like, "Oh." I did not mean to be disrespectful of whoever's waiting for me. But I just feel like I always have to be doing two or three things all at once. Sandra Samoska: Yes, I'm the same way. And so I had to start scheduling alone time so that I could fulfill my obligations that I'd already committed to, but not be completely shut off from the kids. Because I, just like you, I have a daughter who, she is very, she needs to be all up in your business all the time. You know? She likes affection and she likes to be with you. And if I'm sitting on the couch, she's sitting on me. So if I'm going to be able to like, like you said, be emotionally available to her then I really have to kind of schedule my quiet time so to speak. Joanne Jarrett: Yeah. Your recharge. Yeah. I feel like right now, in this stage of life, the inside of my car is my favorite place because it's like my sensory deprivation chamber. Obviously when I'm in there by myself, not when I'm in there with my kids, but we're to this stage now where I have to take my kids places that then I don't have to be in there with them. So I'll go to the library or I'll just stay in my car and have my "office hours" where I'm doing whatever I feel like I need to be doing. But I'm getting quiet inside my own head and I can totally control the atmosphere and that has ... it's so important. It's so, so, so important. Do you have any crazy coincidences that you could share with us? Sandra Samoska: Sure. Yeah. So this happened fairly recently, I was trying to put together a book proposal. So I'm trying to write a book. Joanne Jarrett: Good for you. Sandra Samoska: And I was kind of doing some research online and what I was coming across was suggesting going to writing conferences so that you can meet with other people who are involved in your craft and develop it- Joanne Jarrett: Yeah. Network. Sandra Samoska: Right. Exactly. And so I thought, "Okay, well we live here in Houston and obviously I'm a stay at home mom so we have one income so I'm not going to be able to fly all over the place and spend tons of money on the conferences." And so I do this Google search, because that's where you go when you have questions. Right? Joanne Jarrett: Heck yeah. Sandra Samoska: I Google Christian writing conferences near me. Right. And nothing comes up and I'm like, "Okay well, maybe now is not the time, I'll just have to do it another time." So I was kind of discouraged. I get in my car because it was time for me to leave to go pick up my son and I'm in the car. And it was funny because I was, you know, when I'm in the car, that's kind of my quiet time. And I was praying and I was talking to God and I was like, "You know, God, I get discouraged sometimes and I think that I need to be doing this, but I don't know how to do this. And sometimes I think I just need you to kick me in the pants. You know, God. So I just really need you to kick me in pants because I think I need you to kind of propel me a little bit." Sandra Samoska: And I have a thought, and I'm not saying that God was talking to me at that time because I did not hear a voice or anything, but I just had this thought, you know, you need to call Cindy. Cindy is a friend of mine from church who is very like, tell it like it is and she'll kick you in the pants if you need it. And I was like, "That's a good thought. Maybe I'll deal with that tomorrow." So, I went and picked up my kid and finished the day. And then the next morning I was sitting on the couch and I'm scrolling through Facebook and I see this ad for a Christian writers conference in Houston at the end of the summer. And this was like in the spring or something. Sandra Samoska: And I was like, "What?" Because sometimes I feel like God uses Google and Facebook and like has them talk to each other. Joanne Jarrett: Heck yeah. Sandra Samoska: And then like send me messages through those. Joanne Jarrett: Okay, why didn't this come up? And now all of a sudden it's popping up on my Facebook feed. This is like a personal gift for me. Sandra Samoska: Yes, super, slightly creepy, but amazing. And so I was like. So I thought about that a little bit and then I saw that Beth Moore was going to be there, which- Joanne Jarrett: Slam dunk. Got to go. Sandra Samoska: Right. I love her. And so I kind of verified it through Beth Moore's Twitter because that's where you go for your real news, to make sure it was legit. Joanne Jarrett: If you can't figure it from Facebook, then you have to cross reference with Twitter. Clearly. Sandra Samoska: That's right. That's how I get my information. Joanne Jarrett: Oh, I can tell my husband I'm not the only one, he's like, "Where'd you hear that, Facebook?" And I'm like, "Yeah." Sandra Samoska: So it must be true. I verified it with Twitter and Google. And so then I call my mother because she's my sounding board a lot. And so I'm kind of telling my mom about this crazy, creepy coincidence that had happened. And she's like, "Well, maybe you should really think about signing up for this conference." And I was like, "Well, maybe." ... And then I get a beep on my phone and I look at my phone and it's my friend Cindy just calling me out of the blue. Joanne Jarrett: No way. Sandra Samoska: Yes. Joanne Jarrett: What? Sandra Samoska: And I look at my phone- Joanne Jarrett: I was like, well maybe you should call Cindy after you hang up with your mom. No, she's calling you. Sandra Samoska: She's calling me and we don't talk a lot. We're not phone friends, you know. And so I look at it and I get back on the phone with my mom. I was like, "Mom, I got to go, God is calling me." She's like, "Well, I guess you better answer." Joanne Jarrett: That's awesome. So what did Cindy say? Sandra Samoska: Well, she was just calling because I had had a story published in a book and so she had seen that that had happened and so she wanted to just call out of the blue and congratulate me because she'd seen it and I said, "Well, I'm so glad you called. Let me tell you what's going on in my life right now." And kind of explained kind of what was going on in my conversation we've got about needing a kick in the pants and she's like, "Well, I don't know how I feel about the fact that you think I would kick you in the pants. If that's what you've been like, then sure." So I went to the conference. Joanne Jarrett: You did go to the conference. Okay. Awesome. Well you'll have to let me know when you have more information about your book. That is so exciting. I'm sure all my listeners will want to follow along with you. What is the best piece of advice you've ever been given? Sandra Samoska: The best piece of advice that I have been given actually came from my mother and she used to always say and still says it. It's the little things in life. So it's really about how it's not the big things or the super exciting moments that really make up your life. It's the little things, they kind of go in day by day. Those small little pieces of happiness or joy and those are the things that you need to cling on to and be grateful for instead of constantly waiting for the next awesome thing. Joanne Jarrett: I love it. That's such a good thing to remember and this is why one of those things you can do is keep these funny story nuggets in the back of your head and then when you feel like nothing interesting is happening, they can just roll into your mind and make you laugh out loud. One time I went to a party and my girlfriend invited all her friends from different walks of life and so it was one of those gift exchange parties. And when our number came up we had to tell our most embarrassing moment and then get our gift. And there are so many nuggets from that party. The interesting thing about that is these were women that I knew superficially and from a distance, most of them. And I left that party feeling like I knew them so much better. Joanne Jarrett: We laughed together. We kind of showed our underbellies. You know this one girl told a story about how she was in Home Depot in the morning and she had her toddler with her and she had just thrown some clothes on when she got up and she had loose soccer shorts on and she's shaped like a ballet dancer. She put her son down to pay for her item and her son was kind of trying to crawl up her leg to be picked back up and he ended up pulling her shorts down all the way to the floor and she was commando under there. So she had to bend all the way down to the floor to pick her shorts up and pull them up and then she's like, "Maybe nobody saw." Joanne Jarrett: So she looked behind her and there was a Home Depot employee standing right behind her and I'm like, "I am so sorry that that happened to you, but I am going to laugh about that off and on and as long as my brain works." I just said, "Thank you for that nugget." But anyway, I'm also kind of excited that you mentioned the whole conference thing because I have been trying to figure out a podcasting conference to go to, but I'm like you, we're one income. I live kind of in the middle of nowhere, unlike you and so I need a podcast conference that's in Spokane or Seattle. So if you're listening Facebook, Google, God, anyone. Joanne Jarrett: How can our listeners follow along with you and get more Sandra and make sure they know what's going on with you as these developments come along? Sandra Samoska: Well, I have a website where I have my blog, then that's SandraSamoska.com and then I'm most active on Facebook. My page is Outnumbered and that's kind of where I share a lot of blog posts but also just kind of like funny things that are going on in my life or things that I've noticed about life or crazy ways that God is working. It's more fun. And then I also have Twitter and Instagram, which I'm a little bit less active on because Instagram intimidates me because there's lots like pictures. But I'm getting there. Joanne Jarrett: Awesome. I will link to your Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and your website in the show notes. So you guys, if you want to just figure out where to click to find more Sandra, if you're on an iPhone, go down to episode webpage and click on that and then it'll bring up all the links. And I'm sure it's similar on other things, but that's the only thing I know how to do it on. Thank you so much for being on the show with me today. It was super fun to talk to you. Sandra Samoska: I really enjoyed it. Thank you so much for inviting me. Joanne Jarrett: Well, that was a lot of fun. Thank you so much for joining us today on the Fancy Free Podcast. I hope you got some good belly laughs like we did and I hope you feel less alone in your imperfections. Make sure you return next week, I have Esther Goetz as my guest and she is going to tell us some really funny stories about parenting teenagers. Remember to subscribe to the show if you're having fun with it. If you have a story to tell, please email me at notfancy@fancyfreepodcast.com I'd love to have you on the show. I promise it's not scary at all. Also, request to join the Fancy Free Facebook group. We're having a lot of fun in that group. Every week we have a different question of the week and this week, the question of the week is, what is the funniest thing your pet has ever done? Have a wonderful week and until next week, remember, no one is as fancy as they look.    

You would think this would be a basic life skill, but it seems almost nobody knows it, so please spread the word. When someone gives you a compliment, what should you do? Do you say, “What? No! Not at all. That’s ridiculous.” Do you give details of why you disagree? That’s what most people do. They refuse it. They deny it. But think of how inconsiderate that is. It takes courage to give you a compliment. It’s a little vulnerable for someone to admit they like something about you, and then to go up to you and tell you so. So when they do, is that nice of you to argue with them about it? How do you think that makes them feel in that moment? So, when someone gives you a compliment, what should you do? Just say, “Thank you.” Nothing more. It feels strange, but it’s the right thing to do. It doesn’t mean you agree. You’re just thanking them for their vulnerable courage in that moment, for taking the trouble to tell you something nice. Then sincerely return their interest. Ask their name, or something more about them. This advice came from Livingston Taylor, and was originally aimed at musicians, since they often get compliments after a gig, and always actively disagree with these compliments. But everyone can use this simple life skill.

You would think this would be a basic life skill, but it seems almost nobody knows it, so please spread the word. When someone gives you a compliment, what should you do? Do you say, “What? No! Not at all. That’s ridiculous.” Do you give details of why you disagree? That’s what most people do. They refuse it. They deny it. But think of how inconsiderate that is. It takes courage to give you a compliment. It’s a little vulnerable for someone to admit they like something about you, and then to go up to you and tell you so. So when they do, is that nice of you to argue with them about it? How do you think that makes them feel in that moment? So, when someone gives you a compliment, what should you do? Just say, “Thank you.” Nothing more. It feels strange, but it’s the right thing to do. It doesn’t mean you agree. You’re just thanking them for their vulnerable courage in that moment, for taking the trouble to tell you something nice. Then sincerely return their interest. Ask their name, or something more about them. This advice came from Livingston Taylor, and was originally aimed at musicians, since they often get compliments after a gig, and always actively disagree with these compliments. But everyone can use this simple life skill.

Do routines sound relaxing to you? The comfort of knowing what’s coming around every turn so you can spend part of your day on autopilot? What happens if routines get too easy and comfortable? Maybe instead of comfort, you identify with: Up at 6:30AM, coffee by 6:33AM, Shower, drop-offs, work, meetings, dinner, sports, laundry, exhaustion, BEEP BEEP BEEP. Has your life become too predictable? Has autopilot removed the sheer enjoyment of living? Are you in a rut? No need to worry, you have the opportunity to take back the control to re-engineer and redesign your day.  So..Maybe it’s time to shake things up a bit. We can all fall into habits that no longer serve us. When we bare down and keep digging faster instead of smarter, we get a BIG hole and have possibly lost track of where we’re going.  You can think of autopilot has a handy time and skill saving friend. Something to take over and make sure you get to where you are going with consistency and timing. OR you can see autopilot as denial keeping you in a routine for longer than necessary. It’s just, “what you do”, “second nature”, you’ve “made your bed”.  WHAT? No! Never accept mediocre, never accept less than you deserve, never settle for what you know now.  Live is about challenges. Challenges that we encounter in our lives and life that we chose to challenge. Take on the stigma, the faulty perception, the inherited belief system and push back. Your life and your routine can change every day if you want it to. The first step is admitting to yourself that you have a problem with your current quality of life, then identifying what and where, and THEN and only then, you make a change. There is power in hearing but empowerment is in DOING.    I read an article by James Clear, author, entrepreneur, and photographer who studies and writes about human behavior.  That article is titled: How To Start New Habits That Actually Stick.  Your life today is essentially the sum of your habits. How in shape or out of shape you are? A result of your habits. How happy or unhappy you are? A result of your habits. How successful or unsuccessful you are? A result of your habits. What you repeatedly do (i.e. what you spend time thinking about and doing each day) ultimately forms the person you are, the things you believe, and the personality that you portray. There is a four-step pattern that is the backbone of every habit, and your brain runs through these steps in the same order each time. The cue triggers a craving, which motivates a response, which provides a reward, which satisfies the craving and, ultimately, becomes associated with the cue. Together, these four steps form a neurological feedback loop—cue, craving, response, reward; cue, craving, response, reward—that ultimately allows you to create automatic habits. It sounds so simple, doesn’t it? Nope, life is complicated and human behavior is never predictable. And remember, you are ever-changing so just because you didn’t see it before, just because you haven’t taken the control that you now know you have, doesn’t mean you can’t reroute, and redesign your day. James Clear just taught us that motivation comes for the habits we form. Unsatisfied with your routine and the habits that YOU’VE created, time to make a change.  Ready for sooner rather than later? Have we directed the light into the corners of your denial only to find a routine rut?? Maybe your routine is dictated by time. You might feel everything you are doing now, within a 24-hour cycle is of the utmost importance and if you could squeeze out a few more moments you might be able to change the design of your day. Ready to get out of the rut?  Re-evaluate your goals and update your wants and your needs. You might be stuck in a routine trying to get somewhere that you don’t even want to go anymore. Routine ruts can prevent us from seeing new opportunities. Routine ruts can falsely keep us in our comfort zones never letting us stretch ourselves. Routines can keep us from finding our purpose and reaching our true potential.  CHALLENGE: Recognize the rut and ask yourself, what’s next. Don’t get comfortable with the same-o same-o. Push yourself to reevaluate and set your sights on a new direction.  Make tomorrow the day you try something new and then GO!    I Know YOU Can Do It!       

Several months ago I wrote an instagram post entitled “falling on your face”. And now, this morning I find myself in a unique position of getting to take my own advice. Let me read the original post real quick and then I’ll elaborate. The value of falling on your face. I love the story of the leper who jumped through the crowd and “fell on his face” to get Jesus’ attention. Specifically, I love the “fell on his face” part. The New Testament mentions at least two incidents of falling on one’s face. The second story feels little more complex. It was when Jesus was in the Garden of Gethsemane discussing the “bitter cup” with His Father. Sensing the terror of the night and the following day, Jesus prayed with all of His might and then went a little further and “fell on His face” to give His will over to God. Today we meme the performer, the entrepreneur, the athlete, the salesman, the job applicant, or the nervous teenager DM’ing her crush for - "falling on their face" as if they somehow shouldn’t have even tried. Wait, What? No! We have it all wrong. Falling on your face gets the leprosy cured. Falling on His Face was part of Jesus saving mankind from hell. The privilege of falling on your face comes to the few who are not satisfied with their known universe. They are finally ready to step into the void- where God answers the good questions. The persecution and the shade thrown by the crowd is the devil’s way of making sure that too many of us don’t ever feel the transcendent power generated by falling due to exhaustion and then getting back up.   Look at the poise and focus of the performer who has ever bombed and then got back on stage. God respects #fullsend effort.   (and here goes the part that hit me this morning). If you’re thinking “I don’t have any dreams big enough to generate a face fall”… then there you go. Discovering your ministry is a wonderful opportunity to fall on your face while it’s only still between you and God. Think of how sincere your prayers will get. Think of how inspired your family will be by your guts and faith. Yes! #Sendit   Okay, now back to my story. This morning I woke up with a question mark In my mind.  The interesting thing about this question mark.  Is that it didn’t even have a question attached.  So I initiated my normal morning routine, Big glass of water, scripture study, permitting myself to chase random thoughts for a little while before I take in any media… kiss Tara and the kids, go on a run in the park. Basically, I was treading water until the question appeared in front of the?.  I was completely void of something to punch, or a concrete goal to lean into…. in other words I couldn’t put my finger on a specific problem to solve today. Let me get specific and personal, because it might help you in your own situation. Several months ago I was prompted to think about the effect of music more. The more I dug into that prompting, the more I felt like we needed to move in Nashville. However, the roadmap ended right there it’s as if God was saying, just get there and I’ll give you the rest of the map. Well the last few weeks were a little bit crazy and “getting here“ was emotionally a much heavier lift then anticipated. Still is. But this morning is the first morning that I’ve had the energy and the courage to face that blank roadmap. The hard part about a blank page is that even though you are completely willing to fall in your face and make an idiot of yourself in pursuit of something concrete, you still don’t know what that concrete thing is. And personally, If I’m going to fail publicly, I would at least like to fail at doing the right thing than fail (or even succeed) at doing the wrong thing. You see, For a believer, somebody that believes that God has a purpose for him or her, the blank page is both empowering and intimidating. We feel like we should be sprinting in a direction, In fact, we are willing to wear our lives sprinting in a God appointed direction, but what if the mission doesn’t require sprinting yet? What if it requires sitting still and studying and thinking, which is sometimes tough because it makes it even more awkward it looks like you’re doing nothing.  And looking lazy in front of those you love is even more daunting than falling on your face in front of a crowd. If I’ve learned anything over the last few years It’s that when My daily activities don’t align with my ministry, even if I’m 18 hours-a-day looking busy, even if I’m depositing checks… I leave a lot on the table. I am not fullfilled and in that condition I’m anything but inspiring to my family or myself. If I let myself get pulled into some pursuit of that doesn’t lift me out of bed in the morning with my hair on fire, perhaps I ought to check with God to find out if I’m even in the right Forrest. Because once we are sure that we’re in the right forest, it’s just a matter of drive  and energy to start chopping down trees. I hope this little thought might give someone out there pause to think about whether they are in the field or place that God intended… and that you might be empowered to stop “looking busy” for a moment in order to find your path.  

Ep. #63's here on time?? What? No way! For all those who missed it, we did put out Ep. #62 last Friday. With today being October 1st, we of course talked about the event that forever changed all of our lives. We also found our way to: Do pee free pools exist? Can a guy with a boob job go topless in public? Our Bravo software crashing(ish)over the weekend Teamwork in the pits How we got from here to there, we're just as confused as you guys! Thanks for listening. Subscribe if you want more of this nonsense every week, cause we're full of it! Got something to say?? Find us on Twitter @2Casinomorons and on Facebook: Two Morons Talking About Casinos and Stuff

Technology Dictates How We Buy and Sell Property (LA 1074) Transcript: Steven Butala:                   Steven and Jill here. Jill DeWit:                            Hi. Steven Butala:                   Welcome to the Land Academy Show, entertaining land investment talk. I'm Steven Jack Butala. Jill DeWit:                            And Jill DeWit, broadcasting from sunny Southern California. Steven Butala:                   Today jill and I talk about how technology dictates how we buy and sell properties. Jill DeWit:                            Yup. Steven Butala:                   We'd like to think we have a lot of choices in life, but we have no choice about this. Jill DeWit:                            Yeah, you got to keep up, man. Steven Butala:                   I was talking to one of my buddies recently and I said, "Hey, what's going on?" Like a guy that I went to college with, like I haven't talked to him in five or eight years. I said, "What's going on?" He said, "Well I'm reading this book that Bill Gates just wrote." And I said, "That's really interesting 'cause I'm a huge fan of Bill Gates." And I said, "What's it about?" He said, "It's about the future of Windows and not just Windows, but computers and operating systems and how it's going to go." And I said, "I didn't know you were interested in that." And he said, "Yeah, I'd like to see how my life's going to go." Jill DeWit:                            Do I know this person? Steven Butala:                   No. Jill DeWit:                            Oh. Steven Butala:                   The whole point is I'd like to see how my life's going to go. Like we don't decide how our lives are going to go, Windows does. Jill DeWit:                            Like, I'm just kind of curious. You're like, "Nope, you don't know." Like what the heck? Jill DeWit:                            Is he too smart for me? Steven Butala:                   What? No. Jill DeWit:                            I don't know. "He's a really smart guy, you don't know him." Steven Butala:                   It's somebody that I went to college with that I haven't talked to forever and we were just social media back and forth. It'll be another ... his name's Chris. It'll be another probably 20 years before I talk to him again. Jill DeWit:                            Are you just embarrassed 'cause you were instant messaging or whatever on Facebook? I'm just teasing you. And communicating with an old buddy. It's good. Steven Butala:                   No. Jill DeWit:                            Okay. Jill DeWit:                            I'm making light of it, we're just having fun. Steven Butala:                   Good. Jill DeWit:                            Okay. Steven Butala:                   Before we get into it, let's take a question posted by one of our members on the Landinvestors.com online community. It's free. Jill DeWit:                            'Cause I am here to have fun, by the way. Steven Butala:                   Me too. Jill DeWit:                            Okay. Just making sure. Jill DeWit:                            All right, so here's the question. Lee asks, "Hello, all. Been reading the forums for a couple of weeks and joined Land Academy yesterday. I'm going through the Land Academy 1.0, watching the videos where Steven does the data. Here's my question. How much is the data? I've seen ten cents. When I purchased those from List Source in the past, it's per record. Does this mean Steve would have to pay $2,300 for the 23,000 records in his example? I'm planning to get my first mailer out within two weeks. Those starting with 1,000 to test my systems before I'm slowly ramping up. If I'm sending to a company- Steven Butala:                   A county. Jill DeWit:                            A county, excuse me. "With 20,000 records, is that going to cost me $2,000 before I scrub it down? Thanks.

Have you ever heard of the sublime? What? No, not the band. It’s more of a environmental-design-as-philosophy-as-British-Imperialism movement from the... Hey, wait! Where are you going?Talking points: Her Majesty’s Slider, slide whistle on demand, Sensuous Whisper, not the band, What happens in Ezraish..., the one spell you need, 2-for-2 Sams, and an email.Referenced episodesEnchanters, the Order of the Vivid Precipice: ep. 30Somnus, contour plane of cosmic slumber: ep. 62The Bellum Obscura, macrowar for the fabric of fates: ep. 67Other ReferencesMap of Everast, Ten’atlo’hi (https://bit.ly/2GnFipE)———Want to learn more about Halûme? Explore the world here, or by visiting our homepage at thelorekeepers.com and clicking on "Visit World"! Note that it may not render properly on your browser. If so, try using Chrome.Questions or ideas? Email us at lorekeeperspodcast@gmail.comWebsite: thelorekeepers.comTwitter: @thelorekeepers

This episode re-tells the events in "Breakout Capacity" (Season 3 Episode 8 of Madam Secretary) from Jason’s point of view. There are thirty direct quotes: 1. “I know everyone’s obsessing about the Tenth Amendment but last time I checked, I’m still protected under the First.” 2. “Make him take it off.” 3. “If Jason really feels that Reynolds will make a better President, I’m OK with his wearing it.” 4. “Student debt! Big difference!” 5. “Fine. Mock me. We’ll see who’s laughing when the revolution comes.” 6. “Yeah, I saw. On your profile.” 7. “You saw, huh?” 8. “Take it down.” 9. “Why?” 10. “Do I really need to spell it out for you?” 11. “Fine. We done?” 12. “No. Suppose Reynolds does become President. What then?” 13. “Then he’s President.” 14. “What’s his stance on nuclear weapons?” 15. “Reynolds believes each country should be able to determine its own weapons policy.” 16. “So if Iran decides it wants nuclear weapons, you think it should have them?” 17. “What? No! I mean … I’m not sure.” 18. “If you’re going to embarrass your family, you had better make sure you can defend your point of view. So either educate yourself or stop talking.” 19. “Well, I knew you were angry but are you abandoning me?” 20. “You know, the first time my dad brought my brother and sisters and me to Washington, I thought we’d visit the monuments and the museums. Instead, he brought us here.” 21. “Why? To commune with dumpsters?” 22. “No. Union members marched here to protest for an eight-hour workday. Instead of negotiating, their employers organized a militia against them. They brought the wounded in here. Two men died right there.” 23. “Wow. Is there a plaque or something?” 24. “No. I guess that was kind of the point. Sometimes you don’t do things just to get a trophy.” 25. "Your grandfather dedicated his life to helping others." 26. "Yeah, I know. You resented him for it." 27. "Yeah. I think I joined the Marines just to tick him off." (paraphrased) 28. "Yeah, but you don't regret joining the Marines." 29. "No … but I had to grow into it." 30. “You’ve got gifts, Jason. An incredible facility for thought and language. That’s power. But until you can harness that power to something bigger than yourself, that power is wasted. No one’s ever going to take you seriously. That’s all I’m saying.” REFERENCES 1. “Breakout Capacity." Madam Secretary. Season 3, Episode 8, CBS, 27 Nov. 2016. Netflix, https://www.netflix.com/watch/80188789?trackId=13752289

In this episode, you’ll learn more about money objections and how to overcome them from a MINDSET perspective. We all experience money objections at one point or another in our businesses. It's a part of being a business owner. It's also a part of the human decision-making process. The key to dealing with these objections is managing your MIND.   WHAT YOU’LL LEARN IN THIS EPISODE Why attaching your self-worth to your work is harmful  What "No" really means, most of the time Why I'm not an advocate of the traditional way of overcoming objections What your job is in your business to help a potential client make the decision that's best for them FEATURED ON THE SHOW The “Charge What You’re Worth” private mentoring program

So breakups are a thing? Unfortunately, yes they are. Whether it's lovers or best friends breakups are the worst. And, as has been predicted since day one there has been a big breakup here at IWS Radio. What? No, not Matt and Jay! I'm talking about Jamie and Guy! Their relationship was doomed from the begining, but after giving it everything they had, Jamie and Guy have called it quits after six tumultuous years, uh, months, uh weeks. Seems like longer, right?  Anyway, we're here to console both Jamie and Guy and give our best advice to everyone out there on how to survive having your heart blown to smitherines and move on while keeping your dignity intact. Jamie Mapleleaf will be here along with the IWS Players to join the shenanigans. There will be witty banter, good/bad music and as always, BOOZE! Booze is a very important ingredient in recovering from heartbreak. Plus YOUR CALLS! We want to hear YOUR breakup stories on the Patty Loveless Phone Lines @ 661.244.9852! 

Acts 12:1-19 Aaccepting God's No has to be one of the greatest challenges to our faith. Our Reactions 1. Disappointment 2. Grief 3. Doubt 4. Wrong Feelings 1 Peter 1:6-7 - So be truly glad! There is wonderful joy ahead, even though the going is rough for a while down here. 7 These trials are only to test your faith, to see whether or not it is strong and pure. It is being tested as fire tests gold and purifies it—and your faith is far more precious to God than mere gold; so if your faith remains strong after being tried in the test tube of fiery trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day of his return. 3 Aides to taking "No" for an answer. 1. An Abandonment to "In Your Name"      2 Elements 1. God's Glory  2. God's Will 2. A True Desire for "Your will be done". If you could change God's mind, would you really want to? Isaiah 55:8 - This plan of mine is not what you would work out, neither are my thoughts the same as yours. Jeremiah 17:9 - The heart is the most deceitful thing there is and desperately wicked. No one can really know how bad it is. Proverbs 3:5-6 - If you want favor with both God and man, and a reputation for good judgment and common sense, then trust the Lord completely; don't ever trust yourself. 6 In everything you do, put God first, and he will direct you and crown your efforts with success. 3. A Trust / Faith that decides to continue. Just continuing is a great act of Faith. Action Steps 1. What area of faith do you need to continue in? 2. What "No" do you need to "accept"? 3. Pray til you don't care?

I decided to run Google Adsense ads on Data Driven Design. First of all because we're publishing so much content on our site (1-2 new pieces per day), so technically we're a publisher in addition to being a digital agency. Secondly, because as a leading web design and development company, we need to stay up to date with all of the new changes to Google Adsense so that we can implement it properly for our clients. Recently, while logging into my Adsense account, I realized that there was a critical message at the top. It read - Earnings at risk - One or more of your sites does not have an ads.txt file. Fix this now to avoid severe impact to your revenue. What? No email warning, and my "revenue" might be impacted, that's not good! This video walks you through what steps I decided to take to attempt to resolve this matter. All publishers should listed and read this documentation... Declare authorized sellers with ads.txt Ensure your ads.txt files can be crawled --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/paulhickey/support

Through untold eons mammals have evolved a beautiful birth-giving physiology based around a complex cascade of hormones that are released during labor. We give both mother and baby the best chance at a peaceful, ecstatic birth and postpartum period when we remember and respect this ancient dance. IN THE INTRO: Complex parenting topics: sleep, immunity, birth IN THE INTERVIEW: Sarah’s mainstream doctor grandfather and how she got interested in natural birth The exquisitely designed ancestral/mammalian hormonal blueprint of labor  The impact of (unnatural, external) stress on a laboring woman and how it disrupts the optimal hormonal flow Creating optimal conditions for birthing and for bonding The hormonal consequences of bypassing the natural physiological onset of labor (such as by induction or scheduled C-section) How feeling unsafe (at a subconscious, limbic system level) disrupts the flow of birth The irony of how we treat animals in labor v how we treat human women in labor The ecstatic, altered state of mind we enter into during labor  What first time mothers need to know but are often not told Fear and mystery in birth The body is designed to transcend the (natural, intrinsic) stress and pain of labor and they play a critical role in bonding The role of vocalization in labor Newborns need placental blood: cord clamping and how our cultural beliefs around that have changed over time What “No hatting, no patting, no chatting” means for the postpartum period Ancestral family sleep and motherbaby biological regulation: the many reasons that co-sleeping is best for babies and the science that backs it up The fascinating phenomenon of some birth attendants being able to smell the moment before the baby is born LINKS Dr. Buckley’s website Dr. Buckley on Facebook Medicine Stories Patreon (podcast bonuses!) My website MythicMedicine.love  Gentle Birth, Gentle Mothering book Hormonal Physiology of Childbearing report Medicine Stories Podcast Episode 30: The Innate Intelligence of the Immune System with Cilla Whatcott Medicine Stories Podcast Episode 48: Matriarchy in Action & Ancestor Assisted Birth with Emilee Saldaya Jeanine Parvati Baker CO-SLEEPING RESEARCH- James McKenna’s Mother-Baby Behavioral Sleep Laboratory at the University of Notre-Dame Sara Wichkam’s website Midwifery Today’s website  Take my fun Which Healing Herb is Your Spirit Medicine? quiz Medicine Stories Facebook group Mythic Medicine on Instagram Music by Mariee Sioux (from her beautiful song Wild Eyes)

Ade and Zach reply to more listener letters! Remember, if you have a question you'd like for us to answer and read on the show, feel free to email us at livingcorporatepodcast@gmail.com! You can also DM us on all platforms - they're open! Check them out: Twitter, Facebook, InstagramConnect with us! http://bit.ly/livingcorporateTRANSCRIPTAde: Hey, y'all. It's Ade.Zach: And it's Zach. Hey, look, we did it the other way. How does that feel?Ade: Yuck. I can't stand it.Zach: [laughs] It's also alphabetical, and we're going from A to Z with these listener letters. Yo. Bars. [laughs]Ade: All right. [?]. I'm just gonna let you have it.Zach: Man. Y'all, I might be--yo, I might--I need to take these talents, like, to NBC, man. Like, I need to write for somebody. Like, these are good jokes.Ade: Hm.Zach: Or maybe I'd be, like, a ghostwriter, 'cause, like, this is crazy. I have bars. Like, this is great. Did you hear that? I said alphabetical 'cause you--Ade: No, I got the point.Zach: You know what I'm saying? Come on, man. Don't hate. Okay, so look, we're doing these listener letters today. Now, look, we kind of said it last week. The names y'all put in these letters, we're going to say those names unless it seems a little too specific, then we might, like, just call it something else, right? But, like, just know we're gonna read these letters as you send 'em, right? So, you know, sign your name with what you want to be addressed as, and we'll make sure that we respect that, but, you know, we don't want to, like, go into our fake bag name and then, like, give you a fake name, but that might mess around and be your real name, you know what I mean? So just help us out. Help us help y'all. Yeah? Okay. So look, we got these listener letters. We're gonna go ahead and get going. I'ma read this first one. The subject line is "Too Friendly." Uh-oh. What's that mean?Ade: It sounds like a call to HR.Zach: I'm saying. Like, what you mean too friendly? Relax. Okay. "What's up, Ade and Zach?" Look, they kept it alphabetical. What'd I tell you?Ade: [scoffs]Zach: "I feel--" [laughs] "I feel like everyone else is super close at my job and I'm always on the outside of whatever inside jokes they're telling. It makes me question who I can trust, since everyone is friends with everyone but me. They're always going out after work and will come back from the weekend with their stories of what they did. I just want to come to work, do my thing, and go home. I don't want to give up that much time, but I'm also feeling like the odd woman out. What should I do to feel more comfortable at my job? Thanks." She wrote her name as Tracy. Okay, so what should Tracy do?Ade: Well, Tracy, you can't have your cake and eat it too, friend. I don't know what to tell you. It sounds like you're saying that you don't want to do the things that make--that have made everyone else become closer and, you know, more vulnerable with each other, right? So I understand wanting to come to work and go home and have that be the extent of your responsibilities at work. That being said, it means that you're not going to have a relationship with the depth that you are admiring and coveting. I mean, you can certainly do the things that we encourage. You can ask your coworkers to go get coffee with you, maybe bring donuts, but you can't have the conversations with people, you can't--honestly, if they're having, like, inside jokes because they went to Happy Hour three times and you went zero times, you're not gonna get any of those contexts. Am I missing something?Zach: No, you're not, and I think ultimately to make friends you have to be friendly. That's what my mom always tells me. Right? Like, you have to actually put yourself out there. So looking at your letter, I'm not really sure--I'm imagining, because of our platform, that you're a person of--a woman of color, and if you are--and even if you aren't, like, it can be hard to put yourself out there and--'cause to show vulnerability with, like, a group of people that you don't really--you don't know, to, like, really try to make friends, and it's tough because, you know, like, the cliqueiness and stuff, like, those things don't just stop after high school. Like, there are definitely, like, work cliques.Ade: Correct.Zach: And so I can understand and empathize with you, you know, feeling a certain kind of way, but, like, if you [?] these insecurities, one way to combat those insecurities is to one, just, like, maybe go out every now and then. It doesn't have to be all the time, but just take the time. Like, if you know they go out somewhere every weekend, maybe you go one time with them on a weekend, or just start maybe with baby steps of if you know they're going out to Happy Hour every single week, you know, maybe choose one or two times a month that you're gonna go with them, right? Like, and then that way you can start kind of easing into it, and that way you will feel more comfortable, and then they'll feel more comfortable, and then, like, it'll--barriers will just kind of come down, I think. But I'm not a woman though, and, like, my wife always tells me that, like, women are different. Like, I'll be kind of talking to her about something and she'll be like, "Look, Zach, women are just different." So help me understand, Ade, what I might be missing in this.Ade: I do not want to project things that aren't there. I don't want to project off of my own personal experiences, simply because I don't think that it does Tracy any good to hypothesize about what could be happening. I mean, her letter doesn't say that she's ever been invited. So that to me might be the issue in that it's one thing that they're having all of these, like, Happy Hours or they're going or whatever it is that they're doing outside of work. It also doesn't say how long that Tracy has been there. It doesn't say that she's ever been extended a formal invitation. It doesn't say that they're including her in other ways that don't include these extracurricular activities, so I--there are many, many different things that could be going on, but what I do know to be true is that Tracy herself says that she only wants to come to work, do her thing, and go home. There are ways to develop friendly relationships that don't also require you to be more vulnerable than you want to be at work. So I would say to Tracy kind of what we said last week with I think it was Jamal. Grab a drink with them. Not, like, alcohol, but grab some coffee or grab some tea, or come in in the morning and ask them about the weekend and share a little bit of what you did on your weekend, or "Oh, hey. Did you guys catch Homecoming on Netflix? Really great. You guys should see it." There's so many--yeah, there's so many different ways that you can share cultural contexts that don't require you to be more revealing than necessary. Also, once you start relying on greater cultural contexts, I mean, you don't have to get their inside jokes, because Beyonce, like, crosses all cultural barriers, right? Like, come on. Come on.Zach: "Come on. Come on." [laughs] No, I super agree, and that's a really good point, like, that culture is a big deal. People talk about culture in, like, these really, like, high-brow, generic, 30,000-foot ways, but I think, like, just really practically speaking, like, for people of color, at least I'll speak for black folks, like, if I'm going out for drinks with you after work, like, that means that I'm really cool with you. So, like, it's hard for us--I'll speak for me anyway. It was hard for me to, like, really be like, "Yeah, I'ma go out to drinks with you," after I've already worked 8 hours or 9 or 10 hours with you and I've seen you, you know what I'm saying, all day, and I don't even know if I really like or trust you. So, like, you haven't really shown me, like, any type of trust-worthy characteristics while we work together, but now I'm about to spend extra time and my money with you? Right? Like, those are the things that have gone through my mind. Like, "Okay, I'ma go break these barriers down," but, like--and we talked about this with Deborah Owens, who's CEO of the Corporate Alley Cat. We spoke with her--we spoke with her about this, I believe that was in season 1, but we were just talking about that's part of the job. Like, doing that, extending yourself is part of your job, and getting to know those people is part of--is part of your whole work life. Like, those are working hours for you. Like, that's how you should think about it. If you genuinely just don't do want to do it, it's important for you to make some of that time. Again, it doesn't have to be all the time, but you should not be like, "No, I don't go to anything." Like, you should go to something from time to time, but I also think it's a really good point that, like, you shouldn't have to extend yourself super far. There are small things you can do at work, you know what I'm saying? There are things you can do at work to make sure that people at least know a little bit about you. Maybe there's some more humor you can insert at work. Again, I'm not asking you to be, like, a comedian. I'm just saying, like, there's things that you can do. So I think that's really good feedback.Ade: I think the final comment that I would want to make is that--have you ever seen that graphic of the cultural context? Like, the cultural iceberg?Zach: Nah, what is that?Ade: Okay, so it's this image that shows--like, you know how an iceberg, you really can only ever see the tip of it, and there's so much more depth or so much more that's underneath the waters? At the top, it shows things like food and holidays and language as the things that are easy to see, but underneath the surface there are things like rules of conduct, child-rearing practices, family values, body language, expectations, aesthetics, personal space. There are all of these different things that are a part of your culture that are so much more difficult to articulate. I think there is such a thing as work culture, a similar iceberg in that it's easy to see, like, your dress code, turn-around time for client deliverables, or just all of these different things that are easy to see once you enter the work space, but they're things that are--that are underneath the surface, right? How often you should be going to Happy Hour being one of them, which could be really alienating for people who don't drink for whatever reason, right, or that you have to make your rounds every day to have conversations with people, which is something that I didn't know when I first started working in a lot of corporate spaces. Like, you have to make rounds. You have to go around to people and make conversations in certain--in certain work environments because you're so scattered, and so in order to maintain your working relationships, it's this unspoken rule that you get up at 10:00 a.m. or at 2:00 p.m. and you kind of go talk to other coworkers. These are all things that are a part of that work culture iceberg that might be difficult to see, and once you have fallen on the wrong side of that iceberg, it's very difficult to repair those relationships. Because they're unspoken, people assume that you know that this is the appropriate thing to do, and so they feel as though you've slapped their hand one too many times when they extended it out and tried to be friendly by inviting you out or by asking you to do whatever, whereas your understanding is "I'm just here to work and go home," and so in order to bridge the gap of those two work cultures, I would say that there is no better time than now to start reaching out. And people love talking about themselves. It's not, like, a moral failing. It's simply just human nature. Like, when people start taking interest in the things that you enjoy and the things that you feel proud of, it makes you feel closer to the person asking. So Tracy, I would advise you to--not us asking you to, like, do any social engineering, but getting to know people by asking them about the things that they love and the things that they enjoy, and also with the understanding that we are not saying that that means that you need to go attending Happy Hours or that you need to extend yourself any further than necessary, simply that it is a mark of a good professional to be able to maintain good working relationships, regardless of the depth of those relationships. Does that make sense?Zach: It does make sense, and that's just a really good reminder, even for me. Not even for me, like I'm somebody. For me, because--Ade: [laughs] You are somebody, Zachary.Zach: [laughs] Aw, thank you, Ade. But no, it's important, like, to make time and to, like, do the rounds. 99% of the time--99% of the businesses that we work in are people businesses. There's some type of people element to it, and even if they're not, like, external clients, if they're just, like, your own colleagues, there's relationships that you need to be continually thinking about in how you manage them. So that makes sense to me. I think it's super spot on.Ade: Cool. Cool, cool. Thank you for writing in, Tracy. We hope that you get a resolution to this soon, and we'd love to hear from you, see how you dealt with this, how you handled--how you handled this conversation.Zach: For sure, for sure. Okay, I see this next one. This one is called--the subject line is "Micromanager." Here we go. I'ma go ahead and read it. Actually, no, do you want to read this one? 'Cause I read the first one. Why don't you read this one?Ade: Sure, okay. All right. "Hey, Living Corporate. So I've been at my job for about two years now and recently got a new manager. They're nice enough, but are nonstop with the feedback," ooh, "as if they have something to say about every little thing to do, from checking my work, how I present and lead meetings and my body language. They're also asking me for their feedback, like, every other week to the point where I don't know what to say. I just am feeling overwhelmed. A part of me wants to tell them to back off, but I'm not trying to cause any trouble. What do you think I should do? Thanks. Courtney."Zach: Hm.Ade: Go ahead, Zach.Zach: So they're nonstop with the feedback. "I feel like they have something to say about every little thing I do, from checking my work, how I present, lead meetings, to my body language." So when I read this, and maybe I'm reading this from, like, a manager lens, right, so I could be wrong, it sounds to me like you have someone who's really engaged and they're trying to help you, right? And then when you say "They're also always asking me [?], like, every other week." So every two weeks they're asking you to give them feedback, so they're looking for you to help them, just like they're trying to help you. Are you just not--maybe you're just not used to being managed. Like, this is kind of weird. This is kind of weird to me. How do you feel? You're making all of these noises, and you were making noise when you read the letter, so, like, what am I missing here?Ade: Okay. I wouldn't necessarily say that Courtney is not used to being managed. I think that there are two conflicting styles here of working relationships. I think that Courtney's new manager is used to, to borrow PwC's phrase, "real-time feedback," and Courtney might be a little bit more used to a more hands-off style type of management, and that will--that will create conflict, but I don't know that it's necessarily a bad thing. I don't know that anybody is wrong here so much as miscommunicating, because it can be overwhelming to go from a very, very hands-off managerial style to someone who is seemingly in your face all of the time. That can be a very difficult experience. I know that I would be frazzled. I was frazzled when it happened to me, and I certainly think that--and I'm not saying that the manager is wrong either in saying that, "Oh, hey. I noticed that you do things this way. Maybe you should try this way instead," because ultimately most managers who are worth their salt are trying to help you develop your career and help you grow as an individual. They are not being malicious in their feedback, but nobody likes to be micromanaged, and that's likely what that feels like to Courtney. All that to say that I think that there are ways in which you can communicate that you feel overwhelmed with the deluge of information. Maybe you could schedule checkpoints every two weeks with your manager. Like, "Hey, let's go grab some coffee every two weeks for 30 minutes. We can have a conversation about my progress so far. We can talk about what you think I should be doing differently, but the constant check-ins are distracting, they're demoralizing, and I don't feel that they are actually helpful to me."Zach: That's real. You know, so, I'm looking at this email. Like, every other week the manager's asking them for feedback. 'Cause I don't know Courtney. I don't know if Courtney--Courtney might be a man or a woman, I'm not sure--asking them for feedback, right? So, like, asking them for feedback. Like, maybe that's where they can propose this. Like, that's where they can propose like, "Hey, look." Like, being really transparent, right? Like, "Hey, this is how this is making me feel. We have this time already." Unless it's something that's, like, a serious problem, like, "Unless it's something that's, like, gonna break--make something break, like, could we wait to kind of give me feedback during these points?" Typically, I'll say for me anyway, sometimes when I know that I'm micromanaging somebody, I realize that, like, I'm giving them feedback every little step of the way as opposed to, like, backing up and letting them, like, drive something, and then I can be like, "Oh, wait. I was gonna say this, but you ended up doing this anyway." "I was gonna say this, but you ended up--okay, so I don't even have to say anything about this," right? Like, I think that that makes sense. I think there is definitely opportunity, and if they really are being serious about this 360 feedback, I think that's the perfect place to give it to them then, but that's gonna take some vulnerability and, like, courage on your part, right? And you say in here, "Part of me wants me to tell them to back off, but I'm not really trying to cause any trouble." I don't feel like you're causing any trouble, right? I think it's about just being respectful, and nothing in here, what you've said, is that they've been disrespectful to you, so I'm gonna assume that everything has been above the board so far, that it's been, like, work. But that's what I would suggest, and yeah, I'm not trying to be unfair and say that you're not used to being managed. I guess what I'm saying is because of my work history, I've been in so many situations where, like, my lead does not care. They won't communicate with me. And I'm on a project now where I have a very engaged manager, and they really, really are plugged in, and they care about, like, my growth and my progress, and they give me, like, really poignant feedback, and it has felt at certain times overwhelming, but I had to ask myself, like, "Okay, how much of this is overwhelming because of I'm just getting too much feedback? How much is overwhelming because it's like, 'Wow, maybe I haven't really ever gotten, like, on-the-spot coaching about my performance before and, like, I'm just not used to how this feels.'" Like, maybe it's just a new feeling as opposed to me putting it on somebody else, you know what I'm saying? So that's what I mean when Courtney's like, "Okay, well, is this like--" How much is this just a new feeling for you that you need to navigate and, like, work through? That might take you time, and how much of this are you really feeling like they're micromanaging you? That's my take, but I feel like--I feel like we're still saying something--are we saying something different? Like, what do you think about what I'm saying?Ade: I think that it's entirely possible that it's both in that--I think we're actually saying the same thing actually, that the truth is somewhere in the middle, that Courtney might not be used to this person's managerial style, they might not be used to this instantaneous feedback, and that this manager's feedback might be--managerial style might be a little overwhelming, particularly for someone who has been in their position for two years and is switching contexts between two managers, and so I think that as a manager you do have to be mindful of the context and the role in which you step--like, the people who you're managing have had different contexts over time, and I think that it's only fair that you ramp up not coming with guns blazing. And it might not feel that way to you because you're simply doing what you've always done, which is "Oh, hey, I saw this. We should work on that," or "Oh, hey, I think you'd be a much more effective presenter if you did things this way." Which, fair, that's absolutely what you're supposed to be doing, but to manage up, Courtney, I would say that you should definitely take some time to sit down and figure out truly what are the things that make you the most uncomfortable, and then figure out how to make those things work for you, because if the feedback is meant for you to grow as a professional, there's no way that it can be a terrible thing to hear it. However, it's entirely true that it might be overwhelming for you when you're in the middle of deliverables and also trying to incorporate the last six things that were said to you in the last two days. So I would say that for me it would be much more effective to manage up in putting time on your manager's calendar, like, "Hey, every two weeks, let's go out, get some coffee or grab some lunch, and we can talk through my progress over the last two weeks and some areas you would like to see me improve, and we can iterate over my behavior in that way or my progress in that way as opposed to you sending me a note every, you know, three hours, because that's jarring."Zach: [laughs] Every three hours? No way. No way.Ade: Right, it's a little bit much, and not that I don't appreciate you paying close attention to me and my activities, but it does make me feel a little bit monitored and micromanaged, and I can't succeed in that way.Zach: No, that's real, and I mean, like--I'm agreeing with you, right? I agree with that. I think--and I think what's really cool is that two--every two weeks, that can just be the two weeks I already have set up, and yeah, so that's great. I think that's really good feedback. So Courtney, hope that helps. Let us know how it goes. Keep us updated on the progress. I definitely think the term "managing up" is important, 'cause this is part of it, this is a huge part of it, is you having this discussion with your boss, and it seems as--your lead, your manager, and it seems as if--I don't know. Maybe I'm looking at it through--I'm being biased 'cause I'm looking at it through, like, a manager lens, but it seems as if this person at least--I mean, the communication is there, right? It's not like you're having to create a lane of communication, so hopefully it should work out. We'll see though. Hm. Okay. All right. All right, y'all. Well, that does it for us on the listener letters. Let's see here. So I have one Favorite Thing, and I recognize that we did not talk about this in pre-production, so if you don't have one it's no big deal. But it's been a couple of weeks, right? So I just want to, like, really quickly--so, like, I feel like I can now talk about Avengers: Endgame. Very good, right?Ade: No spoilers.Zach: No, no. Definitely spoilers. It's been two weeks. It's been, like, two or three weeks.Ade: No spoilers. What? No. Don't be a terrible person.Zach: How am I being a terrible person? It's been mad weeks!Ade: No spoilers! None.Zach: Oh, my goodness. Man, I was about to say--I was about to be like, "And when So-and-so did the such-and-such!" I was just--Ade: I require more of you than you are giving me right now, Zachary.Zach: Man, that's real, that's real. Okay, so I'm not gonna get into spoilers. However, great, great movie. In fact, let me tell y'all what happened. So opening weekend, right?Ade: Oh. I was about to be like, "Didn't I just say?"Zach: Nah, nah, nah. So opening weekend, right? I planned on going Thursday night, but then I had a really busy day on Friday, and I was like, "You know what? Let me be wise and just, like, let me be mature, and I will wait," so I waited. I did not go Thursday night. I ended up going Friday night instead, and man, when I tell you that I was so emotionally overwhelmed. Like, I cried. I cheered. I cried again. I cheered again. I gasped, like, multiple times. I was like, "Man." And so I had already, like, proactively got tickets for Saturday AND Sunday, and I was like--'cause I just know I'm gonna want to see it again, and the theaters are sold out, but I was so tired--like, I was so drained by that movie and the multiple conversations I had--again, I'm not gonna get into spoilers. I was so drained. I was just like, "You know what? Let me just not." I've only gone to see it once. Like, that's how drained I was, 'cause I was just--I cried. Like, it was just so good. I've never seen a movie--like, it's just the culmination of more than 20 films, man. Like, come on, dogg. Like, that's a lot of work. It was so good. Like, you saw it, Ade. Am I tripping? Was it not great?Ade: It was amazing. Amazing.Zach: It was so--like, my gosh. It was so good.Ade: Amazing.Zach: Ugh, so good. So anyway, that's my favorite thing. I hope that y'all go see it if you haven't already, and then also, you need to go ahead and just cut the cable and go ahead and get that Disney+, 'cause y'all know all these shows about to come up. And again, I can't get into the spoilers 'cause Ade told me not to, but there's gonna be a bunch of other stuff coming, and--Ade: I'm just gonna--I need your login information, Zach. Thanks in advance.Zach: You are wrong. [both laugh] You know, it's so funny. Like, everybody has Candice and I's login. Like, I go on my little Netflix and my Hulu, I see, like, 17 accounts. I'm like, "Who are these little profiles?" Like, what is this? Come on.Ade: You're the grown up. I don't know what to tell you.Zach: Clearly. My goodness though, and some of them--some of them created profiles when they were, like, you know, in college, but, like, come on, man. Like, we all got money now. Y'all need to go ahead and help. Get your own, you know what I mean? Anyways.Ade: Chip in.Zach: Chip in, exactly. Put in on this, you know what I'm saying? You know, put 5 on it. That's all I'm trying to say. So okay, with that being said, I feel like we're at the end. So Ade, is there anything else?Ade: Nope, that's it. I actually was gonna use Endgame as my favorite thing as well. I've seen that movie several times at this point, and yeah, y'all watch it so we can talk about it in two months.Zach: Straight up. Okay, well, I guess that's that. Thank you for listening to us and joining us on the Living Corporate podcast. We are on all of Al Gore's internet.Ade: Everywhere.Zach: Everywhere. Just type in Living Corporate. Check us out. You type in Living Corporate on Google, we will pop up on every major player. You can check us out on Twitter @LivingCorp_Pod, on Instagram @LivingCorporatePodcast. You can email us at livingcorporatepodcast@gmail.com. And actually, on Instagram it's not @LivingCorporatePodcast, it's @LivingCorporate. Boom. Thank you. If you have any questions, any letters you'd like to send in on the show for us to read them like we did on this episode today, again, just email us, or you can DM us on Twitter and Instagram, 'cause our DMs are wide open. That's right. You don't even have to follow us. You can just DM us, but come on, be polite, 'cause some of y'all be out here wildin', okay? You know who y'all are. I'm not even gonna give you the air time, but you know. Let's see here. What else? What else? What else? Nah, I feel like that's it, you know what I'm saying? Grace and peace, afro grease or whatever else you use to keep your skin and hair lathered. You know, do what you do.Ade: [sighs] So much is happening. Um...Zach: This has been Zach.Ade: ...Yeah. This has been Ade. Y'all pray for Zach. He's going through some things.Zach: [laughs] Not at all, not at all! Listen, okay? Moisturization is important, and we're talking to people of color here. Come on. Like, you gotta--come on, let's go. Carol's Daughter or something. You gotta use something.Ade: [sighs] Goodbye, y'all.Both: Peace.

**EXPLICIT** This episodes contains language and content not suitable for children. In this episode, I've done a bit of self-reflecting (What? No guest??... NOPE). What is this thing called life, and what's my purpose here? How do we heal from past traumas and use them for the best today? If you're looking to the answers to those questions, you won't find them here.. you'll just find me pondering the thoughts in my head. Hopefully I can at least help you feel like you're not alone if you are thinking the same thing. Love you guys!

METROPOLIS-METRO CAFE, 603 Arizona Avenue, Santa Monica, CA DONATIONS, DOMINOS, and the SHOTGUN CHILI PLATES, Episode 28 part one. What? No prices on the menu board? Is this some kind of scam, a hidden socialist agenda and how can they possibly make a profit? What brought them to think that this was a good business plan, and how is that working out? Along with the menu items with no price, Metropolis is also judgment free. Do you feel welcome yet? If being treated like long lost friends is something you want, travel no further than to Metropolis. What is the secret to attracting a multi generational demographic, and, how much is a free cup of coffee worth...these and many other questions and mysteries solved in this episode. With 11 cents to her name, how and why did LarJane, an aspiring L.A. actor cross the country? How did a “redneck” with a shotgun help her realize this may not be the life for her. Wait, who flopped what on the bar? How is it that customers could determine the mood of the bar owner by how many paper plates they saw on the wall. What happens when a creative talent in his own right, Matthew Harrison, causes like-minded people and ideas from the film community to come together annually? See what this award winning director has to say about the innovative idea of showcasing original and innovative filmmakers,and have them “crashing” into each other! https://www.filmcrash.com/ What is the most important tool a director needs? A. Production assistant. B. Movie Slate Clapper C. None of the above. Can you convert English born, tea drinking  parents to bootleg coffee. Scandalous! Final quiz from this guest...what is that round disc, that you lay upon a turning table, that produces sound called...and why would you use one? Can music be your church?  A gentle and insightful man. Taffy's history and reflections will inspire you. Do you think you know what homelessness looks like? This interview may challenge and possibly change your preconceptions. You will definitely be enlightened. How do you secure employment with external limitations on your personal hygiene?.All Taffy wants is a small home, explore why he hasn’t been able to achieve this goal? Listen to Taffy's very personal story regarding his 14 years on the street. Our motto is truly on full display this week “Everyone has a story to tell.   Cross Country Coffee Roadshow has come to the end of season one. We’ve had a wonderful journey, met fabulous people, and have listened to stories from the heartfelt, to the hilarious. Thank you to everyone, you entrusted us with your stories, invited us into your coffee shops, and lives. You provided us with hospitality love and laughs, while giving us enough material to put out this full season. In order to have a season two we now have to ask for your help. We want you to buy us a cup  of coffee. We have done this through a GoFundme page,titled $5 to cross the country with coffee. If we are successful season two will begin recording at the end of May and back on the air, with new episodes, in the Fall of this year. We will be traveling the Pacific Coast Highway from San Diego to Seattle, on beautiful highway 1-101. If you have traveled this scenic highway and have visited a unique, special, independent coffee shop, please send us an email, or contact us on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook so we can consider adding your special shop for next season’s Cross Country Coffee Roadshow. Again thank you for listening and please go to our GoFundme site. https://www.gofundme.com/cross-the-country-for-5  

On the release of his 3rd album ‘No more normal’, Swindle talks to SK Vibemaker about: 10 years in the game & his musical history, What compelled him as a producer to make albums, How his musical relationships with Mahalia & Kojey Radical began, What ‘No more normal’ means & curating the feature list, His relationship with L.A/California, Mentors in his career, How concise he is with the amount of tracks made when making an album, Balancing music & fatherhood, Releasing his album through Giles Petersons ‘Brownswood record label’, Business advice for budding producers, The making of Drill work with Ghetts & more

Hi guys! Welcome back to Geeking Out Loud! On our very super crazy and special twenty-third episode of Season 2, Maria talks about the craziest surprise ever in showbiz right now… The Jonas Brothers have dropped their comeback song “Sucker," and they’ve also released the music video for this single. WHAAAAT?!  Okay, so after we got our breathing situation under control #WeJustKeptBreathing #AndBreathing #AndBreathing #AndBreathing, we talked about what we see on this music video, what sound we think the Jonas are going for, and also the fact that we get four days of Jonas on The Late Late Show with James Corden from March 4th until March 7th.  Let’s start this chat, shall we?!  Oh, and beware your eardrums on this episode… There’s a lot of screaming! What? No way? Yes, totally. Song: Ikson - Heartbeat (Vlog No Copyright Music) Music promoted by Vlog No Copyright Music. Video Link: https://youtu.be/YQjlxD0IbtA 

Sister missionaries, it's time to step into some trousers (one leg at a time). And Shelly gets all up in her feels about her divorce. Also, we read an amazing listener email about "reparative" or conversion therapy. What???? No thanks, Mormons. We're all good on that front. Music provided by: https://www.purple-planet.com --- This episode is sponsored by · Zhou Nutrition: At Zhou Nutrition, we believe greatness comes from within. We make supplements in our own facilities in the heart of Utah with carefully crafted formulations to support essential wellness, mind, mood, beauty, and the keto lifestyle. https://www.zhounutrition.com/ · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

What No one in America is telling you...The Truth!Everything covered in this episode affects you on a personal level. Clearly & succinctly explained. Bonus! Movie on the Radio: Enter the Spiderverse pt.1 for answers to questions most haven’t asked yet... This whole episode is a must listen

With the kids caught on tape committing some light arson, there's only one thing to do. No, not fess up. What? No, we're destroying the evidence. Find out more about the show at our website: www.vre.show Support us on Patreon: www.patreon.com/VRE Follow us @VRECast

 Sometimes I think my problem is just that I’m messed up in the head and I have a circle of family and friends who’ll nod in agreement when I say that. Yes. Yes, that man is messed up in the head big time.  But sometimes parenting takes a little insanity to make something positive happen. Even if it makes you look like you lost all your marbles and might turn you into the person children point at when you walk down the street with your shopping cart full of your prized parenting possessions ... badly done coloring pages because what if they’re the next Rembrandt?, random rocks they found in the yard and gave you as presents because what if they’re the next Indiana Jones?, and that thing you can’t identify that they found in a dump somewhere, because what if they’re the next American Picker? Even if it makes you look like that, who cares? You’re a parent and you don’t have to apologize because it made you a spectacle. So go right ahead and dance down that street, pushing your shopping cart with its wobbly wheel and singing songs only you know the words to in your mumu and combat boots combo. I won’t say a word to you because my friend, you have a story to tell.  I’m Michael Blackston and I’m about to tell you a few of my own stories and about the parenting in my Funny Messy Life. ________________________________   My wife, and I are currently in a time-honored struggle with our daughter that has been waged since man first started raising children … getting a young’n to sleep in his/her own bed. I didn’t start this to hear all about how easy you had it - your children were perfect angels and you never had the first problem making them sleep in their own room. First of all, I don’t believe you and secondly, if you are telling the truth, I hate you. So, good day, Sir or Madam. I SAID GOOD DAY, SIR OR MADAM! No, I’m talking to you - the normal parent - who can identify with the struggle, have tried and failed and tried again ... (sigh) ... and failed again ... to get your sweet one to go “night night” in their own bed - in their own room - so you and your adult other can do the things you and your adult other want to finally get to do. Things you can’t do with a kid in the room .... REST! Here’s how I’ve been ...   Fighting The Good Fight   I tried the most basic approach at the beginning. But things escalated from there to dangerous, then to outright stupid. Day 1  “You’re sleeping in your room tonight, Pumpkin, like a big girl.”  “No, I’m not.”  “Awwww. Yes you are, because daddy needs his side of the bed.”  “No, I’m nooooot.” It would seem to be a respect problem right from the start if it weren’t so cute that she said it a sing-song delivery while scooping potatoes onto the top of her latest Barbie’s head.  “Yes you aaarrrrreeee,” I sing-song back and rustle her adorable hair.  “Noooo I’m nooooooot.”  This played out into the wee hours of the night until my voice was so exhausted from arguing and my hands were so tired from washing potatoes out of the hair of a naked Barbie, that I placed her softly into the bed between me and my wife and fell asleep, though not before trying to get in one last volley. “You’re sleeping in your own bed tomorrow night.”  I thought I’d won. There was no reply, at least not until I had just drifted off into a land where the cure for diabetes was fresh doughnuts and all the regular Coke I could drink, then out of the darkness, a tiny voice trickled like a gentle mountain brook over the noise of the fan. “Noooo I’m noooooooooot.” Day 2  A different approach. Mr. Nice guy didn’t work, but I understand that she is a child, so I decided to take it from nice to funny. After all, when you want to get someone on your side, you make them laugh. It’s the oldest trick in the book for speakers who want a crowd of people to buy their new product. You get them to like you. If they like you, they’ll trust you. If they trust you, they’ll agree with you by nodding vehemently in agreement with you because they want to please you in the future by purchasing your widget or sharing your latest blog post. (By the way, I’m really hoping you trust me. Just sayin’.)  I saw a benefit in trying this out on my four year old because if I can get adults to want to do what I say, then a small child ought to be, at least in theory, a breeze.  “Hey Merida … why did the chicken cross the road?”  “I don’t know.”  “To get to the other side of her own bed. Funny, right?”  “Is the chicken a rooster or a hen? Because at school they said that roosters are big and strong.”  “Well, it’s not really the point, but I guess it’s a rooster.”  “Are you saying I’m actually a boy, daddy?”  “What? No!”  “You said a joke to make me sleep in my bed.”  “Yes, but …”  “Roosters are boys.”  “It’s a HEN! The chicken crossing the road is always a hen.” I started to sweat. This wasn’t going as planned. “You’re sleeping in your own bed tonight.”  “No, I’m not.”  Time for the backup plan. I would tickle her to get her laughing so hard she didn’t realize I had put her into her bed. The plan worked at first. She pitched a cackle so hard that she threw herself backward onto her pillow, but overshot it by a few inches and clocked the back of her head on the wooden book shelving that made up the headboard. She was screaming in pain and I had to convince her to let me check her skull for fractures and wood chips. Day 3  With the protective bumpers in place on the shelves behind her - I made them out of pool noodles that were retrofitted to cover the dangerous parts - I implemented another phase of Operation: Sleep, Dangit!  I’d seen movies where the good guy lured the villain into a place by distraction and guile. I don’t see my daughter as a villain by any means, but I definitely see myself as the hero in my own movie, so it should work, right?  “Hey darlin’, what’s that? Is that a new baby doll?”  “Where?”  “In your room. Now that we have you in your night night clothes, teeth brushed, and potty trip done, I think we should check out the new baby doll I see in your room.”  Of course, I know this might seem more like bribery and probably not a good precedent to be setting, but stay with me. I needed to create an incentive to get the villai … um … my child interested in following me into her bedroom and I had no gold, nor suitcases full of money and drugs.  Thinking there was a baby doll in there, she ran into her bedroom.  “I don’t see it,” she gushed, excited.  “See that lump under the covers at the foot of your bed? I think that must be it! You’ll have to burrow down under your covers to get to it.”  The plan was for her to get under there and I would cuddle up next to her and read a book while she hugged her new doll, forgetting completely about mommy and daddy’s bed.  What actually happened was that she surprised me and whether what she did next was innocence, cunning, or just a slap in my face with a smile, I’ll never know.  “It’s easier this way, daddy!” She ran around to the foot of the bed, lifted the covers from that end and pulled out her new, too expensive doll. She hugged it tightly, just as I new she would, then ran down the hall to our bedroom screaming, “Thank you daddy, I love it! You’re the BEST daddy in the world!”  (Sigh.)    Day 4  I probably should have given up right then. I’m a pretty staunch believer in the three strikes, you’re out concept, but I wanted to give it one last try before letting the dust settle while coming up with a new set of plans.  Natural remedies. I looked on the internet because all the great ideas are there and everybody is an expert. I found what I hoped would be a helpful blog by a woman named S. Marty McPants. Her bio said she was an expert and her credentials listed being on the internet to prove it.  Here are a few of the things I tried that night.  Start early - I could handle that. We hit the sack at 3 pm. For some reason, she just laid there making annoying mouth noises and fidgeting her legs. Then she told me she was hungry.  “Daddy, I’m hungry. I didn’t have supper yet.”  “Shhhhh. Go to sleep. Daddy needs you to go to sleep.”  More mouth noises and fidgeting.  “Daddy I’m not sleepy yet..”  “Just lay there and you’ll get sleepy. Now stop making those noises and wiggling.”  She started doing hand puppets - the same boredom activity my son used to call Talkin' Hands.  “Look, daddy. This hand is a kitty and this hand is bunny. Watch ‘em fight!” She then engaged in a violent cage match to the death between her two puppet hands.  “Stop that! Go to sleep!”  “Daddy, I’m hungry.”  Soothing Fragrances   I decided we’d get up and try again later. When that time came, I was armed with an arsenal of fragrances and essential oils I was told might help initiate a sleep response. I had roses, oranges, lavender, coconut, cinnamon spice, honey suckle, pumpkin spice, essence of baked chocolate chip cookie, scent of breast milk, and something called The Smell of God’s Endearing Love.  Nobody told me not to put all the oils in the steamer thing at once and the result was anything but calming.  A Noise Maker  I don’t know why I didn’t think of that before. I use a noise maker app when I’m on the road in hotel rooms - heavy rain - and I can’t sleep without it now. In our bedroom, my wife and I need to have a fan going at all times and part of that is for the noise, so it made sense that my darling angel might benefit from the same thing.  Unfortunately, I hadn’t paid attention to the box when I bought it, just after Halloween. It was orange with cute black bats all over it. I assumed the bats represented night time and they were happy and cute and happy. I didn’t read the writing on the box because my eyes were glazed over from the lack of sleep the previous night when two tiny feet dug into my back for the entire eight hours. So, when I set up the machine next to the bed and pressed play on the remote control, my precious daughter, who was nervous already about being in the dark, was treated to the screams of murder victims, chains rattling, and evil laughter.  She’ll be sleeping with us for a while yet.  What can you do? I only have so much in me and I think I’ll need a recharge before I try this again. Until then, I’ll get as much sleep as I can in the six inches I’ve been allotted for my side of our king size bed. ___________________________    Not long ago, I cycled through pictures in a blog of a young lady who wants to look like a Barbie Doll so badly that she’s had a bunch of surgery to alter her body. I won’t go into my opinion about that because she’s free to do that to herself if she chooses and wouldn’t care what a dude like me with good sense thinks about it in the first place. So you might be thinking to yourself, Here he goes. This redneck soundin’, biscuit eatin’, minivan drivin’, butter churnin’, opinionated, Disney lovin’, (gasp for breath ...) art makin’, podcast havin’, bible readin’, politics hatin’, superhero movie watchin’, showtune singin’ son of a so and so is about to tell us what we should and shouldn’t do. And you’d be wrong. I’m about to tell you about a problem I have in my own household. I call it ...    The Barbie Doll Conundrum  I’m about to enter into a fracas that’s been raging for years. There’s an all out hullabaloo about the harmful affects Barbie dolls have on our society and I, for one, would like to add my two cents as a father and husband now that I have a daughter who embraces them with every fiber of her five going on 25 little being.  First, let me make it clear that I won’t be tossing around any of the regular notions that are typically at the forefront of this brouhaha, such as the emotional effects Barbie might have on young girls in regard to their appearance. I mean, I played with He-Man figures my entire childhood and my wife will tell you I’ve never felt like I needed to look like them, with their perfect bulked up bodies that could destroy a submarine with one flex. And that was just Teela. I’ll leave the brainy stuff to the psychologists and their bow ties.  I’m talking about finally shedding some light on the real problems associated with having approximately 8,324,749 Barbie dolls lying around the house.  Problem 1.           There are approximately 8,324,749 Barbie dolls lying around my house. My daughter has opened box after box during birthdays, Christmas, Hannukah (and we’re not even Jewish), full moons, Mardi Gras, Cinco De Mayo, and post thrift store adventures my mom has been on. Homeless people on the street come up to us, not asking for money or food, but to give my child a Barbie doll.  “Can I get you a hot meal, though?”  “Oh no, thank you, but that angel looks like she’d like a doll.”  Yes. She would like a doll. That’s the problem. She’ll always like a doll. I’m trying to teach her what actual floors look like in a house, but I’m not being allowed to do that because of the Barbie doll thing. I want her to understand the beauty of natural hard wood or even a well installed linoleum, but that can’t happen because there’s a perpetual layer of naked dolls on the flooring surface of my entire house.  Problem 2.           Everything is naked. Yep, I get it. They’re just plastic dolls, but there are two males living in the house and even the idea of 8,324,749 naked females can create issues. My son is a teen and I’m trying to teach him the value of a chaste woman; to appreciate the kind of girl who wears an adequate amount of clothing and leaves something to the imagination for the man she will eventually marry and that he should see nothing beyond that until his wedding night, praise the Lord and can I get an “Amen”?!  Unfortunately, taking off all of their clothes is the very first thing a girl does when getting a new doll. At least that’s how mine plays with them. She disrobes them, then tries on different clothes. The problem is, sometimes she finds it hard to put the clothes back on them. Before long, I’ll hear, “Help, daddy!” and suddenly I’m fondling a tiny naked calendar model. Then later that night …  “Hey, honey. Um, you wanna …”  “We have church tomorrow and it’s late.”  “Oh, okay.” (Turns over in a pronounced huff)  “What’s wrong?”  “NOTHING!”  These problems could be avoided if they’d just make the dolls with clothing that could not be taken off and to give a little credit, some of that has started to happen. My daughter got a couple of Disney princess dolls that had painted “skin suits” on under their dresses. It gave me a start when from the back seat of the car, I had Elsa thrown toward me without her dress on. “Help, daddy!”  Kayla looked over at me in the passenger seat as I was holding the doll in one hand and her dress in the other, wearing a noticeable look of disappointment.  “Why are you frowning like that?” ”NOTHING!”  Problem 3.           There are only so many Barbie dolls that’ll fit in a single bathtub. Also, they all have long hair that doesn’t dry immediately. The beauty of that finely groomed hair while in the box is undone once the post-tub drying experience has happened. One seasoned mom told me to just comb it out and just let it dry naturally. Nope. I’ve got to shake out each individual doll so it doesn’t get moldy and once I beat the hair savagely against the side of the tub like Bob Ross beating the devil out of his paint brush, Barbie’s hair looks like Phyllis Diller’s and who - I ask in all honesty - wants to look at a naked Phyllis Diller?  I try to explain that we only need to put a few in the tub at a time, but a four year thinks that the only way to play in the tub is to have every single toy she owns in there with her. So not only am I rounding up 8,324,749 Barbies, but also each Minnie Mouse and every McDonald's toy she ever got in a happy meal. Once I bathed a Cabbage Patch Kid for five minutes before I realized it wasn’t my daughter. I only figured out my mistake after a hand shot out from under the toys holding a naked Ken doll. “Here, daddy!” Now, that’s where I draw the line. I ain’t fondling no naked Ken doll.  Problem 4.           Sooner or later, my angel will be too old for the dolls and I’ll face the day when I have to pick them up off of the floor for the last time. That day will be bittersweet because while I’ll enjoy the sight of a clean walking surface, I’ll also understand that this marks a turning point in our lives.  I’ll also have to figure out what to do with all of those dolls. I won’t give them to a thrift store. I couldn’t do that to my fellow man. I might go out under bridges and distribute them back to the homeless.  “You got any change, sir?”  “I just gave you a DOLL!”  However it turns out, I do know that there’s a light at the end of the Barbie Fashion Accessory Tunnel by Mattel that somebody bought for my daughter’s last birthday. But there’s also a light at the end of the philosophical tunnel and that is that one day, despite the too-much-growing-up that my little girl will have done, I shall shower unencumbered by any tiny naked women lying on the floor just on the other side of the curtain, making me feel like I need some deep, intrusive therapy from a dude in a bow tie.  Until then, I can enjoy the simple things, like being in bed beside my wife later in the evening after she had to be the one to put Ken’s clothes back on him, and feeling a little nudge on my shoulder. “Honey, … um …” ____________________________    Have you ever tried to raise a child “in the way he or she should go”? I think that’s how the bible puts it. Of course it’s making reference to spiritual things in that context, but it can be applied to the following story as well, especially since spiritual phrases are often yelled out in the form of, “Oh good Lord!” or “For the love of all that is pure and HOLY!”  I’m talking about the thankless art of ...    Raising Children  We want them to be valuable members of society; independent, strong, cunning, and efficient – to make a difference for the world and to be a betterment for the human race. I want them to salute the flag and help old ladies across the street. I want them to know I support their right to protest, but would ask them kindly not to do it while wearing a hat that looks like a hoo-ha.  I have two projects at the moment for which I, along with my wife, are responsible. One is five and the other is fourteen. That’s why I plead to our Creator: God help us!  The five year old isn’t necessarily easier in that she’s a five year old and they need a detailed daily strategy to handle them without losing your sanity, a strategy which will inevitably be amended with magic marker, crumpled, torn, and destroyed by 9 am so that the rest of the day is a flying by the seat of your pants kind of thing. At least with a child that young, there’s plenty of time ahead of her to figure it out. Maybe I’ll be the first parent ever to get into a groove and raise her into adolescence, through the teen years, and right into adulthood with nary a tear, nor raised voice. Perhaps we can accomplish the holy grail of parenthood and our daughter will understand early on that wearing clothes that actually cover her body is for her own good and if daddy has to say, “Darling, sweet, cherub dear … would you mind terribly going back to your room to change into something that doesn’t look as if you will soon be performing on a stage where the central set piece is a pole?”, she’ll smile like the angel that she is and say to me, “Father, whom I love and admire to the apex of my respect, I shall indeed change into the proper attire with the understanding that just because the world says tramp is the new nun, doesn’t mean I must abandon my upbringing and submerge into such a presentation. And should I approach a bridge with my peers and they bid me jump, I shall say nay. NAY, I SHALL TELL THEM!”  Maybe that’s the daughter that’ll brighten our house, but I doubt it.  At the moment, I spend a lot of time trying to be a good example for a fourteen year old boy who wants desperately for me to realize that he has figured out the world in all its intricacies and knows the ways of it much better than I do. He tries to make this clear by rolling his eyes and offering an exasperated sigh after even the tiniest instruction, i.e. “Go feed the dog”, “Stop peeing on the toilet seat”, “Don’t bite the gift horse that feeds you before it hatches.”  I will say he tries - in the way only an early teen knows how - to finish a task that was asked of him once the moment of angst has passed.  He likes to sleep on the couch. He insists it’s more comfortable. And since it’s pretty much been ruined with grease from crumbs and greasy things and something we can’t identify, but is so gross the dog cried out when she licked it, we’ve allowed him to move it into his bedroom.  One bright morning not long ago, he woke … well, let’s rephrase that. One hot AFTERNOON not long ago, he woke and left the comforter he’d been sleeping under in a pile on the floor beside the couch, so I told him that he needed to fold it the way he’d been shown and put it in the designated spot. After all, what if mom showed up unexpectedly and the living room looked lived in?  I left him to it and when I came back, I found the comforter in the very spot I’d told him to put it - rolled up in a big wad like some monster-sized squirrel was making a nest and stuffed it into a tree hole.  I just said, “Oh good Lord!” and shook my head while I bent to pick up a naked Barbie doll that had been bound from head to toe in rubber bands. I had no idea where the rubber bands came from and I hoped in the name of my sanity that she’d not gotten her hands on some version of Fifty Shades Of Grey for toddlers. After all, you never know when mom and the preacher are going to show up unexpectedly. I guess the verdict at this point is that my kids are progressing in the normal fashion for their ages and I’m aging quickly because of it. Just keep us in your prayers, would you? I’m told there’s only more of that to come. God help us. ____________________  I know, I know - cry me a river. Most of us go through the parenting thing, so be such a big baby. I get it. And I’m not saying i’d ever change a thing. I love my kids and I hope they know I’d die for them without a second thought. I tell them I love them every day. I think it’s one of the most important things a dad can do for their children - to say I love you. A lot.    

It's that time again, Sunrise! What? No, not a literal sunrise, the movie Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans. Tyler and Brandon discuss F. W. Murnau's 1927 Romantic Drama. Follow us on on Twitter, @FilmFoilPodcast, and Facebook Brandon’s Twiter: @BrandoV2 Tyler’s Twitter: @TylerJRinne Music - "Golden Sunrise" by Josh Woodward. Free download: http://joshwoodward.com/

Dhru Purohit, former CEO of Clean Program, current CEO & Business Partner of Dr. Mark Hyman Enterprises, and Hard Core Entrepreneur who happens to know how to Build relationships better than anyone I know.  • Have you ever met someone who you wanted to develop a relationship with and didn’t know what to say next or how to follow up?  • Dhru shares his first thoughts when meeting someone new that’s helped him build long-lasting friendships and greater business opportunities.  • How sharing what’s not working has developed a community of caring, a true example of Design vs Default living.  • The first starting point of health & how to save money while eating well.  Hint: Healthy eating doesn’t need to be expensive. #dontbeadefault • How Falling Still can help you be present in the moment.  • Dhru shares what’s in his toolbox that helps him get unstuck and be the high performing 8Days A Week human he is. Believe me, you don’t want to miss this one. • What No are you growing so that your Yes can be blessed?  • Hear why Dhru is saying no to travel right now and why.  • Hear how your secret weapon can create the complete life you desire.  • Follow Dhru and wish him a happy birthday  (gluten-free) as today is his Born Day.    Instagram: @Dhrupurohit https://www.instagram.com/dhrupurohit   Recorded on October 2017.  Check out docuseries Broken Brain and FeelGoodSummit.co    Default: launch episode every Tuesday. Design: launch Dhru episode on his birthday.

Video games are having a negative affect on my children! What? No, I don’t pay attention to what they’re playing, why do you ask? 32:13 – Wacky survey shows parents don’t pay attention to kids’ gaming, notice bad behavior, don’t think it has anything to do with games, took games away anyway, gave them back ...Continue reading ‘Molehill Mountain Episode 106 – Parents Gonna Parent’ »

2 episodes in 2 days!!! WHAT??? No, this won’t be the norm, but we wanted to cover “popper-fishing” and it just wasn’t going to happen on the river. Listen in as Ted gives advice on one of his favorite ways to beat the “dog days of summer.” Also, check out footage from our most recent trip on the Grand River. https://youtu.be/UCD7_TYS2os

Whats up Motorheads! On this podcast I talk about: Adam Sandoval and his new K-River Campground Purchase. Trump still looking to get attention in media with the whole Harley Tariff deal! Cory Ness of Arlen Ness teams up with Yamaha to build up the new Star Eluder with a line of customization parts. The rising "tick" problem in the US today and a tick that its bite makes you allergic to red meat!!!! What No more ribeyes!!!! No Bueno for me! Show topic links www.motorcyclecruiser.com www.Yamaha.com www.washingtontimes.com This show is brought to you by Anchor.FM its FAST, its EASY and its The ONLY WAY TO PODCAST! Thanks again to Anchor.FM for putting us out there and getting the show its recognition. Thank you to the listeners to continue to support the show! Email us at thecycleshackpodcast@gmail.com Thanks for Listening! Ivan Rodriguez/ The Cycleshack --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/thecycleshack/support

For a split moment, Josie’s imagination tried to take over her mind. Is it someone I know? My niece, Stephie just got her license and she’s a blonde. Josie took an intentional deep breath and admonished herself. Stop. Get a grip. Stay focused on the job. “Okay sir, I know this is difficult, but I need you to hold it together. Help is on the way.” “Tell them to hurry. Except I’m afraid it’s too late for her.” Josie forced herself to maintain a professional composure, though adrenalin flooded her veins and her blood pressure pumped more powerfully than it did during most calls. Something about this one felt different. And it was more than location, something in Josie’s gut told her she wasn’t going to like the outcome. She would soon find out her gut was absolutely right. The caller hung up after the first responders arrived on scene, but the tension in the air of the 9-1-1 office did not dissipate. Across squawking radios, it was evident in all of the voices attending the accident; county deputies, state highway patrol, and EMS, something wasn’t being said. There was a vibe that said there was something uniquely wrong. Moments like this made the physical disconnect between 9-1-1 and those who worked directly with victims feel like a punch in the stomach. Josie wished she could know exactly what was going on. It would take over an hour before she found out why everyone seemed exceptionally on edge. Sergeant Troy Matthews walked into the office, his face so low it appeared as if his chin might drag the ground. Sergeant Matthews made his way directly to Josie. “You took the call about the girl out on 49?” Tears pooled in Josie’s eyes. “Yes.” Troy, whose own eyes glistened, placed his hand on Josie’s shoulder.”It was Mandy Sellers’ daughter, Bella.” Josie raised out of her chair instinctively, “What? No. Not Bella! She—we— all of us loved. . . .” “I know,” Troy broke in. “It was like she belonged to all of us, like she was our own daughter.” Josie fell back onto the seat, Mandy was a well-respected sheriff’s deputy who had been on the force for over fifteen years. “I—we. We practically raised her with Mandy. After she started school, she came every day when they let out. In the summer, she ran and got us lunch, or on really hot days, a small vanilla cone for both of us. From the time she was a little thing, she had been a bright light and energizing force that lifted our spirits on mundane or difficult days. We all looked forward to her visits, I can’t imagine her not bouncing through the door.” Troy nodded his head in agreement. “I know what you mean. Her innocence made you remember the good in this world — something it’s easy to forget in this line of work.” The 9-1-1 line lit up requiring Josie’s immediate attention. In that instant, Josie knew the expectation. Turn your feelings off and turn the calm on. She had no choice but to delay her grief until later. But one thought disturbed Josie the most as she turned to take the call. How did Bella die? ** For Complete Story go the CoronerTalk.com ep183 **    

Sean and Gerry discuss Uncanny X-Men #168-171, Marvel Fanfare #24, and X-Men Annual #6 with Alan White!   MUSIC INTRO - "Down Under" - Men At Work   Shout out to the Cos! Wait. What? NO! Kitty Pryde. Sweet tantrumy Kitty. Illyana, THAT friend. Paul Smith draws Ellen Page 25 years before Ellen Page. The quality of Paul Smith's line - simplicity implies detail The Twitter spoiler machine What is Twitter really for, then? Axis #5 - SPOILERS - discussing artists hitting or not hitting the important details. The movie universe bleeding into the comics. Wolverine's face! Storm wears fur. You read that right. Storm's losing control of her powers. Was this leading somewhere? How Storm got her unique look. Lee Forrester is back! Nighcrawler brings a special package to Amanda Sefton. Or does he have 2 packages??? Great Ads - Spider-Man's Christmas ad, and a Bill Willingham D&D ad! Hey, why NOT talk about D&D on an X-Men podcast? Alan's Madelyne Pryor story! Warren Worthington has a private elevator. Elevators. Yeah, they're safe. Candy Southern is introduced to Sunder, who is there to hurt her. EMMA FROST! The X-Men meet the Morlocks for the first time! We're introduced to Callisto, Sunder, Plague, and Masque. Scott drops Lee Forrester faster than a hooker in Sketchers, and plans his trip to Egypt. Storm will cut a beech! Alan's story idea for the end of the Maddy Pryor/Mastermind arc. Woulda been so so nice. Illyana manifests the soul sword for the first time! Rogue arrives at the X-Mansion for the first time! Ms. Marvel comes home and punches Rogue to the Moon, then gives the X-Men the finger.   Shortly after, in Marvel Fanfare #24, Carol Danvers says goodbye to planet Earth at an Avengers poker game.   Lastly, in Uncanny X-Men Annual #6, Dracula comes a-callin' again. Sienkiewicz's art compared to his work in Uncanny X-Men #159. Young readers' lack of appreciation for Dracula's place in the Marvel U. Kitty's parents divorce. The final, sad fate of Rachel Van Helsing.   MUSIC OUTRO - "On a Plain" - Nirvana   DID YOU KNOW YOU CAN FIND ALL OF OUR EPISODES AT greatxpectations.libsyn.com OR FIND IT ON ITUNES AND STITCHER! Find us at greatx-pectations.com Follow us on Twitter @GXPod and and on Facebook- https://www.facebook.com/groups/GXPod/ Follow Alan at @NewMutant, and read his webcomic at http://thepowerprinciple.co/ Album art by Baron Strucker. Follow his monacled ass on twitter @BaronVStrucker

Tonight we begin with a viewer question from Adam Ward. He also included some Douglas Adams HHGTTG jokes which we always appreciate. Thanks, Adam! Thank you so much to our Patrons on Patreon, it means a lot to us to have your support. Jump on here: http://patreon.com/crossthreaded  President Trump reportedly poised to ban German luxury carmakers from US market: https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2018/05/31/president-trump-may-ban-german-luxury-carmakers-us-report/658745002/ A $523 monthly payment is the new standard for car buyers? And loans for 5-7 years? WHAT? NO. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/31/a-523-monthly-payment-is-the-new-standard-for-car-buyers.html

Katrina: We are live. Matt: So you just wanna like rest that on you? Katrina: Sure. Katrina: Is this lighting gonna be good with the beach behind it for your videos? Matt: It's gonna be a bit hard to get it all in. Katrina: Hello. Matt: [inaudible 00:00:19] Katrina: I look amazing on my own live stream, but that's a one-time thing. We need it to look amazing on the actual videos. Katrina: Hello, people. People of the internet. Hello and welcome. I'm gonna turn the camera around so Matt can say hi to you. Katrina: Matt's gonna film, filming myself. I'll explain it in a moment. Katrina: So we're gonna do, hello Michelle. Hello, Amber. See, I find that the only way I can sit properly on this throne is to sit up like this, in some sort of a lotus ninja position. But I don't want that- Matt: It's gonna be like just wear your boobs. Katrina: Okay, perfect. Katrina: Hello, floating devil Katrina. Have you seen this? Come and check this out on my live stream. Centre more Katrina, so Matt can see. He's not seeing it yet. Look at those little floaty Katrinas. Katrina: And look that says 1%. Send some press play ones, guys, be helpful. Send some press play ones. Where are the press play ones. It's so cool. There's some Katrinas. They look like little possessed demons. And that says press play. Matt: That's awesome. Katrina: How cool is it? Katrina: Oh, and if you go watch this replay on my page, it has a banner down the bottom that says- Matt: Oh, [inaudible 00:01:36] idea. Katrina: Which is so next level here. High tech as fuck. I feel like my own live stream here is off-center. Who wants to see behind the scenes of creating my new funnel? Who? Who? Well, presumably all of you, or you wouldn't have jumped on. Hi, welcome. I'm gonna explain what we're doing. Hang on, I've gotta tell my team I'm live. I am live. Please share. Okay, don't forget. I'll just tell you right now. Do it right away. I'm messaging Kat [inaudible 00:02:08]. Katrina: I'm about to film, hang on, do you think I need my press play cushion in the frame there? Matt: I wouldn't see it in this but if you want [inaudible 00:02:17]. Katrina: Okay, yes. Pass it over. Throw it over. Katrina: It's happening here. Katrina: You can never have too many sparkles in a live stream. That's a proven fact. It's in the Wikipedia. Katrina: Oh, that's better. All right. Welcome to the show. Do you know what? Remind me always if we're filming and I have a hairband on my wrist, 'cause I'm always shitty about it afterwards. Lucky I just noticed. I'm shitty about it when I see the footage. Katrina: So Matt's here doing my professional videography. He's gonna create a new episode of what's it even called? Katrina Ruth Unchained or is it still called Kat Unchained? Matt: Kat Unchained. Katrina: Kat Unchained, if you don't know is one of my, it's my publicly created and edited and put together show which Matt films, edits, creates, Katrina: And it shows lots of cool insights behind the scenes of what I'm doing and what my team's doing and how I bring things to life. You should go check out previous episodes of that. You would get a real cool insight into the journey that is me. Even the journey of the evolution of Kat Loterzo into Katrina Ruth. Katrina: And today we're gonna create a new episode of that, 'cause why would you not? We haven't done it for ages, 'cause people are just travelling merrily around the world too much. Katrina: But we're also gonna film three videos, I think it's three videos. Let me find the three specific short videos that will only be like two to three minutes each and we're gonna use these videos, me and my team are gonna use these videos in my new funnel marketing. So i thought that rather than selfishly film only by myself and then you had to wait till you saw it on a Facebook ad and then you didn't understand what I'm even doing, why would I not just share with you the behind the scenes? If you love that idea and you think I'm amazing, send me extra love, hot emojis and extra press play ones. No, 1% ones, 'cause they're pink and they match the throne. Katrina: How's your footage? Am I all set up properly? Matt: Yeah, it's good here. Katrina: Before we start, I wanna remind you, thank you [Min 00:04:18], for dropping that comment right there. Before we start, I would love to remind you that there are, or tell you, because you might not need reminding, 'cause maybe you don't realise this but there's only three places left for reach out empire. Reach out empire has just begun a couple of days ago. It is my most transformational one on one intensive six weeks one on one, you and me, me and you, us together. I will kick your ass with love and compassion every single day and sometimes a little bit harder than that. You're gonna get super accountability. Super alignment. Super ass kickery and all the crazy results [inaudible 00:04:52]. You should check out just all the testimonies we'll be posting everyday. They are bad ass as fucked. I real, as fucked? I realised I've been, this is a confession. Katfession, you should film this, Matt, we can use this for some kind of little page. Who wants a Katfession? Katrina: Soon, I'll tell you what we're doing with the funnel. Here's my Katfession. Hashtag Katfession. I actually have two. But the first one is, I'm talking to this camera now, just so you know. The first one is I haven't been, pretty much in the entire history of my business or maybe back to the fitness business, I don't show client results. Like, I'll show them like once a year, or I'll sort of mumble mumble them under my breath. Katrina: I consistently get insane client results, like people making crazy amounts of money. Fast. But better still, alignment, random weight loss, which just happens from alignment anyway, whole life up levelled, location free stuff, quitting jobs, getting into [inaudible 00:05:42] relationships, whatever it is. And my clients are telling me this stuff every day. And pretty much for years, pretty much since I was showing bikini body results, like years ago. I just haven't shown that shit. And I think, I wonder if anyone else has done this? I think that I had some kind of reverse weird ego thing going on with it, where I was kinda like, "I don't want people to think I'm just kind of flaunting myself on the internet". Katrina: And so just kind of note it down and obviously, celebrate with the client, but then never tell people. And so I kicked my own ass around it. You've gotta kick your own ass from time to time. You can't wait for somebody else to do it. And I just got over myself and started fucking posting them everyday just since like last Sunday, but they're insane, the results that I've been posting and it's been so inspiring for me, 'cause it reminds me how bad ass my clients are. But I gotta admit, I've always been like, "What in the fuck? Do I not like making money?" I mean, clearly I make a lot of money anyway, actually, which is another thing just relevant to the fact that you make money from your energy, not from whether you post testimonials. But it does make a difference. So there you are. Katrina: So if you wanna see all those, you probably been seeing them all week on Facebook anyhow. Reach out empire. Three places left. This will sell out. My estimation is, my prediction is that it will sell out by lunch time tomorrow my time. So let's say, maybe 24 hours from now. So you wanna message me, message me, message me on my Katrina Ruth personal page right away if you'd like the full details and overview of that. I don't know why this is my new thing. I think it works for me. And I'll get you the details and if it's for you, we will get your ass in, it is one on one. You get unlimited one on one access to me, by the way. And also this is the final chance to work with me at the intensive six-week rapid result level for the significantly lower investment than the only other way that you can work with me one on one, which after this will be my $72,000 Inner Circle. And at some point, of course it's gonna be on reach out empire again, but it's gonna be way later on in the year. Katrina: All right. I had another confession, but I'm gonna save it. You can just stew about it and wonder what it is. It's super embarrassing for me. So we're gonna film three videos. Three videos. Here they are. What we're doing. I hate being under command you guys. I fucking hate it. So I know I said that I was gonna live stream this so that you can see behind the scenes of how we're creating my new funnel and I'll talk you through what I'm doing, because I think that's a nice thing for me to do and it's helpful of me. So I give myself credit for being a nice person and a helpful person, but if you wanna know the real initial reason that I decided to do that, it's because I fucking hate making things under command and then the way that I would feel happier about it is doing my own content at the same time. Even though, technically, this is my own content, 'cause it is for me. Katrina: And [Frank Cohn 00:08:33], who's my private mentor, and is the most hilarious man on the internet and also fucking amazing marketer and the only person I'll listen to on internet marketing has asked me to do this and so indeed, I will. Katrina: So what we're doing is were creating, I believe, a five or it could be five to seven small videos that are gonna be roughly two to three minutes in length each, I believe. Let me check the minute time over here of what they want. Katrina: No, okay. So, Matt, what's your take on this? Hang on, let's put Matt on the camera. People who are talking should be seen. So [Brahman 00:09:05] says it could be up to six minutes, but it can't be six minutes just of Katrina talking, can that mesh together with other interesting random stuff, mash up with testimonials and client footage or be [inaudible 00:09:21] stuff? What do you think about that? Matt: What's this for? Oh, for this. Katrina: The videos. Matt: Yeah, we can do that, yeah. Katrina: We can do that. You heard it. Katrina: All right. Of course we can. Like he's gonna be like, "No, we can't do that. I refuse. I won't do it." Katrina: Okay. So basically, I don't know why I'm worrying about how long I should talk for, 'cause I think we all know that I'm gonna talk for exactly as long as I desire to talk for and when I'm done, I'll be done and not before, but really it shouldn't be longer than five or six minutes, 'cause these videos are for Facebook ads and as much as I do think people love to watch my shit, they're not gonna watch Facebook ad videos for no longer than six minutes and they're probably not even gonna watch six minutes either. Katrina: Brahman says, "I would be okay with the video done professionally for six minutes long, but it can't just be six minutes of Katrina in front of the camera." I think everybody fucking wants six minutes of Katrina in front of the camera. I feel like that's offensive, but maybe not new people who don't know me yet. We would need breakaway shots of purpose-built footage samples from live streams and still images from the Kat archives. While I wouldn't wanna tell you what to say in each video, and indeed she should not, because good luck with that, attached is a high-level storyboard of what could be included in the videos. Katrina: Look how fucking strategic I am. I don't think I've ever done so much planning in my entire adult life. I'm gonna go off script now and do whatever the fuck I want. But basically, what we're gonna do is we're gonna have five, there'll be no business to [inaudible 00:10:44], John. I think you've manifested that I always reply quickly to your comments, 'cause I saw you said that the other day, now I find myself responsively doing it. You've somehow trained me on it. Katrina: I don't know if I care for that sort of neurological conditioning. So what was I saying? Five to seven videos. Here's how it works. You'll get the first video in your newsfeed. The first video is gonna be that one we made in Santa Monica, you know the one Chris produced from, the official one that shows the whole story and bad assery of me. That's a good video if you've not seen it. It's super high-level. Katrina: And then if they watch 25%, this is how the campaign works. If they watch 25% of video number one, numero uno, then they get elevated like in a, what is it, video game. They go to the next level. They get to watch the next video, which is gonna be this one. Katrina talking about journaling. See, even though I love journaling, and I'm totally happy to make a video about journaling, when I read this, my inner mind just goes, "Katrina talking about journaling." Okay, fine. I'll talk about journaling. Katrina: Why, what, when, where, how? We need the video to answer a question. Possible questions could be can journaling change your business overnight? No. But maybe. Okay, fine. Yes. Is this one thing the reason you're constantly stuck in your business? We gotta think of a question. Tell me a good question. Katrina: Don't worry, we'll get it. And then we want breakaway video shots. Video shots of Katrina journaling, still shots of Katrina journaling. Shouldn't be a problem. Okay, so we're doing that. Then we're doing a fitness video. What? No, we're just talking about self-care and fitness. And then we're doing messaging, about messaging and sharing and unleashing what's inside of you with the internet. I'm sure I have many things to say about that. And we're gonna do a sales one, as well. Katrina: Those are the four videos we're gonna film now. I may or may not livestream the whole thing. We're gonna let it be freaking real, right? So it's not supposed to look like no mistakes or something like that. There's gonna be outfit changes for this livestream, just so you know. Because that way, every time they get a new video on their feed, they're gonna see, I chose the scenery myself. They're gonna see the same background, but I'll have a different top on, so it'll look a little bit different in the feed. Katrina: So then each time they watch 25% of a video, they go to the next video, 25% or more and that's what they'll then see in their feed. And so the four videos that I just talked through, they cover what you might know, 'cause I've talked about this a lot on my four daily non-negotiables, right? So some form of inner work, like journaling. Some form of self-care like fitness. Some form of messaging and sharing your work when you're out with the world, and some form of sales activity. I say over and over again, these are the four things that you wanna do each day to be super fucking successful as an entrepreneur creator. Katrina: So the purpose of this funnel, this Facebook ad campaign, is to obviously indoctrinate people into me, into my message, into what I'm here to teach, get to know me, have some fun. We'll probably mash through some client testimonial stuff, as well, of course. And then at the end, or somewhere throughout, what it's gonna be promoting, what the funnel is promoting is my inner circle. Katrina: So as I just mentioned earlier, after these final three places for reach out empire are sold out, then I'm focusing only on the inner circle for some time now and really investing my time and attention into my existing private clients who are in reach out empire, as well as into the inner circle and growth of the inner circle. Katrina: And so, that's what I'm doing this campaign for, as well as obviously, general indoctrination into the Katrina Ruth community. And then there'll be other things that get marketed into the funnel, of course, beyond that. Katrina: So that gives you the whole story, now you're up to speed. Are you good with how it all looks? Matt: Yeah. Any chance we can move the front of it a little bit that way? Katrina: Yes. Yeah, that's good. All right. Let me have some water before we begin. All right, so- Matt: Do you wanna have a look before we shoot the whole thing? Katrina: Yes. Okay, we'll go and look how I look on the camera, because- Matt: Can you sit down for a sec? Katrina: Oh. Katrina: Can you get the whole Grateful Dead top in or not? Matt: I can. Katrina: Because one thing that drives me insane is that when I'm doing my own livestreams I can control my appearance, but when somebody else is filming, I have no fucking idea how I look and I feel very out of control. Katrina: All right. So anyway, what I'm gonna film now. I look amazing. All right, show the people. Good job. All right. We're set. We are safe to continue. Katrina: Anyway, so now basically, I'm just gonna talk to you about journaling, so really you can ignore the fact that I'm filming this behind the scenes and I'm just gonna drop some bad ass value and content on your ass and that way you don't even have to watch all the Facebook ads, you can save yourself the time. Matt: So you just look in this camera? Katrina: I can't talk to you guys, though. Did I put that back in the right spot? Matt: Yeah, that's fine. Katrina: I'm not gonna look at you. I'm gonna look at this camera. All right? Matt: When you're ready. Katrina: Do you know what? I'm having a moment of nervousness. I feel like what I need to do first is just watch a minute of Frank Kern's videos, remind myself of how he intros himself. That's right, people, sometimes I'm not sure of myself and I go into a mild panic. Label Frank Kern. We're all gonna watch a minute of a Frank Kern video now. He has 44,000 views on this video. I adore Frank. He's the president of the internet, if you aren't aware. Did you know that? Matt: Nope. Katrina: Just like I'm the queen of the internet. He has Tony Robbins on his video. I don't have that. Video footage: My name's Frank Kern. About ten years ago [crosstalk 00:16:33]- Katrina: What's happening? He seems to be talking fast. Video footage: ... great joy and honour to work with Tony. He's just a real fun guy and the same person that you see on stage and on screen is the same person you'll sit across the table from. Katrina: All right. I've got it now. I just needed some Frank Kern energy in my soul before I began. I got it now. Thank you, Olga. Katrina: Isn't it funny? 'Cause I have no problem live streaming for like 59 hours straight and it would be such gold content and why couldn't my team just not fucking chop the content out of a live stream and use that for the ads, that's what I get shitty about. As soon as I've got like a topic, Matt notices this more than anyone, 'cause he's the one that has to put up with it, then I'm like I don't feel as natural and I get it done eventually, though. Katrina: And then I'm proud of myself, because I'm continually just exploding past those comfort zones, people. All right, let's talk about channelling now. Do I need to turn like that way? Matt: You can if you want. Yeah. That's probably better. Katrina: So should we turn the whole throne a little bit? 'Cause in my- Matt: Yeah. Katrina: ... off centre now? If you know what I mean? Matt: Yeah. Katrina: Okay. Just the normal everyday sermon, should we turn the whole throne a little bit. All right. So now I'm not gonna look at you guys, but you're gonna get some gold about journaling. [inaudible 00:17:54] for five minutes, okay. Katrina: I'd make a terrible camera woman on a news show. I feel so nervous. Katrina: Hey, it's Katrina Ruth here from the Katrina Ruth show and today I wanna talk to you about the most powerful practise, which has transformed my business and my life and allowed me to bring in multi millions of dollars per year, just by putting my purpose book out into the world, connecting with clients who I consider to be my soulmate clients and doing the work that I know I was born to do in the world. Katrina: What I'm talking about is journaling. Now if you've never heard of journaling, or maybe you've not really dived into this as a practise for yourself, or you don't know much about it, then I know that probably the response you might be having right now is like, "Journaling? How can journaling really change your business or allow you to create anything that you want into your life?" Katrina: And that's exactly what I'm here to tell you. I feel so passionately about this that when I hear that people don't journal, or they don't journal consistently, I kinda feel like as if they would've told me that they don't drink water. I feel like alert. We need to tell somebody. This is the problem. This is like a national disaster. How are you living like this? I mean, I understand that you're somehow surviving and getting by, but do you realise how powerful this practise is to allow you to call in and to create everything in your life? Katrina: Now I've been journaling since I was about six or seven years old. I don't think I was using journaling for manifestation at that point in time. I think I was logically documenting my day, like dear diary, and then when I got a little bit older, I'll admit I used to hide in the bushes in the front yard of my parents home and I would kind of take notes like Harriet the Spy. I would take notes. Some people as they were walking by and then I would make up stories about them. Katrina: But by the time I got to about 18 or 19 years of age, I naturally or maybe I read it in some personal development books, probably heard about it from somewhere, but a lot of it just kinda naturally happened. I love to write, I love to be inside of my own head, I'm a natural introvert and I am a writer first and foremost, and so I started to just naturally journal about a lot of my hopes and dreams and I guess, use it as a way to process my thoughts, but also write down goals and ideas, do brainstorming, make little plans and slowly but surely, over time, I noticed that I had this pretty consistent habit of writing down the things that I wanted in my life, so kind of like, yeah, my dreams and my visions and the things that I wanted to bring to life. Katrina: Probably when I was around 21 or 22 years of age, I started to learn about and understand about manifestation and I know I watched the movie the Secret when it came out, which was roughly around that age for me, as a lot of people did and I was sort of fascinated by this idea that you could just focus on what you want and then create it into your life. Katrina: And pretty much like I do with everything to do with personal development and creating your own reality, I straight away believed, even though I didn't understand how. Katrina: Now if you have that same sort of belief inside of you, even if you don't understand how, then I know that you have so much available for you, that you could literally step into within the next several months, the next several weeks, in fact even now, using the power of instant manifestation. Katrina: And this is exactly how I live now and how my tens of thousands of followers and clients around the world and smaller group of private clients, obviously, but how my extended community and clients around the world operate. We call in our reality. We write into reality the things that we want. Katrina: For me, I've now been journaling in that way since, well, at least when I was 21, 22, journaling my affirmations and dreams and goals down, I'm 38 years old now, and so for well over a decade, for a decade and a half plus, I've been actively writing down what I wanna create and I've been learning different things about journaling and the power of our words along the way. Katrina: What I wanna impart to you is so powerful and so important that I feel like it's almost impossible to get it through to you, but I guess to just kind of make my point here, every single thing that I've written down, that I then held a belief with some faith around has come to life. Katrina: When I look around me, like literally right now when I look around me, I'm in my own studio right now in my home. I've got full wall-to-ceiling ocean views on seven balconies in this home. This is a double story sub penthouse apartment. I've got my own studio. I make millions of dollars a year just by showing up and being me and writing and speaking to the camera like this. Katrina: I work only with bad ass soulmate clients who really align with my message and who I feel like are the same sort of person with me. And they kick massive ass, they take names, they create incredible businesses all around the world doing what they love and on top of that, I've achieved my fitness goals. I continue to achieve and maintain my fitness goals, lifestyle goals, love and romance, fun and adventure, friendships, you name it. And every single one of those things started with me writing down my dreams in a journal. Katrina: So here's what I want you to do. I want you to think about what is it that you really want. Firstly, are you admitting to yourself what you really want? I think one of the reasons that journaling is so powerful is it's kind of like a mirror in front of you, right? It's holding up that mirror in front of you. And you can't run from that. You gotta look there, look it in the eye and look your own inner self or your highest self in the eye and confess what's in there. I think that most people out there are continually running and hiding from their dreams and refusing to pay attention to the message that's coming through them. Katrina: So journaling is a powerful tool to simply acknowledge and let what's inside of you come up and put it into words. Words are powerful. Words create reality. Yes, you can do that without writing them down, however the written word is incredibly, incredibly fucking powerful. Katrina: And so when you write that down, you lay claim to it. You take a stand. You create some accountability around it and you already in fact, start to bring it to life just from writing it down. In fact, there's many different tips and tricks around journaling for how to word things in a particular way that brings them to life faster and that's something I can certainly teach you more on and talk about as we continue our journey of discussion together. Katrina: But for now, I want you to think about what is it that's inside of you that you're hiding that you're not maybe admitting to yourself that you're running from. Can you put that into writing? And then from there, it's a matter of stepping into permission around it, right? So acknowledging first, this is what I want, this is what I desire, this is what I feel is available to me inside of me. Katrina: And then through that process of writing it down, taking the time internally to go, you know what? I'm going to give myself permission. No, I don't know how, I have no clue where to start or what I would do to bring this to life, but I'm going to give myself permission that I do get to have this. That can feel incredibly scary. Journaling is a scary and confronting thing to dive into. Katrina: And from there, though, it's faith. It's faith-based. So if I've given myself permission to have this stuff. If I've acknowledged that it's inside of me. If I then choose to believe and have faith that I could bring it to life, then what aligned action am I going to take as I go into my day? Katrina: And so this simple process might take you 10 to 15 minutes in the morning of just kind of checking in, tuning down, writing down some of the things that are inside of you. You don't then have to go and make an action plan, but it's about the fact that you've set that internal compass. You've pointed yourself in the direction of what you want. It will impact your actions throughout the rest of the day. You can take a moment or two to think of what is an action I would take from a place of really believing in yourself, but you know what? Journaling is so freaking effective, that even if you don't do that, you've literally just moved yourself in that direction. Katrina: So I can't tell you how passionate I am about journaling or I feel like I can't, but I just did maybe a little bit of a decent job of trying to explain that to you. I hope you found it really helpful. I hope you get out there and give this a go and if you have a journaling habit that you think that you could maybe increase a little bit, then I really encourage you to do that. Leave me a comment below. Tell me your experience about journaling and what are you gonna make some changes and shifts in that area. Katrina: I'm Katrina Ruth.Have an amazing rest of the day wherever you are in the world, and do not forget, life is now press play. Katrina: All right. First one done. I have no idea how long that took. How long did I go for? Matt: Four minutes. Katrina: Oh, is that all? Matt: Yup. Katrina: Great. I thought it went way longer. Matt: Oh, actually, it's a lie. Katrina: It's a lie. Matt: Six and a half, seven. Katrina: What do you guys think? Was that helpful around journaling? What's going on? People in the comments are saying they never journaled. Okay, John, you need to watch this whole Facebook ad sequence when it goes live. Everyone freaking journals. For the reasons I just explained. By the way, none of that was scripted. I had no freaking clue what I was gonna say, I just opened my mouth and it popped out. So I had a little few fumbles there, but we'll either leave them in or Matt will edit them out and put some other different footage in there or whatever is needed, right? Katrina: So you just saw me like, I know I didn't freak out for ages. I am pretty practised, I guess at doing this sort of stuff compared to maybe a lot of people. But I still, it doesn't feel comfortable for me to do this stuff. I feel like out of my comfort zone. It's definitely why I put this live stream on, so that I would kind of put myself in that accountability and I knew that it would elevate my energy having you here so thank you and I appreciate you for that. Katrina: I knew that it would provide good content for you, as well. Good content for the YouTube show, so I'm literally creating three pieces of content at the same time, if not more, 'cause then we can pop it on Instagram and all that sort of good stuff also. Katrina: But I guess my point to you is, and this probably should be me just doing the messaging video now [inaudible 00:27:14]. But my point is, you've gotta just start, right? Like I feel so squirmy when I do kind of professionally created content. I don't do it anywhere near as often as I do my normal day-to-day messaging, so I'm less practised at it in that regard, but I still step up and I take that leap and I open my freaking mouth and I let shit come out and I get better and better each time. Katrina: Like even now, how I'm presenting and even how I feel inside of myself compared to when we were filming when we first started working together a couple of years, it's a whole different thing, right? So just wanna remind you of that, if maybe creating a high level of content has been something that you're avoiding in your business. Katrina: Okay. So we're gonna do next video now, which is around self-care. Oh my goodness, this is so good. I'm so excited to speak about this. We're gonna speak about self-care, health and fitness being non fucking negotiable for entrepreneurs, except I'm not allowed to say non fucking negotiable on a Facebook ad, so we'll see how we go. All right. Should I just go? Matt: You gonna change? Katrina: Oh, fuck. Thank you. Matt: [inaudible 00:28:14] Katrina: I better get changed. Matt: Do you want me to, just change it all, that'd be fine. Katrina: Okay. Katrina: All right. We'll be back with an outfit change. Katrina: All right. Matt: Good to go? Katrina: Yes. This is my favourite ever top in the world, 'cause you can see my tatties through it. Look you haven't even seen it yet. Matt: Oh, I haven't. It's sick. Katrina: In front of everybody else. It's like psycho. All right. Just a little intermission there. It's not done yet, though, you guys. Go around here next. I'm getting my boobs done in three weeks. Matt: Are you? Katrina: Yup. It's all happening. Matt: Where you getting that done? Katrina: South port. Dr. Ian McDougall. He's apparently amazing. Katrina: I'm gonna do such a post when I get my boobs done. You know how everybody gets their boobs done and then they pretend that they didn't and they just kind of, they don't say anything about it and they just hope that nobody, but probably particularly their parents won't notice. I'm gonna do the opposite of that. I'm gonna post about it, and I'm gonna blog about why I haven't done it earlier, which was largely just that it wasn't a hell yes for me. But there was also a part of me that was like I'm already so out there, I'm already too much. Kind of like who do you think you are type thing. Like I've already got, you know, I've got like a super successful business and I'm in shape and now I've got tatties all over me and my hair is extra shiny and now what? I'm gonna have boobs as well? It's all too much for the world to handle, so I thought about it, but I felt like it makes me seem like I think I'm all that. Katrina: And so then I noticed a lot of times men will post up about, "Ladies, you don't have to get your boobs done or whatever or change your body or any sort of work done." I haven't had any work done at all, actually, but if I wanted to, I will. And they think that they're putting a supportive post up, but I just find it interesting because women would never put a post up about what men have permission or don't have permission to do on their bodies, but it's kind of like women's bodies are up for grabs as far as conversation around whether you should or shouldn't do that. Like sometimes men will post like, "You should be happy to just be, we love you just as you are." [inaudible 00:30:53] a nice intention that maybe they're trying to be nice, but it sort of feels like it's reverse shaming. Do you know what I mean? Like that if you would do that, then you're not being authentic or real. I feel like I can get so much content out of this. And it should go viral. Right? Matt says yes. Okay, you guys heard it here first. That's happening May 29th. Everybody write it in your diaries. Katrina: We should film a show, not the actual fucking surgery, but there should be a show about that, for sure. Because it's a transformational moment in somebody's life. I feel, I don't know. I haven't done it yet, but I would imagine so. Katrina: Okay, and also I should probably be in the Gold Coast bulletin, 'cause I'm probably the last female in the Gold Coast to get her boobs done. Katrina: Have I changed angles now? Oh, no. You just changed angles. Okay. All right. So now we're talking about fitness and self-care. Matt: You good to go? Katrina: Yeah. Katrina: Hey, it's Kat here. Katrina Ruth from the Katrina Ruth show. Today I am here to give you a little bit of a smack down around fitness and self-care with love and compassion, of course. Katrina: Here's the deal. I have worked with entrepreneurs, high performers, driven creators and bad asses for several decades long and I do indeed classify myself as one of those people and what I've learned in that time is that fitness and self-care is non-negotiable for an entrepreneur or should be, in my opinion, non-negotiable for an entrepreneur. Katrina: And it is something that can drastically and massively improve the results that you're getting in your business, in your income, obviously in your energy, in your happiness, in your ability to access creativity and flow, and even in how much time you have available. Many, many other benefits also. Katrina: Here's the deal though. I don't wanna come in here kind of like, all right, I'm here to kick your ass about fitness and you've gotta get to the gym, and you've gotta be in shape and you've gotta do this and this and this. In fact, not too long ago, I heard that there was some people [inaudible 00:32:51] who were kind of like, I guess you can call it, hating on me, or feeling triggered by me is maybe a better way to say it, because they said, "Oh, you know, that Kat, she just thinks that everybody has to be hot. And she just talks about being hot and being fit all the time". Now , if you don't know me well, then you might not know that my background was in fitness. I was a personal trainer for 13 years and my first online business, which I began in 2006, and which I built up to nearly a million dollars per year income before I transitioned into the business that I've created now, that was a fitness business. Katrina: So it is something I'm very passionate about, that I have a really solid history in. I've been actively involved in the fitness industry now for over two decades, and it's part of my everyday life to this day. Katrina: But let me tell you about this everybody should be hot and fit thing. I may have said everybody should get to be hot. I may have said something like that. In fact, I wrote a blog post around this topic not too long ago when I heard that people were getting like a little bit upset [inaudible 00:33:40], but what I mean is, when I talk about everybody getting to be hot and fit and in great shape is that hot AF energy. Why did I just say AF? Hot as fuck energy. That hot as fuck energy that we should get to experience and be able to [inaudible 00:33:54] into our businesses and lives. Katrina: Hot is an energy, right? And it comes from when you're in a place of feeling really proud of yourself, really good about yourself, and when you know that you're in alignment with your values and with what's important to you and with how you're showing up in your business, in your life, in all different ways and areas. So that's kind of the hot thing, right? Katrina: But if we look at the fitness and self-care thing in a little bit of a broader spectrum way, not just about how you maybe look or how you feel. Let's really consider and look at how this relates to entrepreneurs. To me it's quite shocking and I find it, I guess concerning or I feel sad or worried when I hear that somebody who's really wanting to take over the world and just create an amazing empire during their purpose work in the world is not consistently attending to their fitness and self-care. Katrina: Now, I fully understand and have compassion and empathy around the fact that not everybody has that background or history. I am so grateful that I built this habit before I was even 20 years old and it stood me so well until this day and it's definitely crossed over into many other areas of my life. Katrina: So if you don't have that background or that habit, of course it's gonna feel like something that you don't necessarily have time for, or it feels like it should come second to your business or maybe second to business and being a partner or being a parent or whatever it might be. It feels like something that you know is important maybe or that you do in some sort of a somewhat consistent fashion, but that it kind of gets left off on the days when you're busy or on the days when you've got a lot of balls in the air with your business or in the times when you don't really feel like it. Katrina: So I fully get all of that and I'm the same as anyone else, I have habits that I'm still working to implement. Fitness, however, is a habit that's really well implemented for me in my business and life and I really, literally, legitimately consider it to be non-negotiable. It's something that along with journaling, along with daily messaging in my business and sharing what's inside of me, along with sales activity, these four things, fitness being one of them, I consider non-negotiable and I make sure that they happen everyday. Katrina: The reason is, that I know that when those four things come together on a day-to-day basis, I'm moving the needle in all critical areas in my business and life. I'm progressing forward. I'm creating momentum. I'm creating results. And these things all work together to just create faster and faster momentum, flow, results, outcomes, access to the super powers that are inside of me, you name it, right? Katrina: So I feel like when I'm taking care of these four areas, and this is what I teach my high-level clients in my inner circle for example, as well, that I've taken care of the big blocks that are really gonna move me forward. Katrina: Of course there might be a million other things that I wanna get done for the day, which may or may not be given some time and attention through the day, but you know what? Even if all those extra things are ignored, if I take care of my own inner work, my mindset work like my journaling, my fitness and self-care in some way, shape or form, whether it's at the gym, or whether it's elsewhere, my messaging and sharing with the world and my sales activity, that's gonna get me going forward even if everything else got ignored completely, right? Katrina: So where fitness really comes in is it's not something that takes time and energy, it's something that gives you time and energy. In fact, just the other day I was having a conversation with one of my closest friends and she was saying how she's just been eating so much more while in a fitness routine, and she was kinda like, "Isn't that weird?" And I was like, "Not really, because of course you're gonna overeat when you're not working out, because working out gives you energy". So if you're not getting that energy from going and moving your body and moving your digestive system and kind of moving your mind, as well, and clearing out the cobwebs, then you're gonna naturally go reaching for and looking for energy elsewhere. Katrina: And particularly for an entrepreneur and somebody who's building a business from home and maybe you've got kids running around or you just got a hectic life going on and you're kind of on the go, or perhaps you travel a lot, like me. It's really easy to obviously just reach for kind of convenient foods that are not necessarily ideal or even maybe you're trying to be a little bit healthier but it's a load of protein shakes and protein bars and that sort of thing, which is not necessarily real food. Katrina: Look, I'm not here to school you on this what you should eat. I actually don't follow a diet at all. I eat intuitively. I work out intuitively. But what I am here to say and to suggest to you, is that if you were to start making a small amount of space and time for your fitness and self-care everyday, even like 20 to 25 minutes where you gave some sort of time and attention to taking care of your body, to moving it, to expanding it, to freeing it up, to going into some kind of a physical, or mental or spiritual meditation, which can come about from that, that you're gonna find that you have time abundantly given back to you, energy given into you, you clear out any sort of kind of messiness that's going on emotionally, or you had that's distracting you form being in flow in your work. You sort out problems. I like to set intentions at the start of my work out time. Katrina: There's so many benefits that go far and beyond the obvious kind of like, if you want a gym body type thing. If you want that, cool. But really what we're talking about here is getting your body working inside and out in the way that it was meant to. So I really urge you to consider what building blocks you have in place in your business and life at the moment. Katrina: Are you taking care of the fundamental things that are actually gonna elevate you into being that next-level version of yourself who automatically has the energy, the confidence, the creativity and the access to super flow required in order to show up for all the different areas of your life. I don't think I gotta remind you when you're taking care of yourself inside and out, it's not about how you look, it's about how you feel, which dictates how you look and certainly also dictates how you're showing up and what you're putting out there for the world. So I know you have massive dreams and so much you wanna accomplish here and it's all available for you. Everything you feel inside of you is always available. Katrina: We've gotta look at, if I'm gonna be that person, if I'm gonna be that next-level version of myself, and also accomplish all these fricken things in my business and life, I gotta take care of myself like a well-oiled machine, right? I've gotta treat myself as a premium machine. I've gotta treat myself as a temple, basically, that's gonna last for life and that is gonna be operating at a standard of excellence such that I can do all these amazing things that I wanna do into the world. Make millions of dollars. Impact millions of people and change the whole fricken thing. Katrina: That's it for me for today. Leave me a comment below. Tell me about your fitness routine. I'd be happy to answer any questions. And don't forget. Have an amazing rest of the day wherever you are in the world. Life is now press play. Katrina: All right. [inaudible 00:40:08] is watching. That's our second video completed. Cool. How long did that one go for? Matt: Almost eight minutes. Katrina: Eight minutes? We might have to chop some bits of it out. Actually, what do you think? Eight minutes? Too long? My brother's on the live stream. Okay, what are you guys talking about? We have shows here about that. About what? About the boobs or the fitness? Okay. I'm gonna go straight into the next one. Katrina: If you jumped on late to this live stream, we're filming some videos here for my new marketing campaign, teaching people the fundamental stuff that I believe is really important and that can change your business and life, so you're getting all my best secrets right now. We're gonna make these into some bad ass Facebook ads and we're gonna open up the inner circle. There's so many new bad asses. Ash says can work with eight minutes. I'm sure we could chop bits of that out anyway. Matt: Did you wanna change tops? Katrina: Yes. I forgot again. All right. We're gonna go into the messaging video next so if you wanna hear me talk about how to message and why it fricken matters, communication with your audience, stick around. Katrina: [inaudible 00:41:50] Katrina: I think you could wear it over the, check it out, I'm wearing my bodysuit on top of my pants. Looks like I'm about to record a 1980s video for fitness. I'm gonna do a fitness video now. But you won't see that on the video. On my own video. Matt: Where's the kids? Katrina: They are probably at [inaudible 00:42:17] digging through [inaudible 00:42:18] toys. She picks them up today. Matt: [inaudible 00:42:24] Katrina: Oh my God. Ashley, I don't know. Can you remind me, you just reminded me that when we're in L.A., are you gonna be in L.A. July 11 and 12th still? Matt: Probably. Katrina: Oh my god. Matt: I could. Katrina: If you are, you can film [inaudible 00:42:36]. Katrina: And we're all gonna go to Ashley's new house in L.A. and have a slumber party there. But I'm doing, you know I did the retreat here in November. I'm doing the L.A. one in July at the Paley House in West Hollywood, which by the way, I haven't told any of my clients yet and I just randomly announced, so just so you know. Katrina: Can you get me some let warmers and then we can do a fitness video? Katrina: All right. Yes, Ashley or John O., remind me we're gonna film a hip hop music video with my clients and we're definitely gonna film like body suit and leggings fitness video together and Matt's gonna film it. He just found out about that right there. Katrina: Everyone's gonna go to Ashley's place and we're gonna have martinis. 'Cause she's moving to L.A., my friend actually. I don't know if you'd remember, but you would know her if you saw her. She's from Sydney. So she's moving to L.A., so we're all just gonna go sleep there. Katrina: All right. Now I've lost my train of thought 'cause I got very excited about we're gonna do the hip hop video and the fitness video. It's actually critical. If you're joining the inner circle, just to let you know, you're gonna be involved in shenanigans. It's actually a requirement. It's part of the initiation, except the initiation just keeps going forever after you joined. Katrina: We leave tomorrow. Shit. Shout out. Following your dreams. Moving to fricken L.A. Bad ass. Katrina: Okay, now we gotta focus. Freaking focus. People stop distracting me. So now we talk about messaging. Katrina talking about sharing her message. Why? What? When? Where? How? Possible questions could be how to create and distribute your message anywhere. Spend 6% of your day on this? I spend my whole day messaging. My whole life is message. My whole life is monetizable. I'm just like, if you come into my life, just know that you're gonna be turned into content. I'm just letting you know. Literally. Katrina: All right. I'm ready. Maybe give me like some kind of sign when I get to five minutes, though. I feel like I'm just gonna get longer and longer with each one, 'cause I'm getting more excited. Matt: [inaudible 00:44:45] Katrina: Yeah. Cool. Katrina: All right. Katrina: Hey, it's Kat here from the Katrina Ruth show. Today we are gonna talk about one of my very favourite things to talk about of all, which is messaging and specifically, unleashing your message, your ad, what's inside of you onto the world. And the reason that you would wanna do that is, because you wanna do it. Actually, if you're watching this and you resonate with me and the things that you've maybe been seeing and you feel coming through from my bad ass little videos that I'm making for you, then I'm gonna guess that you are naturally one of those people like myself, like my incredible inner circle private clients, who wants to be seen and wants to be heard. Katrina: Let's just be honest. When you're having a party or you're having a dinner, or you're at someone's thing, you are the one who wants to be the centre of attention and you get kinda loud and kinda shouty and kind of excited, and you tell amazing stories and really, everybody should just shut up and listen to you, right? Right. Katrina: I know this for sure, because it's how I am. It's how my eight year old daughter is. It's how every single one of my inner circle clients are. In fact, it's hilarious when we all get together, because you've basically got a whole room full of people that all think that they're the one person who should be talking and I've even had clients tell me that they get kind of shitty at me when I'm presenting my own retreat or event, 'cause they're kind of like, "When will she shut up so that I can talk?" Katrina: So if that's you and you know that you have powerful stuff inside of you to share with the world, you know that people should actually be paying just to listen to you and to be around you, then I've got fabulous news for you and you may already know this, but I'm just gonna kick your ass with it a little bit more. You can get paid to do this stuff. You can get paid to share your message. Like literally just what you're thinking and feeling with the world on a day in day out basis. Katrina: It is actually exactly how I built my online business to where it now makes multi six figures per month, so it's a multiple seven-figure online business, continually growing. All I actually do is live my life and be me. Okay, I feel like I'm gonna hiccup. It's under control. Katrina: And document that. And show what's inside of me. And so I write a daily blog. It's called the Daily Ass Kicker. I love to write. I'm a writer first and foremost, so there's no rule that you've got to write a daily blog post or anything like that, but that's what I like to do. Katrina: I like to create videos, as well. I do a lot of Facebook live streams. In fact, right over here I've got a Facebook live stream happening at the same time as filming this video for you. Katrina: So I'm continually sharing my message. So messaging is simply the process of sharing your message with the world. And by me doing that and doing it consistently for some time now, for a period of years in fact, on the internet, I've been able to attract in my soulmate clients from all around the world. Women and men who think like me, who know that they're born for more. Who know that they're that 1% within the 1% person, who always also have something to share with the world. Katrina: I've been able to build a location-free lifestyle where I'm never bound to any time or place. I can go where I want when I want with my children. I made amazing friends with people all around the world. I've been able to get this amazing apartment that I love and I guess all the other dream things that I've got in my life. Katrina: But mostly, I've been able to step fully into my purpose work and into a life where everyday I get to wake up and all I gotta do is open my mouth and open my soul and be myself. Katrina: And that's the crux of my whole entire business. I would certainly love to share with you a little bit about how that works, because here's the deal on messaging. There's a lot of people on the internet who are posting stuff online, right? I don't gotta tell you. So posting blog posts, Facebook live streams, YouTube stuff, Instagram stuff, you name it, it's out there. Katrina: However, what is very rare, and the reason why powerful entrepreneurs [inaudible 00:48:26], perhaps even including you, and not getting paid the way that they should be getting paid, is that they're sharing the surface space. Katrina: They're sharing something where it's like okay I told a story. Or I wrote an inspiring blog post or a motivational blog post or I totally [inaudible 00:48:42], or yeah, I did a Facebook live or I did a video or whatever it is. It's got to have the soul in it. Katrina: For me messaging is firstly so easy, it's not something that I find difficult or that I've gotta think about like to think about how to write a blog, how to do a live stream. Yes, I get nervous. In fact, I was freaking out before I filming these videos, 'cause I just felt self-conscious about doing professional videos, which I'm doing today for you. Katrina: All right? So it's not about not having all that. But I don't have to think about what to say. I don't think about what to say ever any day of the week at all, and I create a lot of content. And the reason is that I don't think about it, is that I give myself permission to just say what's inside of me, right? Katrina: So messaging kind of all the time. I write a lot of content and I produce a lot of content, but yet I feel like I'm not really doing anything. I feel like I'm just expressing what's inside of me and that's what I love to do as a person, anyhow. Just the same way as my eight year old daughter and my four year old son want people to shut up and listen to them. And they're not like this is work. I've gotta get paid in order to express myself and make people stop what they're doing and listen to me. That's what they want. Just like that's what I want and that's what I know you want. Katrina: But for this to work, it's not only understanding that it is about just sharing what's truly inside of you and not making it complicated. Not trying to plan it out, not trying to think it out. It's also about understanding that for messaging to work and for you to build a business, based on you as a messenger, as an artist, creator, leader, then you've gotta be giving people the whole truth. The truth, nothing but the truth, and also the whole truth. Katrina: So yes, that means the stuff that feels really vulnerable or scary to share. Or maybe you think like a lot of my clients think and I have this conversation frequently with my high-level clients. Oh, that's like embarrassing, or I feel self-conscious or is that good enough or who am I to speak about this or I already said that a million times. I feel like everything I'm saying is being repetitive. Katrina: These are all exactly the sort of things I fully understand because I've had all those thoughts myself and I work on it continually with my clients and what it's about is plain and simple. Katrina: What if you got out of your own way? What if you dropped your story and dropped all the bullshit about whether or not what you have is good enough or whether you're good enough and what if you just gave what's inside of you permission to live and permission to be expressed and permission to get out there into the world. Katrina: So when I feel stuck or unsure or when my clients feel stuck or unsure, I remind myself or I remind them, it's not about you. It's about the message. Take a deep breath. Do what you gotta do. Put some music on. Put some [inaudible 00:51:06] on. Have a coffee. Whatever. And then let what's inside of you out. Imagine the power of what could happen in your business and life if you just consistently, every day, starting today, began to share what's inside of you in an unfiltered and no holds barred way. Katrina: I challenge you to do this. Drop me a comment below. Tell me when you went and posted a new message. Leave a link, even. I'd love to see it. Have an amazing rest of the day and do not forget. Life is now press play. Katrina: Okay. Hey, Laura. Get out your own way and save lives. Exactly. Katrina: All right. Shot out to everyone that's just jumping on. We are over here filming behind the scenes here. Filming for my new funnel. There's Matt. He's doing my video work. He's gonna match up some amazing Facebook ads from what we're doing today. I'm just live streaming so you can see behind the scenes. We've got one more to do, I believe. And that is around sales activity. So if you'd like to hear me talking about how bad ass, how bad ass? I don't know. That doesn't really relate to what I was gonna say. Katrina: If you'd like me to talk about sales activity. I'm gonna do it whether you'd like it or not. But if you'd like to listen, then you can listen on for this next final video. Katrina: Hang on, wait. Ashley, if you're still in the live stream. I sent you a what's app that I need you to enter. Okay, I have a client here. A bad ass client, who's like do I wanna meet you in New York or L.A.? I think both. Oh, do I wanna do fourth of July in New York or L.A.? What say you, Facebook? Where should I do New York, or where should I go? Matt: L.A. Katrina: Matt says L.A. You recon? Why? Matt: It's fun. Katrina: [inaudible 00:52:44] fun here. Matt: I'd rather be in New York on the fourth of July, so L.A. was fun. Katrina: Okay. L.A. it is. You've heard it here. Katrina: All right. Oh, hang on. I've gotta change again. Forgetting every time. All right. One more outfit. One more video. And then I think there was one other little video, but we'll do that off camera. Katrina: Okay, I'll be back and we'll do the sales video. Hey, hey to everybody who just jumped on. Katrina: All right. I'm making a rare appearance in a t-shirt. I basically never wear sleeves. Look at this cool shirt. [Collette 00:53:32] bought it for me. By the way, you don't have to wait for the, my hand looks massive. You don't have to wait for the Facebook ads to drop in your feed if you know that you're already supposed to be in the inner circle and by the way, you could still get into the room for our July retreat. Oh my goodness. Next-level [inaudible 00:53:55] and money making is what goes down on those retreats. It's always next-level inappropriate shenanigans. You should message me about that now if you know that that's the level you wanna play at. I can tell you all about it. Katrina: Okay, so now. What? More videos? I thought it was only one. All right. Okay. We're gonna do sales activity. So now I'm gonna talk to you for a few minutes about sales activity. Katrina talking about selling naturally. Electrolytes. Going out shirt. How good is this? Just so people know, I'm not going anywhere. Sitting right here on my throne. I guess we'll go out later then. And so some footage of me drinking espresso, 'cause we haven't done that enough times. Matt: And it's Friday. Katrina: And it's Friday. So clearly, it's required. Katrina: Sales is not a dirty word. Do you know what? I don't even wanna fucking market to anybody that thinks sales could be a dirty word. They can all go mosey on along to another town. How selling is a daily non-negotiable in my business. So I'll talk about that. All right. I think we can do it. Katrina: Actually, I'm gonna put some more pink lipstick on for this video. Katrina: [crosstalk 00:55:43] Katrina: Do you think that there's a single man in the world that thinks having those plumped lips where it sticks out on the side is a good idea? I think John's the only man on this live stream. But Matt said no, so John, add your vote. Katrina: We were just talking about it while I was in there fixing up my lipstick. All right. Ready? Do the five-minute thing again. Matt: Okay. Katrina: Hey, it's Kat here from the Katrina Ruth show and I am so fricken [inaudible 00:56:19] excited today, 'cause I'm gonna talk about one of my four daily non-negotiables, which is sales activity. If you've been watching my videos pop through your feed, then you'll know that my four daily non-negotiables are in fact, daily mindset work in journaling of some kind. Getting connected to that inner game. Setting your internal compass so that you go in the right direction. Fitness and self-care, of course. Non-negotiable for entrepreneurs and driven bad asses like you and I. Katrina: Some form of messaging, because you are in fact a messenger, a leader, an artist, a creator, and you wanna share what's inside of you with the world and then fourth and finally, selling. Because guess what? If you wanna be an entrepreneur, if you are an entrepreneur, [inaudible 00:56:58] of course, but if you want to have a successful business, you are going to need to sell. You're gonna need to make money in some way. You need to ask for money. Katrina: Whether you're asking energetically or like on the actual internet, by telling people on Facebook to buy stuff from you. I did not really make any money in the first three years of my online business, actually, I must admit. So I started marketing in 2006, except I wasn't marketing at all, I was blogging. Katrina: And for the first few years, I made no money at all and it took me maybe two and a half years before I realised that the key reason that I wasn't making any money was that I wasn't actually selling anything. So I just kinda laugh about it, but the truth is, I didn't set out to be a marketer, I set out to write or be a blogger and then gradually, back then, twelve years ago, I gradually kind of started to learn that this internet thing was somewhere that you could make money. Katrina: I've actually always been really good at sales, and so, you know, from a young age, I've been selling things and I've always had a hustler side. Hustle. Even as a little kid. When it comes to online marketing, I've been marketing online for over 12 years now. I've made millions and millions of dollars on the internet. I've gradually evolved and fine tuned my business to where it's completely based on me getting to wake up each day, do what I love, make money for my purpose work and live my life on my terms so somebody I met recently said to me when they kind of connected on Facebook and how to look at my life and my business like, "Wow. You're really living the dream, hey?" And I said yeah, I am. And I did the work for it. And so I'm really proud of myself, with what I've created and I'm very passionate about sharing how to create a business and a life that's location free and freedom-based and purpose-based for women and men who are like me. Katrina: And when I say like me, I mean you've always known that you were born for it, that you were born for more. You've always known you're here to make millions. Impact millions and even change the world. And you've always known that there's something powerful inside of you to get out there to the world. And so if that's you, well, probably if you're watching this, then you're already showing up online in some way, shape or form. Katrina: You might be early on in your journey or you might be well down the track and you're already making a lot of money. Sometimes I have clients come to me who jump into my inner circle working with me privately, who are already making 10, 20K, 30K, 50K a month. Other times, they're completely starting out and there's no money coming in yet. But what joins my clients together and the reason that my clients get such rapid results, big money leaps and bounds, big alignment leaps and bounds, big lifestyle shift leaps and bounds, as well as all other areas, is because they are that person who has that inner flame and who's always known that they're gonna do something amazing with their life. Katrina: So if that's you and you relate and maybe you are already selling on the internet or selling off the internet, or wherever it is that you're selling, I just wanna remind you, though, that if you just make something like daily selling and sales activity part of kind of who you are, if you make it inherent to who you are, and you make it habitual, then you can elevate your income 10 times, 20 times, I believe even 100 times more in a very, very rapid period of time. Katrina: Now this is obviously not just about how much freaking money can we make on the internet? That's amazing and it's super cool. And it allows us to have an incredible impact into the world doing our purpose work. I don't think I need

"What? No male house cleaners? As in no men cleaning house or male maids? How am I supposed to grow my cleaning company if I can't include a male house cleaner?" Today on Ask a House Cleaner we look at the politically incorrect request "no male house cleaners." Angela Brown, The House Cleaning Guru says male house cleaners are aces at speed cleaning. They have excellent cleaning skills and many can clean circles around women. And she gives pro cleaning tips and cleaning advice to make it work. Today's sponsors are Savvy Cleaner (maid service training.) HouseCleaning360 (Find a cleaning service right for you.) Savvy Perks (Employee benefits for small business owners.) And My Cleaning Connection (a cleaning resource hub.)   *** COMPLETE SHOW NOTES FOR THIS EPISODE *** https://askahousecleaner.com/male-house-cleaners/   *** MORE VIDEOS LIKE THIS *** Credit Cards - https://youtu.be/VM-frN4bFA8 Close Out - https://youtu.be/pgcbbIkbOQo Broken Vacuum - https://youtu.be/wmCpLk43Eic Fire My Cleaning Employee for Being Late and Lazy? - https://youtu.be/AtfN4QDH4Qo No Money - How to Start a Cleaning Business When You're Broke - https://youtu.be/3MjZ0DyzvIs Time - My Hours Are My Own, Right? - https://youtu.be/maxtjyUVcmw   *** RESOURCES FROM THIS EPISODE *** How to Start Your Own House Cleaning Company: Go from startup to payday in one week - https://amzn.to/2K7ecUa Your House Cleaning Business, A Blueprint For Success - https://amzn.to/2qVYgv1 How to Start a Cleaning Business: Your Guide to Generating $2,000+ Income in 30 Days or Less - https://amzn.to/2KabUDB How to Start, Run and Grow a Successful Residential & Commercial Cleaning Business - https://amzn.to/2HmlRMy Clean and Grow Rich: How To Start and Operate Your Own Profitable Cleaning Business - https://amzn.to/2Far08A We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. *** OTHER WAYS TO ENJOY THIS SHOW *** ITUNES - http://apple.co/2xhxnoj STITCHER - http://bit.ly/2fcm5JM SOUNDCLOUD - http://bit.ly/2xpRgLH GOOGLE PLAY - http://bit.ly/2fdkQd7 YOUTUBE - https://goo.gl/UCs92v *** GOT A QUESTION FOR A SHOW? *** Email it to Angela[at]AskaHouseCleaner.com Voice Mail: Click on the blue button at https://askahousecleaner.com *** HOUSE CLEANING TIPS VAULT *** (DELIVERED VIA EMAIL) - https://savvycleaner.com/tips *** FREE EBOOK – HOW TO START YOUR OWN HOUSE CLEANING COMPANY *** http://amzn.to/2xUAF3Z *** PROFESSIONAL HOUSE CLEANERS PRIVATE FACEBOOK GROUP *** https://www.facebook.com/groups/ProfessionalHouseCleaners/ *** FOLLOW ANGELA BROWN ON SOCIAL MEDIA *** https://Facebook.com/SavvyCleaner https://Twitter.com/SavvyCleaner https://Instagram.com/SavvyCleaner https://Pinterest.com/SavvyCleaner https://Linkedin.com/in/SavvyCleaner *** WHAT IS ASK A HOUSE CLEANER? *** Ask a House Cleaner is a daily show where you get to ask your house cleaning questions and we provide answers. Learn how to clean. How to start a cleaning business. Marketing and Advertising tips for your cleaning service. How to find top quality house cleaners, housekeepers, and maids. Employee motivation tactics. Strategies to boost your cleaning clientele. Cleaning company expansion help. Time-saving Hacks for DIY cleaners and more. Hosted by Angela Brown, 25-year house cleaning expert and founder of Savvy Cleaner Training for House Cleaners and Maids. *** DISCLAIMER *** During the shows we recommend services, sites, and products to help you improve your cleaning and grow your cleaning business. We have partnerships or sponsorships with these companies to provide you with discounts, and savings. By clicking on and buying from these links we may receive a commission which helps pay for the production costs of the show. Support the show so we can continue to bring you free tips and strategies to improve your cleaning and help you grow your cleaning business. THANK YOU! *** SPONSORSHIPS & BRANDS *** We do work with sponsors and brands. If you are interested in working with us and you have a product or service that is cohesive to the cleaning industry reach out to our promotional department info[at]AskaHouseCleaner.com *** THIS SHOW WAS SPONSORED BY *** SAVVY CLEANER - House Cleaner Training and Certification – https://savvycleaner.com MY CLEANING CONNECTION – Your hub for all things cleaning – https://mycleaningconnection.com HOUSECLEANING360.COM – Connecting House Cleaners with Homeowners – https://housecleaning360.com

"Yes you, with the Newsies hat and cute little note pad.""Hi, my question is, what did you talk about in this episode?""Well, jeepers mister, we talked all about season 2 episode 3: Runner. David gets introduced to Ronan and we have some good laughs about crazy Ford and Rodney. Gee willikers oh boy hot dog.""Sir, I am a journalist. I will not be condescended to.""Listen Junior. What if I told you your entire existence was contained within an episode description of a goofy Stargate fan podcast?""What? No. That can't be. I'm a real boyyyohmygodmylifeisalieeeee...."Episode Link

Tonight, BZ goes solo. What? No guests? No, just two jam-gepacked hours of buttery political goodness as BZ exposes what is REALLY happening in Sacramento behind the Stephon Clark shooting. Plus another Kurt Schlichter article about firearms. Want the inside scoop? You got it.

What's going on guys? Hey, been just flying a million miles a minute, which is always standard, so everything is normal for me anyway. It's been a while since I've taken any of your questions and tossed them on here. I've got a question here from Steve Peck. Thank you much, Steve. First of all, great name. Second of all, I love the question, so I thought I'd drop it in right here. Steve Peck: Hey Steve. This is Steve Peck, and I have a question. How do you pick the MLM to get involved with? Thanks. Steve Larsen: First off, thank you so much, Steve. Appreciate the question. Second of all, if you guys have a question you guys want to drop on here, I love answering questions like this. I think it's a lot of fun. Hey, great, great question. First off, I just want to just come out and tell everyone, look, if you like your MLM, awesome. Please don't get discouraged or think that I'm trying to influence you to do something else. Please also note, I'm not trying to say this kind of stuff to try and recruit people into my own or whatever it is. Anyway, it's fun, I just recruited a really big player yesterday, which was a lot of fun. I want you to know what I look for and why I chose the MLM that I did. I'm still not going to tell you the one that I'm in. I tell people the MLM I'm in when they start applying to join my downline. You know what I mean? Anyway, so here's some things that I look at. First off, let's look at how other industries work. Now, what MLM should I join? First of all, let's ask the question, let's act like we're in a totally different industry. Let's say we're in a brick-and-mortar business, or a different kind of internet business, or whatever. The first thing that I would probably ask is, where is a hot market? Where is a hot market? Meaning, I'm not trying to come up with the idea of what to sell. I'm not trying to come up with an idea of, "Hey, let me go force all these people to try and buy my thing." What I'm doing is I'm looking to see where the hot rabid buyers, the irrational buyers, the buyers that are fanatics, the ones that go nuts and like, "Hey, yes, I've got to ... " Do you know what I mean? It's the irrational. I'm trying to find those places in the market. Then, when I know that there is one, all I do is I ask them what they want and I give them what they ask for. Now, that's a very different approach than what a lot of people do inside of MLM, but it's what I did for my MLM. I started look around, and there's some criteria of things that I was looking for, and I'll walk through that criteria here real quick. First off, what I do is, you've got to understand that most people go choose an MLM because of the product. Now, that's awesome. That's awesome, but first of all, I like to ask the question, "Who's going to be buying it? Are there a lot of them? Are they irrational about the thing that I'm selling?" If it's something that I have to walk around and convince a ton of people on, if it's something I have to walk around and there's a ton of education involved in the selling of the product, I tend to shy away from that kind of MLM. It doesn't matter really what the product is. What matters is that you are selling to rabid buyers. I would take that above any number of massive email marketing list. I would take that over anything, you guys, a rabid group of buyers, a hot, hot, hot market. So, for that reason ... I mean, honestly, I don't really care what the product is a lot of time. I care that it sells. I care that it sells, and I care that people are rabid over it, I mean, irrational. Not just that they like it, not just that when you show the product they're like, "Oh, that's cool," meaning they have to have it, they are going crazy for it, and they cannot stand to be without it. Do you know what I mean? That kind of fanaticism. What I do is I look around, and I look. I chose the MLM I chose for very specific reasons. I'm going to walk you through some of those reasons here, and I'll show you some of my criteria for choosing an MLM. Understand that it's just my own personal own, and yours might be a little bit different. That's fine. This is what I did though when I started looking for an MLM to join back in the day. I started looking around, and I was like, "Okay. First off, how would I treat this if I was not an MLM, if I was inside a big business that ... " Why am I asking that? Because that's my history, that's my past, that's where I came from. I came from a spot of selling other people's products online, and there are patterns to the top sellers. There are patterns to the top buyers. There are patterns all throughout. So, why would I not try to choose an MLM that comes nearest to those patterns and choose that one? Does that make sense? That's what I did, and that's the MLM that I joined. Here's some of the patterns that I looked for. Number one, the product has got to be somewhat high ticket. We're talking MLM here. This is very, very akin to affiliate marketing, meaning I go sell a product for somebody else and I get a little bit of a cut. Now, obviously you make more money if you own the entire product, but I love MLM because all of the fulfillment is done for me. There's a lot of things that are already done for me, that they take care of a lot of the business side of stuff. All I got to go do is to go sell the thing, and that's super easy. That's why I love the MLM game so much. Obviously the possibility of additional sources of revenue, passive income, all that, obviously those are all huge benefits to being an MLM, building up a big team, building up a big network, helping others have success. Those are all big benefits of being in it. The industry that is very, very close ... I don't know if I want to say closest, but in my mind, it kind of is, is the affiliate marketing, the internet affiliate marketing industry meaning they sell other people's products and they get a little bit of a cut. What I wanted to do is I wanted to choose something that was slightly more high ticket, meaning if I'm just selling a $20 thing, what do you get? In my MLM, the starting commission is 20%, which is awesome. That's the starting commission. It goes way higher from that. It's awesome. That's the reason I chose it is because the commissions were higher. If I'm getting paid peanuts, I have a huge issue with that. One of the other things that I chose as I chose an MLM where I was getting ... Let's say I sold a dollar worth of stuff, the full dollar is commissionable. I hate that game where they're like, "Well, only 60% of what you sell is commissionable volume." It's like, "Are you joking? I found you a customer. That's stupid." I chose an MLM that was dollar for dollar commissionable volume, which is huge by the way. That's amazing. Not many MLMs do that. I chose an MLM that does that. I chose an MLM that's a supplement. Why? Because it's recurring. People buy it over and over and over. They stay on it month after month after month after month, meaning it's not just a one and done thing. I might sell something for 120 bucks or whatever price, but they stay on it for at least probably five to seven months. All I've got to do is continue to educate them to help them understand why they should stay on longer than that. That's why they expect follow-up sales. They expect to be buying it frequently. They expect, they expect. I've given the analogy before, it's kind of like me going and buying milk and bread at the store. Those are no-duh buying experiences. You do not have to ... You don't see a salesman standing next to bread and eggs, you don't. Those are no-duh buying experiences. I wanted to choose an MLM that was a no-duh buying experience, like, "Oh, yeah. Obviously, I can see why I would spend money on this very easily." There's not a lot of sales copy that has to be written. There's not tons of sale ... Do you know what I mean? I chose an MLM that was like that. I chose a supplement for that very reason to go through and help people ... Again, please understand, put some thick skin on with this. If you're like, "Stephen, I love my MLM," that's great. Then stay in it. That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is, this is the criteria that I went through to choose my MLM. After seeing what sells really hard on the internet, seeing what sells really, really easy on there, seeing what's selling, that's why I chose what I did. There was a lot of thought that went into it. This was not like a ... I don't know, "Let me just come up with something, let me just find some ... " I did do that one time. I was like, "Let me just find something." It was funny because I didn't have ... I loved the product, but I just didn't like selling it. Do you know what I mean? It's not just about the product. It isn't. It's not just about ... it's your ability to sell it. It is your ability to market it. One of my favorite quotes ... If you guys have been on the Secret MLM Hacks web class, I go through this and we talk about this. One of my favorite quotes ever is, "There is no relationship between being good and getting paid. There's no relationship between being good and getting paid." You could have the absolute best product and make zero dollars. I'm sure you've experienced that. I have. We all have. You could have the absolute best product and make nothing. You could be the absolute best at your script and make nothing. You could be the absolute best at recruiting people and really make barely nothing. Why? Because there's no relationship between being good and getting paid. As I started looking around at these different MLMs, I started looking around and seeing what was out there currently in the marketplace, it was very important for me to apply the second part of this quote, which was this, "There's no relationship between being good and getting paid. However, there is a huge relationship between being good at marketing and getting paid." So, I went around and I found an MLM. I dug, guys. I looked around. I did not choose an MLM for quite some time because I was looking actively at the MLM that would fit the model that I am in, that I love, that I know I can sell, that I know I can market. There is a massive difference between sales and marketing, a huge one. When I learned the difference between selling and marketing, my wallet got a lot fatter. Again, we go over this a little bit on the web class as well. By the way, if you have not joined us on the web class, I would love to have you guys, by the way. It's at secretmlmhacks.com. There's my soft pitch. There we go. I did it, the dirty. There it is. What we do is we go through, we talk a little bit about the difference between sales and marketing. Sales, that's what I was doing when I was a door-to-door salesman. I would walk up and I would knock on someone's door, and I was face-to-face with them, and I was pitching them, and I was selling them on buying my thing. That's selling. Selling is what happens face-to-face. Marketing is how you get them to your face. Does that make sense? Selling is what happens face-to-face, door-to-door salesman, used car salesman. Marketing is how you get them to your face. That's the area that a lot of MLM does not go through, it does not talk about. I know that that is an upper hand that I have, that my team has, because I teach them how to market not just sell. The script that gets handed off to a lot of downlines, most the time, that is a sales script. The only piece of marketing that is traditionally taught in MLM is, "Give me a list of your contacts." That's why this podcast exists is because I am trying to help show other marketing tactics and strategies in the MLM space how I actually do what I do. Guys, we're about to cross 150 people asking to join my downline with no ad spend. They're applying and asking. That's ridiculous. Tell me another industry where that ... tell me another MLM, tell me another guy that does that. I don't know of one. Maybe there are, but I literally turn people away. It's an actual application process. Why? What I'm looking for is, "Does this person, A, know how to market? B, are they willing to learn how to market?" That's the major thing I'm looking through when I look at their application. If I feel like the answer is no to one of those two, I say no to them. I say, "Sorry, I don't do this in the traditional method." I wanted to be able to say that kind of stuff. So, as far as criteria that I use to pick my MLM, to actually choose my MLM, number one, I was telling you the product needed to be somewhat high ticket. That means I only needed to sell a couple of them to make a really big dent in my wallet each month. It needed to be a recurring ... there's potential for recurring payments, potential for recurring ... Anyway, I think that makes sense. There's potential to be able to spend more, and more, and more, and more, and more, and more money. Not just the first sale, beyond the first sale. There's recurring revenue, recurring payments, continuity behind it. So, high ticket, some continuity. For me, that was easy to do that in the supplement space. Some of the things I do are supplement, but we also sell other things besides supplements though. It's really the fascinating MLM. Then the third thing that I looked for is that I wanted to be able to sell and market how I wanted to. I hate when MLMs put restrictions on how you can sell stuff. It's the dumbest thing on the planet. Someone reached out to me again the other day, and they were like, "Well, my MLM won't let me sell how I want to." I was like, "Seriously? Seriously? You love being a part of that?" Again, I'm not making fun of it. If you guys are all about it, that's awesome. Super cool. Great. I will not stand for that though. So, I was like, "You might need to find a different MLM." Sales tactics, especially marketing, sales tactics don't change that often. Marketing tactics change a lot though. Selling on the internet, that's what I do. If I can't find an MLM that will let me do my strength, why would I ever join them? So, I got really passionate about that one topic. I got really passionate about finding an MLM that let me do that. Here's the problem. This is why I get passionate about this. This is why I get so fiery about this topic. Think about this, in the past ... I don't know if you guys have ever tried to sell your product online or ever on a Facebook ad. A lot of MLMs freak out over that. They go nuts, like, "What? No, you can't sell it online." They try to control a lot of stuff. It's like you have to be a certain personality type to sell how they want you to sell. I was like, "I don't really want to sell how my MLM's telling me to sell. You're telling me that I would get kicked out for running a Facebook ad in your favor? That's stupid." I was flat-out like, "That's dumb. That's dumb. I hate that." I was talking to the CEO of this MLM before I ever joined, and I had the very unique experience of doing that before I joined. I said, "I'll you why so many people who sell on the internet will not join an MLM." He goes, "Really? Why?" I said, "Because what ends up happening is, if I go build something like a sales funnel that's supposed to sell supplements ... Let's say I'm going to go sell your supplements, sir. I go sell your supplement on the internet, and I build a sales funnel. I know that this sales funnel is the sales funnel that pulls in 17 grand a day for one of my buddies. I know that this sales funnel is the supplement funnel that turns in $100,000 a day for these companies. You're saying that I can't go build that thing. Why on earth would you not want that kind of sales volume? That's the kind of stuff I do. I love to be able to build that and duplicate it for my team. In a single click, I'll give them the entire sales funnel after I prove that thing out. Then I'll give it to all of them, and they'll have that kind of marketing arm now also rather than just go talk to people on the street or in malls and hotel lobbies." I'm not making fun of that if you're like crazy good at it, but man, things evolve. I said, "Here's the reason why though, I can go build those kinds of thing. I've built those things before. I've built them for many other big people, but I can't take your product and go put it on the internet because I'll get in trouble." He goes, "Here's what's different about my MLM, man, I've got this thing." I won't tell you the name of it, because I don't want you guys to go look it up. He's like, "I got this thing, and it's in writing. I don't care how my MLMers sell." I was like, "Really? You're like the first one I've heard that says that." He's like, "Yeah, I don't care how they sell. As long as they don't drop a certain price point and they're not lying, who cares? Why would I control that?" I was like, "Oh." I think I saw a halo appear above his head, and there was a light in the room, and things around him got all dark, and I was like, "This is the guy." He goes, "I don't care how you sell, just represent it well. Who cares? I don't care if you sell it on the internet. I don't care if you sell it face-to-face. However you want to sell it, you sell it. It's still a commission." I was like, "Oh my gosh, thank you. First of all, breath of fresh air. Second of all ... " Again, I'm not pitching anybody that ... I understand some of you guys will reach out and ask after this. This is the reason, this very specific reason. I was very, very careful on how I chose an MLM and what criteria I used to choose an MLM. I said, "Okay, well here's the other issue, here's the other issue is ... " Steve, thanks for bringing up this question, man, because this brings up some big topics inside the MLM space, some big technical issues in the MLM space that no one's really solved and we're the first ones to do it. I've been really, really proud of it. What I've been doing is, I told him, I said, "Here's the other major reason why a lot of people who know how to sell on the internet will not sell in MLM. They won't join an MLM." He goes, "Okay, I'm listening." I said, "Here's the reason. If I go run a Facebook ad and I have my own webpage up, let's say you guys have a store like you've built something in WordPress." If you have no idea what I'm talking about, that's fine. That's fine. Let's say that somehow though, you're selling your product online. What you would have to do traditionally is after the sale gets sold, after you collect the sale, you'd have to turn back around and go buy it again on your corporate website in that person's name with that person's shipping address with that person's information, which sucks. It's terrible. It means every sale, there is so much touch. There's a lot of high touch that's done. There's so much that you have to do for that individual. It's an awful game. I have buddies that would go and they'd build these sales funnels, and they'd be selling their products online. Then they'd just go take this massive Excel sheet, and they'd either have to go sell it and make this really special agreement with their ... They go take this Excel sheet and they'd have to go make this special agreement with their MLM or whatever, or they'd have to turn around and manually by hand, they'd go in and put in all of those orders in those people's names with their shipping addresses and they'd have to go re-buy it. Well, by that time, you've already paid for credit card processing twice. It cuts down how much money they actually make. Therefore, it really puts a massive damper in why you'd ever, ever do any kind of product sales with an MLM online. I was explaining this to him and he was like, "Huh. How do we fix that?" It was funny, because I was sitting there in the room with him, I was sitting there in the room with him and I had this idea come to my head. I was like, "If we did this one thing," and I'm not going to tell what it is though, I said, "If we can fix this one thing, this one area ... All it would take a little bit of tech stuff on your side at the beginning, but what it would do is it would allow me to sell my product through my own funnels and it would go to you guys. The money would go to you guys. It would just credit my account with the sale, with the commission." We drew this out, and it was this cool plan. I hit my head, and I started drawing and I got in the zone and it was really, really awesome. What ended up happening was, he goes, "Okay. This is cool." I'm really pumped because ... This is me just celebrating a big achievement, guys, because they just came out with the beta of that solution. Now what it means is I can go sell like these other massive supplement funnels, these massive guys I'd go build for. They'd be bringing in millions of dollars. In the past, I couldn't do that kind of thing in an MLM, because I'd have to do this two-step thing. I even knew guys who would hire VAs to buy again the product in that person's name on the corporate website after they got the purchase in their own funnel. Does this make sense? I was like, "This is so stupid, you guys. Why has the MLM Industry not caught up with the fact of what a funnel is, and why does everyone care how it gets sold?" I know some people are not going to like the fact I'm saying that. I totally understand. I know some people are going to be really, really against what I just said. If you know something sells well, why on earth would you hinder that process and you know how it sells well? Here's really the two big issues. When I was choosing my MLM, I wanted to know, first of all, what was already selling in the market. I didn't give a crap about what the product was for a while. I wanted to know what is already selling in the market not including MLM products. What are people ferocious over? Now, let me find an MLM with a product that is nearest to that so I know it sells well. I need to know what is selling and how it's selling. Those are the only two questions that I care about. What is currently selling in the marketplace with rampant buyers, irrational purchasers? Then how is it selling? How are they getting those people in front of them? Is it really just through friends and family? How is everyone else buying it who is not an MLM? Are they doing it through retail? Are they buying offline? If you know what those are, why would you ever hinder that process? I don't know. That's part of the issue. That's what I went through and I talked with about these guys. I was like, "Look, fix this one problem right here, and I have an army of funnel builders who are wanting to sell this thing." Guys, I'm excited. It's the reason I'm so passionate about it. I think we're the first MLM ever in history to do this. We're the first team. My team is the one doing it. I'm the one beta testing it. If this works, I don't care if my team doesn't know how to build funnels, I will build it for them and I give it to them. Now, they have this whole sales arm. Now, I focus heavily on the recruiting side, and now we're also just cranking, killing, just crushing on the product sales side. How exciting is that? It means I'm not walking around selling the product. One more story, one more story real quick. I know this is a long episode, but just bear with me. One more story to illustrate the point. When I was doing door-to-door sales, I was driving down the street and I was looking around. I was in a little bit of a sales slump. I was a good salesman. I was one of the top guys almost every time. Telemarketing, I was one of the leaders on the floor. I had a team behind me that I was training. When I was doing door-to-doors sales, I was very good. I was the number two first year seller. The reason I wasn't number one is because the guy came out two months ahead of me. He had such a ridiculous lead, but I did really well in sales. I was in the middle of a slump though. We're driving out to our areas and we're on the highway. I remember the clear blue-sky day. There was some clouds in the sky. Temperature was warm. It was going to get hot that day. Clear, clear sky, and it was a beautiful day, guys, beautiful day. Mountain all around us, and I was selling pest control. We're driving out to this area, and what I was doing is I was complaining in my head. I was complaining. There's no other way to say it. I was ticked. I was like, "This is stupid." I was like, "Are you kidding me." I was trying to control my emotions, but I wasn't. I was in a little bit of a slump, and I was carrying that emotion with me on the doors and I wasn't doing well. I learned a lot of lessons from that personally. I grew a lot from that personally. As we were driving out, I'm looking up and I'm seeing these billboards on the side of the road. These billboards are on the side of the road, and I had this thought. I will never forget where we were on the road. I will never forget where I was sitting. I will never forget this moment, because it was one the sparks that changed my life and how I approach MLM. I was sitting and I was looking. I wasn't in MLM at the time, and I was looking at these billboards. I looked up at the billboards, and I thought, "Gosh, this is so stupid. I'm waking up every single day as a door-to-door salesman trying to convince people to buy something who were not thinking about buying something today, but people who are calling these billboards are getting laydown sales. People who are calling these billboards are asking to be sold." So, what I did is I started putting these classified on the internet. Have you heard of like Craigslist, things like that? I just started putting our service, our product on Craigslist. I put it on Craigslist, and I started getting all these phone sales, all these laydown sales. I think I've told you guys this story before, but I hope it really hits home with what I'm telling you about how I chose my MLM. I started getting all these phone sales and all these laydown sales, and these were individuals who wanted to be sold, who wanted my product, who wanted more information. I wasn't bugging him and bothering him in the middle of the day. Are you getting a little bit of the ah-ha? What ended up happening is I started realizing, I said, "Wait a second. For every product, most products out there, for pretty much every product, there are people who are already trying to purchase this thing. They just don't know about my product. I'm going to stop walking up to random people in hotel lobbies." I wasn't doing that anyway but, "I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do ... " What I started doing is when ... Yes, the product matters, but what is more important is matching an MLM to whatever is currently exploding in the marketplace, meaning if you're trying to be in the Health Industry and you want to find a health MLM, you go find whatever supplement, or program, or whatever it is has the most rampant, ridiculous purchasers, then choose the MLM off that. If you know how they're buying ... Now you know what they're buying, you've got to figure out how they're buying it now. Are they buying it on the internet? Are they buying it right off of TV ads? I don't know. Go figure that out. Then you match that way. So, I chose my MLM very, very strategically. I said no to a lot of MLMs. They all wanted my stuff. I understand why they wanted it, but I chose, first off ... I was like, "I'm going to do supplements so there's recurring billing. I'm going to do something more high ticket so that there's higher margins for me. I'm going to choose something so the starting commission is 20%. I'm going to choose something that will let me sell online the way that I know how to blow the gates open with funnels." This is the first MLM, and I think I'm the first team, to really be able to do that and integrate directly into a corporate's software so that when we sell stuff ... We're still in the beta testing, but we're doing it. We know clearly where we're going with it. Now what's kind of cool is that when people join my team, what I do is I've got this members area that walks them through a lot of the training, how I would do stuff. Then it walks them through the actual funnel side. It's like, "Hey, if you don't know how to build them, that's okay. Click here. I have a pre-made one for you, and it sells this product in our MLM really well with these kind of ads, with this kind of average cart value typically. Usually, start with this kind of ... " Do you know what I mean? What other MLM gives you that kind of upper hand? I don't know. That's the reason I get so ... I'm very, very proud of the MLM that I'm in. In order to protect the team, find the people who are most serious about it, I'm not just trying to get people who are like, "Oh, Stephen's got all these plans. Therefore, I'll make all this money faster." I'm not looking for get rich quick people. We are trying to get rich quick, make no mistake. Why would you ever try to get rich slowly? I was laughing like, "Is this a get rich quick scheme?" I was like, "Well, hopefully." It's not that I'm a capitalistic pig. Man, why would you do something where you make money slowly? "Don't worry, it's not a get rich quick scheme." It's like, "What? How slowly do you make cash?" That's a stupid saying. What you're trying to say is, is it a scheme? Is it a plot? Is it a Ponzi Scheme? I get that. I understand what people are trying to say with that. So, I vet people out, and that's the reason that I do it. Steve Peck, I know that's a very long response to it, but that's how I chose my MLM is I did not first look at what my MLM's product was. First, I didn't even consider any MLM until I saw what was selling very, very hot in the health space, or wealth space, or relationship space. What is selling super hot, and now with an MLM that comes closest to selling that kind of thing, and do they care how I sell my stuff? That's it. That's how I did it. I know that's kind of out of the box, but that's kind of what secret MLM Hacks is. Anyways, guys. Thanks so much. Hopefully that helped. I know it was kind of a long episode, but I hope that it helped you understand it doesn't matter how cool your product is if no one knows about it. It doesn't matter how cool your product is if there's no one currently buying something even similar in the marketplace. That is some scary crap to go into, because now you have to educate and sell, not just sell. They're already further down the belief path with my product. They already know. We're just selling a better version of it, and I know the best ways to sell it on the internet. That's why we're doing what we are. Guys, thanks so much. Appreciate it. I know it's kind of a long episode, but hopefully you got some stuff from that. Again, I'm not trying to convince you to get out of your MLM or stay in it, whatever. It's your call, your choice to do what you do with this information. That's how I did what I did. That's why I'm doing what I am. It's your call. Do whatever you want to with it, and start asking. That's what I was trying to tell this person a few days ago. They're like, "My MLM won't let me sell stuff on the internet." I was like, "Oh my gosh. Get good at direct response. Get good at selling through mailboxes or something. Are you really going to go door-to-door? What's the preferred method?" Now think of that method that they're trying to teach you at scale. Is that something you can do at scale? Once you know how the thing is selling, there's only three ways to grow a business, guys, only three ways. You can get more customers. You can get customers to pay you more money, or you can get customers to pay you money more frequently. That's it. So, what of those three can you do in your MLM? Yes, Steve, are you passionate about this topic? I'm very passionate about it, because I understand that people feel loyal about their company. Those are the only three ways. If you can't see one of those ways working at scale ... Okay, let's think through it. Number one, get more customers. If they are so butt hurt on how you sell your thing, do you really think you're going to retire off it? Is it really going to help do your house payment? I mean, seriously. Start running some numbers. Figure out what that ... Are we all going to go to hotel lobbies? That's why I get passionate about it, guys. Obviously I am. You're like, "Well, maybe that's not the way I'm going to do it. Maybe I'm just going to get customers to pay me more frequently." Okay, cool. Let's start looking at the margins, start looking at the commission check that you get. Is your MLM giving you dollar per dollar commissionable volume? If not, that's some scary crap. Start running the numbers. I was in my MLM. I recruited those 13 people in my first month. I got a $13 check. 13 bucks, guys. I was like, "Oh my gosh, that's a dollar a person. I don't totally understand what just happened here, but that sucks." So, more customers. Wait, but MLMs traditionally, a lot of them are really butt hurt on how you sell. So, more customers sell more frequently to them getting you to pay more money. Can you do upsales? Can you? Mine will let me. Can you toss your own thing in there? That's when you start looking at ... That's what I'm trying to help you understand. What's the marketing arm, the marketing mechanism? Because they help you with the sales scripts. They help you with that stuff, but not that many people help you get the marketing ironically, which is the area that actually makes you the money. That was a long episode, but I'm passionate about it, guys. That's a very big deal how you choose your MLM. It's a very big deal. I don't actually really even know that much about what my comp plan says. I don't need to. I will. I know that's bad of me. I'll go study it. I'll get to know it really, really well, but frankly it's the marketing not the comp plan. It's the marketing not barely even the product. It's the marketing that will make you the cash and make your wallet fatter. If this was offensive of me saying this kind of stuff, I'm not sorry because it's truth. Please know that where I'm coming from, you've got to see there are better ways to do the game. You've got to understand, let's look at the long haul, what really is going on. Yes, you may love the product. There is an MLM I love buying their product, but I will not be part of the MLM. I love the product. You have to start making those calls and start making those decisions as you understand, "Am I really learning how to market? Am I really learning how to ... " Anyway, it was a long episode, guys. I appreciate it. Thank you, Steve Peck, for asking the question. As soon as I saw the question, I was like, "Oh man. Steve just opened a can." So, that was a 30 minute episode. Hey guys, I hope you're having a good one. Appreciate you guys and appreciate the listens. Go get them. I'm very, very excited for this and love our community here. Hey, thanks for listening. Please remember to subscribe and leave feedback for me. Do you have a question you want answered live on the show? Go to secretmlmhacksradio.com to submit your question and download your free MLM Masters Pack.

Holy cannoli its a tad coldy outside. You can say that again. Ok. Holy cannoli its a tad coldy out there. Oh... I.... Ahh... I didn't think you would... What? No. I just didn't... Didn't WHAT? I just... I just... you didn't have to say it again, I stated that to reiterate and put emphasis on your statement, hence, I agree its coldy and not only do I agree I hole heartily agree to the point where I can (but don't need to) hear you say it again. Ok. Well it is chilly. Agreed.

- Hello? Yes? How did you get this number? No, i'm sorry, I'm not interested in helping children who can't hear strings. What? No, i definitely don't want to hear your Bane impression. A free bottle opener? Listen, please don't call me agai- Oh, you have some opinions on five of the songs in the 1997 triple J Hottest 100? Do go on... SONGS COVERED: 75. Space - the Female of the Species 74. Rage Against the Machine - the Ghost of Tom Joad 73. Live - Lakini's Juice 72. Front End Loader - Pulse 71.  Robyn Loau - Sick With Love LIKE HOTTEST 100S AND 1000S ON FACEBOOK: hottest100sand1000s FOLLOW HOTTEST 100S AND 1000S ON TWITTER: @Hottest100s AND YOUR HOSTS: @AndrewM138 | @DJYwrites | @NLFHarrison and Adam, who, like the riffs, is also unlisted.

Have you ever been in the middle of the Christmas Carol and realized that this is really just the story of burgeoning primarch making their way in the world without their father's guidance during the Christmas season?  Me neither, that would be weird.  But just in case you have we have a treat for you!  Three Christmas movies transformed into 40K lore, plus our favorite this and thats, what we have been up to and all the other reasons we bother to record our dulcet tones.  So get up, our yourself a nice tall tasty glass of honey bee extract in grass smoothie, put on your favorite dress that you bought that you only wear when nobody else is around to remind you of that time as a kid when your friends made you break into a dodgy strip club and you fell in love with the stripper on stage who wore one marginally like it but you want to recapture that sensation (What? No, YOU'RE weird!), sit back and delve into the occasionally historically accurate sounds of Mob Rules!

We are now balls deep in our second anniversary of Radio Quântica shows. HAPPY BIRTHDAY to US!! From this high up we gotta say: it’s one wondrous sight to behold. Also, we basically just came from a live set in Portugal’s most prestigious nightclub for music discovery, Lux Frágil. Some people stuck with us ‘till the very end, bless them, even as we obliterated both hell and high water with the likes of Demdike Stare, fuckin’ SLAUGHTER and Leviathan. Things started as rocky as a mountain on this show thanks be to all things digital catching us by surprise, but it didn’t take much for a COMEBACK FOR THE AGES. Again, think Rocky. ANGEL WITCH aplenty, goth (to live is to die, damn it!), BLACK METAL from heck, great covers and love letters, hentai (What? No.), METAL MANS and a general disinterest for all things gentle. HARSH SATANIC REALITIES UNEARTHED!! Satan Made Me Do It #24 – -- Á altari meistarans | Wormlust (ICE) | The Feral Wisdom, 2013 https://wrmlst.bandcamp.com/ -- Antiquate | Portal (AUS) | Seepia, 2003 https://www.facebook.com/PORTALDEATH -- Call from the Grave | Bathory (SWE) | Under the Sign of the Black Mark, 1987 https://www.discogs.com/Bathory-Under-The-Sign-Of-The-Black-Mark/master/5784 -- Trance | Tormentor (HUN) | Anno Domini, 1989 http://tormentor.hu/ -- Black Edifice | Dream Death (USA) | Journey into Mystery, 1987 https://www.facebook.com/DreamDeathSludge -- Tales of the Macabre | Slaughter (CAN) | Strappado, 1987 https://www.facebook.com/SLAUGHTER-Canada-12169425739/ -- Goddess Of Perversity | Blasphemy (CAN) | Fallen Angel of Doom…. https://www.facebook.com/OfficialBlasphemy?fref=ts -- Destructor | Slaughter Lord (AUS) | Thrash ‘Til Death 86-87 [Compilation], 1998 https://www.facebook.com/Slaughter.Lord.official?fref=ts -- In the Shadow of the Monolith | Apostate Viaticum (IRL) | Before the Gates of Gomorrah, 2017 https://invictusproductions666.bandcamp.com/album/before-the-gates-of-gomorrah -- Soul Wanders | Exhumation (IDN) | Opus Death, 2014 http://exhumation.bandcamp.com/ -- Witching Hour | Sigh (JAP) | A Tribute to Venom [EP], 2008 https://sigh.bandcamp.com/ -- Murder Angels | Death SS (ITA) | …In Death of Steve Sylvester, 1988 https://www.facebook.com/DeathSSofficial -- Flight Nineteen | Angel Witch (UK) | Sweet Danger [Single], 1980 https://angelwitch.bandcamp.com/releases -- Creatures of the Night | Cursed Moon (USA) | Rite of Darkness, 2017 https://cursed-moon.bandcamp.com/ -- Last Chance (Exclusive Raw Mix)| Jared James Nichols (USA) | Black Magic, 2017 https://www.facebook.com/Jaredjamesnichols/ -- I Am The Darkness | Black Widow (UK) | Demo #1, 1982 http://heavymetalrarities.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=95&t=28748 -- Metal Man | Limelight (UK) | Limelight, 1980 https://www.discogs.com/Limelight-Limelight/master/564896 -- Extermination Day | Angel Witch (UK) | Demo 1979 https://angelwitch.bandcamp.com/ -- Killers of the Night | Axe Battler (CHI) | The Wrath of My Steel [EP], 2010 https://www.facebook.com/axebattlerband -- Turbo Lover | Judas Priest (UK) | Turbo, 1986 http://www.judaspriest.com/ -- Arise | Paranoid (SWE) | Cover Of The Month, 2015 https://www.discogs.com/%E5%81%8F%E5%9F%B7%E7%97%87%E8%80%85-Cover-Of-The-Month-/master/1135200 -- Witchcraft | Beherit (FIN) | The Oath of Black Blood [Compilation], 1991 https://www.facebook.com/beherit -- Graven tåkeheimens saler | Darkthrone (NOR) | Transilvanian Hunger, 1994 https://www.facebook.com/Darkthrone-101075189934422/ -- Inordinate Disdain | Impetuous Ritual (AUS) | Blight upon Martyred Sentience, 2017 https://profoundlorerecords.bandcamp.com/album/blight-upon-martyred-sentience -- Storm of Witchcraft | Malleus (USA) | Storm of Witchcraft, 2017 https://bloodharvestrecords.bandcamp.com/album/storm-of-witchcraft-12lp-cd-mc -- Satan Is Real | Strange Broue (CAN) | Seance – The Satanic Sounds of Strange Broue, 2017 https://strangebroue.bandcamp.com/

How we’re creating systems so that everyone can focus on their unique abilities. On this episode Russell talks about being worth $100,000 a day in his business, but not being worth anything as an assistant wrestling coaching. He goes on to say why it’s important to focus on unique abilities. Here are some of the amazing things in today’s episode: Why Russell had to tell an old friend that he couldn’t come visit unless he paid him $100,000 a day. How Russell ended up being an assistant wrestling coach for free. And why focusing on our own and our team members unique abilities is a good way to grow your company. So listen here to find out why Russell charges $100,000 a day for business consulting, but is an assistant wrestling coach for free. ---Transcript--- What’s up everybody, this is Russell Brunson. Welcome to Marketing Secrets podcast. I hope you guys have an amazing day today because I’ve got something cool to share with you. Alright everybody, I’m heading back into the office. It’s been a couple, the last two weeks have been a lot. Some of you guys, if you’ve been watching, last week I re-wrote the webinar from the ground up and it did really well. Over a million dollars in sales in the first week, which is cool. But the coolest thing, now that asset is done and created it will be placed in different places, including the home page of Clickfunnels. And it should, next year generate a lot. Anywhere from 10 – 20 million bucks. So it’s like, you do the work once and it pays you forever. And now I’m writing a webinar this week for our new program called Software Secrets, which is a brand new thing. It’s always, the last webinar I wrote from scratch, but the offer was similar to what I’ve done in the past. So this one, this is a brand new offer, brand new everything. And my kids started wrestling, and I don’t know if I told you guys this already, but the first day of wrestling practice happened and I didn’t know about it. I don’t know, we just got the dates messed up. So my kids went and that night I came home and I was all excited to see them, “How was wrestling?” and they’re all in tears, “We hate wrestling. We never want to go back.” And I was like, “What? No.”  So I had to call the coach and a few minutes later I called to be an assistant wrestling coach. So now everyday at 3:00, I love it, I get to go to wrestling practice with my kids. The only problem is that this week was planned to be the Software Secrets launch week, so I was going to have a whole week to build out the webinar. The problem is that now from 3 til 6 every night I’m at wrestling. So it cuts out, plus like drive times and everything else, it cuts out about 4 ½-5 hours every day. So I really needed to get this webinar, so I’ve been late nights. I was up at the office until 2 last night. I’m going to probably be there til 2 or 3 tonight and then do the webinar tomorrow morning live. But I think conservatively, it’s an amazing offer. It’s really insane. I would be shocked if we don’t do a million dollars during the launch week, or this week, the webinar week, you know. And then that will go on and next year it could do, who knows, anywhere from 5-10 million bucks. So you do the work once and it pays you for the next 5 years, which is cool. That’s what I love about webinars. All that effort you put into it. So it’s worth putting in the effort. It’s funny, as I’ve been doing this and thinking about it, I had an old friend from about 15 years ago call me and to start off, just kind of catching up and then, and I respect him for this, but as a good sales person does, he wanted to sell me something, and he’s like, “yeah, I could fly out to Boise and spend a day or two with you guys and show you all the stuff that we have.” And all this stuff right, and I was just like, how do you tell your friends this. Awkwardly I’m sitting there and I’m like, “Hey man,” I was so uncomfortable, because how do you tell your friend, someone who’s known you when you were just a punk kid? “I don’t know how to tell you this nicely, but just so you know, right now I bill out, if you were to come in for a day of consulting I bill out an 8 hour day at $100,000. So for you to come out for 2 or 3 days, the opportunity cost for me, its 2 or 3 hundred thousand dollars. So it’s really hard for me to just block out that time. I feel like such a jerk telling you that. But if you want to come out and we hang out as friends or something, I would love to see you again as friends, that’s super cool. To take 2 or 3 business days, the opportunity cost is not little.” He was like, “What? Are you serious?” I’m like, “yeah.” It’s kind of awkward right. But that’s what we charge. You know, I saw someone the other day posting in our Facebook group like, “How come the guru’s don’t just charge $150 an hour so they can help everyone?” and it’s like, gall I wish I could. I wish there were more hours in the day. That’d be awesome. But I was like, literally I’m spending 3 days to create this webinar that will make me a million dollars in the first week. And anywhere from 5 to 10 million dollars extra, maybe more. Who knows? So I’m spending 3 days, 3 days of focus time. And in my pocket goes 8 plus figures. $100,000 a day is actually super cheap discounted rate. You know what I mean? So I was trying to explain that, I was like, I don’t know how to say it nicely. I was like, even if you did want to pay me $100,000 a day, the first opening is probably 5 or 6 months away. My calendar is insanely booked. Anyway, so that’s kind of, that was this awkward moment. “I’m so sorry man, I just, I don’t want you to think I’m a jerk or anything, but that’s why I can’t just have you come out for 2 or 3 days to sell me something. I just can’t, I wish I could.” So that was, there’s step one. And then so now I’m at wrestling practice with my kids and I’m sitting there and I’m spending 3 or 4 hours a day, every day, at wrestling practice, which again, I love. It’s so cool. I remember when I was this age, going to practice and my dad coming and watching and working out with me. It’s just cool. It’s been a really unique time with the twins, just such a cool thing to be able to spend time with them. Like I said, they haven’t liked wrestling, so I’m in there trying to make sure they’re liking it. I’m in there wrestling most of the time I’m drilling with them, I’m helping them and just making sure they have a good experience just so that they keep doing it. And for the next two or three years in the beginning programs, that they like it. If they like, I just don’t want them to get hurt, or beat up, so I’m just there to make sure that they like it and teach them some moves so they start beating kids. Because if you start beating kids, then it gets fun. So I’m just like, trying to get them through this initial pain of the beginning. And I’m sitting there, I’m an assistant coach, I’m not getting paid anything obviously. And I was just like, it’s so interesting, in this area of my life, like in business, my time is worth $100,000 a day. But in wrestling my time is not worth anything. I’m not getting paid for the 3 to 4 hours a day that I’m spending, which is, I don’t want to get paid for it. But I had this realization, over here I’m insanely valuable monetarily. Over here, I’m not. Best case scenario, if I was, even the best wrestling coaches in the world maybe, maybe clear 6 figures, probably not. Most of them probably $50-60 grand max. And these are like the best, these are the dudes like the Michael Jordan’s of the world, of the wrestling world. So it’s like, let’s just say I was at that level and I was getting paid that, I’d still be making $20 an hour, $30 an hour maybe. So for three hours it’s worth $60, $80, maybe $100 for my time. Whereas that time spent over here is worth $20 grand an hour. You’re looking at $20, 40, 60 grand for that same time, just where am I focusing at. And as I was thinking through it I was like, that’s so fascinating how valuable I am here and not so much here. So I started thinking about us as entrepreneurs where how often do we spend our time, we have a unique ability that’s worth $100 grand a day right. To our company and to us and the people we’re serving right. But then, we go and start doing these $8 an hour jobs because it’s gotta be done, so I should be the one doing it. But you’re not worth that much there. It’s so expensive to have you spending time on $8, 10, 20 an hour jobs if you’re making $20,000 an hour doing your unique ability. It’s been interesting, I’ve been working with Jeff Woods, from The One Thing, on building things out. One of the big things I’m focusing on, thinking through is we’re trying to re-systemize our business because it’s kind of to the point where we need to re-set and re-do all those things. And as I’m thinking through it I’m just like, I want to create the systems and my goal in these systems is to create the system so that it forces me, and forces everybody on my team to only do their unique ability. Because each of us has a unique ability where we’re worth $100,000 a day, and then we have things we’re good at where we’re worth $20 an hour. It’s like, if I can get everyone focusing on their unique abilities where they’re worth $100 grand a day versus their non unique abilities where they’re worth $100 a day, man how much faster can we grow and can we scale and all those type of things? So that’s been my thought process. So right now, we’re in the re-systemization of our company from now until the end of the year. After the Software Secrets launch I’m going to take, you guys will see me take a little bit of my foot off the gas, so I can recoup, restructure, get systems in place and then in January we’re going to go crazy, so it’s going to be fun. But that’s why, I’m trying to figure out how to get everyone focusing on their unique ability and not focusing on the $100 a day jobs that they can do, and they are doing, but how do we get it so we’re all focusing on unique abilities? So for you guys who are thinking about it, what’s your unique ability? Think through that and then figure out, okay now that I know that, what are the people on my teams unique abilities and how do I create a structure where everyone is focusing 100% of their time on unique abilities? When you do that, you’ll start growing. Dan Sullivan, at strategiccoach.com, if you guys go there he, I just bought every book on his website last week. It showed up in a huge box. Because I’m about to immerse in some Dan Sullivan, so I don’t just buy one book, I buy all of them because I love immersion. But in one of his books, it’s about unique ability, it has like a work book and everything. I haven’t read it yet, but I know it’s awesome, so check it out. You guys, there is Garrett, and there is Scott. Those are our partner’s for Software Secrets, Lindsay, they’ve been up here for the last 2 days camping overnight with me getting everything ready for the launch tomorrow. So if you guys are watching the video you just saw Garrett, Scott and Lindsay. If not, you just saw me point in the air and didn’t see anything, if you’re just listening. So anyway, I’m going to jump in and we’re going to get this thing launched. I got 5 ½ hours before wrestling practice. After wrestling practice I’m going to come back and probably spend another 51/2 hours, so about 10 hours to get this webinar done before my body will shut down. Wish me luck. And then tomorrow will be a million dollar day and then we’ll have an asset that’ll pay us for the rest of our lives. So this is my unique ability. So that’s what I spend my time doing. Spending my time managing, $100 a day job. Spending my time writing webinars, $100 grand a day job. So I’m focusing on my unique ability today, which will be good. So that’s all I got. Alright everybody, appreciate you all, talk to you guys soon. Bye.

What's going on, everyone? This is Steve Larsen, and you're listening to Secret MLM Hacks Radio. So, here's the real mystery. How do real MLMers, like us, who didn't cheat and only bug family members and friends, who want to grow a profitable home business, how do we recruit A players into our down lines and create extra incomes, yet still have plenty of time for the rest of our lives? That's the blaring question, and this podcast will give you the answer. My name is Steve Larsen, and welcome to Secret MLM Hacks Radio. Hey, guys. Hope you're doing great. I hope the week's gone fantastic, and I hope that the rest of the day goes well for you as well. Hey. Listen. I grew up in Littleton, Colorado. It's a city just outside of Denver. I loved it. It was a lot of fun. It's a city right in between Denver and the mountains. It's kind of an outdoor playground. I loved it a lot. Growing up though, I was always kind of the kid who was trying to sell whatever knick-knack to whatever person. You know what I mean? I was like in the movie Hercules, that guy that was running around asking people if they want to buy sun dials. You know what I mean? I was that guy. I've always been trying to sell stuff. What was funny about it is I never realized that I was that kind of guy, and you probably can relate with me. I never realized that I was that kind of ... There was never that introspective moment like, "Oh my gosh. I'm that guy," you know, like, "Oh my gosh. I like sales. Oh my gosh. I like business." What was funny is when I got into college, I still had not captured this persona. I had not owned who I naturally am yet. You know? I had not owned that, and so it was weird. I was in business classes, and I was going to marketing classes, and we'd be learning all sorts of crazy formulas and all this stuff, and people would ask, and professors, and teachers, and leaders, and stuff, they'd ask, "Hey, Steven. What is it you want to do?" Deep down inside I always knew I wanted my own business. I always wanted to be able to run my own thing, but I almost ... I got my perception of what it meant to be an entrepreneur from a lot of Hollywood stories, and from a magazine articles, and from YouTube. This whole persona of what it meant to be an entrepreneur started sitting down on me. It was weird. I had a hard time accepting the fact that I wanted to be an entrepreneur, because in my mind, thank you very much, Hollywood, I was falsely believing that to be an entrepreneur it meant I had to be greedy. It meant I had to go out and I had to be this guy that was constantly wearing a nice suit. There was always a briefcase in my hand. I was walking all to a meeting always. You know what I mean? It's super ... I didn't know what it meant. All I knew was I wanted to run businesses, and I had been doing it in college. I had started several. Several of them were actually quite successful. It was actually a lot of fun, but I had a hard time telling people ... because all the other students around me, all of their goals were always like, "Hey. I'm going to go work for JP Morgan. Hey. I'm going to go work for this. Hey. I'm going to work for ...", you know, huge, huge people. They're like, "Steve, what are you going to do?" I'm like, "Well, I am going to start a business." I remember the funny looks that I always got, and I had a hard time, because I was excited to tell people, "Oh my gosh. This is what I want to do," but the reactions that I would get were so ... I don't even know what to say. They were negative almost, not negative, but it was always like, "Oh. You're that guy." You know what I mean? That was the like, "Oh. Good job. Go try it. Oh. Good job. Yeah. Oh. He's going to be an entrepreneur." You know? That was the mentality that I could tell a lot of people ... the reaction that I would get a lot of times. And so, for years, with everyone, I mean everyone, with not just friends, but family, you know, my wife, parents, I mean, anybody, anybody, those closest to me, and even myself ... I had a hard time accepting the fact that I wanted to be in business for myself. I had a very hard time saying that to people I respected most. I had a hard time owning my natural desire. That's literally the entire topic of this episode. I just wanted to ... As I've gone and this secret MLM Hacks product is about to launch here in the next little bit, as things are starting to fall in place ... I mean, I've had to become more and more clear with what it is I actually want, and I had to have learned to be okay with that, not that I wasn't okay with it, but I had a hard time telling people what I even wanted, what my goals were, because I was afraid of offending someone. I had a hard time in college telling people what I wanted, because I was afraid that people would look at me and go, "Oh my gosh. That's a greedy guy. What? You just want money?" I'm like, "Yeah. I am intentionally trying to make a lot of money. You know? And you should be too." If it's not something that you're okay stating in a food court and publicly, start checking yourself. Why are you doing what you're doing? Are there internal desires that you have that are not being consistent with what you're saying? I guarantee you that as soon as you start to put your words in your conversation and the conversation in your head and it starts to actually line up with what is inside you, oh my gosh, you guys, stuff starts falling into place for you, because you get true. You get forward. You start to tell people, "Yes. This is what I want," and you move forward, and you start going and going. You know, it's funny. There was an MLM I joined when I was in college. I didn't know what I was doing. I was trying. It was a good experience. I'm glad that I did it, but there was this MLM that I joined in college. I had a hard time admitting to people that I had joined an MLM. I wasn't willing to admit to myself or to others that I was in an MLM. Have you ever felt this? My guess is that you have. If you're on this podcast, you've probably had that feeling before. You know? There was even a different one that was local to where I was. I was not a part of it, but there was the actual headquarters for a different MLM was near where I was. If I said the name, you all would know it, so I'm not going to say it. But they came out and they started trying to tell people that they were not an MLM. It confused the crap out of all their people, like, "Wait a second. What?" "No. This is not a multilevel marketing company. This is a direct sales company." They kept trying to change the name. I started noticing that all of these people started trying to do that too, that the term MLM was almost like a swear word. I get it. I know that there are people who go make a bad name, but that's true for every industry, but masking it is you merely not owning what it is you actually want to do. Does that make sense? Okay. I went online real quick here, and I actually started looking through all the different phrases that are synonymous with MLM. What are the other things that we can call MLM without calling it MLM? Well, we could call it network marketing. It's like, okay, that's a pretty standard one. Direct sales, right? Direct selling, referral marketing. Oh. That's not MLM. Business opportunity. It's like, "What?" This one killed me. I heard this one today actually, circle of influence marketing. Circle of influence marketing? What? How much denial are you in to say that? Okay. Anyway ... I'm trying to be sensitive to this, but ... Pyramid selling. Now, that just sounds crazy. Anyway, there's a lot of friends that I had and a lot of peoples I started rubbing shoulder with. Every time I saw someone who was in an MLM, they would go out and they would start to say, "No. No. No. It's not an MLM. It's just this." Okay. By definition, by law, if it's three tiers ... If it's two tiers, that's affiliate marketing. It just means you have a rewards system for the second tier. If there are three tiers, if there are three tiers of compensation, it is by definition an MLM, right? Multilevel marketing, multilevel marketing. You know, I had this moment a little while ago, where ... I'm not sure if you guys ever read the book, The ONE Thing, by Gary Keller. Gary Keller is like Keller Williams, real estate, you know, massive, huge, huge, huge real estate company obviously. But Gary Keller goes through and he starts talking about how let's think forward about what your goals are. What is it that you want to be? What is it you're trying to become? What's your some day goal? What the thing that you want to be doing in 10 years? What's funny, what's interesting, I actually, for a long time, I kind of shunned that question. I have no idea what I want to be doing in 10 years. I have no idea what I want to be doing in five years. I know it revolves around me having my own businesses still. I know it revolves around me charging the path and honestly doing a lot of the same things I am now. I'd love to have my own software company. I'd love to be able to ... It's interesting to start thinking that, like what is it that you actually want? Are the things you're doing today actually contributing to that long term goal? There was this ... I can't remember where I've heard this. I've heard this several times though. There was this ... I think so anyways. Anyway, regardless, there was this billionaire that was getting interviewed on some .... I can't remember where it was. Anyway, this billionaire was getting interviewed, and he was giving advice. This was his advice. He said, "Okay. Think through your 10 year goal. What is it that you really want to get? What is it that you want to be? What do you want to have? What do you want to be doing in 10 years? Get really clear on it." Okay. 10 years. Now, what would It take for you to achieve all of that in the next six months? That's crazy. That's nuts, right? He said, "That's how billionaires think." They just go through and they do the most important tasks, and all their tasks are only focused on that one thing, no distraction, complete honesty with themselves as they do it. There's been several times, I know that you guys have probably seen the same thing before, because a lot of time the people get into MLM, it's the very first business thing they've ever tried ever, which is great. That's awesome, but part of that is someone needs to start ... the new person needs to begin owning what they really want. Some of that takes some personal acceptance. Sometimes that's hard. That's not easy to do. There's a lot of belief involved in your own self to go and do something like have your own business, or have your own MLM position and make it successful, or start anything new, or charge the path of something that's already been proven. You know? There's a lot of belief and this level of self-confidence, and it's something that it took me a long time to go get before I felt like I could stand up in a food court and say, "Yes. I am Steve Larsen, and I want to be an entrepreneur. I am Steve Larsen." For a while it took me a long time to just to say I want to be an entrepreneur. It took me an even longer amount of time to say, "I am one." Does that make sense? You are in MLM. You area multilevel marketer. Own the thing. The more people you're offending by saying that, the better. It's counterintuitive. It means you're actually marketing. It means you're actually doing what you should be doing, right? There's a great marketing quote, "If you don't offend someone by noon, you're not working hard enough." It's the same thing for multilevel marketing. You got to believe in yourself though while you do it. I wasn't planning on doing an episode about this. I honestly just sat down. It's been on my mind, as I've watched other people start to grow and start to gain the personal development that MLM requires and any kind of business requires, is belief in one's self, right? This total trust in what it is you know you want, not just to believe it, but to say it to other people. There's a great quote I cannot name. I don't know ... I can't say his name, as I'm not good at other languages, besides English. He said, "Man is made by his belief. As he believes, so he is. Man is made by his belief. As he believes, so he is." It's fascinating. Ask yourself, what are you believing? What if you believed about yourself? What if you believed about your potential and your capacity, what your actual goals are. What are those beliefs? Start getting real with yourself on what those things are. Start figuring out what that goal is in the ... You know, what's nice about setting that goal our there is that it actually makes a lot of decisions for you. You no longer have to think, "Oh. Should I go do this? Should I go do that?" No, because it's not part of your original goal. If that's not part of the thing you're going for, then decisions made for you. Don't go for it. Does that make sense? It's been one of the scariest questions I've started asking myself lately, what do I actually want? Right? That question has led me ... I mean, I most said something I'm not allowed to say yet, but it's one of the freakiest things. Me getting real with want I actually want has led me to me to do things that others are calling ludicrous, but because I am driven by my end goal, and I'm finally confident in stating what that is to myself and to others. I just legally, I don't know if I can say it yet. It'll be very exciting. Stay tuned to this podcast by the way, but I believe in this product that I'm launching that there are massive measures being take, so that it changes the MLM industry. That's the whole goal. I'm tired of how things happen inside the whole industry. I'm tired of the whole tactic's stuck in the 90s. You get MLM, it's broken out of the box. The tactics the up line teaching aren't totally aren't totally accurate. Anyway, I'm not saying they don't work, but they're not effective. They're not efficient, I should say. Anyway, side rant, but it's been fascinating. My whole question, my whole hope, while you are actually pushing, wherever you are in the journey. If you're starting out brand new or you're far into it, or whatever it is. Start asking yourself, what do you actually want? I challenge you, once you know what that is, number two, own it. Man, put it all over your wall. I mean, I've got quotes all over the place. I've got quotes on my desk. I've got quotes literally, all over the place just things, just trying to keep my in state. Remember the goal. I've got this goal that's constantly going through my head. It's two thousand seven hundred and I think thirteen dollars a day. If I do that, that's a million dollars in a year. $2,700 a day. I had a hard time admitting that I wanted to make that kind of money for a long time, because I had to break ways that I was was raised in. I had to break beliefs of, you know, that I picked up in school that weren't correct. I had to break beliefs of people who are well meaning, but ill informed, as far as my potential and the things I wanted to do, and you're the exact same way. Start thinking through the believes that you have about yourself, and your potential, and the things you can do, and get real with them. Call it MLM. Don't sugar coat it. Whatever it is, your dream, the industry you choose, the thing you're going for, if you're not clear about what it is you actually want, don't expect anyone else to be clear in helping you. Does that makes sense? I hope that makes sense, what I'm trying to say. If you're not excited, no one else is going to be excited for you. You're the only person who cares about your own success, not that other people don't care about you, but you're the only one who's actually going to drive it. You know what I mean? No one's going to call you accidentally and be like, "Oh. We've got 100 people who want to come join your down line." That happened to me about two or three days ago. Someone emailed me, again, wanting to bring several thousand people of their down line into mine. It's like, "Oh my gosh." It's because of the stuff that I do, the stuff that works. I never, ever, ever, ever tell you guys what MLM I'm a part of on this podcast, for that reason. That's not the purpose on it. I am not here to recruit. I am here to share the tactics. I'm here to share the mindsets. I'm hear to share all of the different pieces, and the methods, and the marketing, the automation that I use to actually automate my down line. To make a sustainable, duplicatable down line, actual passive income. I think my first check in MLM was like 13 bucks. I was like, "Oh my gosh. My tactics have got to switch, because this is not ... I'm not doing this." Anyway, I'm not bagging on anyone who's doing that. I'm just saying there's other ways, and there's much better ways, thanks to technology. Anyway, I hope that's making sense though, what I'm saying. Be real with what industry you're in. Don't try to sugar coat it. If you're in MLM, be freaking in MLM. If you know what your goal is, stand up and shout it from the rooftops, "This is my goal. Get it out of the way. That's what I'm doing, right?" I wish it had not taken me so long. As I was growing up and I started doing this stuff, I wish I had been more confident in what my goals were. I was so nervous about what other people were going to think about my goals. I was so nervous about my ambitions and what other people were going to say about them. It's stupid. Don't do it. Get clear with it on yourself, and then get clear with those around you, and your friends, and your family, and your loved ones, and your spouse. If anyone around you asks, "Be real, clear, open, and honest." Steven Larsen, what is your goal? I want to make a lot of money, so I can be heavily involved in philanthropy. That's my goal. There's numbers attached to that, and there's timelines attached to that, and I'm trying to break them all, and I'm trying to go as hard as I can, and push hard, and everything, but that's the goal, make a crap load of money and do a lot of humanitarian work. I had a hard time for a long time accepting that that's what I was trying to do, which is stupid, right? A lot of people would hear that and go, "That's a great goal." Well, I don't know why, but I was really embarrassed to say that. You know? I don't know how, but I want to change the world. You know? Anyway, just get clear with yourself and your goals, especially if you're brand new inside of business in general, or trying stuff new, or whatever it is, you can't lean on the approval of other people for very long. That's going to let you down real quick. Anyway, I'm starting to rant now. I usually do not get on a soapbox like this with these episodes, but anyway, regardless, hopefully it's been harmless. Hopefully you guys have enjoyed this. If you have, you know what would be really nice? I got onto iTunes the other day. I would love it, if you wouldn't mind, go over to iTunes and leave a review. I would love to know ... I do read them. I got on iTunes the other day, and there's a whole bunch on there. I was like, "Whoa." This podcast has only going for like two months. This is super cool. What month is it? Three months I think. Anyway, regardless, I would love a review if you guys wouldn't. Open, honest feedback. I read it, good or and, I would just love to hear what you have to say, so anyways, hope you guys are doing great, and I'll talk to you later. Bye. Hey. Thanks for listening. Please remember to subscribe and leave feedback for me. Do you have a question you want answered live on the show? Go to SecetMLMHacksRadio.com to submit your question, and download your free MLM masters pack.

Episode 2: The Far (PAX) WestHey, you didn't think we'd be back, did you? Shows what you know, dad. Maybe this'll finally make you love me. If you ever come back from buying cigarettes, I mean. What? No, I'm not crying.The Astral Era crew returns to discuss the hotness that is Patch 4.06. Can you say "Dragoon buffs"? I mean, I can, but I don't want to. We also delve into other new quality of life changes, Wulf's experience with the Gold Saucer, FFXIV's upcoming presence at PAX West, and the two recent additions to Tales from the Storm. Who knew Lyse had such a sweet tooth?If you like what you hear, please consider following us on Twitter or liking our page on Facebook! As always, we'd love to hear your feedback, so shoot us an email anytime. Download Episode 2: The Far (PAX) West - MP3, 51:16Subscribe to Astral Era on iTunes! Featuring: Derek Heemsbergen, Jeremy Wyatt, Wulf  

  Here's a look at some of my favorite selling methods AND how I'm using them in my funnels. What's going on everyone? This is Steve Larsen and you are listening to Sales Funnel Radio. Welcome to Sales Funnel Radio where you'll learn marketing strategies to grow your online business using today's best internet sales funnels. And now, here's your host, Steve Larsen. Hey, hope you guys are doing good. The last little bit here's been a little bit busy, we've had 4th of July, we had a bunch of family over. We went and bought a ton of fireworks. We blew a whole bunch of stuff up, and it reminded me a lot of my childhood. We used to take them all apart and make our own fireworks. It was not safe, but it was a lot of fun. I had a lot of fun with family over, and it's just been busy. There was a lot of people here just enjoying the house, enjoying the place we just moved into, and it's just been great. It's been a good experience the last little bit. I just literally have not had the time to podcast. It's 11:30 at night right now, and I just decided I should probably push one back out there. I wanted to show you guys something really cool that has been on my mind the last little bit. This will probably be a quick episode, but I just wanted to share with you this really cool epiphany that I've been having about "The Perfect Webinar Script." Now if you don't know what I'm talking about, "The Perfect Webinar Script" is the script that Russell Brunson has put together to help basically sell anything. Now it's perfect webinar script, but we've often mentioned how much we wish that it wasn't called "The Perfect Webinar Script" because it can be used for any kind of sales; whether you're doing stage presentation, whether you're doing any kind of obviously webinar, of course, video. Honestly guys, I use "The Perfect Webinar Script" on you guys, on this podcast, almost every single episode. You probably just don't know that's what I'm doing... I always come up with a story, and the story is structured similar or the same way. Usually there's a wall, my back is up against a wall, there's inner and external desires, there's conflict along the way. As I go toward the main thing I think I want, there's this side transformation that happens. You know what I mean? We go through the hero's journey, and I don't always hit them all perfectly every single time. If I was crafting an actual sales message I would, but I use that as a guideline for anything. You can use "The Perfect Webinar Script" for any kind of communication with any of your people at any time. What's really been fun is a lot of you guys know that I'm the coach for the "2 Comma Club Coaching Program" of Russell's, and it's been a lot of fun. Every Friday I'll get on and typically there's anywhere from 30 to 70 people on the phone calls, a big range back and forth, but 30 to 70 people. I'm there for about four hours, four solid hours and I've done that for probably four months now. Each week on Fridays for about four months now and it's been way, way past 40 hours of me and our little sound recording booth right next to where Russell's office is, and it's really awesome. I go sit over there and it's funny, there's always an air conditioning vent right above my head, it doesn't stop, and it's way too powerful for the little tiny room, so I'm always numb by the end of the four hours, but it's a lot of fun, I really enjoy it. There's a bunch of people that get on and what happens is they'll come submit all their questions, "Hey, how does this work here? Should I use this script? Is my funnel set up correctly here? Is it this, this, this, this?" There's tons of questions that I get. Hundreds that we've gone back and indexed... Over the last, especially the last about six weeks, through this last group that's just gone through it, there's been this realization that I've been having more and more and more. You might look at this and might go, "Okay, Stephen duh, like, I get it. That make sense. How come you didn't see that, Steve, okay?" But for me, I just barely saw this... It takes me back to when I was doing door to door sales. I know I reference that a lot, but it really was a massive boot camp, so to speak, on how to sell, how to approach people and how to handle objections. Obviously you've got to do that in a sales funnel, this is Sales Funnel Radio. I remember there was a guy that brought me to the side once, and he said, "Stephen, look," and he was actually the guy that recruited me into the company to go sell for them for that summer. He brought me to the side, and he goes, "Look, Stephen, here's the big secret. People already know whether or not they want the thing, whatever you're selling. They already have made the decision. You don't need to convince them to have the product, yes, or no. What you're trying to do is you're trying to help them come to a logical conclusion, so they can close themselves. That's it. That's the whole thing. That's the whole secret. You are not there to create desire. You can amplify desire... You can take someone's desire and you can blow it up, or you can poke at it a little bit and say, 'Remember, here's desire. Remember you do want this, remember, see,' then you start logically closing them, 'Hey, you should get it now because the price is going to go up,' or, 'You should get it now because you know what,' well, some pest control, 'We're spraying the neighbors so since we're here,' and you start logically showing them how that fits. How the decision to actually buy your product works." He's like, "That's the big secret, man." When I was speaking at Dan Henry's event at AdCON in Florida, he actually had a whole speech about that very thing. That very, very same thing. I still remember the story, it was really, really cool. It was all about the same time. This whole thing started forming in my mind, like, "Oh, my gosh. Here's a connection, here's a connection, here's a connection. Wow! That works!" Looks like we've been doing that all along, and I didn't even know it. What was cool was Dan Henry stood up, and he starts telling a story about when he was, I hope he's okay to tell me this, I'm sure he is ... Had a great interview with him, by the way, on this podcast go back and listen to it if you want to. He told a story about when, I think he was selling Dish or TV services or something like that, and he was the top salesman in Dish; they'd sell two, three, four services a day and he would do 17, insane amounts. These are sales funnels. Please try and think how you can use this inside of sales funnels. It's been really helpful, it's actually simplified the sales process for me a lot. Just work with me for just a second here. Stick with me. What he would do is he would stand up and go to these big conventions, and he would basically, as people would walk up to him, and they'd walk by the booth that they had set up there, people would walk by the booth and all he would do is he would stand up and go, "Hey, did you forget to sign up for Dish?" and they'd go, "What?" and he'd go, "Get out of here," and he'd wait for the next person, "Hey, did you forget to sign up for Dish?" They'd be like, "What? No, no." He'd be like, "Okay, okay, nevermind, get out of here." He just kept saying that over and over again, "Hey, did you forget to sign up for Dish?" "You know what, I did and ..." and he would go, "Oh, hey, it's fine. We got a form right here. You'll have it done in two minutes. While you're here it's super easy, and we got some cool thing. Just do it right now," and he'd hand them a piece of paper. He'd hand them the form with the pen right there. Did he try and convince them? No. But he would do that literally every single day for every single person and go, "Hey, did you forget to sign up for Dish?" "Did you forget to sign up for Dish" He just kept asking that over and over and over again. He said, "Guys, it's the reason I don't split test my ads, I split test my audiences. I keep my ad so targeted that the right person who hears that will be the easiest lay down sale." He's going and he's grabbing the low hanging fruit that a lot of times we'll go and overthink. That was one of the first things. You take what he was saying about keeping the message in such a way that you're just tapping into desire that already exists. People already want to buy. They already want to buy. They always are ready to want to buy. Buying is such an emotional thing. We get this dopamine release, we love to buy stuff. We actually physically get somewhat of a high from when we buy stuff. We all want to feel that. We don't want to feel sold because we feel taken, we feel cheated, we feel cheap, but we do want to go buy. We want to make that decision on our own and come to that conclusion on our own. The way we do that is we start to logically close people and hopefully the message resonates with people who've already decided whether or not to buy it. Think about that. Then you think about what the other guy was saying with door-to-door sales. "Look, man, they already have made the decision. They already know. All you're doing is you're trying to help them see why it's a good decision to do it now. Do it right now. Take action now. There's no time line. Nobody's ever going to do anything." Then you mix that with what Dan Henry was saying at his event, and it just amplifies that. Taking the same message and just pounding it over and over and over and that's how he would get ... I think he got to go meet the VP of Dish and all this stuff because he blew away so many records with that kind of thing. Coming back to the "2 Comma Club Coaching," the last little bit, we've been focusing heavily on webinars. How to create a million dollar webinar. That's part of what my job is I go and help them tweak the message, tweak the funnel, put all the stuff together, launch the thing. What happened? How do we fix it? Sitting where I am, it's a cool experience to go back and forth with them and do that. That's what the "2 Comma Club Coaching" is. There's a ton of other stuff but that's what the Q&A section is. One of the reoccurring things that I've noticed over and over again with the way people write their pitches, or the way the people will write scripts. This is true for webinars, it's true for trip wire funnels, it's true for back end funnels where the really high ticket things versus low ticket, anything at all. Someone sent a funnel to me that said, "Hey, Stephen, check this out." I went and I checked it out and on the copy, the actual sales copy itself, was a whole lot of logical reasons. There was nothing else on there but a whole bunch of logical reasons why I should buy the thing. A lot of people write copy that way. A lot of newbs... A lot of people who don't know how to write copy or people who don't know how to write any kind of sales messaging or have never done sales at all before. A lot of them will handle sales that way. They'll get straight into the logic of it. The problem when you do that is that you haven't tapped into the emotional side. This is where Russell helps and bridges the gap like crazy. Especially with "The Perfect Webinar Script." He says, "Guys, look. Buying is an emotional experience. First, we've got to appeal to the emotions. Let's load up the front end of this pitch with a ton of stories." That's what "The Perfect Webinar Script" is. What Russell teaches and what "The Perfect Webinar Script" ... It's so funny, when I spoke at Dan Henry's event, I used "The Perfect Webinar Script." There wasn't a pitch at the end. When I spoke at LCT, there wasn't a pitch at the end, but it was "The Perfect Webinar Script." Teaching and breaking and rebuilding belief patterns in general works for anything. Any kind of content and communication that you put out there. The huge realization that I had recently about it is that when you ... There's a great book I'd recommend out there called "Pitch Anything." I don't remember the author but the book, "Pitch Anything" also illustrates a huge part of what I'm trying to say right here. When you think about the sales process, and I walk up to someone at their door, and I knock on the door and what's the first thing they're thinking inside their house? "Wait a second. Who the heck is at my door? Should I be worried? Should I be nervous? Is there someone out there? Is there a killer? Is there a robber? Is someone going to come in and take from me? Is it the tax guy? Should I run?" You know what I mean. There's tons of question and red flags that get raised in someone's head when they're not expecting someone to come to the door. They come to the door and what's the first thing? If I stand up and go, "What's up, man? I got this thing and this, this, this," and logical close, logical close, logical close. The very first thing that person's going to do is they're going to start backing up. They're going to go, "Let me put as many walls up. How can I get rid of this guy? There's something on the stove. My wife's calling me. Not interested at this time." They'll just shut the door, shut the door, shut the door. That sucks but it happens in any kind of sale, even if they wanted it. What the book, "Pitch Anything" goes through is it talks about and says, "Hey look, literally every single one of us has got these instincts on survival that have to be met before any kind of buying decision can be made." These are things that have been part of all humanity in our brains for millions of years, they make up the brain. As soon as the sale starts, actually not even the sale, as soon as I approach anybody, the very first things that are going through their head are, "Is this going to hurt me? Is this going to ... Should I run? Should I fight? Can I eat it? Can I mate with it?" You know what I mean? It's all the primal instincts that are just meant to keep me alive and there's all this subconscious decisions that are starting to fly through my head. I don't even know that I'm making those, but I do that every single time. Really fast, quick judgements on whether or not I should fight, flee, eat. You know what I mean? Anytime I meet anyone, any new situation in general, we're constantly accessing through what the book, "Pitch Anything" calls the croc brain. We got to get through the croc brain. As soon as we help someone come down with all those different red flags, and we help them pull down the walls and pull down the barriers, they have to do that. I can't do that... If I try and do that it will feel like an infringement, and they will back up. But if I can help them convince themselves that everything's safe, everything's fine, this is new, it's exciting, there's novelty here. If it's boring, that's another wall. It can't be boring, that's another wall, run away. But if it's new, it's novelty, but it's not so new that it's scary, it's out on the fringes then, "Hey, who's this guy at my door?" What Russell then teaches is that, a bridge from the book, "Pitch Anything" to "The Perfect Webinar Script" is why don't we tell some stories? The person I'm talking to might have some false beliefs. They may want the product but have a few questions. I'm going to figure out what these people actually need, and I'm going to go answer that actual question. I'm sorry, I'm diving deep a little bit into a few different concepts here, and I hope that this is making sense. I've talked for 14 minutes. I said this is going to be a fast episode. I hope this is making sense. I hope really this is helpful because a lot of the sales funnels that are being sent to me, honestly, an overwhelming amount of them I just can't look at them, but a lot of them what's actually happening I've noticed is that everybody ... You cannot make a sale by only going logical. Even when people think, "Hey, I'm an engineer. Hey, I'm a software guy. Hey, I'm an architect. Hey, I'm a ..." Like the brainiacs of the world when they're self-proclaimed brainiacs of the world, even it they think that they need to be closed logically, they still have got to be closed emotionally. Everybody makes the decision emotionally to buy first. Well, guess what? That happens before what Russell calls "The Stack." Before you actually get into the price, before you actually get into what the offer is, before you actually start asking for somebody's money, they have already decided if they want the product. The price is almost irrelevant... The price is almost always irrelevant. It's almost always a matter of whether or not you broke and rebuilt that person's belief patterns to accept your message. To accept the fact that the product does fit their life. If you have rebuilt their belief patterns that strongly, by the time you get to what Russell calls "The Stack," and if you don't know what I'm talking about go to perfectwebinarsecrets.com or join twocommaclubcoaching.com and you'll run through that and you'll see. Hey, look first we're going to focus on false beliefs then, then ... Just so you know, Russell, when he does his perfect webinars, he doesn't start the actual logical closing phase until about an hour into the actual webinar. An hour. A whole hour. Crazy, ridiculous, that's amazing. A whole hour... The first hour is spent on breaking and rebuilding belief patterns. The first hour. Then only 20, 30 minutes is spent on the logical part of it. But that's not how most of us sell. Most of us think we got to get out there, and we got to start logically closing people. It's completely 180, it's totally the opposite. We'll start logically closing, "Well, it's on sale. Well, you know what, since you're here. Well, you know what, why don't we have you come over and just try it on?" You know what I mean? It's all these logical closes, "Well, it has these features. Well, it's better than that other competitor. It's better than that other competitor. We have this, this and this." He's like "Oh, well I didn't even know that was an option so thank you for telling me about your competition." Hopefully, this is starting to make sense, what I'm saying. There's really three major phases of the sale. Three major phases. Now this is what I found, this is what I've used. There's three major phases. Number one, you've got to get past their immediate knee-jerk reaction subconscious croc brain. Number one, you've got to get past the croc brain. You got to get past all of the ancient parts of the brain that just keep us alive. You got to get past that. Part of that, I said, is meaning you can't just be boring. That's another wall. It's still got to be new... It's still got to be novelty. It's still got to be things that are interesting. Number one, you got to get past the knee-jerk gatekeeper of our brains. Number two, break and rebuild belief patterns using story. The belief patterns, the false beliefs that they most likely have, you're making stories that directly go against what their false beliefs are, so you can break and rebuild the belief patterns. Number three, that's when you start doing the logical closes, and it's typically the shortest phase. I hope that helped. I hope that made sense to you. That was probably the most technobabble I've ever said on a podcast ever, and I'm so sorry. I hope that it made sense what I was trying to say. Back to door-to-door sales. When I started learning more about the product that I was selling at door-to-door sales, my sales plummeted, they plummeted. It's because I started logically closing people. That was it. I got really good at getting past that gatekeeper, that part of the brain. I got really good at getting past all those, the knee-jerk reactions, keep us safe, croc brain. But I was not at all, at all, spending any effort at all in breaking and rebuilding belief patterns. When they would ask me, I would barf fact all over them, all over them. I would barf so much fact all over them they would end up closing the door just to get me to shut up. Man, it sucked so bad because I was selling like hotcakes until I started learning about our product. I think it's such a key lesson with that. That's all I wanted to share with you guys. These are the three phases of the sale and it's, honestly, one of the major reasons why we have sales funnels. Number one, what are you going to do, we got to break ... This guy's actually here to help me. We give them a free thing at the very first part. We're starting to bring down those walls. Number two, let's go with star story solution scripts. Let's bring in a character. Let's bring in a cool story. Let's go talk about a problem and a cool solution. That kind of script works really well as usually an up sale after they've already made the first commitment. Then we start logically closing them. You know what I mean? It doesn't work out perfectly that way, but all I'm saying is when we go out, and we start to logically close people, it is the easiest way to just lose the sale off the bat. Of all three of those phases, in my opinion, number two is the most important. Number two is the most important. Number one we usually take care of subconsciously, we don't even realize we're doing it most, of us, if we're socially adequate people. That's all I've got for you guys, three phases. First, get the walls down then epiphany, working on breaking and rebuilding belief patterns, and the third part is the logical close. That's "The Stack." Guys hopefully that is helpful, and I'll see you guys in the next one. I'm excited for you guys to go implement stuff. Please, honestly, let me know if that helps. Usually I don't do this form of podcast. I usually go into a little bit more, this is a different kind of style. I should say it that way. I would love to know whether or not this actually was awesome and this helped. That's how I look at the sales, that's how I look at the phases. It's not always perfect but that guideline right there, knowing that those are the steps that the individual needs to go through, super helpful. Totally changed the way I sell and definitely has helped me online a lot. All right guys. Talk to you later. Bye. Thanks for listening to Sales Funnel Radio. Please remember to subscribe and leave feedback. Want to get one of today's best internet sales funnel for free? Go to salesfunnelbroker.com/freefunnels to download your prebuilt sales funnel today.

Is Wonder Woman as much a triumph for women within the Hollywood industry is it just a much-needed victory for Warner Bros. and the DCEU universe? Unlike the movies from its cinematic predecessors, Wonder Woman opened the weekend to prescreening praise and that highly sought after Rotten Tomatoes score. With so much animosity over the validity of critics these days and the effect they have on a film's opening success at the box office, one can indeed argue that good word of mouth can and will influence how a film is received by potential ticket buyers. Failures of titles like Suicide Squad and Batman v Superman placed a stigma on all future releases within this DC comic book movie franchise, but is it fair to judge a film based on the success of a franchise? As much bad wrap as those films received, they have a good return on investment, ultimately making that film a studio success. Wonder Woman, DC's first highly touted film, scored big with positive ratings from critics associated with the popular movie website Rotten Tomatoes. As much as they (the critics) decry accusations that sites such as RT have a negative effect on a film's opening success, the proof is in the pudding. Wonder Woman was certified fresh at 94% and performed better than the horribly rated Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest and Baywatch which both opened a week before. Is the word of the critic word really that important, and if so are sites like Rotten Tomatoes inadvertently controlling the industry by proxy?   Before She Was Wonder Woman, She Was Diana - REVIEW I found myself at odds with wanting to like this movie as much as everyone else LOVED this movie. I mean, it got a 94% percent on Rotten Tomatoes so I should like it right… right? That’s the odd nature of criticism and human behavior. It’s our nature to not want to be at odds with the masses-- to just accept whatever is popular instead of forming our own opinion or being truthful to our own opinion. A movie gets a horrible rating and automatically it's cemented in your mind that the aforementioned movie is a film you would rather not spend money to go and see. Access to such information has taken the risk out of watching movies. Whether you hate or love a movie, isn’t it more of the experience we seek to obtain? Or is it that we would rather save our money than take a chance on a film that may disappoint us? I was excited by the idea that Wonder Woman would be the best movie of the summer — even better than Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2. That last scene in B vs V left me wanting more of the Amazonian warrior who faced off with Doomsday as Superman moped and Batman hid. However, it just didn’t rock my world as it apparently rocked for other people. All those positive reviews and movie was just okay. Sorry, status quo. When asked, “So what did you think?” I bit my tongue a little, I admit. Why? Because I believed my feelings towards this movie were maybe too subjective to really debate whether or not this iteration of Wonder Woman met my criteria as the Wonder Woman film I wanted to watch. Bre, a contributor to If three by space and friend, shared the same sentiment. Finally!, Someone else who thought the movie was meh. I’m usually very candid about my reactions towards a film, never really holding my tongue. I even waited to hear Bre's reaction before I could truthfully respond to her about whether I liked the movie. To my surprise, she too did not share in the hoopla that is Wonder Woman Praise Mania. Instead of disseminating my negative thoughts onto you. I wanted to understand why it is that I did not share the same sentiment about this take on the iconic 1/3 of the Superhero Trinity. Wonder Woman isn’t exactly an innovative film, especially within this overly saturated market of comic book inspired movies. Sure, it’s the first movie helmed by a female director featuring a female comic book character to gross over $100 million dollars. The accomplishment should be heralded as much as celebrated by every director and actor in the industry. However, we can’t focus on the success of this film as a solitary achievement that will change the nature of the film culture. The truth remains that this is just one film about a superhero that took many years to make primarily because studios didn’t want to take a risk. Only after her appearance in B vs S were they finally convinced that they could make money off of this character. Within the current narrative of the DC Universe movie, a stand-alone Wonder Woman film is just a life preserver floating atop an empty ocean. It doesn’t fit within the current narrative which began with Superman and continued into B vs S and should have just gone on with The Justice League. Opposite of Marvel, they would have to introduce the character after the debut of the ensemble team. However, WW was riding a wave of excitement and it was a smart business move to make a standalone film now instead of later when the fervor subsides. So, stop with the praise that this is a home run for female artists in the film industry. The numbers say it all and as of 2016, women comprised just 7 percent of all directors working on the top 250 domestic grossing films. Wonder Woman was poised to do well at the box office. Maybe not 100 million opening well but as with all the movies before it, Jenkins would have eventually obtained this title of a person who made a movie for a studio that grossed a lot of money. Consider the Fate of the Furious as a perfect example: There was this brief celebration of F. Gary Gray becoming the first black $1billion director. Kudos goes to the work he put in to make the film what it became but his efforts weren’t all that pushed this film to its incumbent success. The Furious franchise is eight films in and continues to perform no matter who is in the director's chair. Wonder Woman will eventually make a bazillion dollars but let’s not focus on solely on numbers, that’s studio mumbo jumbo, but rather the time and effort and vision of Patty Jenkins who never directed an action movie and her muse Gal Gadot who had some big red boots to fill; they deserve more respect for their efforts than an entrance into the all boys 100 million dollar club. Much of what other people liked about the movie or continue to blab on about, I did not particularly find impressive enough to consider an indifference to mainstream movie fandom. And as I tried to reason with myself about the supposed greatness of this film, I realized that it was all haberdashery; dressing up my opinion of the film to appeal to the overall consensus. Wonder Woman: The Good, The Bad, The Cheesy Wonder Woman wasn’t that great of a movie, however, I was interested in why I do not hold the same opinions as others. So, I read a few reviews and talked with a few people who also watched the movie and pulled from those resources and conversations good and bad aspects of the film that might help me form a different opinion of Wonder Woman on a second viewing. I am a firm believer that it takes more than one viewing to fully appreciate a film and with that, I am willing to sway my own opinion based on further insight into why people like this movie so much. Here, I debate a view arguments and positives about the film that struck as the more important conversational starters. DC Enters the Light Yes, Wonder Woman had endearing flirtatiousness with her naiveté fish out of water story beat. The scene on the boat with her and Trevor talking about sex was kinda funny until you listen to the dialog and realize Trevor the gentleman is really just a horny man dog. I didn’t necessarily need them to showcase their sexual attraction so openly. Diana had a mission and her mission was to destroy Ares. This flirty school girl/ guy routine was only a way to exploit Diana’s innocence for a joke. There was this wardrobe changing scene that was funny and more along the joke spectrum I consider effective enough to represent Diana’s adverse emersion into regular society. Using common stereotypes and customs that defined women during the 1930’s and 1940’s (and today) was a fun way to show not only Diana’s ignorance but strongly rooted Amazonian female roots and female empowerment. Female Empowerment Gadot handled herself quite impressively in the scenes where the omnipresence of men conflicted with her beliefs, and it was those vulnerable moments that identified with Diana’s key character trait; empathy. Diana Meet Steve: The Cheesy Rom-Com Y’know what’s sexier than a sex scene? Not having a sex scene. I mean c’mon, Diana just met Trevor and sure, in the heat of battle things can get a little hot and heavy but why does it have to end with her beckoning Trevor with a longing gaze as he closes the bedroom door. I would think any woman involved with this script would be like: "What? No… eww/" But I guess when the director renounces cheesy as a word, you get a scene like that. It’s like when Kevin and Winnie’s first kiss, and yes this is a Wonder Years analogy but it applies to all romantic comedies where two people in love want to be together but extenuating circumstances keep them apart. Ex. Felicity and Scott Speedman, Diane and Sam, Buffy and Angel. With all those examples, those couples had to endure many setbacks before they became a couple. The kiss between Winnie and Kevin only happens after Winnie disses him over and over again. The longing builds up the tension for the final moment or season ending episode when Kevin finds Winnie in a clearing sitting on a rock gazing off into nowhere. He drapes his jacket over Winne’s shoulders and holds her close with one arm around her shoulders. Slowly she’s drawn to him and their lips meet for that first kiss as When a Man Loves a Woman plays over the soundtrack. Picture the final moment of Wonder Woman with such a longing looming over Diana and Steve. One kiss and boom that’s all the sex those two needed — their relationship would transcend into something more, and that’s love, that’s a great scene. Here’s looking at you kid. It’s not that the supposed sex scene in Wonder Woman was cheesy, it just wasn’t necessary. Empathy and strength in the presence of adversity. The Origin Story Mashup: What works best towards the Wonder Woman narrative is all about how much you know. Diana is a princess, check. She was molded from clay, check. Zeus is her father, check. Trevor crashes onto the island of Thermasyoiuoiu, check. Diana fights in disguise to win an opportunity to join Trevor on a mission to the US, not checked. Diana loves Trevor, check. Wonder Woman didn’t come to save mankind, Diana was in love. The hero thing came after and the movie attempts to mold these ideas together to sculpt an imperfect god-like figure who could as easily destroy man and succumb to him just the same. George Perez created the Ares narrative in the first issue of the 1986 reboot of the series in which Wonder Woman doesn’t leave the island to chase after Steve Trevor but she leaves to fight Ares. As with all comic book movies, they usually pick and choose which storylines work the best for their project then find a way to tell a version of a story that appeals to the premise of selling tickets. Henceforth, why the plots of X-men, Suicide Squad, Spider-man 3, fail to work as a fully developed story ideas. Writers are usually asked to put too much into a two-hour movie and when doing so they add too much or leaving out a very crucial parts to a storyline that spanned my ten to twenty issues. No Man’s Land Arguably the best scene in the movie almost did not make it into the film. Here’s Patty Jenkins: It’s my favorite scene in the movie and it’s the most important scene in the movie. It’s also the scene that made the least sense to other people going in, which is why it’s a wonderful victory for me. I think that in superhero movies, they fight other people, they fight villains. So when I started to really hunker in on the significance of No Man’s Land, there were a couple people who were deeply confused, wondering, like, ‘Well, what is she going to do? How many bullets can she fight?’ And I kept saying, ‘It’s not about that. This is a different scene than that. This is a scene about her becoming Wonder Woman.’ I agree with her every word. When thinking subjectively about why something does or does not work we tend to not take into consideration the art of creating a moment like this. It’s not about how much sense it makes -- we all know there was no mystic Amazon warrior fighting battles in WWI. The No Man’s Land scene was more about the atrocities of war and sanctimony of battle. Diana would conquer the unconquerable, a stretch of land littered with hundreds of dead soldiers for the morally good, and not just to kill an enemy but to save the people. This particular fight was bigger than even Ares himself as in that moment Diana wore her heart outside of her chest fighting for the greater good and not the purpose of war. Scoop Du Jour One of the better stories about Wonder Woman stems from the origins of the comic book character and her creator Dr. William H. Marston. Jill Lepore, the author of the book The Secret History of Wonder Woman wrote an article for The Smithsonian which describes the scandalous beginnings of Wonder Woman and DC Comics. Marston was a jack of all trades, a psychologist, scientist, and lawyer who started his work with DC Comics in 1941. As a move to help curtail the onslaught of criticism from the media and watchdog groups, Maxwell Charles Gaines creator of DC Comics, took to an idea from Marston to create a female character who among the likes of Superman and Batman would help to soften the violence and sexual nature of the current pulp comic narrative. Little did Gaines know that Wonder Woman would bring him more attention than he so desired. The debut of the Diana from the mystic Amazonian Paradise Island was immediately met with overall disdain. The number one complaint: They didn’t like the way she was dressed. Too much skin, they shouted as they burned images of Wonder Woman clothed in nothing but a tight red top, underwear, a lasso, and boots. Burn the witch! Okay, it’s wasn’t that dramatic but isn’t the same type of anger expressed whenever a woman come outs against the status quo? Past the cover and onto page one clothing just the tip of the anger-berg. Images of bondage and not-so-subtle feminist messaging throughout the comic caused for a plea that the comic be remove from the shelves and restricted from children! Such vile content would warp the minds of the adolescence and cause them to commit horrible acts of debauchery in the future. Luckily Gaines, a physiologist, could defend Wonder Woman in reality as she defended herself on the page, but it was not easy. In this article, Lepore touches upon Marston and his relationship with his wife Elizabeth Holloway, and live in love affair, Olive Byrne. Their love story had nothing to do with Wonder Woman per say. The trio would manage to keep their polyamorous living situation a secret going so far as to introduce Byrne as a widowed cousin who needed a place to stay.  Labels and stereotypes are used to keep people shackled to an idea of conformity, so instead of wearing a ring, Olive Byrne wore two bracelets. Marston, Byrne, and Holloway all had ties to the feminist Suffrage movement and when you consider this history, Wonder Woman the character — her meaning— takes a different shape as she may have been a character birthed from idea but she molded into a model of female empowerment that exemplifies struggle, strength, and overall empathy towards mankind. If you watched the movie, and happen to see the trailer, Professor M; that is this story made into film starring Luke Evans. Check it out. This, That, and Other News Teens rescued after spending three days in the catacombs beneath France. Sounds like a movie right? As Above, So Below is a found footage movie released back in 2014 about a couple of cataphiles who get lost in the maze that of the freaky underground tombs of Paris, France. http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/15/europe/paris-catacombs-rescue/?iid=ob_lockedrail_bottommedium Weekly Flavor Text: “Great girdle of Aphrodite!” she cries at one point. “Am I tired of being tied up!” Links: The Secret History of Wonder Woman Smithsonian Magazine: Wonder Woman Origin Story Film School Rejects Wonder Woman Review Film Schoo Rejects "Wonder Woman Champion Empathy Wired: Wonder Woman Origin Story i09: Why Super Heroes Exist How Wonder Woman Tackles Superheroes Movie Greatest Foe: Sexism Wonder Woman Is A Milestone But Shouldn't Be     [x_recent_posts type="post" count="3" section="podcast" orientation="horizontal"]

A behind the scenes glimpse of what’s been happening the first twelve hours of our book launch. In this episode Russell gives a quick recap of the first twelve hours of the book launch. He shares how he felt when it looked like the average cart value didn’t look how expected, and what happened next. Here are the important things you will hear on today’s episode: Why you should always schedule launches for the afternoon rather than the morning. Why the average cart value was so low, and how that made Russell feel. And finally find out what the final numbers of the first twelve hours are and how it compares to the goal for the first week. So listen below to find out how the big book launch turned out yesterday. ---Transcript--- What’s up everybody, this is Russell Brunson. I want to welcome….oh crap. I almost just, backing out of my driveway I literally just almost backed into a wall. And you guys would have caught it live here on Marketing In Your Car. I hope you guys are all doing awesome today. Today, well yesterday was book launch day. And today is the day after book launch day and I bet you’re wondering how it’s going. So I wanted to tell you. As you probably know, actually I can’t remember exactly how much I told you guys. Leading to the book launch, as with any launch, there’s a lot of stress and time and energy and stuff that goes into it. So Monday night we basically were at the office super, super late. And then at 3 o’clock got done, went home and came back Tuesday. Luckily we set up the launch time for 4 eastern, which we had 2 o’clock our time. So we had til 2 o’clock to get everything done, which I highly recommend on launch day. We used to launch days at 9am in the mornings. It was always a nightmare, so we push them out late in the day, that way you’ve got time in the morning. We had about 5 hours. Everyone got back out here at 9, so we had 9 til 2, so 5 hours to get everything done. And we start moving and scrambling and going and going. It’s crazy, no matter how much stuff you have, that’s why it’s good to pick a launch date, because otherwise you’ll never actually get done. Because we never would have gotten it done ever. Even staying up all night and all morning, everything, it still was I think 9 minutes late before the funnel went live. It’s funny, because you have wish list stuff you want to do to make it smaller and smaller and smaller, til the point where you’re like, “Alright, this is what we HAVE to do.” And then it’s like, “Oh crap, it’s got to go live, what are the stuff we have to cut out?” and it’s just kind of crazy. So you launch it and sit back and you wait. And this is honestly for me, the worst time. It’s weird because you feel like it’s going to be this huge climatic boom, but it’s like the opposite, you get this huge climatic thing and then it stops. And then you’re just like, “What’s happening?” and then we start sending emails, but because us and 8 million other affiliates are all emailing the same day from Actionetics, Actionetics gets backed up and our emails aren’t going out and all sorts of other stuff starts happening. But luckily a lot of people were waiting, anxiously waiting to buy. So book sales started coming in, boom, boom, boom. So we’re watching the sales come in at first and then we’re watching the stats and numbers to see where things are at and obviously it’s hard because the first group of people to come through are your hyperactive buyers, it’s you guys and you guys jack up our stats. I don’t trust our stats that early. But it’s still you’re watching to see and be curious. So we’re watching all the stats and the stats looked good but there’s this new stat dashboard in Clickfunnels, I didn’t even know it was there. I remember we talked about it at Funnel Hacking Live, but I hadn’t seen it. So I clicked on it and it was amazing because you can see the sales from everything.  Front end products, upsells, order form bumps. Everything. So you get a glimpse of here’s what everything is. So I’m looking at it all, based on numbers it looked good. Then there’s this number up here that said, “average cart value.” And the average cart value number was horrible. And I was like, “huh?” I keep watching it and as one hour turned into two, and the average cart value number kept getting worse and worse. I was almost to the point of depression and honestly I was coming back to my team like, “Okay, what do we do? Do we go and add in a whole other upsell?” because the cart value wasn’t as high as we needed it to be and all these millions of things start going through your head, so I’m like, “ I don’t want to add another upsell.” because I wanted…. this funnel is, as we talked about in the last podcast, is a short funnel. There’s offers in there, but it’s a short funnel because I was trying to shorten it. But then there’s longer on the value size. So over the next 21 days, where it monetizes amazing, but I don’t know if affiliates are short sighted typically. They’re not looking at 21 days, looking at what happed today. So it’s like, I need to be high enough to make sure affiliates were happy and all that kind of stuff. Totally stressing out, freaking out and trying to figure things out. And then I think Steven or someone was like, “I forgot to reset the stat data before it went live.” Which means all our test purchases were in there and everything. So it’s like huh, so I had John go and actually pull all the data. Delete all of the other purchases and he’s drawing a map and everything, looking at everything. He came back and like, “Here’s our numbers.” Boom, boom, boom. “Based on our numbers our average cart value right now is $39.” And I was like, “What? No, the stats here say it was at $19.” And he’s like, “no, based on the actual numbers we’re at $39.” And I’m like, “Are you kidding me.” $39 is perfectly aligned with what we need to make this whole thing work. And all the sudden, it was funny, I went from wanting to cry and rebuild the whole funnel to, wait a minute this is exactly how we needed it to be. So there’s this huge sigh of relief. Then I’m like, “wait, make sure you’re right. Do the numbers again because I don’t want to be celebrating and then find out in an hour from now that I shouldn’t have been celebrating. So do the numbers again.” “Yes, this is exactly what it is.” We looked at the numbers and it was like, oh thank heavens. There was one stat in our stat dashboard that wasn’t correct and then also a bunch of other data. But when all was said and done it was awesome. Then I was like, “This is awesome. Let’s put some fuel on the fire.” So I did a Facebook Live  and started doing more stuff. Then finally all my emails started going out at like 6 or 7 at night. and now it’s been 12 hours and as of today we have sold, this morning it was 6300 copies of the book. What? My initial goal was 10,000 week one. And now Dave told me this morning our goal is 10,000 for the first 24 hours. So that’s about to happen. So I’m going to go in there right now. I’m about to virtual book tour, which basically means I’ve got 15 people lined up today. We’re going to be doing Facebook Lives’ onto their audiences, they’re going to interview me about the book and when the interview is done, we’re going to logging onto their account, we’re going to be playing ads to promote that Facebook Live to their audience. Which is I think, the future of JV, but we’re the first to kind of really test it. So I’ll let you guys know how it works. But it’s basically going on a book tour, like real authors. Real authors? I shouldn’t say that. If you look at traditional people, when the book comes out, what do they do? They go on Jay, I guess it’s not Jay Leno anymore. I haven’t watched TV for so long. They go on Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, The Today Show, they do the media network that way. So we’re doing that, but we’re kind of doing it through Facebook. So we’re doing Facebook Lives’ to people’s audiences. Then affiliates typically don’t, I don’t know they’re short, I mean they’re amazing people and I’m the same way, but as affiliates, I make fun of myself, we’re kind of short sighted. We want to see cash immediately, and we don’t want to do anything for that cash. Because we don’t have to, we’re affiliates. We’re just good at making money. So we have to do that. So basically it’s like, “Okay you get on, you have ten minutes to interview Russell and it’s done. And then Russell will spend his money to promote that post to your people. And that’s the goal and the game plan.” So that’s going to be fun, we’re trying that today. In fact, it’s starting in 14 minutes. I got to go. I’ll let you guys know how it goes. But that’s the recap so far of the first 12 hours of the book launch. It’s been amazing. Average Cart Value is sticking at about $38-$39 dollars. If you do the math on that, 63….we’re at about a quarter of a million dollars in cash collected the first 12 hours on the free book offer, which is awesome. So funnels work you guys. Once again, proving it, practicing what I preach. If you haven’t bought the book yet, go to Expertsecrets.com. Buy the book, slowly the funnel is working. It’s exciting. Anyway, appreciate you guys, have an amazing day and we’ll talk to you again soon. Bye everybody.

Until you’ve come completely okay with failing, it’s going to be really hard to succeed. On today’s episode Russell talks about how people are scared to take a risk because of the personal responsibility if they fail. Here are some of the interesting things you will hear in this episode: The biggest reason people are afraid to take risks and why it’s so scary. How Russell’s mission for the Mormon church helped prepare him to cope with rejection and failure. And why we shouldn’t be afraid of people seeing us fail because people only pay attention to themselves. So listen below to find out why you shouldn’t be afraid to take some risks with your business. ---Transcript--- Good morning everybody, welcome back to Marketing In Your Car. It’s a rainy, rainy day here in Boise. It’s like a monsoon outside, it’s kind of fun. But it’s still spring break so I’m going to go get some stuff done for the next three hours and then I’m coming back to go roller skating with the kids. And our kids have never been roller skating before, so it’s going to be kind of a big deal and really hard, I’m sure. But it’ll be fun. So I wanted to share with you guys today, something, a kind of cool interesting thing. I had my call with Tara a couple of days ago and on there we were talking about some of the things that make people successful and unsuccessful. There’s a lot that goes into it, but one of the things was really kind of interesting and fascinating, as we were talking about it. It is one of the biggest reasons why people don’t have success, and it has to do with….can you guys guess? Drum roll please….. The personal risk involved. It wasn’t just risk, because there’s risk in everything. “What if I lose all my money?” there’s always a risk of whatever you’re going to try, but it’s a personal risk. How will I personally cope with this if I fail? What’s going to happen to me as a human being? What are people going to think about me? That’ll be the worst thing in the world. It’s interesting because, maybe it’s because most of you all know at this point, hopefully, that I am Mormon. So I spent two years on a mission. I was in New Jersey, Cherry Hill, New Jersey. I spent a lot of time knocking on doors and a lot of people telling me no. A lot of people yelling at me, a lot of people cursing me out in their native New Jersey tongue and it was fun. It was scary at first though, not going to lie. I remember my very first day on the mission, I went out there with my companion and we started knocking on doors and I always assumed I was going to watch him knock for three or four weeks, then when I was ready I would go and do it. But that was not the case. The very first door he knocked on. He did his little thing, and the next door he knocked on the door and said, “You’re up.” And then stepped back. I was like, “What? No.” So I’m like, all nervous so I say, “Hey my name is…” and I’m totally stuttering through this thing and about half way through, it was this cute little old lady who’d answered. I was like, she’s going to be so nice, we’re going to teach her and it’s going to be so great. Then boom, she slammed the door in the middle of my thing. Mid sentence, mid word probably. I’m like, “Huh, well that’s awkward.” And I remember at that time, I turned around in the driveway and we were walking back out and there were these cars driving by, and they started honking. And I was like, “Oh.” Because you guys remember, I grew up in Utah,  there’s always people when missionaries drive by, you honk and wave, “Oh it’s the missionaries.” So I hear this honking and I’m like, “Oh cool. I’m a missionary now. This is so cool. They’re going to wave at me.” So I look back and these guys are waving at me, but not in the same way that I was used to do when I saw missionaries. They were honking and they were sticking their heads out the car and flipping me off,  and like “Go back to Utah!” I was like, “Oh man, these people hate us.” And at first it was really, really hard. But then, we knocked on more doors and more doors and eventually, thousands and thousands of doors, I stopped, I was so ashamed of myself with rejection. They’re not rejecting me, they’re rejecting something else, whatever, it’s all cool. And I was fine with it. It’s interesting, if you look at, this is a side note for those who wonder. If you look at network marketing, or door to door sales, you notice one common theme. 90% of all the network marketing companies are founded in Utah, and 90% of all direct, door to door, like Cutco knives, alarm systems pest control, they’re all founded out of where? Utah. The reason why is because they have all these Mormon missionaries who have spend their whole life knocking on doors for 2 years and getting rejected. They have forgone, they no longer care, they don’t have this personal fear of rejection. So they’re able to do those things. So I think maybe I’m kind of lucky because I have that so many times, being rejected, that I don’t really fear that much anymore. That’s what keeps a lot of people back. Just that fear of “What are people going to think if I try this and I don’t succeed?” All the personal risk of putting you out on the line. It’s scary. It’s not so much the financial, I think sometimes we hide behind the financial. “Is it going to make sense? Or not make sense?” In fact, it was funny at Grant Cardone’s event, after we came back off the stage and I was in the back and he was all excited about the presentation and everything. And then he was like, “I’m going to get out there and tell everyone to buy. If they don’t have money, they should buy anyway, if you’re already broke, what’s an extra $1000 on your credit card. It doesn’t matter, just buy it.” I was like, at first kind of laughed, and I’m sure that’s one of his closing techniques. But I was like, it’s so true. If you’re already in debt, what’s an extra thousand bucks. But it’s the personal risk of what if I try this and fail. That’s the real fear. It’s not like, “My credit cards are almost maxed out.” Who cares? That doesn’t really matter when all is said and done. It’s that personal risk of “What if I try this and it doesn’t work. I tried all these other things and it didn’t work.” In fact, I think that I have a lot of friends and family members who have gone through a lot of school. They keep going to school and they’ve got their bachelors and their masters and they keep going on and on and on. I think part of it is they like learning, but they’re so scared of jumping in and trying that they never do it, right. Being an entrepreneur is less about learning in a formal setting. Formal setting’s is the safe happy place. Nothing could possibly go wrong. You study and learn and you take a test and fail or pass or whatever. But there’s no personal risk ever. So people stay in there forever. Being an entrepreneur is the opposite. You’re out there with no shield, no breastplate, no nothing. You’re running out and people are shooting arrows at you like crazy. And if you’re so scared of personal risk, you’re not going to be willing to run out there. You’re in trouble because it’s tough. Honestly. It’s funny, the problems you have when you’re small versus the problems you have when you’re big. I remember being smaller and trying to figure out how to make more sells. Now we’re so big, it’s like how do we slow sales so we can keep up with customer support and the technology. There’s a whole new set of issues that come. But every single day there’s something. I remember I heard, I think Dan Kennedy said, once every month and entrepreneur faces a decision that either bankrupts their business or takes it to the next level. And that was back, direct mail days, radio, or TV. Stuff like that. Now days, I don’t know about you, but for me it’s a daily thing. Every day it’s like, alright. Put it back on. What’s the choice? And I take personal responsibility. This is my choice, I think it’s going to work, I don’t know but let’s just go. Boom, we take it and we go and we go and we go. And I think instinctively you get better, but I make a lot of mistakes still. But instinctively get better and better at it. It’s interesting, in some of my coaching programs, one of the biggest things that people, I let everyone in my Inner Circle vox me. What’s interesting, most of the voxers that I get are people telling me, “this is what I want to do. Do you agree with that?” It’s interesting because what they’re looking for is confirmation and again, there’s nothing wrong with this, I’m just explaining it. It’s interesting as I watch it. What they’re looking for is somebody else to hand the personal responsibility to if it fails. They want to be able to say, “Russell said this and so if it goes wrong, Russell told me this.” As opposed to “This is my business, my life, I’m going to try it out.” I’m okay with that. I don’t mind it. In fact, it’s what keeps me sharp, keeps me going. It’s really, really fun. I enjoy it. So I’m not saying it’s negative, I’m saying it’s interesting that that’s what most of the questions are that come to me. It’s more like, they know the answer, they just want to be able to get me to approve it so that way if it goes wrong they’ve got somebody besides themselves to place the personal responsibility on. And it’s just fascinating to me. Even at the higher levels, there’s still that fear of personal responsibility. The personal risk. Those things that go into it. So I don’t know the right answer to that other than you should all get door to door sales jobs, or become Mormon missionaries and go get rejected for two years. I know for a lot of you guys, that’s not the right answer. But it’s becoming okay with that and realizing what’s the worst case scenario? If I try this thing and it fails, does anyone really know. It’s like the credit card thing. An extra thousand dollars on your credit card. Does it really matter? Does anyone really know that even exists besides me and maybe my spouse?  That’s, again, I don’t know the right answers to that, but it’s becoming okay with that personal risk, because you have to do that or else it’s going to be really hard to jump. Otherwise you’re going to be stuck in this learning mode. People always tell me  they have information overload, what I’ve found with pretty much all of them, it’s because they’re scared, so scared of the personal risk involved. They like the safety of learning so they study and they learn and they study and they learn and then they don’t do because they’ve learned so much that the information overload is the way to take personal risk off of them. “I’ve got so much stuff from all these people. I don’t even know what to do.” So they claim information overload and it gets them frozen in the spot. So they keep learning, “I gotta learn through this information overload.” And they’re just stuck in a safe place that the school system screwed us up, giving us. And I think you gotta get out of that. You gotta get out of the learning and that concept and just jump. Just running and jumping. So for you, and I’m talking to you, who’s listening to this. Not everybody listening, just to you. You’ve gotta be okay with that. If you fail, it’s not that big of a deal. Nobody else even knows it’s happening besides you. That’s what you gotta understand. We all think everyone is looking at us, the problem and the reality, is that everybody is looking at themselves. We’re all self conscious. I’m as guilty as everyone else. We’re all self conscious of ourselves. So we dress the way we do, and we do our hair. We do all these things because we’re so self conscious and we don’t want everyone else to think something about us. But the reality is everyone’s doing that. Everyone’s looking at themselves, nobody is looking at you. So when you understand that, I hope that gives you permission. Nobody’s actually looking at me. Nobody really cares. I have people come up to me and they’re like, they start confessing all their failures to me and I’m like, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” And they have all these things. In fact, it was interesting I was at Boise State was wrestling UVU and the head coach at UVU was my old high school Greco freestyle coach. One of my favorite people in the world. I look up to him like no one else.  So we’re at the tournament and Boise State beats UVU. After the match I run down and I’m so excited to see him. I’m like, “Greg, how’s it going?” and he looks and he’s like, “Well you saw how bad it was.” He just starts kind of justifying why they lost. I was just kind of smiling. I was like, “I didn’t even watch the match. My kids were running around like crazy. I didn’t even see the score. I’m just excited to see you.” And he was like embarrassed they lost and trying to shift that personal risk on, “Here’s the reasons why we lost.” Trying to justify. I’m like, I just wanted to see you. I don’t even care. I couldn’t have cared less who won. I was just excited to see you. And ij think that’s what we all gotta understand. Nobody else really cares about you and what’s happening that much. It’s all you and you’re putting this stress and pressure and all those things on you. If you take that off a little bit then you’re okay. If I risk and if I fail, what’s the worst case scenario? Who cares? No one really is looking that close. It’s you. It’s you becoming okay with you. Because that’s a big part of it too. You’ve got to become okay with you. It’s interesting, the personal risk and responsibility is more like you becoming okay with yourself. Because nobody else really cares. Anyway, I don’t know if that helps or not, but I hope it does. This rain outside is now shifting to snow. It’s crazy. The weather is insane. Everything is turning green here in Boise between the cold winter and the long snow in the winter and then this. Kind of fun. Alright you guys I’m going to go in and get stuff done before I go roller skating. Appreciate you all, I hope you have a great day and we’ll talk to you soon.

Hello again dearest listener, After being away sick for a week, Jon finally gets back to doing the one thing he is responsible for. This episode, our intrepid host sits down with nothing and no one, for he is alone. What? No guest you say? whats even the point then? Well how about you shut your negativity hole, and open your ears with the power of positivity. Jon discuses his thoughts on the Nintendo Switch for longer than is probably warranted. Also he forces himself to watch a certain CBS show and gets super bummed out about it, so get hyped for that! Links: Nintendo Switch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ntzz8O7SpWs Griffins Amiibo Corner: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYespfZgeWQ&t=2s Waypoint Article by Elisabeth de Kleer: https://waypoint.vice.com/en_us/article/dragons-in-the-department-of-corrections Shoot us an email over at lnthypodcast@gmail.com Also follow us on twitter twitter.com/LNTHY

The greatest “wealth” we can achieve is growing deeper in our relationship with Jesus and being content with the blessing He has given us. Here’s the thing about following Jesus: His teachings are usually totally backward compared to the mindset of our culture. For example, “The first will be last.” What? No, the first will be first, right? That is what the world teaches us. But Jesus would disagree. In His Kingdom, it is those who place themselves last who will be given a place of authority and honor. This brings us to today’s One Verse. The Apostle Paul is talking about “great gain.” Wealth. In just six short words, Paul teaches us how to achieve great gain and wealth. 1 Timothy 6:6 says, “Godliness with contentment is great gain.” Huh? There is nothing in that verse about our checking account or getting a nicer car or a bigger house. Yet, that is how our culture would measure gain. In God’s Kingdom, true wealth comes from a place of joy and peace and love. Growing deeper in our relationship with God and being thankful for His blessings in our lives lead to greater peace and joy. This truly is great gain! And here is the cool part. As we draw closer to God, as we become more at peace with the blessings He has already given us, He is much more likely to pour out more blessings in our lives. Now, which is better? Using our own power to push ahead and scrape out anything we can get? Or allowing our lives to be directed by a loving and all powerful Father. Yeah, I’m going with number two! About One Verse One Verse is a short, free podcast devotional designed to help you grow closer to God through less than 5 minutes a day, 5 days a week. Consistency trumps intensity. When it comes to working out, eating healthy, or managing our finances, consistency always trumps intensity. We reach our major life goals through small, purposeful steps taken daily. The same is true in our spiritual lives. I truly believe you will grow closer to God by spending just 5 minutes a day with Him versus cramming in an hour once a month. The One Verse Devotional is here to help take away the barriers of spending time with God. Now, during your workout, drive to work, or even shopping for groceries, you can invest in your spiritual life. http://phosphorusproject.com/

 Just a Little Spice Will Do by Andrew Wilmot When Alex arrived home Sunday night with an overflowing grocery bag tucked under each arm, she saw her girlfriend doubled over at the waist, retching violently into the kitchen sink. “Lindy?” She dropped both bags and rushed over.Lindy gripped the edge of the counter and heaved again, spitting a viscous strand of amaranth red into the stainless steel sink; it came out of her in small globules strung together like Christmas lights. Alex put one hand on her back andthe other on her shoulder, but Lindy flinched, shuddering as if they were blocks of ice. It was then Alex noticed the rectangular Tupperware container on the countertop to Lindy’s right. Next to it, a thin sausage wedge of Alex’s heart beat gently on one of her mother’s China plates. She looked inside the plastic container and noticed a new gash in the organ, a little south of the left atrium. Full transcript after the cut. ----more---- [Theme music plays.] Hello! Welcome to GlitterShip episode 27 for May 10th, 2016. The end of the semester hit a little harder than expected, so I ended up shifting the May episodes back a week. For today, however, I have GlitterShip's second Original story, "Just A Little Spice Will Do" by Andrew Wilmot, with a return by guest reader S. Qiouyi Lu. Listener warnings for relationship conflict, similarities to eating disorders, and loving cannibalism. ANDREW WILMOT is a writer, editor, and artist living in Toronto, Ontario. He is a graduate of the SFU Master in Publishing program and spends his days writing as much as possible and painting stupidly large pieces. His fiction has been published by Found Press, Drive In Tales, The Singularity, and 69 Flavors of Paranoia, and the story “When I’m Old, When I’m Grey” was the winner of the 2015 Friends of Merril Short Fiction Competition. He works as a freelance reviewer, academic editor, and substantive editor. For more on his work and creative pursuits: http://andrewwilmot.ca/about/cv/ S. Qiouyi Lu 陸秋逸 is a writer, artist, narrator, and translator whose work has appeared in Clarkesworld, inkscrawl, and The Cascadia Subduction Zone. In their spare time, they enjoy destroying speculative fiction as a dread member of the queer Asian SFFH illuminati. S. currently lives in Columbus, Ohio with a tiny black cat named Thin Mint. You can visit their site at s.qiouyi.lu or follow them on Twitter as @sqiouyilu."  Just a Little Spice Will Do by Andrew Wilmot When Alex arrived home Sunday night with an overflowing grocery bag tucked under each arm, she saw her girlfriend doubled over at the waist, retching violently into the kitchen sink. “Lindy?” She dropped both bags and rushed over.Lindy gripped the edge of the counter and heaved again, spitting a viscous strand of amaranth red into the stainless steel sink; it came out of her in small globules strung together like Christmas lights. Alex put one hand on her back and the other on her shoulder, but Lindy flinched, shuddering as if they were blocks of ice. It was then Alex noticed the rectangular Tupperware container on the countertop to Lindy’s right. Next to it, a thin sausage wedge of Alex’s heart beat gently on one of her mother’s China plates. She looked inside the plastic container and noticed a new gash in the organ, a little south of the left atrium. She frowned. “I told you I’d be right back with stuff for dinner.” Lindy turned, glared at Alex. “Figures you wouldn’t want me to taste this!” “Taste what? Lindy, love, I don’t understand.” “It’s rotten!” She pointed accusatorily at Alex’s heart. “That’s not possible.” Alex surveyed her heart.Several small wedges had been cut away—battle scars pocking the bruise-coloured surface. The organ beat calmly, like clockwork, like there was absolutely nothing wrong. “Looks just fine to me.” Lindy thrust a blood- and fatty tissue-coated fork at Alex. “Try it yourself. Go ahead, make a liar out of me.” “Lindy —” “Taste it! Then try and tell me everything’s fine.” Alex relented, accepting the fork. She suspected her heart would taste a little off no matter what, in that way that anything chilled tasted at room temperature. She could feel Lindy staring at the back of her head, wearing her mother’s scowl—the same Alex had seen when, after six months together,they went on a week’s vacation to Johannesburg to meet her parents. Lindy’s mother had taken one look at the pale, freckled Irish girl with the decidedly un-Irish name and told her daughter that she would starve to death on someone with such a sour, unfeeling heart. Lindy was quick to protest, but her mother silenced her as if she were still in primary school. She sniffed the air between them, wafting in then imperceptible scent of their nascent vintage. “There’s poison in you,” she said, at last, to Alex. “You’ll ruin my good girl. You’ll be the death of her.” Neither spoke afterwards of the incident. Indeed, Alex had very nearly forgotten about it, and likely would have were it not for Lindy standing behind her at that moment, waiting expectantly for her to sample her own disposition. Alex carved a small triangle from the space above the left ventricle. She put it to her nose, sniffed. She heard Lindy tsk dismissively, as if Alex were admitting complicit behaviour in whatever it was she was being accused of. Not wanting to give her further ammunition, Alex forked the tiny fragment of muscle into her mouth and started to chew. It was tougher than she remembered—a little like biting into a half-inch slab of pickled ginger—but it tasted the same as it ever had, like unsalted ham with a slight metallic aroma. “It tastes fine,” she said after swallowing. “Like normal.” Lindyappeared wounded. “I never thought you’d do this to me. I didn’t think you could do this. To me.” “Love, I don’t—” “You’re lying!” Lindy shouted. “It tastes rotten, like, like bad eggs, or beef left on a sidewalk in the rain.” “How would you know what either of those taste like?” Alex said jokingly. “Don’t—” Lindy pointed to the heart again. “It’s gone bad. It isn’t . . .You’ve let someone else taste it, haven’t you?” “What? No, of course not!” “Don’t lie to me!” “I’m not!” They were interrupted just then by a sharp thumping against the wall—their neighbours to the west.Alex exhaled, lowered her voice. “I’m telling you the truth.” Lindy looked away, wiped tears from her eyes with the back of her hand. “There’s still so much of it left. I don’t understand how.” “It’s yours and yours alone. I swear it.” Lindy shook her head. “I . . . I just don’t know if I . . .” Alex took her hand. Lindy resisted at first, then let her squeeze, pull her closer. Alex stared at her lovingly. “Everything I am belongs to you.” In the staff room the next morning, a half hour before the start of first period, Alex went up to Claire, said her hellos, and poured a mug of coffee. Claire was a mid-forty-ish two-time divorcee who taught sixth grade.She took one look at Alex’s heavy-lidded eyes and pulled her to the window for a sidebar. “You look like shit,” she said once they were out of range of the other teachers. “Hi, Claire, it is a lovely day, isn’t it?” Claire scoffed. “Crumpet, don’t even. What’s wrong?” “It’s nothing.” “It’s not nothing.” Alex sighed. “It’s Lindy . . . and it’s me, and . . . I don’t know. Something’s not right between us.” Claire smiled slyly, wiggled her fingers in a lewd gesture. Alex shook her head. “No, that’s not it.” “Out with it then,” said Claire. Sensing Alex’s reluctance, she added, “I’ve heard it all. There’s nothing you can say that’ll shock me.” “It’s just . . . my heart. She said it tasted—” “Bad?” “Rotten. Like meat left under a radiator for a month.” “How would she know—?” “Right?” Alex shook her head. “Anyway, I tried a piece and I didn’t notice anything off about it.” “Well of course you wouldn’t. You never mind the flavour of your own recipe, dear. Dennis, my first husband, he used to say that every time he passed wind—one man’s sulphur was another’s potpourri.” Alex knitted her eyebrows together. “Seems a bit reductive.” “But true nonetheless.” “I suppose . . .” Alex sipped her coffee and thought back to the quite subtle aftertaste of her heart, like pocket change resting on the back of her tongue. She remembered what it was like seeing Lindy’s heart for the first time. She presented it early on; it was only their fifth date. Alex recalled it perfectly, how Lindy had run excitedly into the kitchen after they made love for the first time and returned with a ceramic rim bowl hand-painted with concentric rings. She cradled it in both hands as if she feared it would slip from her grip at the slightest breath. “I’ve not done this before,” Lindy said. “Ever, actually.” She climbed back into bed and raised the bowl between them. The organ smelled dense with images and sounds; a host of thoughts and memories trespassed in Alex’s mind, as if she were viewing a series of home movies from Lindy’s childhood. She shut her eyes and inhaled acutely, allowed the odour of Lindy’s heart to glide down her oesophagus with the ease of crema. She opened her eyes again and saw Lindy holding a knife and fork between her knuckles like a peace sign. Alex took the utensils and Lindy watched — nervously, excitedly —as she cut a small but perfect equilateral triangle from the very centre of the muscular organ. Lindy’s heart beat faster as Alex cut, as she pulled out the piece from the whole, as she placed it slithering, squirming on her tongue and started to chew.She felt her devotion grow with every bite, and when she swallowed, Lindy released a heavenly sigh;when she wiped clean her lips, returning to the moment, Alex saw something new and fearful in Lindy’s eyes: trust. “You don’t have to give me yours right away,” Lindy was quick to say. “But I’m ready, whenever you are. It’s important you know—you can trust me.” But Alex hadn’t waited long. It was only their next date when she told Lindy she had a surprise for her. She’d asked her to close her eyes and open her mouth. Lindy did so, stifling whatever anxious thoughts she felt as she waited with her mouth agape like a child at the dentist’s. Earlier that day, Alex had gone to her parents’ home and taken her heart out of the chest freezer in the garage. It had been buried beneath containers of frozen leftovers; her father hadn’t bothered to clean out the freezer in years—that had been her mother’s job. About the only thing he touched out there were the boxed bottles of their vintage stacked one on top of another. Alex was careful not to disturb him when retrieving her heart; since her mother’s death, her father drank another pint of their mixed A-O every night, becoming evermore intoxicated by their shared history. When Alex tried to encourage him to go out and meet someone new, he responded by drunkenly throwing a bottle of their third year’s marriage at her, painting the wall behind her with glass-flecked blood. Back in her apartment, Alex set her heart on the counter to thaw and went to run errands. When she returned home that afternoon, the organ was valve-deep in a pool of watery blood that tasted as flavourless as a movie theatre soda. With only an hour before her date, she quickly carved out a small section of her heart, which she then proceeded to dry and cut into even smaller triangles, each identical to the last in shape and size. Then, upon tasting one of the small pieces and finding it lacking, she whipped up a quick balsamic and extra virgin olive oil glaze, threw the pieces into a salad bowl, and drizzled them lavishly. That night she sat on the bed with her legs crossed facing Lindy, the lightly dressed pieces of heart marinating in the bowl between them. Lindy sniffed the air suspiciously, crinkled her nose at—Oh, shit, I used too much vinegar, Alex realized. She started to panic, the pieces of heart beginning to hop and bounce in the bowl. She took out a piece—one of the more abundantly coated triangles—and, before she could chicken out, tossed it into Lindy’s waiting mouth.Lindy clamped down to keep the piece of heart from leaping out of her mouth and onto the bedspread. Alex watched, a perfect mix of eagerness and terror, as Lindy chewed, slowly at first, then faster, nodding her head as she worked her way through the leathery, tougher than anticipated meat. “I-is it all right?” Alex asked. Lindy opened her eyes. At first Alex was unable to read her expression—she looked a little like an infant relieved to have finished their plate of Brussels sprouts. Then she smiled warmly and hugged Alex, careful not to tip over the bowl between them. “It was more than all right,” she said at last, kissing the words into Alex’s ear. “You know,” Claire said, “that bastard cheated on me with the neighbour’s wife no less than three times. Know how I could tell? Each time he tried to surprise me by beating me home from work and firing up the grill. Thought he could slather his leftover gristle in barbeque sauce and seasoning and it wouldn’t still taste like warmed over piss, but let me tell you, that kind of betrayal doesn’t go away, even if you dress it up all pretty. You put a suit and tie on a pig and he’s still going to taste like mud.” Alex’s face slumped as if it were being pulled down at the seams. “That’s what Lindy thinks. That I’ve cheated on her.” “Have you?” “No!” Heads turned at the unexpected outburst. “No,” she repeated, softer. “Certainly not.” “And you’re not, you know, having any other problems?” Alex shrugged shyly. “I don’t really get along with her mother. I’ve tried, it’s just— I’m not what she envisioned, I guess.” She shook her head. “I’m not sure if that’s it.” “Then maybe you just need to, I don’t know, zing things up a bit.” “Zing?” “Add a little pizazz to your life.” “But then she’ll think I’m hiding something.” “Which she already does . . .” “But I’m not.” “Then leave it be. Either she likes your white rice or she doesn’t.” “But I don’t want her to—” “For fuck’s sake, ’Lex, just do something.” Alex thought for a moment. “I saw this delicious looking tamarind chutney the other day at Whole Foods. I bet she’d like that.” Claire shook her head. “You fucking hipster.” For two days Lindy ate only salads, occasional handfuls of mixed nuts. When Alex presented her with a small soup bowl filled with several pieces of her heart floating in a sunset curry, she took one sniff and recoiled. “What’s this?” “I . . . I made a curry. It’s got bamboo shoots and green and red peppers and—” Lindy pushed the bowl away. “I’m not hungry.” “Love, please, you have to eat.” “It smells like, like fish left on the sidewalk in the middle of July.” Alex took the bowl away, covered it in Saran Wrap and tucked it back inside the fridge right next to the remains of her heart, its missing pieces amounting to no more than 5 or 10 percent of the whole. Next to this, housed in an identical Tupperware container, the remains of Lindy’s heart beat agitatedly— the organ looked like a veined,palatinate chicken breast with its centre ice cream-scooped away. In the middle of the night, when Alex, feeling peckish, attempted to stick a fork in Lindy’s heart, it squirmed and flattened itself against the far end of the plastic as if prodded with a hot poker. She shut the refrigerator door. They would both go hungry that night. Alex woke the next morning to clanging glass and metal. She walked down the hall from their bedroom, stopping at the kitchen. The contents of their fridge and freezer, as well as most of their cupboards, had been emptied and piled indiscriminately into the middle of the tile floor. The cupboard beneath the kitchen sink had also been opened, but the lone bottle of their first year’s vintage—still fermenting, bottled only the previous month—remained untouched. “What the hell are you doing?” “Where is it?” “Where is what?” “That whore’s heart!” “Love, I don’t know what you’re talking about, I—” “Don’t you swear to me. I know it’s here somewhere. Have you canned it? Is it in a mason jar somewhere with your grandmother’s blueberry jam?” “There’s no one else,” Alex said, feeling defeated. “No preserves. No frozen dinners. No one’s hearts but ours.” “And who’d you give yours to?” “What?” Lindy held up the Tupperware container with Alex’s heart inside. To Alex it looked as it ever did. “I don’t understand,” she said, exasperated. “It’s all there! Nothing’s missing—not even the sliver I tried to eat with apiece of toast for breakfast. This heart is whole. It isn’t yours—it can’t be. It . . . it’s a fake.” As Lindy spoke, Alex noticed her lover’s svelte, partially digested heart leaping wildly, moving its container across the counter as if charged with an electrical current. The blood surrounding it was starting to boil, the stench of solder and copper filling the air. Alex opened her mouth again to defend herself, but Lindy jumped up and stormed past her before anything could be said. She slammed the bathroom door and Alex heard the shower turn on. She stood there for several seconds staring at the sea of consumables at her feet before she got down to her hands and knees and started putting things back where they belonged. Nearly finished, she glanced up at Lindy’s heart, which had calmed down considerably. A soft musk rose from it now like morning fog over a farmer’s field. Quietly, Alex walked down the hall and pushed open the bathroom door. Through the thin, almost transparent shower curtain, Alex could see glimpses of Lindy’s sparkling, melted sugar skin — and her ribs, like long witch fingers travelling beneath her parchment paper flesh, jutted out from beneath her arm, more visible than she remembered them. Lindy didn’t go to work the next day. When Alex got home,she was as she’d been that morning: prone on the couch as if stricken with a bout of stomach flu. Alex brought her several small samples of heart, each dressed differently than the last:coated with a white wine reduction; tossed with vine-ripened tomatoes and fresh basil plucked from their windowsill garden; placed delicately atop a saltine and sandwiched by a thick slice of aged white cheddar.To Lindy,each attempt was more repugnant than the last. She tried to push Alex away but could not muster the strength. The more she resisted, the harder Alex implored, until at last Lindy raised herself upright. “Why aren’t you suffering?” she asked plainly. “What do you mean?” Lindy pointed to Alex’s full face, to her rounded shoulders and non-xylophoned chest. “This isn’t hard for you.” “That’s . . . of course this is hard for me. It’s killing me to see you like this.” Lindy tried once more to push her away but Alex held her bone-thin arm in place. With her free hand she snatched a piece of heart drowning in a mixture of soy and wasabi from one of a dozen small dessert bowls littering the coffee table. She tried to force it past Lindy’s lips. Lindy kept her mouth shut and Alex smeared the salted piece of heart across her pale, flaked lips and chin until it fell to pieces between her fingers, nothing but a wounded streak of brownish blush across her lover’s face. Lindy fought but could not break free from Alex’s healthy, nourished grip. Alex grabbed a second piece of heart and inserted it into a small space in Lindy’s mouth, inside her cheek, pressing it against her clenched teeth. Lindy spat it back out again, the slab of muscle slapping Alex in the eye. Lindy got up from the couch, stumbled weakly, and then hurried toward the bedroom. She slammed the door, locking Alex out. Lindy exited the bedroom two hours later to find Alex sleeping in a ball on the sofa. She nudged her awake and sat down next to her. She apologized, said she needed some time to herself, that something wasn’t right and she had to figure out what. “When I look at your heart,” she said,“when I remember our times together I think . . . there should not be so much of it left.” “I’m telling you the truth.” “And I know what I’ve tasted, Alex. Dear. Love. I know what you taste like. I think I’ve always known, on some level, but somehow now it’s stronger than it was before.” “I know, I taste like warm sidewalk fish and dead babies and—” “Lies, Alex. Like lies.” “This is about your mother. She never liked me.” “But I did, and that’s what matters.” “. . . Did?” Lindy looked away. “You haven’t eaten in just as long. You say you haven’t, anyway, but you’re still so strong.” “I haven’t, Lindy—Silindile. I haven’t eaten anyone. I promise.” Lindy stared into her eyes in a way she hadn’t before. Alex found herself wondering if she had noticed the off-colour essence of her heart from the earliest days of their relationship and had simply remained silent. She recalled how Lindy had appeared when first tasting Alex, nodding as if to convince herself this freckled Irish girl with the distinctly non-Irish name could be anything more than another late-night snack or an experimental fusion dish more interesting than it was good. She reached out and touched Alex’s forehead with her index finger. “I need to be certain, if we’re going to move on. I’d like a taste, please . . . of your brain.” Alex was taken aback. “My . . . you want what?” “Your brain,” Lindy reiterated. “Just a slice, a bit off the prefrontal is all I need. I’ll know then, definitively.” “Know what?” “That you are who you say you are.” Alex stood up, looked down at Lindy. “But that’s not . . . I can’t do that.” “Why not?” Lindy’s hurt rebounded. “What do you mean why not? Because then there won’t be anything left for me!” “I can’t believe how selfish you’re being!” Lindy shouted as she too rose to her feet. “We’re talking about saving our relationship here.” “No, you’re talking about saving our relationship. I’m talking about you taking what isn’t yours.” “How could I ever have eaten someone so self-obsessed?” Lindy spat on the ground as if there were residue of Alex still on her tongue. “I’ve already given you my heart—what more do you want?” “I want the truth!” Alex circled around Lindy and went into the kitchen. She retrieved a long butcher’s blade from the wooden block next to the stove and put it to her wrist. “You want more of me?” She raised the knife high and in one smooth, unhesitating motion, lumberjacked her hand off at the wrist. The appendage dead fished to the ground in a filmic spray of crimson. Alex’s face immediately paled as agony and sudden blood loss siphoned her adrenaline. The knife clattered to the ground and she picked up her dismembered hand, waving it in the air like a dead puppet. “How about a finger? I could chop them off one at a time, sauté them knuckle by knuckle like sausage links.” Lindy scrunched her face, revoltedby the decidedly pedestrian offering. “You’ll give me what you give your friends when I deserve so much more?” “You already have so much more.” “But not the best of you.” No further words were exchanged that night. Lindy took the severed hand and helped wash and bandage the wound.She placed the newly freed appendage in a separate round container and tossed it in the vegetable crisper. She then gave Alex a handful of brightly coloured pills from the bottles she kept behind the vanity mirror in the washroom. They went to bed without so much as a grunt of acknowledgement for all that had happened, backs turned, their hips and feet inches apart as if their bed had been slashed in two. The medicine quickly took effect; Alex’s eyes grew heavy, and soon she felt no pain. She’d been unconscious for only an hour when she was awoken by a soft pain in her scalp—the sensation of one hair after another being pulled back as if someone had slapped a bandage over top her head and was removing it a millimetre at a time. The annoying tug soon became a fiery tear and Alex opened her eyes—immediately blinded by the blood that had snaked into her eyes from an incision at her hairline. She let out a high-pitched shriek and started furiously wiping away the blood with the palm of her hand. When she was finally able to see again she saw Lindy standing next to her side of the bed brandishing a paring knife in one hand and a small hammer and chisel in the other. Alex could not find the words for the violation she felt in that moment. Lindy backed away from her, tightening her grip on the utensils in her hands. Forthwith her vacant stomach broke the silence cementing between them, presenting her case — her need — in a way no words ever could. She turned and ran from the bedroom. Alex again opened her mouth — to scream, to call out, to say something — but the pain from her multiple wounds was too much and she passed out. The following morning, Alex knew immediately something was amiss. She rolled over in bed and saw an empty space beside her. Slowly the fog cleared and she remembered what had transpired. She gingerly touched her forehead; the tips of her fingers discovered small rivers of dried blood leading back to a very fine, one-inch horizontal slice above her left eye. When she looked to her pillow she saw a deep cardinal pond that dried the farther it extended over the surface of the once-white sheathe. An iron weight of panic formed in the pit of her stomach and she glanced out the open bedroom door to the paring knife, hammer, and chisel on the carpet halfway between the bedroom and kitchen. “Lindy?” No answer. Alex slowly, dizzily got out of bed. She felt her legs wobble as she entered the kitchen. A roll of gauze and a bottle of rubbing alcohol by the sink were the only indicators of her self-inflicted wound from the night before. Her stomach rumbled fiercely and she opened the fridge, stepping back in shock. Next to the container holding what was left of Lindy’s softly pumping heart, her own looked suddenly weathered and emaciated, like sheets of paper soaked in brine then left in the sun to curl and crack. Her confusion was quickly usurped by the hunger devouring her insides. She retrieved a fork and knife from the cutlery drawer and, before it could scamper away, stabbed and shaved a thin slab from Lindy’s heart, dashed it with just a bit of salt and pepper before placing the wiggling, soft muscle on her tongue. Except it wasn’t soft but suddenly hard, firm like the fat encircling a porterhouse. Except it wasn’t wiggling but beating. Faster. Faster still. Alex spit the piece of Lindy’s heart to the sink, watched as it bass drummed its way into the drain, leaving a thinning slug’s trail of blood as it climaxed, as it heaved, as it breathed a sigh of release. And it tasted foul, like . . . like French toast made with sour milk and six-month-old eggs. Or like lies. Lindy arrived home an hour later. She looked fuller than she had in days, had a glow about her one could only describe as radiant. She put her jacket, which smelled sick with booze and sweat, on the kitchen counter and went into the living room. Alex was waiting for her on the couch. Right away Lindy looked to the bloodied stump where Alex’s right hand had been, and then to the still leaking cut on her forehead. “It’s no better,” she said. “No,” Alex agreed. “It’s not.” Lindy’s chest swelled into a shield. “Well I don’t know what you expect me to do about it.” Alex was perplexed; she seemed to be almost gloating. “You could at least act upset. A little — a smidge, maybe.” Lindy crossed her arms. “You look hungry.” “You don’t.” She looked away. “Look, what’s done is done. Now you know how it feels.” “Yeah, I know how it feels.” Lindy tightened her stance, pulling her insides into an hourglass. The longer she stared, Alex noticed, the greater her uncertainty scratched its presence onto her face. Alex reached down, lifted the hand-painted ceramic bowl Lindy had presented to her one year earlier from the floor beneath the coffee table. In the bowl were two slices of heart: hers and Lindy’s. Unseasoned. Uncooked. Raw. “Taste them—both of them,” Alex said. “Why?” “I want you to taste the difference.” “The different between what?” “Between you and me. I want you to know the difference between a lie and the truth.”Lindy sneered at the polemic. “So sure of yourself? Then do it. Taste them both and call me a cheat again.” Lindy glanced away from the offering. Alex stood up, moved as she moved. She held onto the bowl, keeping it in front of Lindy no matter which way she turned. Lindy watched, though she did not want to, as the pieces of her heart beat faster and more frantically until finally she could not take it any longer and she slapped the bowl from Alex’s hand. It struck the wall and shattered,depositing both pieces of heart to the ground with little more than limp insinuation. Lindy ran into the kitchen and grabbed her coat off the counter. Alex chased after her, but Lindy, as if trapped in a whirlwind, reached beneath the sink and retrieved the Bordeaux of their one year. She raised it in the air. Alex barely had time to duck as Lindy hurled the vintage above her head. It smashed against the drywall, showering Alex’s back and hair with the memories and claret they’d shared. Lindy had already exited the apartment by the time Alex was upright again. Thirty minutes passed. Alex, accepting that Lindy was not coming back, moved beneath the archway connecting the living room and the kitchen.She stood between the gory Rorschach of their memories dripping from wall to floor and the flopping goldfish fragments of a future that might have been. Feelingincreasingly weak, shecrouched down and startedpicking up the pieces of broken ceramic. Then she noticed her heart, just a piece of the whole amidst the debris, and it seemed suddenly larger than what she’d prepared. Next to it, however, was an aged, calcified piece of something that at one time resembled a delicacy—an intimacy—and she wondered to herself just how wretched it must now taste. END "Just a Little Spice Will Do" is copyright Andrew Wilmot, 2016. This recording is a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license which means you can share it with anyone you’d like, but please don’t change or sell it. Our theme is “Aurora Borealis” by Bird Creek, available through the Google Audio Library. You can support GlitterShip by checking out our Patreon at patreon.com/keffy, subscribing to our feed, or by leaving reviews on iTunes. Thanks for listening, and I'll be back on May 24th with "Sarah's Child" by Susan Jane Bigelow. [Music plays out]

Who wants to experience a tax audit? What? No one. Exactly! They are not fun, and everyone knows this. However, there are things you can do to make the process as smooth and painless as possible, or even avoid them altogether. Listen in to this weeks podcast as Tyler share's some tips and experiences to surviving an audit, or as they are called now, an investigation.

This week, Ben, Tom and Simon celebrate Big Head Mode's 3rd Birthday by talking about "Great Thirds"... What? No, that theme isn't "too vague"... They also review Rise of a Tomb Raider on Xbox One. Big Head Mode is a weekly radio show at 9pm on Fridays, on Sydney's 2RRR 88.5FM. You can find out more about the show and the team at www.bigheadmode.com.au. Join the facebook group to support the community and join in on our gaming nights. www.facebook.com/bigheadmode2rrr

Today’s expression and dialog: air quotes Shane is SO funny~ What? No he’s not. You weren’t watching. I was doing this ~~~ Oh! Air quotes! Humor around the world is different in each culture. In the US, we love "self-deprecating humor"--jokes that make ourselves look silly or fat or lazy or dumb! Strange, huh? British people LOVE sarcasm. Some people love slapstick humor--visual humor with lots of physical fun!Well, in the US, we also like sarcasm and sarcasm is one of the toughest types of humor for ESL students. We say something like "Nice haircut" but the meaning is "What a terrible haircut!" How do you know? Intonation...OR, in the US, we often use TODAY'S EXPRESSION. Learn it and learn to laugh at more American humor!Have a super Thursday,Coach Shane   Please subscribe on iTunes and get this podcast EVERY DAY! Support Coach Shane by giving $1 a month! On PayPal: Send to Or you can go here: Our sponsors: Click on JOIN CLASSES and get ALL the information! (Get a free AUDIO BOOK!) Our YouTube channel:   Today's Daily Easy English Expression PODCAST is UP and READY for YOU!! #LME #LearnEnglish #ESL #Twinglish

The Return of Braag to regale his viewers with tails of fails. What? No one knew I was gone? *sigh*

Special Guest Kalle Beck form Starting Strongman Mikey J. is back with the purveyor of Starting Strongman Kalle Beck. Mike and Kalle discuss the Arnold Classic Strongman, overcoming injuries and bringing strongman into the 21st Century. (What? No smoke signals?) Plus, MJ & the Evil Genius, B. Chavez, answer a listener question and break down the linear progression, the conjugate method and the rest of the work-out noise...plus a little Filthy Al and your chance to win Willie's stuff.

Are you looking for these issues? (Or any comics?) – Consider using our Affiliate Link to help keep the site ad free: Shop Here. Well, what a great way to spend a wedding anniversary! What? No, Maico and Tawmis are … Continue reading →

Hi guys! What? No voiceover?! Well, I've caught the flu so my voice is barely with me. I am recovering fast though and I still want you all to be working out so here it is, the last mix of 2013! Over an hour of hard rocking, puuuuumping EDM tracks, mostly new tracks this time around. Have fun and take care of you. See you again in 2014!Tracklist01 - Intro (Ultrastreamer - Phases)02 - Ken Loi - All It Takes (feat. Zashanell)03 - Thomas Gold, Kaelyn Behr - Remember04 - Sandro Silva - Payback05 - Hardwell, Matthew Koma - Dare You06 - Pelari - Rave07 - AN21 & Max Vangeli, Tiesto, Lover Lover - People Of The Night (Dimitri Vangelis & Wyman Remix)08 - Rihanna - S&M (Dave Aude Club)09 - Wolfgang Gartner, Tommy Trash - Hounds Of Hell10 - Armin Van Buuren, Trevor Guthrie - This Is What It Feels Like (W&W Radio Edit)11 - Martin Garrix - Animals12 - Martin Garrix, Jay Hardway - Wizard13 - Hardwell, W&W - Jumper14 - Dirty South, Alesso, Ruben Haze - City Of Dreams (Radio Edit)15 - Disco Fries - Parachutes16 - Dannic - Rocker .

In which we try to nip some bad open mic behavior in the bud. It's the episode that will make you say, "What? No way." 

The nastier the habit the harder to break.  I wish I knew how to quit you.  Today I’ll tell you the story about one of my vices’ and how I gave it up. The song used in this episode is Madness by Muse. Download the song for only $.99 on Amazon. If you like What […] No related posts.

Hey Guys! What? You’ll have to excuse me. I’ve been up for a week. What? Oh yeah, I got a hold of some really great Crystal Meth. What? No… Its not addictive! Whatever! I can quit whenever I run out and can’t find anyone to rob or have sex with for money. So… do you […]

What? No… That’s not true… That’s impossible! But wait, it is! It’s an all new episode of Frontlines: The Clone Wars Podcast! Mike and Matt get into the news, recap the episode, Legacy of Terror, and you guys have your say in the mailbag and forum topics! All that and a whole lot more on […]

Emergency Services because, like the rest of the world, this week OLL is talking about 999 and 911. What? No, we're not actually talking telephone numbers. We're discussing the dates that saved videoaming this week: Rock Band's 9/9/9 Beatlapocalypse and Guitar Hero 5's response on September 11th . That's right. Discussing. One Life Left #105 features that rarity for Europe's favourite / only videogame radio show, an actual serious discussion of videogames on the radio. We're just trying it out, don't be scared. Also in #105: + Lots of excellent features incuding Mathew Kumar's Best Worst Games, Dr Avatar's horrifying game injuries and the ever informative Week o' Wiki Wah Wah + Exclusive, if essentially sketchy, pre-information information on OLL's long-rumoured presence at Nottingham Game City + We finally reach the point where we can't even remember our own phone number Music in #105 is from 8bitcollective.com, tracks specifically by Derris-Kharlan and Chipzel. We're away for another couple of weeks now (Simon and Ste have to go to the US, Ann has to stay home and look after the cat). In the meantime we hope to put up some secret stuff. Even if we don't, please do write, tweet and call. Assuming you can find the number. We couldn't. love, Team OLL xxx

Om nom nom nom? What? No! The OTHER kind of troll, the one that resides on the internet and says naughty things to gain a lol-some reaction. That's what OLL's big mouth feels like this week. But who are we trolling, and why?Oh, no-one, deliberately, obviously. We're nice! We love everyone, even the gaming industry legends we insult. That's why we promise to keep the really salacious anecdotes to the off-air stuff at the OLL party. But the best kind of troll is the accidental one, the off-hand quip you regret later, and while there's no apology section this week we expect we'll need one in #84. Sorry! Sorry.OLL #83 also contains no less than five separate features, the continuation of some threads from episodes past and some excellent listener-letters. If you want to be on next week's show you're welcome to send us stuff, of course. Otherwise just tune in, silently listening, and enjoy. It is a fun one, we think. Also, keep an eye on the blog for more BONUS CONTENT from presenters and contributors alike.Music in #83:Hello by Uoki-TokiIn the Year 200X by 8-Bit MetalI Don't Want To Set The World On FireSpecial thanks to Derek, who's struggling through computer problems to maintain his excellent contribution record.ALSO. RSVP to our party. It is going to be awesome.