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In this episode, Co-President of the American Association of Pain Psychology, Dr. Rachel Zoffness, talks about treating chronic pain. Today, Rachel talks about the failed biomedical model, pain neuroscience, and effective non-pharmaceutical pain treatments. When is the right time to refer someone to a pain coach? What are some multidisciplinary approaches to pain management? Hear about the biopsychosocial nature of pain, how pain treatment in the US is actually about money, how thoughts and emotions affect pain, and The Pain Management Workbook, all on today's episode of The Healthy, Wealthy & Smart Podcast.   Key Takeaways “What science tells us is pain is not purely biomedical. It's actually this different and more complex thing, which is biopsychosocial.” “Pain is complex, and doing one single thing over years and years that has not worked, is probably not the right way to go.” “Pain is never purely physical. It's always also emotional.” “Unless we're taking care of our thoughts and emotions, we're actually not really treating this thing we call pain effectively.” “If it's okay to go to soccer coach to get better at playing soccer, it is surely okay to go to a pain coach to get better at living with chronic pain.” “96% of medical schools in the US and Canada have zero dedicated compulsory pain education.” “Pain, by definition, is a subjective experience.” “Keep doing exactly what you're doing and follow your gut. Trust your intuition, and know that following the path of the thing that you love is the thing that's going to bring you to where you need to be professionally.”   More about Rachel Zoffness Dr. Rachel Zoffness is a pain psychologist and an Assistant Clinical Professor at the UCSF School of Medicine, where she teaches pain education for medical residents. She serves as pain education faculty at Dartmouth and completed a visiting professorship at Stanford University. Dr. Zoffness is the Co-President of the American Association of Pain Psychology, and serves on the board of the Society of Pediatric Pain Medicine. She is the author of The Pain Management Workbook, an integrative, evidence-based treatment protocol for adults living with chronic pain; and The Chronic Pain and Illness Workbook for Teens, the first pain workbook for youth. She also writes the Psychology Today column “Pain, Explained.” Dr. Zoffness is a 2021 Mayday Fellow and consults on the development of integrative pain programs around the world. She was trained at Brown University, Columbia University, UCSD, SDSU, NYU, and St. Luke's-Mt. Sinai Hospital.   Suggested Keywords Pain, Psychosocial, Emotional, Physical, Neuroscience, Treatment, Thoughts, Management, Healthy, Wealthy, Smart, Coach, Physiotherapy, Healing,   Dr. Zoffness Latest Podcast: Healing Our Pain Pandemic Dr. Zoffness's Book: The Pain Management Workbook   To learn more, follow Rachel at: Website:          https://www.zoffness.com Twitter:            Dr. Zoffness Instagram:       @therealdoczoff LinkedIn:         Rachel Zoffness   Subscribe to Healthy, Wealthy & Smart: Website:                      https://podcast.healthywealthysmart.com Apple Podcasts:          https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/healthy-wealthy-smart/id532717264 Spotify:                        https://open.spotify.com/show/6ELmKwE4mSZXBB8TiQvp73 SoundCloud:               https://soundcloud.com/healthywealthysmart Stitcher:                       https://www.stitcher.com/show/healthy-wealthy-smart iHeart Radio:                https://www.iheart.com/podcast/263-healthy-wealthy-smart-27628927   Read the full transcript here:  00:00 Okay, so whenever so I, you will know when we're recording because like I said, I'll do like I'll do a quick clap. And then I'll just say, hey, doctor's office. Welcome to the podcast and off we go. Okay, ready? Perfect. Okay. Hi, Dr. softness. Welcome to the podcast, I am excited to have you on today to talk about chronic pain and treating patients with chronic pain. So this is a real treat. So thanks for coming on. I think you are very cool. Karen Litzy. And I'm excited to be here. Excellent. So what I what we're going to talk about today, just so the listeners knows, we're going to talk about kind of treating chronic pain from a bio psychosocial standpoint versus a biomedical standpoint. So I know a lot of people have no idea what those terms mean. So doctor's office, would you mind filling in the listeners as to what a biomedical model is and what a bio psychosocial model is? to kind of set the tone for the rest of the podcast?   01:10 I totally Can I talk about this all the time, because it makes me so mad. Okay. So the biomedical model is the one that we all know the best, because it's the way we've been treating pain for many decades. And the biomedical model of treating pain and health in general, is essentially viewing and understanding and treating pain as a problem that is purely the result of bio biological or biomedical processes like tissue damage and system dysfunction, and on anatomical issues, and then throwing pills and procedures at it. That is how we've been treating pain for many decades. And of course, we know it isn't working, we have an opioid epidemic, the opioid epidemic is getting worse during the COVID pandemic. People are really suffering, chronic pain is on the rise. It's not being cured. It's not magically disappearing. incidence isn't even decreasing. So the way we're doing it is broken, and also very expensive for people living with pain. However, what science tells us is that pain is not purely biomedical. It has never been purely biomedical. It's actually this different and more complex thing, which surprises nobody, which is bio psychosocial, which is a big and complicated word, but makes intuitive sense, once we start talking about it, I think to people who have experienced pain, which means that yes, of course there are biological processes at work when we're living with pain, acute and chronic. And I can say what those mean to short term pain versus long term pain, longer term pain.   03:02 Yes, and there are also many other processes that work too. So if you imagine this Venn diagram of three overlapping bubbles, which I draw a lot, but I cannot draw right now, we've got the biological or the biomedical bubble on the top. And then we've got the psychological bubble. And that's the one that I struggle to explain to people the most, because I think there's so much stigma around this idea that cognitive and psychological processes might be involved in this experience we call pain because there's so much shame and embarrassment and stigma around anything to do with psychology, which is so unfortunate. But in this psychology bubble of pain, there's a lot of stuff that I think people know intuitively can amplify or reduce pain. So there's thoughts about your body and about your pain and just thoughts you're having about life in general. There's emotions, like stress and anxiety and depression, even suicidality. And we know that negative emotions amplify pain. And we know that positive emotions can sort of turn pain volume down, there's memories of past pain experiences. And those are stored in a part of your brain called the hippocampus. And we know research shows that memories of past pain experiences can change your current experience of pain. And also in the psychology bubble, we've got coping behaviors. So that's quite literally how you deal with the pain you have. And a lot of us who have lived with pain, and that does include me engage in a lot of coping behaviors that make sense in the moment. But actually, they can make pain feel worse over time. And a great example of that is the resting indefinitely plan or the doing nothing plan, as I like to call it which is totally, you know, normal and natural for those of us who pay into Engage in because when your body is telling you, you know that you're hurting, it's understandable that the thing you think you're supposed to do is stop all activity. But ultimately, what we know about that particular coping behavior is that it makes chronic pain in particular worse over time. So the do nothing plan or the stay home or rest indefinitely plan is a coping behavior that lives in the psychology bubble that can actually make pain feel worse. And of course, there's coping behaviors that can make pain feel less bad, like the counterintuitive things like leaving your house and seeing people and walking and getting out into the sunshine. And, you know, these things that we don't necessarily know can help pain. And then the third, overlapping bubble, and our bio, psychosocial Venn diagram, is the social or the sociological domain of pain. And that's what I like to call the everything else bubble. So it's socio economic status. And family and friends have culture and race and ethnicity and access to care, and socio economic status, and history of trauma and early adverse childhood experiences, and culture, and context. And environment, like quite literally, everything else your environment, believe it not changes the pain you feel. And in the middle of those three things, and I know that's a lot of things, is pain. So when we try and pretend that pain is just this simple biomedical thing, the treatments don't work. And I think all of us who have lived with pain know that our pain is much more complicated and sticky. I know that was a lot of words.   06:44 No, and, and I'm glad that you described everything in the way that you did, because I think that gives the listeners a really good idea of what's in each of those bubbles. Number one, and number two, how complex pain actually is. Exactly, it's not. So if I think if the listeners take away anything from this conversation, if pain is complex, and doing one single thing repeatedly over years, and years and years and years, that has not worked, it's probably not the right way to go.   07:15 That's right. And you know, the other misconception that we all understandably have is that, you know, the way to treat pain is just by going to your physician. And, of course, that makes perfect sense. But we have this misconception in western medicine, that either you have physical pain, and you see a physician, or you have emotional pain, and you go to a therapist, or a psychologist, someone like me, and the really fascinating thing about pain, and the reason I love studying it, and treating it and talking about it so much is that neuroscience tells us that pain is never purely physical, it's always also emotional, because the part of your brain called the limbic system actually processes pain 100% of the time. So pain is always both physical and emotional. But most people don't know that most people have never been told that. But the limbic system plays a huge role in the experience of pain. And we know that, you know, emotions are always changing pain volume all the time. So this idea that pain is either physical or emotional, is not actually a thing, you know, and the way we treat pain by going to a physician exclusively is not actually nine times out of 10, probably more than that going to actually, you know, be the answer for any sort of chronic pain problem.   08:37 And so I'm glad that you brought that up that yes, we know emotions play a role in pain. And as a matter of fact, the International Association for the Study of pain, change their definition of pain in 2019, I believe to include that it is an emotional experience. And I think that really set the stage for greater discussion and research, which I think is amazing. But when you say to someone,   09:05 let's see, can I interrupt the flow to say, they did change the definition, but the the word emotion was always in there? Oh, was it? It was? Okay.   09:16 Let me so when we talk about kind of the emotional part of pain, and I have had patients say this to me, which probably meant I was explaining it incorrectly, and I take full responsibility for that. And I'm sure you've heard this before his patients saying, so you're saying it's all in my head. Totally. And how do you react to that?   09:42 Yeah. I love that. You asked that question. I think probably the worst thing about being a pain psychologist is you know, you're the last stop on the train. You're the last person anyone wants to see nobody wants to go to a psychologist or a mental health professional for a physical experience like pain. And I know you can't see me, but I'm putting air quotes around the word physical. Because again, pain is not a purely physical experience. It's physical and emotional. But of course, no one wants to go to a pain psychologist for pain, right? You think you're supposed to go to a physician, and a referral to a psychologist means you must be crazy or mentally ill or the pain is on your head. And no, that's not what it means at all. And I find that the way that I most effectively target that is by explaining, believe it or not pain neuroscience. And I, I usually do that in the simplest way, I know how just by distilling down that, that, you know, it's easy to believe that pain is something that lives exclusively in the body, right? Like, if you have back pain, it's so easy to believe that that pain lives exclusively in your back. But what we know and what neuroscience has taught us is that actually, it's your brain working in concert with your body that's constructing this experience we call pain. And we know that because of this condition called phantom limb pain, wherein, you know, someone will lose a limb like an arm or a leg and will continue to feel terrible pain in the missing body part. And if pain lived exclusively in the body, no limb should mean no pain. So if you the fact that you can continue to have terrible leg pain, when you have no leg tells us that pain can't possibly live exclusively in the body. And I find that when I explain this to the patients who come see me, first of all, there's more buy in that the role of the brain in pain is really significant. And second of all, it sort of gives me some leverage to then explain that, again, one of the parts of the brain. And one of the most influential, influential parts of the brain that processes pain is your limbic system, which is your brain's emotion center. So unless we're taking care of your thoughts and emotions, we're actually not really treating this thing we call pain effectively, we're just treating one small component of it. So that's, you know, and I also always, by the way, validate that, of course, you have, you know, of course, it feels like someone's saying that the pain is on your head, or that it's a psychological problem. Because of this, again, this like false and ridiculous divide we have in western medicine between physical pain and emotional pain, when neuroscience has known for decades that that's not actually a real distinction, like your head is connected to your body 100% of the time, you know?   12:24 Yeah, absolutely. And as let's say, as a practitioner who's not a pain psychologist, a physical therapist, occupational therapist, maybe your yoga Pilates, and you are working with someone with persistent pain? How, how can we encourage our patients or recommend to our patients, that, hey, you might really benefit from seeing a pain psychologist, without them thinking that we're telling them they're crazy? Yeah.   12:57 I do think that taking 30 seconds, or maybe even 60, to explain, you know, this basic painter science thing. And the phantom limb thing is a really, really effective strategy. So anybody can use that. That piece of information. You don't have to be a pain psychologist. So that's thing one is just like taking a few moments to talk about how pain works in the brain. I think patients are so grateful to learn that no one's ever told them this before you're going to be the first person to ever let them know. And then the other thing that I always do is a trick that I learned from a really nerdy journal article I read years ago by a guy named Scott powers. And he said that one trick that we can use is to call pain psychologists or you know, therapists who are trained in things like cognitive behavioral therapy for pain, pain coaches, and I love that. So I usually tell physicians and other allied health professionals to refer to me as a pain coach. And the way I pitch that to families and tell other health care providers to pitch it to their patients is to say, if it's okay to go to a soccer coach, to get better at playing soccer, it is surely okay to go to a pain coach to get better at living with chronic pain. Because living with pain is so hard. And you deserve support. You know, and usually that removes the stigma and the stigma, especially when you present that in conjunction with some science that supports the role of the brain and the role of cognitions and the read the role of emotions and coping behaviors. In the experience of pain, I find that that really is super effective.   14:41 Yeah, that's really helpful and a great way to frame how to frame that recommendation to someone coming from someone like me coming from a PT because people often come to physical therapists I mean, it's in the name Because they want us to heal or to fix their physical problem, which in this case is persistent pain or chronic pain. And so then that leads me to my next question is, as a physical therapist or as someone who's working with the body, when do we refer this person to a pain coach or pain psychologist?   15:25 I'm curious to know what you're going to think of my answer. Ready? Here's my answer. I once had a friend who said to me, man, like, everyone's always going around talking about how many miles they ran today. And you know, how you like the Strava app, like, you know, how many miles they biked? And how many hours they did yoga this week? And can you imagine what it would be like if everybody, you know, came, came to each other and started bragging about how many hours they spent working on their shit? Like, what I spent three hours working on my anxiety today, or like my family stuff? Or like, my complicated relationship is, like, just why do we prioritize working on the body over working on our minds? You know, it's so strange. So my honest answer is if you're ever treating a patient who's living with chronic pain, and again, that's pain that's lasted three or more months, I think it's worth a referral to a pain psychologist or therapist who's trained in cognitive behavioral therapy. I just, I can't imagine any human being who wouldn't benefit from the opportunity to navigate the complicated experience that is living with pain and having someone in the role of support and coping behavior coach is just, you know, and partner and in processing, the experience of it just just seems to me like such a great gift to be able to give to patients.   16:51 And my answer to how I react to it is I agree. And, and again, this takes into a takes into account really this multi discipline, multi disciplinary approach to pain and approach to pain treatments and management. And so in your opinion, what makes that multidisciplinary approach effective for that patient?   17:20 I mean, what the research shows is that trying to approach and treat pain from just one angle is usually not sufficient, because as we were saying at the beginning, pain is such a complex, bio psychosocial thing. So if we're just looking at the biomedical components, we're not really doing our job, if we're just looking at the psychosocial components, we're not really doing our job. So, you know, a multidisciplinary team as a team made up of, you know, psychologists and pts, and OTS and physicians and nurses and biofeedback providers, and all these different people who are sort of coming at this complicated things from maybe slightly different angles and perspectives. And when we do that, what the research shows is, we have the most robust outcomes, the care is most effective, and the most comprehensive, and people walk away with a whole tool belt of tools to use when treating their pain, you know, across scenarios and across symptoms. So multi disciplinary is really like, how can we all come together as a team with our unique backgrounds and our unique training because, you know, as you know, trainings, especially in the United States, the disciplines are also siloed. You know, like, psychologists are trained in this one way, and pts are doing this thing over here. And OTS are over there. And anesthesiologists are over there as physiatrist. Or, I mean, it's just it's so fractured. So a multidisciplinary team is hopefully working together to target this complex animal that we call chronic pain. And what's really interesting is, you know, I have a private practice, where I see a lot of patients with chronic pain. But I feel like the bulk of my work sometimes is coordinating care with this really complicated treatment team. And I'm seeing a really complicated patient right now who has crps complex regional pain syndrome, which is a really tricky, chronic pain syndrome. And, you know, the way that we his case has been so complicated. It's been many years of treatment. And I think today as a team, we finally decided upon a treatment plan. And it really wasn't until we all were talking that that came together and jelled. So I think that's one of the most important components of treatment actually.   19:38 Yeah, I, I agree. And and when you're in private practice, like you said, sometimes it can be a little bit more difficult, but the more communication you have with people on that team, again, we're doing all of this for the person in the center and that's the patient and so being being able to provide vied so much coordinated care for that patient. Like you said, the research has shown that this is that this works versus a piecemeal, one person's doing this over here. And someone's doing this over here, and they're hearing, and then the patient's hearing contradictory treatment plans. And so it gets really confusing.   20:21 Yeah, it gets super confusing when there's, it's almost like too many cooks in the kitchen, if you're not working together, because they're getting all this different advice from all these different people. And oftentimes, and I'm sure you've seen this, too, they're on, you know, 40, they've tried 40 different medications by the time they've gotten to you. And, you know, I mean, I think what it leads to is like, this treatment, burnout, where like, our patients are just so burned out on all the treatments they've tried, and they have this sense of hopelessness, like, nothing's gonna work. Nothing's working. So far. I've tried all these things. I've seen 40,000 million doctors, and, you know, I've, yeah, I've tried herbs. And yeah,   20:58 I've heard that from people like, they're like, I don't want to go to one like I'm all doctored out, if I have to go see one more doctor, or take one more medication, or do one more procedure, or one more scan, like I'm done. I don't want to do this anymore. Yeah. And I blame them. Yeah, it's exhausting. It's totally exhausting. And you know, we've been talking about things that don't work. Right. So we talked about all that being on medication after medication, opioids, we know these, they don't work for people with chronic pain. So let's talk about non pharmacological treatments. And what does work or what can work for people with chronic pain, so I'll throw it over to you.   21:44 Yeah, so non pharmacological treatments, there's like a whole host of them, there's a wide range of them. And there's a lot of literature on a bunch of different things. So what I use the most in my practice, because I really love it and have found it to be so effective is cognitive behavioral therapy, or CBT, which is different by the way than CB, cb, D, that's something different CBT cognitive behavioral therapy. And an arm off of that is a treatment called Act, which is acceptance and Commitment Therapy, which is become very big in the PT world, which by the way, originated from CBT, and was adapted for pain. There, there's also Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction, or mbsr, which has a huge literature base for the treatment of chronic pain. And there's other things too, like biofeedback, I happen to really love as a treatment for pain. And there's a whole host of other things, too. But, yeah, God,   22:43 I was gonna say, could you explain briefly what biofeedback is so that people understand what that is? Exactly.   22:50 I'm so glad you asked. I've been doing this for so long that I forget. I just forget that. Certain things are not known entities. But I also did not know what biofeedback was when I first started treating chronic pain. And so I'll someone said to me, oh, you're treating patients with pain, you should refer them to biofeedback. And I said, You know, I don't refer my patients to things that I don't understand. So I did a buttload, of reading about biofeedback for pain, and I got a bunch of books. And then I found myself a biofeedback provider. And I went to this gentleman, his name is Dr. Eric pepper. Dr. Pepper is just a great name for any doctor. And He is a professor at the University of San Francisco and I admired him right away, he was obviously very smart. And he sat me down in a chair. And he hooked me up to this machine. And he said, This machine is going to read a bunch of your biological outputs, it's going to read muscle tension, galvanic skin response, your finger temperature, and a bunch of other things, your heart rate. And I was like, what that's really interesting. And he showed me which monitor was, you know, giving me feedback about which thing and hopefully you're picking up on the fact that there's biological processes that you're getting feedback about? And he said, and now I'm going to teach you to raise your finger temperature to 90 degrees, using your mind. And I said, Excuse me, sir. I am a scientist. And I do not believe in Voodoo. And he said, Well, how about you just try it out and see how it goes. So he did a couple of techniques with me had me close my eyes, he did some relaxation strategies, and diaphragmatic breathing, and he used imagery of like hot soup and hot air flowing down my arms from my shoulders into my fingertips, and autogenic training and autogenic phrases and that's when you say things to yourself that are suggestive like my arms are heavy and warm. My hands are heavy and warm. And as I was doing, as I was doing all these things, I noticed, because the machines were giving me feedback about my biology, that my hand temperature was going up. And within two sessions, I was able to warm my hands using my mind. And I am a person with chronically cold hands, because I'm stressed out all the time. And no one had ever told me that cold hands and feet, by the way, are a sign that you are stressed out. So I can now warm my hands on command, which is absolute magic. And when I teach it to my patients, they oftentimes say things like, Oh my god, I can make fireballs with my hands with my mind, what else can I do? And that's exactly what we want. For people living with pain, this idea that the mind and body are connected 100% of the time, and that you have more agency and control over your body than you thought you did. And you can make changes to formerly unconscious biological processes like skin temperature and muscle tension and pain. And biofeedback teaches you some skills to do that. Which is why I really like it so much.   26:13 Yeah, it sounds so like sci fi doctor who kind of stuff. Dr. Pepper. Exactly. Yeah, right. Exactly. Right. But yeah, it just sounds like Wait, what? But yes, I mean, I've never I have not done biofeedback myself, but it is something that I'm just constantly interested in for the exact reasons that you just said, like, Whoa, I can control what my body does. This is pretty cool.   26:41 It's worth it, I highly recommend it. It is so worth it. It's it makes you feel like, you know, it's this sense of like, if you almost feel like the Incredible Hulk like gotta have all this untapped power and potential that I just didn't even know about.   26:55 Yeah, it's, it's wild. Thank you for giving us that kind of definition of biofeedback, because I guarantee a lot of people who are listening did not know that at all. I didn't either, I totally didn't either. Very, very cool. So now, all of this, these non pharmacological treatments, CBT, a CT, biofeedback, we can maybe put physical therapy, occupational therapy into that as well. I mean, obviously, all of these things, cost the system money cost the patient money. But let's talk about the money aspect of treating pain, especially here in the United States. So what, you know, when people think about treat treatment of chronic pain, they often don't think about the money involved. So I will throw it over to you to kind of elaborate on that, and what does what that means for the patient and for the system.   27:52 You're actually making me realize that when you asked me about non farm approaches, I of course, immediately went to like, you know, like psychological treatments for pain. But yeah, of course, you're right, PT, OT, all these things, of course, are all the things and approaches. Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, it was a really sad day for me, when I realized that the treatment of pain historically has actually been about money. That was a really sad wake up call for me. So I used to be a member of this organization called the American pain society, it was very well established, very well known organization. And they went belly up after it came out. And I don't know if this is proven or not. But I should say, after they were accused of taking money from Big Pharma, to promote the use of opioids for the treatment of pain, despite the fact that it was known that opioids a were highly addictive, and habit forming and B sensitize the brain to pain over time and are therefore not actually effective. Because if you go off of them, as most people who have tried this, no, pain feels worse, your brain is actually more sensitive to pain. And so they went belly up, and they were, and then I read this book that was formative for me, by Anna Lemke. Le MBKE, who is now a friend of mine, called drug dealer, MD, drug dealer, MD, a very controversial and very compelling title. It is a thin, little book, I think it came out in 2016. If I'm not mistaken, I read it. Or I should say, I consumed it in a couple of hours. And I am not someone who writes in books. But I must have written on every page of this book. You must be joking. Oh Mfg. Like curse words and exclamation points. Because essentially, it's the story of how pain medicine has been about earning a buck off of people who are suffering and as we all know, with these lawsuits that are now how Like with the Sackler family and a lot of and also big pharma, you know, what we're learning is that despite the fact that these people and these companies have known for many, many years that opioids are highly addictive, highly habit forming not actually effective over time. And, you know, especially in high doses. Yeah, it's sort of this story of like, you know, follow the money. It's sort of horrifying. So, you know, I also have had conversations with physician colleagues who say things to me, it's a true story that, you know, it's clear that pain psychology plays a huge role in pain and pain management, and would be hugely helpful as with all of these psychosocial treatments, but that a lot of the times because insurance doesn't reimburse these treatments, they either don't get recommended, or they don't get integrated into pain management programs, even at hospitals sometimes, because insurance reimbursement is so crappy, which is just like another eye opening moment like we wait. So you're saying that, you know, these things work? You say that, you know, they're effective, but we're not recommending them and we're not hiring pain psychologists, because insurance doesn't reimburse. So again, it's a money thing. What? So the effective treatments are out there, they're known entities. But, you know, big pharma has billions of dollars to, you know, promote this idea that pain is a purely biomedical problem that requires a purely biomedical solution. So as long as you believe that you're going to buy into that model, and you know, as long as insurance companies are not reimbursing non farm approaches to pain, then you know, we're going to say stay stuck in this loop of treating pain, like a biomedical problem when we know it's a bio psychosocial one. So it's really complicated. Just this discovery that pain medicine has historically really been about the dollar. And it's sort of nauseating and horrifying.   31:56 Well, I mean, I think you can take away pain from that and just say medicine.   32:00 Yeah. Insert health condition here.   32:03 Yeah, yeah, I think it doesn't matter what it is, right? Because it's always going to come back to following the money and where, where can you get the biggest bang for your buck? And unfortunately, that, like you said, Those non pharmacological treatments are oftentimes not covered. So you're getting zero bang for your buck. So as a business, which a hospital is, even if it's not for profit, or an outpatient clinic, are you going to do things you're not going to get reimbursed for? Right, you know,   32:35 no, you know, that's true. And like, I don't mean to sound on empathic. Like, of course, yes, hospitals are businesses, and they have to stay open, and they have to earn money. So so the question for me, like, as I roll along, in this world of this totally insane world of pain medicine, and build my own business, by the way, like, how do we change the system? Like, yeah, we really are patient, patient centric, and like our goal, actually, at the end of the day, is to help our patients get well, what needs to change first, like, does public perception and understanding of pain need to change first? Like, do we need to be training our healthcare providers across disciplines better, like in PT, school, and in OT, school, and in psychology programs like mine, where By the way, I was in school for 40 100 years, and I got zero training and pain, like in my undergrad, brown neuroscience class, we learned about pain, and I became obsessed, and then like, wrote papers and stuff, but but that was it, like not, I have two master's degrees never learned about pain. At no point in my PhD program, did we get training and pain? So? So like, do we need to go, you know, backwards and insert pain education programs in medical schools? Yeah, I know, I know, you and I have talked about this, like the statistic that I'm obsessed with, like 96% of medical schools, in the united in the United States and Canada have zero dedicated compulsory pain education. So it's like, where do we start with this problem, isn't it? Do we like go after the insurance companies and reimbursement rates? where like, where the it's the system is so broken, I sometimes get discouraged, like, where do we start? But I think I actually think what you're doing is a really great place to start, like educating healthcare providers, and the general public about pain, and getting enough people riled up and angry about the way pain has been mistreated, and the way we're Miss educating our health care providers are just not even bothering. Maybe that's the place to start. Like maybe if there's enough of a clamor, and enough people are pissed off about it. Something will change.   34:38 Yeah. And and I agree, I think education, education, education, it has to start there. And especially in medicine, in medical school, especially with the physicians who are oftentimes they are the frontline providers, right, your your regular, your local PCP, primary care physician is often your frontline person and But they're also the people who were traditionally prescribing opioids for everyone, when they would come in with back pain instead of saying, Hmm, maybe maybe you need to see a physical therapist or a pain psychologist, let's sit down and talk to you. How can we let's find out what your needs are, what your bio psychosocial needs are. And so I think if, as the practitioner if you're not getting any education in that you don't know what you don't know. So you're not going to do it. And then I agree, I think, and I think insurance companies need to reimburse doctors and therapists across the board to talk to their patients. Talking doesn't get reimbursed procedures get reimbursed. Right. Right. What's the most important part of diagnosis when you're with a patient? talking to them, understanding what's going on with them, like that is paramount, and that needs to be reimbursed. But insurance companies won't do that they won't reimburse you for talking with your patient. Especially if you're like a PT, we get reimbursed by codes. And and none of those codes are, I'm going to really sit down and try and get into the nuts and bolts of what my patient's problem is. So   36:20 yeah, we need to code for pain, education, community, healthcare provider to patient.   36:25 Yeah, yeah. And some people say, Oh, you could use like the neuromuscular, neuromuscular treatment code for that. But there should be a code for let's talk to our patients, there should be a code for the subjective exam. Yep. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Because how were you supposed to learn about their bio psycho social situation, if you can't talk to them? And ask those probing questions, ask those open ended questions, like you said, In the beginning, bio, psychosocial, a lot of things go into that bucket. And we as the practitioners need to learn as much as we can about all those things that go into that bucket, if we're going to treat this patient efficiently.   37:10 There's so many things in the bucket. And I think, when we assess issues that have to do with pain, we really are assessing the biomedical bucket like 99% of the time. And, you know, if we really are thinking about this as this Venn diagram with three bubbles, if you're only assessing or looking at the biological domain of pain, you're literally missing two thirds of the pain problem. It's just wild to think about it that way. Yeah, if not more? Yeah, yeah, exactly more right now. So like, maybe all of us should be assessing for history of trauma. And maybe all of us should be assessing for aces, the adverse childhood experiences, which we know there's like this slew of studies that show that aces impact, you know, the development of chronic pain and illness and adults, maybe we should all be assessing for, you know, abuse and, you know, poor access to care. And just like so many things that we need to assess for if we're actually going to, you know, do a workup of pain, and instead of just this, you know, tell me about your anatomical issues. And let me do some scans.   38:14 Right, right, on a scale of zero to 10. How would your pain? Oh, it's a 10 out of 10? Well, this is like my little soapbox is what I hate. I see this a lot in physical therapy, student Facebook groups, things like that. Yep. And you know where I'm going with this? They'll say, Oh, well, if someone comes to me, and they're 10, out of 10, I'm going to call the ambulance because they must need to be in the emergency room. Poor education, that therapist was not educated on pain. No, I've not. No, that's wild. Yeah, I hear this all the time. Or those similar Sam 10 out of 10. It's a really, because if like I chopped your hand off, that would be 10 out of 10. So what's your pain now?   38:57 Right? Like this? Right? This lack of awareness that pain, by definition is a subjective human experience. And whatever your patient says it is, that is what it is. And you you actually don't get to argue with them about it. You don't negotiate down someone's pain. Right. And I mean, I think what I've learned over time about pain is there's really valuable clinical information when your patient tells you, like I hear a lot of times like 11 out of 10 literally what your patient is communicating to you is I can't handle this anymore. It's beyond my capacity to cope with this level of suffering. That is what they're saying to you. And usually also, at least for me as someone who really, really likes and appreciates the pain catastrophizing scale, the PCs, which is a potentially controversial term, some people don't like the term catastrophizing, I happen to appreciate it. I think it's very valuable, but don't want to go down that rabbit hole. But the pain catastrophizing scale, but they're also telling me is that when people tell me their pains, Out of 10 or an 11 out of 10, there's a high likelihood that their thoughts around their pain are very intense and catastrophic, and that they're having very intense emotions around their pain too. So it's good clinical information. You know, like you said, You can't bargain with someone about their pain number. Yes, we don't pain haggle. Right. Right. It's not like being at the market. No, like a price price that you get on fish. But but there's rich clinical information in there, if you're willing to, like, Listen for it, they're telling me that they're having an emotional experience that's beyond their ability to   40:37 navigate. Right to cope. And, and that's where I think like, I'll ask that question to all of my patients, because for me, that's my window to crawl in, and really get down to maybe the psycho or the social part of their pain experience. So like you said, if someone says to me, oh, my pain is like, it's at 12 out of 10. Today, and I'll say, Okay, well, can you tell me a little bit more about that? You know, what are you? What are you? What are your feelings around that? Or what's going on at home? What are your responsibilities at home? How does, you know? How does that play into why this pain is? 12? out of 10? Today, right? Right, you know, so it is, like, I always ask the question, but it's a nice way to kind of get in and be able to ask more questions. And, and just because someone says their pain is 12 out of 10, it doesn't mean you call the ambulance, they shouldn't be in the emergency room, they probably worked all day have to go home and have two kids to take care of. Yeah. And they're doing all of this at a 12 out of 10. because like you said, they've reached the end of their way to the ladder. And our job as clinicians is to increase their capacity to handle that. And how and to do that, like you said before, through a multidisciplinary approach to pain management is really the way to go. Because now you have more people who can add to that capacity. Yep. So anyway, that's my soapbox. I will come down stepping down from the soapbox. I appreciate your soapbox. I think Kevin, I'm Sherif share box, but it drives me crazy. Okay, so we talked a lot about different treatments. And I want to talk about treatment that you have created the pain management workbook. So let's talk about that. And how this book that you wrote, can help people who are experiencing pain.   42:40 One of the nicest emails I got in the last couple of weeks was from someone named Karen Litzy, who responded to my email and said that she really liked the pain management workbook and was referring to her patients. And I happen to admire Karen Litzy. So I was really flattered by that. So so the pain management workbook isn't on its own, like some new fangled treatment plan. But rather, I got really frustrated by what I felt like was a lack of resources out there for people living with pain, and also for healthcare providers. In particular, you know, I am a nerd, like a real nerd. And I think pain is just so interesting, and complex and fascinating that I have like, amassed all of these books and journal articles and, you know, resources. But I felt like there really wasn't something that synthesized it in language that all of us can understand and easily give to our patients. So I took a lot of stuff that I loved and was reading, like there's a book called pain, the science of suffering, that I happen to really love. And there's all this work by Lorimer, Moseley, and Adrian low in the PT world, I happen to really love the way I love the language they use for explaining pain. And there's all this neuroscience literature out there that I think is so fascinating and so useful, like melzack, and walls, gate control, theory of pain, and all the things that have evolved from there. You know, and there's all these workbooks on cognitive behavioral therapy for pain, but I couldn't find something that, in my mind, put together all of it into one resource that, you know, anybody with pain can pick up and use right away and use have exercises and guided audio and handouts and all that stuff. So So I wanted to create something that was very user friendly, and I felt like especially during COVID, having accessible and affordable resources could not be more important because here we are talking about how pain at the end of the day is often about money and care is so expensive, and you know, cognitive behavioral therapy and these other things that are not easily or readily reimbursed, end up costing families and patients, sometimes many 1000s of dollars and it should Then be that way. So I literally took everything I was doing in my practice, and everything I was reading and stuck it in a workbook. So it's a lot of pain education. And I have to say, you know, a big thanks to Lorimer Moseley, and Adrian Lowe, who both of them were kind enough to agree to read through my pain education content and give me feedback and consultations and edits, which was like, so kind, and they didn't even charge me anything. And I offered to pay them both. And I wish they had taken my money. But yeah, I wanted them to vet the content. So there's this pain education piece, and then it's a series of chapters of tools. So, you know, again, affordable, accessible care isn't just, by the way, here's how pain works. It's now what can I do about it? So I wanted to make sure that I was offering, like a tool belt of options for healthcare providers to offer their patients like here are 17 different pain management strategies that have evidence of effectiveness that come straight out of the literature, you know, pick a few that work for you, whether it's mindfulness or using guided imagery, or, you know, cognitive strategies, or, you know, sleep hygiene and nutritional tips, like, how do we put this all together to create a unique pain management plan for each one of our unique patients who walk through our door with a unique profile of suffering. So that's how that happened. And I should also say that the book almost did not happen, because my deadline was in 2020, which, as everyone knows, was a shit show of the year. My, my bandwidth was zero, I would sit down to edit, you know, my lovely publishers would send me a couple of chapters, and they'd say, here are some edits, go ahead and make some changes. And I like, couldn't even read through the work I had written, I like my brain just was on overdrive. And I was trying to process what it meant that we were in the middle of a global pandemic. And I sent them an email, and I was like, you guys, I don't think I can do it. So the book almost didn't happen. But in December, it was actually shockingly painstakingly born. So I'm more proud of it than anything I've ever done. I don't know if anyone will ever read it. But I, I'm very proud of it. So I hope it's of use to health care providers to people living with pain.   47:21 Yeah, absolutely. And is this only for adults.   47:25 So the pain management workbook I wrote in language that's usable for everybody. I mean, it's not only for adults, it's. So the book I actually wrote first is called the chronic pain and illness workbook for teens. So it has a lot of similar content, but I wrote it for kids, because there just isn't anything out there for kids. And there's even less for health care providers who are working with kids with pain. So this is adapted from that it has like twice as much content, I would say and is expanded content. So the pain management workbook is sort of intended to be for everybody. And the chronic pain and illness workbook for teens is more specifically for kids in the health care providers working with them. But I've been told by people who just have that book that they have used it successfully with adult patients, too. So   48:14 yeah, so excellent. And where can people find all of this and find you if they want to get in touch with you? They have questions. They want the book, they just want to chat, where can they find you.   48:24 So the pain management workbook. And the chronic pain and illness workbook for teens are both on Amazon. And they're like 20 bucks, which is so much less expensive than around of cognitive behavioral therapy. But I do recommend oftentimes to healthcare providers that they offer the book to their patients, and then offer to go through it with them. Because it's just so nice to have a pain coach to be going through a treatment protocol with. But of course, it can be used as a self help book, you know, on your own. I   48:50 just like love that. I   48:51 love the supportive model. So yeah, there are those are on Amazon. And yeah, I have a really dorky website that has a ton of resources on it. It's just my last name. It's softness, calm. And there's a resources page with like, apps and websites and books and podcasts and guided audio and all sorts of stuff for people living with pain and their healthcare providers. And I also joined Twitter during the pandemic, because I don't know, it seemed like social media was where everybody was, and I couldn't see any of my friends and I couldn't go to conferences. I couldn't have conversations with cool people like you. So I joined Twitter and Twitter, my Twitter handle is at doctors office. That's been really interesting and fun. It's been a really interesting platform. That's I think that's actually how I found you. And then I'm also on Instagram where I post some pain education content too. And that's at the real Doc's off, because I couldn't think of a better name and I got really nervous because social media makes me nervous. So   49:49 well, at least now people know where to find you. How to get in touch with you where to get your book. So this is great. This was a great talk. I you know, I could keep going on and on and on too. about this, I could do like a 10 hour podcast, just on on pain alone. Because it's something I'm passionate about. And it's there's just not enough good information out there for people to access. So hopefully people listening to this will then access some of your resources and education, education education right. Now, before we end, I have one last question for you. And that's knowing where you are now in your life. And in your career, what advice would you give to your younger self?   50:33 What advice would I give to my younger self? Oh, wow, you know, the advice I would give to my younger self is keep doing exactly what you're doing and follow your gut. And trust your intuition and know that following the path of the thing that you love is the thing that's going to bring you to the place you need to be professionally. Like, I wanted to live at the intersection of medicine and psychology, and education and science writing. And I couldn't figure out how to do that. So I had all these different jobs. You know, I was like, a science teacher at the Wildlife Conservation Society. And I was a science writer at a Science Magazine, and I worked at the NYU child Study Center, and I got a PhD and I just couldn't, but but I think, you know, organically what happened over time, just from following my passion, my like, actual passion is that I was able to do all these things. So now I have a private practice. And I'm seeing patients, and I'm writing books. And I have a column in Psychology Today called pain explained where I do a lot of science writing about pain, and I'm teaching pain education at Dartmouth, and at UCSF, which I deeply, deeply love because I get to connect with physicians and other health care providers. And, you know, it's just sort of the it is sort of naturally and organically, exactly what I feel like I was called to do you put it out, you put it out into the universe, and it happened. Yeah, I mean, but not without a lot of trial and tribulation. But I think I would just tell my younger self to trust your gut and trust your instinct and you you actually are on the right path. If you're doing something that you love, you are on the right path, even if you don't know   52:09 Excellent advice. Well, Rachel, thank you so much for coming on the podcast and chatting today. I really appreciate it and I appreciate you. So thank you so much. Thank you for having me. Absolutely. And everyone. Thank you so much for listening, have a great couple of days and stay healthy, wealthy and smart.

Whoa now, AEW, you're quickly becoming the standard! Don't look back, Bryan Danielson is here! Adam Cole? CM Punk? Sting? Exciting young talent? Where does AEW go from here, because at the moment, they are at the top of the wrestling world and do not seem to be stopping there. AEW All Out 2021 is officially in the books, and Jae, Luis, and Julio analyze the ups and downs - mostly ups.

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Hello gut check project fans and KB MD health family. I hope that you're having a great day soon to be joined by my awesome co host, Dr. Kenneth Brown. It's time for episode number 61. And today's episode, I'm just going to ask everyone, no matter what part of the spectrum that you come from, come with an open mind on this episode. This is a fantastic episode very, very informative. Our guest today is Michael ruark. He is the lead strategist for only one of three licenced medical cannabis companies. Good blend medical cannabis. And yes, that is THC, which is utilised as a medicine for specially designated criterion. And they update it every single year. So September 1, which we just recorded this right before September 1, there's actually a whole new list of medical conditions, which are now legal to be treated by medical professionals. And believe it or not, they have a network of already over 500 positions throughout the state of Texas since 2018, which are licenced and actively dispense medical cannabis. And good blend is one of those companies. So Michael joins the show today to really answer some fantastic questions. And Michael's an amazing person in his own right. He's, he's got a an electrical engineering degree from Stanford as well as his master's he served in the US Air Force, he led a team at National Security Agency, the NSA. I mean, this man is no slouch, he came to this profession to this company. By no mistake whatsoever. He simply doesn't want to just do good. He wants to do great by the citizens of Texas and simply help people live a better life. There's a better way for some of the elements out there and he has a very, very strong passion for helping out our veterans and the Veterans Administration. So I don't want to give away everything in the episode because Miko does a much better job of articulating all of that stuff. So let's get to our sponsors, of course are trying to they've been a sponsor for every show and I imagine they always will be because they were created by my co host, Dr. kins brown are trying to get your daily poly phenol is love my tummy, calm, stop the bloating, stop the abdominal discomfort. If you're an athlete, you need paly finos every single day. And I don't know maybe some of us are worried about a virus and I don't know maybe you're interested in things that function is natural zinc on fours. Well, polyphenols are natural zinc ion fours. So anyhow, without saying too much draw your own conclusions at what this awesome natural product can do for you, but go to love my tummy.com load up on your daily polyphenols today. Love My tiny.com artron deal. And of course, KB m d health.com. You want to learn a little bit more about Dr. Brown learn a bit more about his philosophy. And of course connect with his own branded KVM D health CBD go to KB Md health.com. Use code GCP save 20% off of anything in the store that includes Brock elite that includes the signature packages of CBD artron teal, and rock elite, you can combine the whole thing in there KB Md health.com. Sign up for our newsletters. It's KB MD health is actually growing quite a bit. And we've got some new things in store this fall. So keep in contact with us. And of course do you like great food? Do you like food that tastes awesome? Do you have to sometimes worry about though what kind of diet it fits into? Maybe you're paleo maybe you're gluten free. Of course. I'm going to mention unrefined bakery. They've been a longtime sponsor, unrefined bakery.com go to unrefined bakery. And if you think that just because you suffer from celiac disease, that you can't have an awesome cupcake. Or you can't have some awesome tasting bread or some trail mix that you can trust pie crust, check out unrefined bakery, they My wife has celiac disease This is her go to. And it's just incredible food you'd have no idea that they were all specialty foods to fit specialty diets, unrefined bakery go to unrefined bakery.com you can get 20% off of your entire first order. By using code gut check again your entire first order. So low up on bread load up on pie crust load up on cupcakes, are you selling cupcakes are just incredible. No levy cake, I mean like cake and they got great cakes or cupcakes there and I love the unrefined bakery.com check it out. Use code gut check 20% off your entire first order. Okay. Love those sponsors. they've kept the show going But what really keeps the show going just as much is awesome guests like Michael ruark coming up next episode number 61though KB MD health and gut check project fans, I hope you have a great day. It is now time for episode number 61. I am joined by my awesome co host, Dr. Kenneth Brown. And we got a special guest today, Mr. Marcus ruark. Ken, why don't you go ahead and fill us in.5:38  So it's gonna be super exciting show. Today we have Marcus ruark. And this is something that is very, very important. It's important for my patients. It's important for anybody that deals with all kinds of diseases, but I'm thrilled to have him here. thrilled to be here. Marcus, thank you so much for coming in Marcus ruark is president of good blend, Texas, which is headquartered in Austin, Texas, and proudly sells cannabis products that are cultivated and produced right here in the Lone Star State as one of only three state licenced medical dispensaries. Now, Marcus, I saw your bio, this is super cool, you have a very interesting background. And prior to joining good blend, you received your electrical engineering degree from Stanford. Then you received your master's degree at Stanford and I keep saying Stanford because Eric and I both have kids which are applying for college. And when I see Stanford, that's the sort of crown jewel that most parents want their kids to go to. And they like tennis players. And they like you received your master's degree at Stanford in management, science and engineering. Following this, you went on to serve as a captain in the US Air Force, where you lead your team in the National Security Agency, followed by advanced Systems Division of us Space Command. That's crazy. Following that, your bio discusses a lot of other really fascinating things that I want to get into. But before we get into that, I want to talk a little bit about what's not in your bio. Okay, tell me about you. Family. What's going on with Marcus?7:21  Sure. Well, we just had a big week in the ruag family took my daughter to college, which you just alluded to a little bit ago there. She's going to San Diego State nice, pretty excited about that. But also, you know, it's a little bit anxious and first first kid out of the nest, so to speak. So that's exciting. And then my son started up eighth grade first time back in school since spring of his sixth grade year, right when everybody went home for COVID. So very exciting there too, and he's trying out for football. So fingers crossed,7:49  right on, right on.7:51  That's a plate right there. And so San Diego State that's Trojans, she's a Trojan Aztecs, Aztecs. Yeah. I'm learning too. Nice. All right, that's a Southern California Nevermind. Sorry.8:02  So the family, your background, there was this huge section in your bio, we're very clearly you have an entrepreneurial spirit, you have leadership skills, you are willing to push the boundaries a bit and try some different positions technologies. Can you give me what led you up to this?8:24  Absolutely. So after I got out of the Air Force, I was very interested in joining the the high tech scene that was happening in San Francisco. So did that ride around? Actually not the best time for that because it was right around the bubble here is where there was a big crash back in 2000. But that being said, really got interested in bringing new products to new markets, and bringing new benefits to customers who maybe hadn't seen those benefits before in the past. So very exciting, did a lot of startups founded a lot of companies. And then at some point I crossed over into healthcare so a startup in the healthcare space and it hit me then that as rewarding as I thought it had been doing startups in high tech to do in healthcare it was even more special because not only are you starting a company but you're actually helping people right we were helping doctors treat patients better we were helping patients have better outcomes in their in their hospitals stays. So it was really rewarding. And at some point after that, I was able to join a company called Fluence which you probably saw on the on the resume, but they were in the LED lighting space. And I started there to help out with the customer experience for their customer base. And I learned that the customer base was primarily in three segments, customers who are coming to a growing produce companies who are growing flowers, and then cannabis companies and can imagine which one of the segments was probably the fastest growing it was their cannabis customers and so that was entirely new to me the cannabis world and I as you guys have I dove deeply into it the endocannabinoid system the the benefits of cannabis and learned about cultivation and Creation of products and distribution, all that kind of good stuff. And right around, I guess was the spring of 2017, Texas announced the grant of the first couple of licences for the Texas compassionate use programme. And when, you know, I reached out to one of the companies and say, I think I can help you guys here in Texas. And so I came on board as president of goodwill in Texas at that time.10:21  And that's fascinating. So I mean, obviously, it was just natural as a natural progression. You ended up seeing that there was a need, it was certainly new to you. Sounds like maybe correct me if I'm wrong, but you're inspired by things that you don't know enough about, but seem intriguing could help people I'm still learning10:35  and so much to learn in this space still, but but it ends up it's a great match for all that because it's it's technology, right? It's, it's horticulture, and it's it's helping people within today, right was what was what we're here to do is help Texans.10:48  So it's an electrical engineer, I get that you were drawn to the LED space, but then getting drawn to healthcare and now more of a I mean, what would you describe your position at good blood?10:59  I, I'm leading the entire Texas team here. Everything from cultivation, to product development, formulation, packaging, distribution, working with physicians, working with patient support groups, so pretty much everything setting strategy product roadmap and trying to build a great culture for the team here.11:18  So one of the things that we talk about in our company is the why the why the underlying reason why all this is happening, because if you don't have a solid, why then what you're describing, nobody else really will believe in that. But it sounds like you found your y even if you haven't defined your y statement, you found the Y11:37  Well, I can define it for you. It's we are empowering Texans to find their well being right through natural medicines that our patients say work. And it's, it's, it's so rewarding. Now, we have a we have a group of we have a role the company called mobile wellness coordinators, and these are the folks it's probably one of the hardest jobs at the company, you have to be knowledgeable about cannabis, the endocannabinoid system, talking to patients, so you have to be bit of an extrovert, right? It'll talk to patients. But you also have to drive across the large distances of Texas to deliver medicine to patients doors. So you also have to be a bit of an introvert there to be happy listening to podcasts while you're driving. They have the best job in the company, though, because when they're making that second delivery to a patient, they get to hear how that patient did they could hear the patient testimonials, and they're incredibly rewarding. And it's I feel really almost envious that they get to do this. But they're they're so nice to come back and share their stories with us after they've had these amazing conversations.12:38  So where are you with the company before they ended up having their first dispense of their certified? Yeah,12:45  I've been with the company since 2017. We served our first patients in early 2019. Okay, and what12:52  was it like? What was the anticipation like to get your first patient that had been referred in and and bringing those physicians on board to do that here in a state that didn't do it before?13:01  Well, I think predict my answer was huge and hugely rewarding. Like I said, it's this, the testimonies we hear are fantastic. And as we've come to market with even a wider set of products, different ratios of CBD to THC, different terpene profiles, were able to help more people were able to give prescribing doctors more choices, and patients more choices on how they how they help themselves.13:28  But it just seems like it would be a really cool opportunity to paint a picture of how you feel like you're going to be able to deliver something that maybe a physician doesn't feel like they've got a total grasp, because that's why you would offer an alternative. And then now you've recruited them to go now then just a new novel way, but prior to your launch wasn't really necessarily well embraced. How hard is it to get that message and get physicians to want to buy in to do that?13:54  It is still a challenge today. Sure. And one of the reasons I'm so excited that you invited me here today is because one of my number one missions right now is to try to get the word out to increase awareness. I suspect. We don't have a random text in here right now. But if we grabbed one walked outside in the heat, and ask them if cannabis was legal in the state of Texas, most likely they're gonna say no. And even for the patient groups where it is legal right now, most of them don't know that it's legal. So our number one job right now is creating awareness growing the number of Texans who are aware that they have this treatment available to them. And I really appreciate being on a show like this to help get the word out.14:32  What I think is so cool is that somebody with your pedigree has chosen to do this and now finding out why you chose to do it, which is you got into healthcare, you had the opportunity to do these, these other companies where it could have just been about financial reward. But once you got in and saw the impact that you can have that then you chose to do this with that message of we're going to empower people to take, take their health over what was your statement again,14:57  you're going to empower empower them to take charge with Their own wellbeing,15:01  empower them to take charge of their own well being. That's something that I try to do as a physician all the time. And so many times, it's limited because of the insurance plan because of lack of funding because of lack of efficacy. Sure. So I'm thrilled that Texas decided to do this because we've been waiting to see this happen. I've talked to my colleagues and other states, where medical cannabis is legal. And they tell me about the success that they're having with their patients. As a gastroenterologist, when I looked at, let me just pick a patient population, like my inflammatory bowel disease patients, I'm open to discuss things I I'm more of a functional type person. So I will ask these questions. And if somebody has Crohn's disease, and they're between the ages of 18 to 40, I just say, Are you using cannabis for your health? And they'll stop and be like, yeah, how did you guess? Yeah, I mean, they just go, yeah. And because they're on forums, they're talking. And I said, well, it's pretty exciting, because I think we're headed that way with Texas. And I think that we can make this so that you don't, so that you can have control over this so that you can actually empower your own health with this with products that are meticulously cultivated that have Certificate of analysis that you don't question, which is what good blend is doing. Right. Right.16:23  Well, the other the other message I'd like to get across and it ties into what you just said, is that it's actually easy to do, it's easy to get into the programme. So right, not only do they do Texans not know what exists, but if they do, they probably think it's incredibly difficult to get a prescription and to get product and to be able to afford it. And that's another message I would like to leave with folks is that it, take a look into it, right? Go to good blend.com because it's actually easy to get signed up and get to be part of the programme.16:48  Oh, we're gonna get into all of that. I have a feeling I want to like, where do I go? I love I love talking to people that have been there done that, that have degrees, like you have that have seen so many things. I want to know, you know, what Goodwin does where it is. But I think one of the most important things that people have to realise is that you've got very, I've been to a programme and I've met the doctors that showed up to the programme. And I've talked to paediatrician, psychiatrists and pain doctors here in Texas here in Plano, not just I'm not going very far out. And they told me the effects they're having on their patients. And these are smart people, somebody like you, also extremely smart, we start validating this whole industry and start shedding that kind of negative feeling that people have carried over over the years, obviously, other states are a little more advanced. But even my patients today, we had a 65 year old woman that is quite miserable from an autoimmune disease. And she just said flat out, would you care if I started smoking weed, and I'm like, not only do I not care, but I'm going to send you to a doctor because one of your diseases qualifies you, at least right now on this fairly limited set. And we'll talk about the different programmes, which are easy to get into and all these other things. And she just completely was like, You're kidding. I'm like now and these are, then you start briefly talking about ratios. And it's not about you know, smoking yourself, so you can't move on the couch. I just18:22  want to add to that, because where she is and where she finds herself. And this is why I think what company like good blend really bridges a gap that needs to be bridged. And that is, the reason why she asked or was hesitant to bring up the use of marijuana is because probably up until a certain point she felt shameful and trying to find a solution. And finally, she worked up enough nerve to finally throw it to Ken and say, do you mind if I do? So how long had she been sitting on the fence before she finally worked up the nerve, because we've seen it before. She's not a stranger to the clinic, to work up enough energy to be able to do that. And what I think is great about a company like good blend is stop waiting, we want you to feel better. And there's actually an easy pathway to do. So it's kind of how you see the the access there. Absolutely.19:10  It's it's one of the reasons that we try to have a vast selection of products that feel a little bit less intimidating. Right? So we'll probably get into that later too. But everything we can do to help folks out I mean, I'm actually kind of feeling bad for this person. Right? Because like you said, How long have you been sitting on that and not sharing that and she could have been helped a lot earlier. So yeah, and Texas is making really good strides there. Every two years. I have a legislative session and every two years we've been expanding the programme so I'm I'm very optimistic.19:43  It's if you are knowledgeable about this, so Eric and I got heavy into the CBD. Yes. area when CBD was still people were being arrested in Iran a foreigner here Yeah, Marin County. Over in Fort Worth. They were getting arrested. And I'm like I call Eric I'm like there's another person like what are we doing here? endocannabinoid system. This is perfect. And when you start talking about I'm like this person has an Endocannabinoid deficiency. They've got these chronic diseases, we are just putting band aids on all of these things, including pain meds. If we can get their endocannabinoid system back to balance, it is something that they need. If I have an asthmatic that shows up and they're wheezing, and I say you the only thing that that that is allowable under your plan, the only thing that's allowable in this, I'll take it back one second. Simone Biles, oh, yeah. Alright, so Simone Biles, this is and this was shared, I didn't I haven't talked to her. But it was viewed on a couple different articles that seemed pretty credible. It makes sense. Regardless, it different countries have different rules. Japan does not allow ADHD medication to be taken. She's been on ADHD medication for most of her life. So she goes to the Japan Olympics. And nobody's discussing that she couldn't take that it's a banned substance in the country. It's an accepted substance in the Olympic Committee, because it's an exemption, because they understand that. So she goes there. And everybody's like, what she's lost her train of thought and everything. So imagine if you can't get the drug that you need or the product that you need, and it's available right there. But somebody is putting a wall that's right there, if you're an asthmatic, and you're wheezing, and I can't give you ventolin inhaler to open up your Bronco airways because guess what? ventolin and bronchodilators. It has to be an exception. If it's if you're on the Olympics, like you have to get it exempt. Otherwise, it's considered a enhancing thing. There's things like that that are on that. You know that that's why you get NSF certified for different things, right things. So this is one of those deals where I'm like, if you're a diabetic and you need insulin, or if you need Metformin, and you can't get that, when I look at some of my patients, I'm like, Oh, my gosh, a beautiful balance of your endocannabinoid system may correct 90% of what you have going on, and we can take these eight drugs away. That's what I'm excited about.22:14  Yeah, so I have, I have a theory on this, which is that well, and partly this may end up being preaching to the choir, but it's my understanding that the endocannabinoid system is not well taught in med school, if at all. And if that's true, that means you have to learn it after you graduate. But it also means you may have some scepticism about it, it was only discovered in the 1990s. Yeah, I mean, how can we couldn't do better and discover before them, but that Okay, so it's discovered in the 90s. It's really important, right? And I've heard you guys talk about it a lot. But it is the I call it the it's like the conductor of the symphony. So it is conducting all the other systems in our bodies. And it's telling you that when to get a little louder, or that when to slow down. It keeps everything in balance. And a word you guys use frequently is homeostasis, right? It helps maintain that. And yet I was in a doctor's office the other day with my daughter had to get a COVID test before being allowed to go to San Diego State. And on the wall, this doctor's office you guys probably have to is the systems of the body. Right? It's got the skeletal system nervous system. And I look pretty hard on that poster, it could not find the endocannabinoid system. So to me, that kind of said, everything23:23  is that surprising. And it's unfortunate because it The end result is what we have now. It just simply becomes ignored. And then it becomes taboo. Because if it's being ignored, then maybe it's not acceptable to talk about and it's not acceptable to talk about then you have patients who are fearful for bringing forth an idea for a solution and then we're just slowing recovery when in fact, I mean, I'm not an advocate saying that THC is going to solve everything for anybody. But that doesn't mean it won't work for someone.23:51  We've talked about this before that I believe I'm a gastroenterologist I focus on the gastro anthological system. There are neurologists there are endocrinologist cardiologists, we will have an Endocannabinoid ologists because that is something that people have to get on board to get on board with. There's when you like First of all, a quick side note I suggest everybody after this is over go to good blends website that website is great. It is filled has so much information. So much great information about the history about why it became sort of tucked under the rug about how it was manipulated on a political level and then ultimately about how all these other cannabinoids are involved. So it's I don't know if you can't see it, it's way over there. But I purposely put I put a terpene in there we got lemonade being diffused right now so we can stay mentally clear. You know, terpenes being involved in all this. So as an induction as an Endocannabinoid ologists we're going to get to the point where we'll be like okay, well tell me what your Oh perfect. Sounds like You need some assistance with this. This is probably the blend that you need. This is more of you need a more CBD front heavy with immersing terpene to calm down and one thing in the morning. Yes, absolutely. And the fact that it's all natural and and does that.25:19  You want to repeat that. Just fixed my. We knew it didn't pop right back. I25:25  know what? No, I just said that. I think an Endocannabinoid ologists will eventually be able to fine tune what people take based on the terpenes. And Jen, and you mentioned,25:38  you mentioned maybe one thing in the morning, right to get you ready for your day and another thing in the evening to help you get ready for bed.25:44  Absolutely. And if we could get to that point where people are doing this, then they're like, okay, or as needed. The delivery systems. It's like, Okay, I'm a little overwhelmed right now I'm feeling really anxious. I just did a little something to cut this off. And non addicting all these other things. And Eric can attest to this. When we see these patients and we cringe every single time how many people show up young people. You look at their med list and you're like holy cow that Xanax, that's three different antidepressants. You got a muscle relaxer. How maybe Ambien will frequency so much Ambien, so much other sleep medicines. But let's look at the addictive potential of some of these medications, ultra opioids and benzodiazepines almost criminal, what has happened with these addictive medications that we know they're addictive, but without anything else to give them and you have a patient that's there. And as physicians and healthcare I ultimately want to help people and I have given opioids and I have had the discussion with them. Like I understand you're in a tremendous amount of pain, I need you to sleep. I'm willing to give this to you for a very short period, because I feel like if I can get you to sleep, your pain will be markedly better. And we can stop these other things. As somebody who the world's now not that recent, but five months or so ago, I had my first real neck injury where the pain was an I've redefined my pain scale kind of thing. People go, Oh, that's an eight out of 10 I really thought stubbing my toe. redefine it. And we've talked about him before but Wade McKenna, an orthopedist, you know, he told me he's like, Listen, I'm gonna, I don't I don't like, you know, hitting you with a bunch of opioids and stuff like this, what we really need is to call the muscles down, I'm going to give you a long acting, benzo for days, take it for four days, stop taking it after that, because your muscles will calm down at that point, there was a plan, there's a plan to get me on as a plan to get me off. And he purposely said, I don't mess with these opioids. Are you kidding me? As an orthopaedic surgeon, and when if we could sit there and say, okay, you a patient comes to me, I'm a, I'm a primary care doctor, and somebody has a significant injury. And so tell me what the biggest thing about this. It's the anxiety of knowing that I don't know what's going to happen, okay, then you give a blend, which is more effective on the anxiety, tell me what's happening here, the pain keeps me up. Okay, let's do this, we now have the opportunity to treat these symptoms that ultimately may or may not need some other intervention. But we know it's not addictive. We know that it actually has. And now we're going to get into the science of it. But we know that it actually has these different properties that help decrease the inflammatory processes by blocking p parganas. by blocking these different pathways, g couple proteins, we can get all sciency about it. But the reality is, I don't do that with my patients, I say, Tell me what it is that's bothering you the most. Let's see if we can give you something for that. That's the beauty of what you're doing right now. Good blend has the ability to take these natural molecules in different ratios to help in different scenarios. Totally agree.29:15  I mean, that's actually hit you reminding me it's kind of dissonant disheartening to look at a patient's med list when they come in. And there's a bunch of things kind of like what can just describe, and we're almost used to the polypharmacy or the or the multiple meds that are all listed there. And truly, knowing that a natural alternative could probably reduce that load. So we're playing less of this chemical warfare with this patient because it's almost a new we're kind of hinting at it earlier. It's almost like you're taking one thing to balance out the other thing that I've just gave them this new thing, and you're almost always chasing rather than actually treating and then and letting them be themselves.29:59  So we are getting that feedback from patients which is that once they've been on our medicine for a while they're their drug list is decreasing. Tell us I've we've had we have been able to stop these three things and now I'm down to these things I've been able to reduce the dose of these things. And if you I'm not, I'm not asking you to do this, but if you want to go Oprah on me and ask for patient testimonials I I made, you know, their tear jerker is really, in terms of helping things we're able to do with people.30:25  Well, you know what, yeah. Do you want to do it? Brian? Yeah, yeah. Tell me about one word, somebody, it made such a profound difference in their life that they couldn't hold back.30:34  Yeah. So there's a there's a patient we have that has terminal cancer. And that was a hard just that you guys have these conversation. I don't, it was a hard conversation for me to have. But he had a great outlook on his life. And he started taking our medicine, and he was able to cut back on his opioid use. And the way he described it to me was, it's not just good for me, it's really good for my family. Because on opioids, I'm a zombie. And with your medicine, since I've been able to decrease the opioids, I can be myself around my family my final days. So they're hard stories, but happy stories. Another mom said to us, her son had so many seizures a day that, and he had so many anti seizure medicine. He was kind of just there, right? But on our medicine, he was able to stop taking some of his anticonvulsant medicines. And he said, how this is when it gets me he says to us, one day, Mom, I have feelings.31:34  Wow.31:36  That's, I mean, what a What a crazy thing to have to lose as a kid the ability to basically participate in life because it's being taken away from you by a chemical that up until now was necessary, because you you obviously can't just sit there and suffer from seizure activity over and over again, that's, that's dangerous in and of itself. Right. But not knowing that there's a better alternative is honestly criminal. It's criminal, not to know that there's a better solution than just taking anticonvulsants to control I'm assuming epilepsy or something similar to32:09  right. So that's, so that brings up a really good point that mom, I have feelings. These medications have side effects, and the side effects that most people don't talk about as the pharmaceutical medicines, the pharmaceutical medications. Correct. So I get so many of these patients that are on polypharmacy, because so many of them have anti parasympathetic, meaning they affect the gut. Almost all of them do one way or the other. Oh, I have diarrhoea. When did that start? Six months ago, I see you're on Zoloft. When you start Zoloft. Seven months ago, huh? I have so much conversation What's going on? Oh, you're on the opioids? Oh, I've got a date all there. I'm fully aware that there's completely these are necessary drugs. But my job when I during residency. Some of us were chosen for basically treating older people. So I went to the older people clinic. And so my the technical term for it, that's the tactic. The older people,33:21  obviously, yes.33:23  Yeah. The layman's term is gerontology. But yeah, but we call it the older people. OPC. I would sit there. And as a resident, I'd looked at these lists, I'm like, you're 90, you're still here. Why do we care about your cholesterol that has this effect on this? And this? Why are you on this? Right? My sole job I viewed in that clinic, was to just get people off medicines, because the side effects at some point are just completely Yeah, outweighing that. And that was just a lifetime of going to this doctor that doctors cardiologists going to give this guest route, they just keep adding up. They just keep adding up him. Somebody shows up with a list of this. None of these drugs have ever been conducted in a trial, where they're all together. What happens then? We don't know. Well, I'm dealing with that now. And I've got a nine year old person and just every time they'd come back, they'd be more alert more. If you made it to 90. You're a baller. You've done it right. You deserve to drink, what's your mama smoke,34:28  what you eat what you want, do whatever it is. And they would love that by the time they were there. Yeah, they start having fun again, and it was just about getting them off their drugs. You got to hit on something, though. And maybe you seen this because you said you've seen a show or or two but something that we've had we have hit on is lifespan, and life expectancy is just a number. But what's way more important truly, to enjoy those numbers is to have a good health span. And to be able to function and participate in life if you're going to live it. You may have It'll be involved in it right? How do you How does? How does your company view healthspan? In relation to to that?35:09  I would say it's similar to the the things we've been talking about, which is if you can, if, if there's, if there's an opportunity to live a higher quality life, right. And there's a natural way to do that, and to get off some of the pharmaceuticals that maybe are causing some of the side effects, and you can live a happier higher quality life. I mean, that's, that's what we're here for. Right? It's kind of what I talked about well being that's exactly what we're here for.35:36  So if you gave two quick testimonies, one, obviously about someone with epilepsy and one from somebody who was suffering from terminal cancer, yes, what other what other ailments to kind of focus on as it stands right now?35:51  The so there is a treatable conditions list on Texas. And it is, it was created by statute. As you know, it started out in 2015, as intractable epilepsy, that was the only treatable condition. In 2019, the programme was expanded in a significant significant way where a lot of new conditions were added. So terminal cancer, autism, ALS, Parkinson's, spasticity, a whole giant category of conditions under the headline, incurable neurodegenerative diseases. And that has a list of about 300 things underneath it. So it was pretty significant expansion. And I would say across all those, all those treatable conditions, we're hearing positive testimonials.36:36  That's fascinating. And actually, I had glanced at it, I don't think that they cannot have spent any time on it. But I did notice that there was autism. And I don't know that you do you have a testimony or not. But it's definitely something that's near and dear to this guy in our research, just to polyphenols but he's made he's made no mistake about it. There's a play there with with cannabinoids as well.36:59  Yeah, I'll give you my I'll give you my take. In fact, we work with a great asset. She's been on the show before Angie cook. And she wrote up an incredible which I've yet to publish, partly because at the time, people were being I mean, Texans don't even I, I can go around right now and talk to my patients about CBD. And I've got CBD all over my office. And they will be like, Oh, boy, no, I'm not into that. And I'm like, let me explain that to you real quick. And let me explain this. Do you have any chronic condition, whatever, like, Well, yeah, totally do well, and then they end up, you know, purchasing it and saying, yeah, it made a huge difference. And it comes down to that rebuy rate. So as a business person, we know that I've got a almost 50% rebuy rate on Tron teal. And this is like, you know, worldwide. We know that that works. Because as if anybody's ever been in the pharmaceutical industry, I prescribe a drug and they come in and I'm like, Did that work and their trials that you know, the studies show? It's 8% better than placebo, whatever. So it all comes down to does the person want to come back and purchase more? That's To me, that's the that's where the rubber hits the road. My move towards autism became very personal. When I had a patient that brought her son in and he had become I'm an adult doctor, he had moved on from paediatrics to adult. And she said he's becoming almost impossible to take care of when he eats. He cannot communicate. He flailed he gets almost violent. And he's, you know, he's 16. Is he just becoming a young man, and this is getting really bad. I said, Listen, I don't know a whole lot about autism. But I do know that. You said when he eats, let's treat his gut. Let's fix his gut. And I'm just now getting into something where I believe it will play a role. And I put them on CBD. And now looking back, we're going to look at this, I'm going to be sitting in a lecture someday and an endocrinologist will have the exact thing to give that person. But right now that was best I could do is your mother shows up three months later, crying. And her son is communicating, not high level, but she's like, he's like, Hi. And he's talking. And I'm like, How do you feel? And he's like, you know, good. And she's like, This is crazy. It's been 10 years and I have not seen this person. And like, I don't know if it was the fix in the gut. I don't know if it was the CBD regardless, I think it's both. And that's where it came in. So then Angie did this incredible write up and maybe we can team up with your people to get it published, but it's like 50 pages long. It's super sciency. It's all about autism and the effect on the endocannabinoid system. And when I go to my colleagues and they say there's no science on this, we share a Mandalay capability, what Mandalay is. So we share this, the repository of journals that are out there are published and we've got a whole folder on There's a whole folder on CBD a whole folder on cannabis and cannabis. And the sciences, they're animals to humans. The problem is the science in the United States is not here the science that is recognised by our journals here, because, and we talked about this, that people don't realise that it was approved if you're going to study cannabis, and Michael Pollan was talking about this, the author Michael Pollan was talking about this, that the cannabis, which is approved by the FDA to be used in studies. It comes from one place, one place some crap lace, it's like 60 years old. Yeah, it's been around, and kind of just40:40  shit marijuana. It just it's not indicative. It's not similar to the kinds of Medicinal Products that you're gonna get.40:47  Yeah, exactly. This40:48  is what it is, and correct me if I'm wrong, but this is, this is what all sanctioned and allowed us research is done on is basically just this one lot. Correct.41:00  or from a federal perspective, I believe that's right. Yeah. Having said that, very exciting news in this most recent legislative session. Nice. The statute that they added to the statute that Texas can start its own research programme. So the department State Health Service real for real so yeah, they're they're writing the rules right now. And yes, it's very exciting. So Texas cannabis research. Does part of the Texas compassionate use Berg did not know that did not know that. And it goes beyond the treatable conditions list. For sure. do research, the research, whoever the research institution is picks what they want to study,41:40  I need people to hear that said a little bit close with money. Which part the?41:46  The research so the Texas compassionate use programme is introducing a research element. And the department State Health Services is writing the rules right now. I think they're even posted for public comment. And it's gonna happen. And so the research, whoever the research institution is, and they provide a list of who can qualify, you pick the condition you want to do research on. You do have to find an IRB. But it's sky's the limit. Oh,42:12  my gosh, that makes me so excited that just that turned into hope for my IBD patient. Yeah.42:20  So just to click and you42:21  get to use our products. You don't have to use the federal cannabis.42:25  Okay, I have been that is exciting having you on just for that one thing. I hope my partners listen to this because ga right now is we're getting close to 1000 providers strong. And in the state of Texas, basically everybody in the state now as part of this one group, to be able to power a study like that could be fan tastic. I have just, I thought that it was completely prohibitive. And Gotta love Texas. Gotta love. We're gonna do it in Texas if the feds don't want us. That's awesome.42:59  No comment on that. Your point about autism, I've had the I've been very fortunate to be able to attend a to medical cannabis conferences in Israel. And then one was in LA. And there's plenty of studies out there about autism and THC for43:14  sure. And that's what this 50 page review that Angie put together, put a lot of sweat and tears into it. And it's something that we should probably team up with some of your scientists to update it because it's about two years old. Yeah. But I was shocked reading it, the level of science, the level of information out there, and the amount of benefit that you can actually do and the correlation. So for me as gastroenterologist the correlation that when the endocannabinoid system is off, it affects all systems. But in my opinion, all health begins and ends in the gut. If you don't have a healthy gut, you ultimately affect the brain. And we've got we've done podcasts on this where we can show that neuro inflammation or chronic inflammation affects f h, which is the enzyme that breaks down your own endocannabinoids. And when you lower your inanda mind, which is the one that you know is your low level keeping you there. It's your body's own equivalent to THC. It's your body's own equivalent. And then on the flip side, when you have to a G which is the spotlight if that's getting turned on all the time, that's your that's like a that's the other portion of the endocannabinoid system. The difference between a Stanford grad and a simple country but doctrine Nebraska is I've used the same example the endocannabinoid system, but you referred to it as a symphony conductor. I refer to it as a traffic cop. Yeah. They're both good. I could say mines. You know what? I won't say. Yours is more elegant to start using that from now on. Yeah,44:52  elegant was exactly the word I was gonna say. So I'm glad you said it is refined and yours is quickie, Martin.45:00  To your point about the importance of the gut. And if you haven't checked out this research, please do. I think you're gonna find it very interesting. There's one of the leading researchers in the field of cannabis is a Dr. Ethan Russo. And he has a I think he calls it. I may begin this wrong, but the grand unified theory, but of course it spells out gut, but it's all about the the brain gut connection and with the endocannabinoid system as a key part of it, and you've you've addressed this in previous conversations, but they're all tied together.45:33  One of my problems that I have had, and I'm curious how you and your sales people have dealt with this, it's the person that I know how to say this. I'm enthusiastic. And it took me a long time I've read vitamin weed, which is a great book, forgot the Michelle Ross, Michelle Ross. That's it. Michelle Ross wrote that she's a PhD. You know, there's Goldstein's book. These books are great. But I had to read them a couple times. The first time I started getting into it before you start going because it's it's a different language. It's that's why I think we're gonna have an Endocannabinoid ologists. My problem is when I have somebody, it's that the vomit of knowledge that I have to keep myself from doing when somebody is like, what's that? And then you start getting into it, and you're like, what's the endocannabinoid system? So I've always I'm a little bit curious, from a business perspective, how you as a company, get into that naive, let's just start with the naive doctor46:38  that says, Why don't know about this? They start with the, you know, yeah, you know, I'm kind of curious. He may not want to divulge everything, but I really kind of want to know how many practitioners throughout the state are actively participating in this programme.46:50  So the state publishes some data about the programme. The most recent date is from July, and there were over approximately 50046:59  Oh, wow, it's much47:00  bigger than I thought. And to be a prescribing doctor, you have to be a board certified specialist, as you are. So it's, it's not every doctor, you have to write you have to be board board certified. And then the patient, the patient count as of July was right around 7070 507,500. That may not sound like much, but it's growing 10% every single month. Well, it'll be one of those things every single and this is in the in the official kickoff was 2019. Right. For the first patients. The first patients were actually served in 2018. Okay, not by us, but okay.47:38  So that is so tip of the iceberg because as a clinician, I went on once I found out you know, one of your sales people that had has known me for a long time as a friend and they got involved with this knowing that I'm involved with CBD and understand the endocannabinoid system. So first thing I did is I tried to sign up well, my specialty is not listed. So as a gastroenterologist, I'm not listed as currently interesting currently, because when I did the whole thing and went through it and tried to I couldn't find that. And then for me, it was a little daunting to say, Well, I'm internal medicine is there on board certified internal medicine, but I really practice 100%, gastroenterology. And I did not want to false under any false pretences as this is, because it's just a matter of time. It's better a short time. So discussing that, from a business perspective, what can I do? As a physician who's very interested in this? help some of the legislation, bring in other let's start, I've got a tonne of questions about that all these little things, but help bring in other specialists are there? I mean, I don't I don't even know I don't even know, like committees are?48:55  Well, hopefully, a discussion like this helps. Right? For starters, right? It was one of the reasons. I mean, hopefully doctors watching this who are board certified specialists who are intrigued and have heard how much this can help will apply to get the programme. It's very simple for doctors to get in. You, you just provide your Texas Medical licence number, I think and your board certification number and the Department of Public Safety checks those two things. And that's pretty much the extent of it, you become registered and at that point, they very much leave things up to the doctor. That's one of the great things about the programme is Let's trust the doctors.49:33  So in this case, not knowing enough about that. I'm like, Well wait till my specific specialty, it just there was neurology, oncology, pain, internal medicine. There was a lot of specialists so if there's a physician listening to this, go check it out, because more likely you're there. I'm just saying that gastroenterology was one of the few that was not listed.49:55  I can I can certainly bring that up with them and ask, you know, we can get If we can get that specialty added, I'm surprised it's not on there.50:02  That was eight months ago, nine months ago, something like that. Maybe it is I haven't checked recently. But I thought, well, it should50:11  be one of the things I think you should be is. And I actually learned this from you in our very first phone call. One of the treatable conditions, which I don't think I listed before is called spasticity. And it is unlike everything else on the list for your very intelligent audience. They know as soon as I say that they're like, which one is not like the other spasticity is a symptom, am I correct, and everything else is a sort of a disease or condition. And you informed me that much of what happens between the mouse the top and the bottom, you know, by the way, for those who don't know, if you get on a phone call with a gastroenterologist, it can get like, it was unexpected. I was not expecting to have that conversation. In my day. I'm on the phone. I'm like, Whoa, because we went top to bottom, or you did, but apparently, it's all a lot of it's muscle. And there can be spasms in that muscle spasticity in the muscle, and that is a treatable condition.51:03  It's nerves innervating muscles and the muscles if they go into spasm create tremendous pain. And if you're ever worked in ER, and you ask an ER physician, what's the what's some of the most common complaints, it's abdominal pain. Now that can be all the way from a perforated bowel appendicitis. But a lot of times people just get labelled, Oh, you've got a bug or IBS, and then they get sent out. That's it's a huge chunk, because it covers so much territory. So yeah, for spasticity. If we can get the spasticity handled, I can help so many people, my cebo people. So if you have small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, one of the reasons why you have so much pain is because the bacteria produce gas, which stretch the intestines, in a reflex, the intestines trying to track back, that's a spasm, this is reminiscent of our phone call together. except you're eating at the time. When somebody poops like this, you want to make sure that52:06  I'm kind of curious about if if, in the new, you put it in these words, if a if a interested position, or one on the fence, even we're, we're considering this, and you've already talked about what it takes to get approved. So let's talk a little bit about what's the experience like to be that practitioner. For one, you write a, an opioid, or what something has a highly addictive property, or even if it's classified that way, it's called a controlled substance. And then in Texas until recently, we always came with the paper, triplicate, I mean, there was a there was a form to do so. So what's it like? What's the process for the writing of the prescription? And the experience going through your company? And what is the physician See? How is it dispensed? What's the fall ill insurance your ongoing?52:52  Sure. A challenge for a patient can be finding a doctor who can prescribe we've tried to help with that by we have we have a virtual clinic on our website. So if you go to good blend calm, you can actually see a doctor through telehealth, it's one of the very great things the state of Texas has done is enabled telehealth for this programme, which is super exciting. You can see a doctor through a telehealth appointment or you can go to a doctor's office and see them there. They're either either the doctor will diagnose you with one of the treatable conditions, or you bring your medical records from a different doctor who's, for instance, if you had a patient and in their chart, and you'd put spasms of the gutter specificity, or they could actually take that chart to another doctor and get a prescription.53:37  That is fantastic video. So as somebody who's learning and I'm risk averse, and all these things, I just don't want to I want to make sure that I follow the lay of the wall, which is why I stopped when my own specialty wasn't there. That is fantastic to know that I can say look I can right now I'm not comfortable doing it. But I truly believe that you could benefit from this, please go to this website. Set up a virtual visit. Show them this note, fax them my clinic note 100% Oh, that's54:08  easy fan. TAs this, that's awesome news because it actually allows a physician on the fence or is worried about blowback from maybe their own partners, they can now safely dip their toe in the water and say, Look, I've got a pathway for you to get we have doctors that do this all the time.54:21  Oh my gosh, that is great. You're exactly right. When I first started doing CBD, one of my partners grabbed all my all my pamphlets and said brown wants to sell weed in our clinic. That's fine, but I'm not taking part of it. Not a joke. So and then if I actually,54:37  you know because there's just this much misinformation and and the people don't educate themselves. That is awesome. Because what are we talking about here and you said it you started off this interview. We want to help people and the people we want to help as the patients and you don't care if you're getting the credit as the doctor who is being in this position to do Do that. This is about the patient who comes in and says I hurt or I can't get over it or I as you said with the with the kiddo I can't feel. Let's get them on a route to do so if you're uncomfortable doing it's fine. Let them take what you found with them and then and then head over to G website55:18  not to digress really quick. But when you said that I can feel for the first time imagine your child who you love dearly that has never been able to express love can then express that because of this because you got them off these meds as living that's living. Yeah. That's, that's awesome.55:38  Yeah, it's fantastic. Oh, and I know you didn't mean to digress, but I am curious though. Yeah. Once they rot55:44  that continues a journey for Yeah, sure. So that everything the patient record for the programme lives on a Texas website. It's the it's called curtsy u RT, the Compassionate use registry of Texas. A prescribing doctor would go into it's it's an online service, but you go into you log into that service. And then you create a new patient profile for your new patient. And then you create a prescription for that patient. And so your prescription you have they give ultimate flexibility for how you want to write this prescription. The ones we recommend are flexible to give the patient flexibility. So you would specify here's the milligrammes of THC, I think would work for you over a an X day period. So this prescription is going to exist for 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, we recommend 90 days, because I think one of things we've learned from the the, like the CVS is in the Walgreens of the world is that you can write that longer prescription you're going to get better compliance for for the second round of dispensations, but so 90 day prescription, this much THC and milligrammes and then you have to specify the means of administration, you can get very specific with that you can say, it's got to be tincture, or got to be a gummy, or there's a box that says, I think it says other any means other any means. And then there's a notes field. And so what you could say to a patient is, so you do all that. And you could say I recommend you start with this in the morning, this in the evening. And if you want to dabble with your, you know, try, try this and see how it works for you, you can try that too. So that all exists in an electronic record. The next step then is for the patient to contact, good blend. And then we they tell us their identifying information, we pull up that patient record and that prescription and we're able to dispense against that one opportunity for improvement in the programme. And some doctors do this some don't is you think about it, when the patient leaves that appointment. You know how this goes, I can't I can't remember really half what a doctor says when I leave that appointment, cuz it's a high stress, time. And when you get home, I have trouble remembering what the doctor said. So we do recommend you give the patient something that says, here's what I'm prescribing you, or you send them a follow up email and says, here's, here's the prescription I gave you, otherwise, they don't remember what you're prescribed. And then we're the ones reminding them, Hey, your doctor prescribed X, Y and Z. But that's the process. So you see a doctor doctor interest, the prescription into the compassionate use registry of Texas patient contacts us we dispense against that in terms of getting the medicine and products to patients. We offer a lot of different ways to do that. We started out as 100% a delivery model. So we were delivering to patients homes. We've recently added the the ability for patients to come into certain doctor's offices and pick up their what they've ordered. And even more recently, we've added the ability. It's almost like a miniature retail experience. But we bring unassigned product into the doctor's office, and a patient could walk right out of your appointment. you've entered their prescription and occurred and we can they can shop right there and buy what they want. And then so a one stop shop.58:50  Let me clarify that really quick. So you're saying that a physician can actually have product in their office and they can sell it directly to the patient.58:59  We do the selling? Yes. Okay. We are there in the in the lobby or wherever, wherever we are and patient comes in and they they see what we have to offer and then they buy what the prescription says and sorry, pharmacy extension, essentially essentially I'm okay. Okay,59:13  so just one small caveat on this journey, so far, so much like, just so that people don't think that a physician is just guessing what the milligrammes are, whenever a new minute, whenever a new medication comes out that isn't cannabis. They utilise representative representatives to go and educate a physician. I doesn't matter if it's a new blood pressure medication. Every blood pressure medication that you've ever taken has had a representative go in and basically detail a physician on that. So I would imagine that there is a detailing process on best practices, things to look for cues. Correct. Thank you for bringing that up.59:51  Yes, we as you would a physician would not be guessing. We have we have dosing guides. In For instance, if you want the prescription to be 90 days long. And you're thinking about prescribing x, we have a recommended daily dose and just multiply by 19. Put that into the prescription. So yes, we, we provide all those sorts of collateral educational material and that1:00:09  kind of stuff. I mean, that's, that's not unique just to cannabis. I mean, we do that literally with every single pharmaceutical that has ever been rolled out. Physicians practitioners need to be educated on it. So this, love this because this is no different. And except for that it is because people have worried away from it. And I think it shouldn't1:00:31  be different, right? And we're getting to the point where it's not sure I got here, you one other way, it's similar to the way prescriptions work in the pharmaceutical side is, if a patient were to call us or, or ask for something that was slightly different than what you prescribed, then we have the ability to contact the prescribing doctor and say, Hey, the patient is interested in this slightly different than what you prescribe. So for instance, let's say you, you check the box for tincture, and the patient decides they want to try our 12 ounce beverage or patient wants to try gummies might be in the same ratio might even be the same dose, it's just a different means of administration, we're able to contact you and say, Are you okay? If the patient gets this instead, and then we just write the note into the look like a little hamster typing there. We just write the note into the, into the prescription.1:01:21  But I mean, that happens with generics and name brands and regular pharmaceuticals, too. So I mean, I think I think it's awesome that y'all it's it's completely your legitimising something that should have been legitimise a very, very long time ago. I love that you'll have that in your model. Yeah, it's1:01:36  transparent. Yeah. I love how that's, that's well. And also, let's, since you brought it up several times, let's talk about these different means of administering. If you have examples, like what what are some of the things that you that you've seen your practitioners have success with that some of the clients the patients seem to like, because a lot of people don't realise A lot of people think oh, I, I don't I just have to smoke it. Right. That's the only thing that that it's there for it. So this is a medicinal product. What are some of the ways? Sure, sure.1:02:06  So we started with started with tinctures back in the our first first couple months and and that was when the programme was in early days of the programme. I should back up a second say. One thing to note about the Texas compassionate use programme is we are capped at a THC maximum currently of 0.5%. by weight. If you know your you know the world of cannabis, you're thinking that's a very small amount of THC. It goes up to 1% starting September 1 based on most recent legislation, but one of the things we realised is that if depending on what the product is what depending what the means of administration is 0.5% can actually be a lot right the heavier the other ingredients are. The more you can get in there more THC you can put in the product and still stay below the 0.5% limit. So we had tinctures for a while and then we moved on to Los Angeles. We were the first company in the state to come out with an edible product like that it was lozenges meant to kind of dissolve in your mouth and for absorption of the cannabinoids after lozenges, we came out with gummies we're the first in the state come out with gummies we have one to one CBD THC ratio gummies and we have five milligrammes THC straight up. And in those gummies we've got different terpene profiles, we've got a sativa profile and indika profile that that's getting our doctors from prescribing flexibility we see you know, common common prescription might be take the one to one gummy, that's sativa in the morning, because it can be more stimulating and it's not you know, it's a one to one CBD THC so you have those working together. But when you're getting ready for bed, take the five milligramme indika gummy which can can be relaxing and can help you sleep. So those gummies really helped with prescribing flexibility. We then came out with lotions. So we've got some topical products, which now again you have to have one of the treatable conditions. But if you also have some other symptoms that could be helped by our medicines, then you're in the programme. Sure you have access to everything once you're in the programme. We launched medical capsules, which is a really nice, very precise dosing product for doctors. And then most recently, we were the first. By the way, all of these were first in the state. We most recently launched our 12 ounce beverage cannabis infused beverage, which I guess I have since I brought pot props, I might as well show the prop. It's empty because right now we don't have a prescription. But all these are getting great feedback I'd say are1:04:47  the most popular. What are some of the other products that you brought. These1:04:50  are all empty, of course there's our gummies here, these are the Texas Orange City, the five milligrammes I got one of our lotion, one of our topical lotion jars, here. Sure. Thank you for asking that question because one of the things I should mention is one of the things we did launch, this is our dream tincture. So it's it's designed with a terpene profile for evening use. Yeah, but one of the things we also did with this tincture, and it's a different bottles that we added, lowers, they can go to our website and see a nice rendering of the bottle. But one of things we did with this launch of the dream tincture is we had a

It is good to be back with you. I am deeply grateful for the time I spent away.  It was wonderful to let go of all the clutter in life and the clutter in my head.  It was refreshing to let go of work and deadlines, and just play with my grandson.  It was life-giving to spend priceless time with him, my son and daughter-in-law, and simply enjoy being while taking in the beauty of creation.  Time like that makes my imagination and creativity really bubble and thrive. This morning, I would like to ask you to use your imaginations as we try a little exercise.  To begin, I ask you to sit back, close your eyes and let go of the clutter of thoughts that are likely present in each of your heads.  With your eyes still closed, let you're your imagination start working and begin to picture Jesus.  Take a few seconds to think about the image of Jesus you are seeing in your mind's eye.  Note what he looks like and what you see him doing.  Now, open your eyes and I am going to ask you a few questions. In your imagined picture of Jesus….. Does he have a full beard or is he beardless? Is he calm, serene, pleasant, and peaceful? Is he wearing a white garment? Is he surrounded by children, maybe holding one on his lap? Is he smiling? Are his arms stretched out in welcome? Is he performing some sort of miracle or offering food to the hungry?   Now, be very honest with yourself.  Did you respond with a “yes” to many of these questions?  The truth of the matter is that, for most of us, our image of Jesus was shaped by stories we learned in childhood and the pictures we have seen, pictures that were often used in children's Bibles.  And, quite frankly, most of those pictures depict a calm, happy, inviting, white, northern European Jesus.  However, if we take an honest look at the gospels, we often see a very different picture of Jesus.  First, he was not white and northern European.  And, in all the Gospels, we find stories where Jesus displays very human, even unlikable, characteristics.  There are times when he really seems annoyed with the stupidity of the disciples, and other times when he seems truly overwhelmed by the burden he is bearing.  There are stories where Jesus is reclusive, grumpy, and even sarcastic.  And, today, we get one of those stories. In the chapters preceding today's story, Jesus has been performing miracles.  He has fed the 5,000, and he has walked on water.  He has been healing the sick and demon-possessed, and there is no doubt he is seeking some much-needed rest.  So today, as he seeks respite, we find him heading into the region of Tyre and Sidon, a land that is Gentile, pagan territory.  While there, he is noticed and approached by a Syrophoenician, Greek woman whose daughter has an unclean spirit.  She begs him to cure her daughter.  And, Jesus replies, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs.” Whoa!!  Jesus rebuffs this woman and dismisses her with a blatant, ethnic slur.  You see, during Biblical times, the word “dog” was commonly used as a derogatory insult.  And, the Gentiles were so despised and considered so unclean, the Jewish people referred to them as “dogs.”   Anyway, Jesus' response to this foreign woman does not stop there.  He also makes it clear that his own people, the Jews, should be fed first.  He is saying, it isn't right to take food that is meant for the Jews and give it to dogs, the Gentiles.  I have to say, this is probably not the image of Jesus we usually conjure up in our minds.  As theologian, David Lose, suggests: We want to think of Jesus as full-bodied, perfect, and immutable from birth, kind of like Athena springing full-grown from the head of Zeus.  But if we are to take Mark's narrative seriously, never mind the incarnational and creedal affirmation that Jesus is fully human as well as fully divine, then perhaps we should not be surprised to see a development in Jesus' own recognition of God's vision for the world.  After all, the profoundly expansive notion of a kingdom that included everyone – no exceptions! – was completely and totally novel.  And, truthfully, it still is!   Well, what is so amazing about this story is that this woman does not back down.  She does not become defensive and, instead of being offended or discouraged, she presses on.  She has a sick daughter, and she wants healing for her daughter.  So, this culturally unconventional woman who is breaking all kinds of rules by coming to Jesus in the first place, uses Jesus' own words against him and bests him in the argument saying, “Fine, you can call me a dog, but even dogs get crumbs that fall from the table.”  The truth of the matter is, this Gentile woman teaches Jesus, a Jewish man, the true meaning of what he has just reminded his own followers in the verses prior to this.  If you remember last week's reading, Jesus had reprimanded the Pharisees saying their social conventions, the purity codes, rules that had become religious ritual, were not what is important.  What's important is the stuff that comes out of the human heart.  It is the stuff that comes from the heart that can either pollute and destroy relationships or compassionately build community.  Well, today, this Gentile woman, a woman the Jewish people considered unclean, insists that social conventions should not stand in the way of compassion and helping those in need.  And, as this courageous, prophetic, Syrophoenician woman confronts Jesus, he has a “conversion” experience.  This woman of great faith changes Jesus and opens him up for ministry to the Gentiles. Impressed by the woman's courage and faith, Jesus responds saying, “You're right!  On your way. Your daughter is no longer disturbed.  The demonic affliction is gone.” (The Message) This Gentile woman crosses the Jewish/Gentile boundary, a barrier established by human beings, a barrier created to separate and discriminate.  The barrier that had been created to divide people into categories of “us” and “them” has been called into question.  This foreign woman draws for Jesus a bigger picture of who God is, and the good news that is embodied in Jesus now becomes good news that has the world as its focus.  Jesus actually receives strength from this woman whose faith changes him as he is forced to live into a broader understanding of his mission and ministry.  The broadening of the heart and mind to include the “others” in life is one of the most difficult psychological maneuvers there is.  I find this to be a challenge we face each and every day.  Far too often, we want to build walls to keep the “others” out.  We work to exclude the “others” in our lives, whether it is within our family structures, our communities, or even within our nation.  And, we tend to project what we don't like in ourselves on to the “other.”  We tend to see the “other” as less than us, not as fully human, sometimes not even as loved by God.  In today's reading, it is a woman who is considered and labeled “other” who helps Jesus grasp that in God the barriers are broken down.  In God things are turned inside out and upside down.  In God, no human beings are labeled as “dogs,” only beloved children.  All are considered God's children. Scripture really does paint a very different picture of Jesus than the one we so often conjure up in our minds.  Today, we see Jesus in his full humanity, vulnerable, and open to being changed.  And, it is in his full humanity that we discover what divinity is all about.  It is in Jesus' full humanity that we discover the God whose loves and welcomes all!

Podcast fam! Happy Friday! This coming Monday, we have a fire episode with Jan & David Patterson of Patticakes coming your way. Check out this quick Side Hustle to learn about how having faith during the COVID-19 Pandemic is key as well as how amazing the customer base is for their support through such a hard time. We want to give a huge shoutout to Liquid Creative for helping us all summer long to get this podcast to you! Be sure to check them out and give them some love: https://liquidcreativestudio.com/ Learn more about all of our sponsors at https://www.whoagnv.com/sponsors! - - - - - Subscribe to my channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCW1tLSw2Z5MB6Yebj_2pDJA?sub_confirmation=1 You can purchase custom WHOA GNV gear by visiting us here! - https://www.whoagnv.com/whoa-gnv-shop CHECK OUT OUR LAST EPISODE: E165: Build A Strong Brand | Jason Carr of Express Employment Professionals | WHOA GNV Podcast https://youtu.be/HZRZ4OiMCSY CONNECT WITH OUR GUEST: Jan & David Patterson of Patticakes https://patticakesgnv.com/ https://www.facebook.com/patticakesgnv https://www.instagram.com/patticakesgnv/ https://twitter.com/patticakesgnv CONNECT WITH OUR PODCAST & NOMINATE A GUEST: https://www.whoagnv.com/ Instagram: http://instagram.com/whoagnv Facebook: http://facebook.com/whoagnvpodcast Twitter: http://twitter.com/whoagnv Know someone that would be PERFECT for our show? Nominate them here! https://www.whoagnv.com/nominate-a-guest/ LET'S BE FRIENDS: Instagram: http://instagram.com/collinaustin Facebook: http://facebook.com/thecollinaustin Snapchat: https://www.snapchat.com/add/ns4lcollin Website: http://collinaustin.com Twitter: http://twitter.com/realcollin Medium: http://medium.com/@collinaustin --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/whoa-gnv-podcast/support

Whoa boy! Christian, Josh, and Edgelord Brian enter the Fear State in Batman, get some interesting theories going about Sanji and Zoro's lineage in One Piece, and much more! As always you can find Christian on Twitter/Instagram @thechrisespinal Josh @jdcole_37 and Brian @bdotesp! follow the show on Twitter/Instagram @newjumpcity. Check out Brian's Twitch Stream here! Our theme song is by @drum_fu. Watch the video version of this episode on our Youtube channel here! Feel free to email us at newjumpcitypod@gmail.com with any suggestions, recommendations, feedback, or fan theories you'd want us to read on the show!

Frank is back! This week we're calling it the MEGA SHOW because we're playing catchup and going through two week's worth of Schmoedown matches! That totals TEN matches...WHOA. That's heavy (weight has nothing to do with it). Follow Brad Gilmore on Twitter: https://twitter.com/BradGilmore Follow Frank Janisch on Twitter: https://twitter.com/FrankieJ29 Follow the Schmoedown Rundown: Twitter: https://twitter.com/SDRundown Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sdrundown Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SDRundown About The Schmoedown Rundown: The Rundown is a recap and analysis show for the Movie Trivia Schmoedown hosted by Brad Gilmore and Frank Janisch. Every week Brad and Frank breakdown the happenings inside the MTS and give their insight and opinion on the matches and players across the league. ✔ Subscribe to The Movie Trivia Schmoedown on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/theschmoedown The Schmoedown on Social Media: ► Follow on Twitter: https://twitter.com/theschmoedown ► Like on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theschmoedown ► Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theschmoedown More on TheSchmoedownLive.com: https://www.theschmoedownlive.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the full show for September 2, 2021. Off the Top, Louis wonders if the Biden Administration is more interested in optics than results. We Ask the Mamas if they like Greg Gutfeld. We Dig Deep to see what impacts the new Texas heartbeat abortion bill will have. Plus, Tom McDonald is a conservative rapper who's wowing millions, and that's a Bright Spot. And, we end with a Moment of Whoa about a neighborly Hokey Pokey.

[transcript below] Reissue episode of the week! Jack.  In the Box. This was an early comedy romance episode I wrote specifically with A-R-T - American Radio Theater - in mind.  This was recorded with A-R-T in Marge's dining room.  I would like to point out that the title is not "jack-in-the-box" but Jack[period] in the box [period].  It's a subtle distinction, but it does make it mean something a bit different. I also want to point out right away that the whole Chinese suspicion subplot was meant to be silly and a clue to how disconnected from reality Mrs. McGruder is, not serious.  Keep in mind this was written ten years ago and set in the 1940s.  I have nothing but disgust for any frickinh racists who are currently, in real life, harassing people of Asian descent, particularly the elderly.  The transcript is on the page here, and you will note that the first couple of "radio shows" heard in the background in this episode are in the main script, but after that, they got too complicated to write in between lines and I moved them to the end so they could be recorded "of a piece".  The shows are clear parodies of The Shadow, I love a Mystery, and Flash Gordon.  This also marks the first appearance of Tunis the Unstoppable, whom I later used in Bingo the Birthday Clown. I realized recently that I haven't yet included the full text of the opening sequence of 19 Nocturne Boulevard in any of my transcripts.  My apologies, and it will follow.  It originally started out much longer, but I whittled it down until it was just the right length. Platinum Death Ray Forever! ******************************************************** 19 Nocturne Boulevard Opening VOICE:    19 Nocturne Boulevard CABBIE:    Nocturne Boulevard?  Not far.  When you hit Howard, hang a right.  Howard meets Philip at a weird kind of angle, then you cross James and Poe.  You can't miss Nocturne, it's just past the Automat. VOICE:    19 Nocturne Boulevard, your address for suspenseful stories of the speculative, strange, and supernatural.  [VOICE, or OLIVIA]    Tonight's story is [title] [also might include warning about violence or language here] OLIVIA:    Yes.  This is 19 Nocturne Boulevard, won't you step inside?  What do you mean, what kind of a place is it?  Why it's a [episode specific location] ***************************************************** JACK. IN THE BOX.   Cast: Trudy Garfunkel (F/30ish), divorcee, single mom Timmy Garfunkel (M/10), her son MacGruder (F/50ish), landlady Colonel Chutney (M/70), retired WWI colonel Susan (F/20ish), Trudy's co-worker Jack (M), a robot Mockam (any), an alien Pockam (any), another alien   ON THE RADIO: Announcer Horse voice Ralph The Spook Thug 1 Thug 2 Jake Mack Frenchy Snap Harper Amanda Cool Tunis the unstoppable OLIVIA      Did you have any trouble finding it?  What do you mean, what kind of a place is it?  Why, it's a run-down bungalow apartment court, can't you tell?  SCENE 1. MUSIC     CREEPY SCI FI AMBIANCE      VERY ALIEN POCKAM     The interview will be conducted in the unit's assimilated language. MOCKAM     Report, unit X-14. JACK     [very robotic in all scenes with aliens]  Report.  Earth viability as target for invasion-- MUSIC     BREAK   OLIVIA     Oops.  My mistake.  Here's that bungalow court...   SCENE 2. MUSIC     A BIT OF MELODRAMA - VERY 40s AMBIANCE     OUTSIDE.  TRAFFIC NEARBY SOUND     FOOTSTEPS ON GRAVEL.  DOOR OPENS SLIGHTLY OFF. MACGRUDER     [slightly off] Trudy?  Trudy! SOUND     FOOTSTEPS STOP TRUDY     [sigh]  Mrs. MacGruder.  SOUND     FOOTSTEPS SWIVEL IN GRAVEL TRUDY     I'll have the rent on-- MACGRUDER     [slightly off] Oh, no this is ...  When? TRUDY     Friday.  Um, what, then? MACGRUDER     [coming on]  You got a package! TRUDY     What?  I didn't-- MACGRUDER     I was thinking just that.  What's Trudy Garfunkel doing ordering stuff--? TRUDY     I didn't! MACGRUDER     On her little government salary, and I knew she-- I mean, you-- wouldn't, so then I wondered if maybe it wasn't that deadbeat man of yours-- TRUDY     He's not mine- he hasn't been for a long time-- MACGRUDER     --Might have sent something for the boy, so I figured no harm in letting the movers into your place - I hope you don't mind - but I wanted to let you know before you walk in and trip over it or anything.  TRUDY     Thank you for the warning.  SOUND     FOOTSTEPS - BOTH OF THEM TRUDY     You don't have to-- MACGRUDER     I better go come along and make sure, since if I let it into your place and it turned out to be something dangerous, well I'd never forgive myself.  On the other hand, I was just thinking it might just be a vacuum cleaner, so I was just thinking if it was a vacuum cleaner, then I would knock a whole dollar off your rent - each week - if you just let me use it.  [gasps] TRUDY     The box is that big?  I mean big enough for a vacuum? SOUND     FOOTSTEPS STOP MACGRUDER     Lands sakes!  You just have to get a gander at it!  [beat] Well?  Open it. SOUND     A COUPLE OF ALMOST HESITANT STEPS ON STONE, THEN KEY IN LOCK TRUDY     Did the movers say anything when they--? MACGRUDER     Say anything?  Well, I expect they did, but they didn't really seem to speak much English.  Didn't worry me much though - they were big Italian looking fellers, not Chinese at all. SOUND     KNOB TURNS TRUDY     Chinese?  Why Chinese? MACGRUDER     Oh, I heard it on the radio just the other day, about the Chinese.  Not sure what they said, but I'll tell you, you better check your laundry reaaal good. TRUDY     [dubious]  All right. SOUND     DOOR OPENS.  A COUPLE FOOTSTEPS, THEN PULLED UP SHORT TRUDY     [gasps] MACGRUDER     Didn't I tell you? TRUDY     You said a box - I didn't expect a crate!  How'd they get it through the door? MACGRUDER     Crate.  Box.  I said it was big enough for a vacuum.  TRUDY     [joking] Or some Chinese. MACGRUDER     You think so, too?  Well, you better open it now - maybe this is how they plan to invade or do whatever it was the radio was saying about them.  I'll stay with you while you do it, so that I can run back and call the army if they come popping out of there. TRUDY     I really doubt it's a box of Chinese people. MACGRUDER     You better check! SOUND     SCRABBLING AT WOOD.  TAPPING - SOUNDS PRETTY SOLID. TRUDY     I don't know how to open it. MACGRUDER     Here, I'll go and get a hammer.  We'd better get this done quickly! TRUDY     Yes, I'd rather have this sorted out before Timmy gets home. MACGRUDER     [going off] Oh, well, that too - I was thinking that "Love of a Generation" will be coming on the radio real soon. TRUDY     The radio.  Tsch.  [almost chuckling]  Chinese.   SCENE 3. MUSIC     SPACE AMBIANCE      SPACE SHIP MOCKAM     Status of Earth readiness to hold off an invasion fleet? JACK     The earth is fully prepared to repel all invaders. POCKAM     What?  We have seen no evidence--! MOCKAM     Explain.   SCENE 4. MUSIC     40s MELODRAMA SOUND     SQUEAK OF NAILS AS CRATE LID IS PRIED OFF MACGRUDER     What is it? TRUDY     Let me get the lid off before you go jumping in - you don't want the nails to get you.  MACGRUDER     [sniffs]  Well, it doesn't smell Chinese. TRUDY     [takes breath as if to say something, then sighs]  No. SOUND     HEAVY LID FALLS TO FLOOR MACGRUDER     Well, someone sent you a box of excelsior - sure it wasn't your ex husband?  He seems the type to be making a big deal out of nothing. SOUND     ROOTING AROUND IN PAPER SHREDS TRUDY     Every belonging he ever had wouldn't fill this darn thing.  No, the only time he remembers to send us anything is the occasional model airplane for Timmy's birthday - and they're always late. MACGRUDER     You're better off without him.  Just like Ermintrude on Romances of the Great White Way.  She dumped a crumb who would-- TRUDY     I found something! SOUND     METAL CLANG AS SOMETHING IS PULLED OUT OF PAPER SHREDS MACGRUDER     Well...  It could still be a vacuum cleaner. TRUDY     Here - set this down somewhere. MACGRUDER     Hmph.  Well, I can't be standing around here all day, and if there's nothing more in there but scrap metal-- TRUDY     Aha!  Papers! MACGRUDER     Instructions? SOUND      RIFFLE OF MANY PAGES TRUDY     Um... Maybe.  I don't think it's in English. MACGRUDER     Lessee.  I knew it!  Chinese! SOUND      TAPS PAPER   SCENE 5. MUSIC     SPACE AMBIANCE      SPACE SHIP MOCKAM     Which country or continent has the largest potential resistance force? POCKAM     Who do we capture first, in other words? JACK     [strange stuttering noise] Uh, uh, The main army is not that of any surface nation, but a hidden underground force-- POCKAM     Explain!  Underground? JACK     The minions of Tunis the Unstoppable are counted in the millions.   SCENE 6. MUSIC     40s MELODRAMA SOUND     [off] DOOR SLAMS OPEN, FEET RUNNING IN TIMMY     Hey mom!  I'm starvin--  TRUDY     [absently]  Close the door. SOUND     PAGES TURN TIMMY     Whoa!  What in Hi-ho Silver is that? TRUDY     Huh?  [coming out of it]  Oh!  Young man, I should make you march right back outside and come back in like a civilized human being, and not like a--  a-- TIMMY     Bucking bronco? TRUDY     No, that was last week.  Um, a-- TIMMY     Crazy apeman? TRUDY     Fine.  Like a crazy apeman.  But I happen to be busy. TIMMY     If-- TRUDY     Ask like a-- TOGETHER     --civilized human being. TRUDY     [swallows a chuckle] TIMMY     What is it, then, mom?  It looks -- well--? TRUDY     Honestly, I'm not sure.  Grab yourself an apple in the kitchen, and come and help me find a part that looks like this--   SCENE 7. MUSIC     SPACE AMBIANCE      SPACE SHIP POCKAM     [worried] Of what nation is this Tunis the unstoppable?  Has he no enemies on Earth? JACK     [sounding slightly human] He is the secret master of the world.  His armies are legion.   SCENE 8. MUSIC     40s MELODRAMA SOUND     SQUEAKY.  METAL PIECES BEING PUT TOGETHER.  FINALLY SNAPS IN TRUDY     There!  [pause, sigh, gasp] Goodness!  Look at the time!  It's nearly dinner! TIMMY     Ah, bananas!  I missed the start of Ralph Richardson, Thug Breaker! SOUND     SCRAMBLE ACROSS THE FLOOR.  RADIO TUNING IN TRUDY     Don't wanna keep me company in here while I get set to feed you? SOUND     RADIO CRACKLE, WARMING UP TIMMY     Oh, c'mon mom!  Ralph just found the smuggler's lakeside warehouse, and then they caught him and tied him to a piling and the tide's coming in! SOUND     RADIO MUSIC ANNOUNCER     [very tinny] ...that's why Alfalfa-bet is your best bet for breakfast.  Ask any horse what he likes and he'll say-- HORSE VOICE     Alfalfa-Bet! ANNOUNCER     And now, hear the creaking of the piling? SOUND     PILINGS CREAK ANNOUNCER     Hear the lapping of the incoming tide? SOUND     TIDE LAPS ANNOUNCER     But can we still hear Ralph? RALPH     [A couple of manly grunts] TIMMY     C'mon Ralph!  You can get loose!   SCENE 9. MUSIC     SPACE AMBIANCE      SPACE SHIP MOCKAM     [suspicious]  We have seen no evidence of this Tunis the unstoppable. JACK     He is said to be an ancient sorcerer, who is capable of hiding his every movement. POCKAM     That's ludicrous!  Explain this title of Sorcerer! JACK     One who manipulates the ether and the world around him through mental abilities, rather than the use of devices or scientific artifices. MOCKAM AND POCKAM     [gasp]   SCENE 10. MUSIC     40s MELODRAMA SOUND     RADIO BACKGROUND The SPOOK     Of course you could not see me, for I have the cloak of ancient darkness to protect myself! THUG 1     Oh no! THUG 2     You said it.  He's got us.  There ain't no way out. SOUND     MUSIC SWELLS SOUND     CLICK.  RADIO OFF TIMMY     Well, that's a fine how d'you do! TRUDY     It's time for bed, and we've nearly finished putting this... thing... together. TIMMY     I still say it's a robot!  Look, arms, legs - everything. TRUDY     A robot would look as silly as anyone else without a head.  Up, up! TIMMY     [moving slowly off] You'll look through the shavings again, won't you?  See if there's anything else in the box? TRUDY     Aye, Aye, captain.  Now scoot!   SCENE 11. MUSIC     SPACE AMBIANCE      SPACE SHIP MOCKAM     Is this planet Earth very populated with these... sorcerers? JACK     From my research, they are few but very powerful. POCKAM     Bah!  Even such as these cannot withstand our platinum death ray!   SCENE 12. MUSIC     40s MELODRAMA SOUND     [off] DOOR SLAMS OPEN, FEET RUNNING DOWN STAIRS TIMMY     [off]  Mom?  SOUND     FEET STOP FOR A SECOND, THEN COME ON RAPIDLY TIMMY     [panicky, coming on quickly] Mom!  Where'd it go? SOUND     FEET SLIDE ONTO KITCHEN TILES, THEN SKID TO A STOP TIMMY     I- I'm --  Whoops! TRUDY     [very amused] Timmy, you should join us for breakfast.  I would like you to meet...  [considers] Jack.  Jack [searching for a name] Box- Bocscome - Boscome.  Jack Boscome. TIMMY     Sorry to break in like this, sir.  Mom.  Um, pleased... to meet you? TRUDY     [almost laughing]  Well, shake his hand! TIMMY     [whispered] He's not moving - is he OK? TRUDY     [finally breaks down and laughs]  Jack here?  Why he's just peachy.  SOUND     SLAP ON THE BACK.  SFX     WEIRD MECHANICAL NOISES BEGIN.  VERY LOW TIMMY     What'd you do? TRUDY     I just - I must have pushed his switch or something. TIMMY     Oh!  He's--  Oh!  He sure looks ... real with a head and all. SFX     WHIRRING, ETC., GETS LOUDER, THEN OUT JACK     [very mechanical sounding]  I am unit X-14.  I am at your service. TRUDY     Well, he looks real, but he don't sound it. SOUND     [off] KNOCKING AT FRONT DOOR TRUDY     [sigh] That will be Mrs. MacGruder, about the vacuum cleaner.  Or the Chinese. TIMMY      What vacuum cleaner? Huh? JACK     Explain.  What is Chinese.  SOUND     RAPID FOOTSTEPS TIMMY     [fading out under] Oh, Chinese are folks who come from across the ocean and don't talk like us, and they cook good food... TRUDY     [calling back] Timmy, make sure and keep Jack in the kitchen.  I don't know WHAT Mrs. MacGruder would make of him. SOUND     DOOR.  UNLOCKING CHAIN AND BOLT.  DOOR OPENS MACGRUDER     So?  Did you -uh - manage to ... uh? TRUDY     It's just... Well, apparently it's Ken's idea of a joke. MACGRUDER     I thought you said he wouldn't-- TRUDY     It was all filled with random pieces of metal, and when I got to the bottom, there was a note from him.  Tsch.  He said it was supposed to be some sort of .... um, furnace... but it didn't even have all the pieces. MACGRUDER     [suspicious]  Why would he send such a darn fool thing?  Your furnace here is fine, isn't it?  I can always get Bob in to-- TRUDY     No, no!  Um, it was just that... the last time he bothered to stop by, we--we were living in a place with a dicey furnace. MACGRUDER     [after a long moment]  Man like that, you're better rid of him. TRUDY     I'll see about selling the bits for scrap or something.  MACGRUDER     Take your time - you can always burn the crate and the shavings.  [joking, going off]  Save on your furnace worries... TRUDY     [agreeing noise] SOUND     DOOR SHUTS QUICKLY BUT NOT QUITE SLAMMED TRUDY     Whew.  SOUND     HEAVY FOOTSTEPS APPROACH JACK     Explain.  What is a "Ken".   SCENE 13. MUSIC     SPACE AMBIANCE      SPACE SHIP MOCKAM     [sotto] We may need to reconsider the invasion plans. POCKAM     [sotto] I do not agree- MOCKAM     If these sorcerers can withstand our invasion-- POCKAM     I think the information unit is faulty. MOCKAM      That is impossible - the unit must tell the truth.  That is its function. POCKAM     It may not know the truth.  I say we wait until the other units have been retrieved.   SCENE 14. MUSIC     40s MELODRAMA SOUND      CLICK - MUSIC CUTS OUT SFX     TUNING IN RADIO JACK     Explain.  What is--? TIMMY     Shh.  Now this is a really good show.  Jake, Mack, and Frenchy are the B-9 detective agency.  And they're about to go head to head with the crime syndicate. SFX     MUSIC IN BACKGROUND - PARODY OF I LOVE A MYSTERY OPENER - SEE SCRIPT AT END SOUND      KNOCK ON DOOR TIMMY     Mom!  The door! JACK     Mom! SOUND     FOOTSTEPS ON LINO, THEN WOOD.  TRUDY BRUSHES HER HANDS TOGETHER TRUDY     You two.  You should be doing your homework.  I let you put it off all weekend-- TIMMY     But the show!  Besides, Jack here'll help me with it, won't you Jack old boy? JACK     Explain.  What is homework. SOUND     KNOCK ON DOOR AGAIN TRUDY     Yeah.  A big help. SOUND     KNOB, DOOR OPENS A BIT TRUDY     Yes?  Oh!  Susan! SUSAN     Aha!  [chiding] You remember my name!  TRUDY     [realizing] Oh, no...  Last night...! SUSAN     Are you going to just keep me out here on the doorstep while I read you the riot act for standing me up?  You left me high and dry on a Saturday night, with two sailors and only one pair of feet! TRUDY     I-- [thinks] Let me take you to the corner coffee shop - to make it up. SUSAN     What?  Why? TRUDY     Um, Timmy isn't feeling well, so I really don't want to wake him. TIMMY     [off, sickly sounding]  Mommy? SUSAN     [mollified]  So that's it.  [sigh] You better stay.  TIMMY     [off, coughing]  SUSAN     Kids.  I love em, but I'm not sure I could keep em.  You gonna be in to work tomorrow? TRUDY     He's much better than he was.  Just needs rest. SUSAN     OK.  But next time - you could at least call!  See ya manyana! TRUDY     Bye!  [pause, whew] SOUND     DOOR SHUTS, QUICK FOOTSTEPS SFX     RADIO COMES ON - SCENE PLAYS IN THE B/G TRUDY     Thank you honey!  [hug noise] TIMMY     [boy hug reaction]  Moooom!  The shooow. JACK     Explain.  What is sick. TIMMY     Ssh! TRUDY     C'mon Jack, and I'll explain. SOUND     FOOTSTEPS SFX     RADIO RECEDES AGAIN SOUND     FEET ON LINO TRUDY     Have a seat? JACK     As you instruct. SOUND     SQUEAK OF CHAIR TRUDY     [chuckles] You look so darned human, I keep forgetting you're a machine. JACK     I am X-14, designated Jack Boscome. TRUDY     Glad you like the name. JACK     Explain.  What is Like. TRUDY     First sick.  Hmm.  Well, that's a toughee.  Humans, like machines, have lots of parts that all work together - and when one of the parts doesn't work right - like instead of breathing, you start coughing - that's what it means to be sick. JACK     Repair seems the obvious answer.  Explain.  TRUDY     Well, see you might be repairable - like if you broke a spring or something, you could just go in, take out the spring and put in a new one, but it doesn't work that way for living things - If one of our parts starts to break, it has to fix itself. JACK     Processing.  Corollary - Timmy is sick.  Which part is broken? TRUDY     [ashamed] Well, he's not really sick.  That was a lie.  My friend Susan keeps trying to fix me up with guys, and I -- well, I really just forgot, we were so caught up with having you working and all. JACK     Explain.  What is lie. TRUDY     [rueful] Oh, boy...   SCENE 15. MUSIC     SPACE AMBIANCE      SPACE SHIP MOCKAM     Three more units! POCKAM     Three?  Nonfunctional? MOCKAM     Worse - three more we could not retrieve effectively, so destruct function was activated. POCKAM     Only five still functional!  When is retrieval? MOCKAM      It is being done.    SCENE 16. MUSIC     40s MELODRAMA SOUND      POUNDING ON DOOR, FOOTSTEPS, DOOR OPENED QUICKLY TRUDY     [breathless] Yes?  Mrs. Mac-- MACGRUDER     [furious] Don't you Mrs. MacGruder me with that innocent look on your face, young lady! TRUDY     But--! I--! MACGRUDER     I know you have a man in here.  I've seen him through the window.  What kind of a place do you think I'm running here? And you with a child in the house! TRUDY     Oh, but he's-- JACK     [slightly off, sounding less robotic]  Trudy?  Is there a problem? TRUDY     [thinking fast] Mrs. MacGruder, this is Jack Boscome.  He's a-- a [moving closer, whispering]  He's a vet.  Battle fatigued.  Our office sent a memo around, asking for people willing to open their homes to these boys.  How could I say no? MACGRUDER     [much softened] But it's-- TRUDY     He stays in the living room.  On the couch.  He's really good with Timmy. TIMMY     [off]  Jack?  Hey, ask me that question again.  On my homework. TRUDY     See? JACK     [off] What is the capitol of Idaho? MACGRUDER     [resigned] You should have told me. TRUDY     I wanted to wait and see if it was going to work out first.  I didn't want anyone to make a fuss right away - he's still pretty nervous, you know? MACGRUDER     That's why he never leaves the house, eh? TRUDY     Yup.  MACGRUDER     All right.  All right.  No monkey shines, now! TRUDY     Cross my heart. SOUND     DOOR SHUTS TRUDY     Whew. JACK     [coming on, sounding just like a robot] Explain?  What is battle fatigue?  [then softening]  I should probably know.   SCENE 17. MUSIC     SPACE AMBIANCE      SPACE SHIP MOCKAM     They are all disabled.  All but the X-14 unit. POCKAM     All?  But we landed thirty-- MOCKAM     Apparently we both overestimated and underestimated the humans.  Twelve were rendered nonfunctional in assembly, six were completed and placed in government hands and had to be destructed, and eight were never even opened.  POCKAM     Records show these beings are much more curious and greedy than that.  Wait.  What of the other three? MOCKAM      [almost reluctant] They tried to resist retrieval and were destroyed.   SCENE 18. MUSIC     40s MELODRAMA SFX     SCENE 2 PLAYS ON RADIO IN B/G [following line about Death-O-tron] TIMMY     Man, I wish we had a Death-o-tron landship.  I wouldn't have to walk to school any more. JACK     But you are not afraid?  What if Tunis comes here.  His landship will crush this house. TIMMY     [exasperated sigh] Jack.  Tunis is just a story.  Did you really think all this stuff on the radio was true? JACK     Why would it not be true?  Explain. TIMMY      It's ... fun.  Like make believe.  Everyone makes stuff up - you mean you don't have stories where you come from? JACK     I don't know where I come from.  My memories begin when you assembled me.  TIMMY     Oh, hold on [listen to the final part of the scene, then as the announcer comes on].  That's kind of sad.  You're sort of just a kid, too.  [pause] But you learn real fast.   SCENE 19. MUSIC     SPACE AMBIANCE      SPACE SHIP MOCKAM     We must assume this data is correct. POCKAM     I would prefer a second opinion. MOCKAM     Of course, but we cannot take chances.  There is another planet in the Gargon Nebula whose dominant life form hasn't yet left the ground.  They should be easy to conquer and enslave. POCKAM     The Gargon Nebula is light years from here!  We should-- MOCKAM      We are under orders.  No unnecessary chances.   SCENE 20. MUSIC     40s MELODRAMA AMBIANCE     PARTY - SMALL CROWD.  RADIO MUSIC PLAYS IN THE B/G TRUDY     [whispered]  Just stick to the plan.  They all want to meet you.  You remember? JACK     I am unable to forget.  The plan is if the answer to a question is awkward, I ask them what they like on the radio and let them talk. TRUDY     Right.  Everybody here practically lives for one show or another.  You thought Timmy was stuck on his shows- wait until Mrs. MacGruder starts regaling you with the plot from "my fifth husband."  Just don't go thinking anything they say is real. JACK     Timmy explained-- SOUND     DOOR OPENS MACGRUDER     [coming on]  Trudy!  You look lovely.  And this must be-- JACK     Jack Boscome.  MACGRUDER     I hear you were in the army? JACK     I-- [uncomfortable beat, error noise] uh, uh, would rather talk about you.  Do you listen to the radio? MACGRUDER     [fading out] Oh, just occasionally... BRIEF MUSIC - TIME PASSES - SAME SCENE SUSAN     Oh-ho! TRUDY     What? SUSAN     Nothing.  Just Oh-ho.  Can't a girl Oh-ho a friend without someone thinking maybe she just put all the pieces together and realized why said friend is no longer interested in coming out on Saturday nights? TRUDY     Jack?  Oh, he's just-- SUSAN     Living in your house.  Where do I sign up? TRUDY     Oh, that reminds me - I told Mrs. MacGruder he was a vet, and the office set it up.  Don't let on, OK? SUSAN     Oh-ho! BRIEF MUSIC - TIME PASSES - SAME SCENE CHUTNEY     [coming on] You, boy! JACK     Me?  I am Jack-- CHUTNEY     We met earlier, remember? JACK     [almost mechanical sounding]  You are Colonel Chutney.  12th mobile.  Great War.  Medal of-- CHUTNEY     It isn't a test, my boy.  Don't try so hard.  [pause] I wanted you to know that there is someone here who understands your condition and what you've been through.  JACK     Explain? CHUTNEY     I've seen a number of cases - of course, we called it shell shock - but it's all the same thing.  If you ever need to talk to anyone, and don't want to disturb the ladies.  I'm just across the court. JACK     [more and more lost and confused] Talk? CHUTNEY     About your experiences in the war.  Battle fatigue is nothing to sneeze at-- JACK     Oh!  Yes.  Yes, sir. CHUTNEY     [chuckles, then insinuating]  What sort of action did you see? JACK     Sir?  Do you listen to the radio, sir? CHUTNEY     Oh, you can't trust the radio for intelligence.  Everything on it is either so covert no one would recognize it or outright fiction.  Were you with infantry? JACK     [almost panicking, getting more robotic] Sir?  I cannot answer that. CHUTNEY     You can't shock me, son.  JACK     [error noise, very bad] uh, uh, uh, I was slugged, and tortured.  Tied up while the water came in.  Flooded with gas.  [drawing from a radio episode from earlier] CHUTNEY     [shocked] P-O-W?  I am so sorry, my boy.  No wonder.  I won't ask you any more.  Just know that I'm always ready to listen.   SCENE 21. MUSIC     SPACE AMBIANCE      SPACE SHIP MOCKAM     What shall we do with this unit? POCKAM     X-14?  The only logical choice is to vaporize it.  Its memory cells are congested with data from this planet.  It is easier to assemble a new unit than to refresh this one.   SCENE 22. MUSIC     40s MELODRAMA AMBIANCE     OUTSIDE, NIGHT SFX     SOMEWHERE A RADIO PLAYS ROMANTIC MUSIC SOUND     FOOTSTEPS ON GRAVEL TRUDY     You were marvelous.  I was so worried when Colonel Chutney buttonholed you like that. JACK     [almost teasing]  Explain.  What is buttonholed? TRUDY     [chuckles fondly]  Only three weeks, and you sound like any other guy.  And you look so real.  I-- It's nice having a man around the house, you know.  Timmy loves you, and the way you fixed the furnace! JACK     Machines make sense.  Humans are confusing.  TRUDY     Don't I know it!  I- I confuse myself sometimes. JACK     Explain? TRUDY     I can't.  Some things are just inexplicable.  Like ... love. JACK     Explain? TRUDY     I- well... Love is a lot like "like".  Just stronger. JACK     A feeling of attachment and a desire to be near the object of the feeling? TRUDY     More or less.  JACK     As an example, you love Timmy? TRUDY     Yes! JACK     And Timmy loves-- Jake, Mack and Frenchy. TRUDY     [chuckling]  Yes. JACK     Do you think love can be learned? TRUDY     I-- Well, I really don't know. JACK     If this is a topic you do not wish to discuss, we can talk about radio shows. TRUDY     [laughing] No.  It's just a topic that no one finds easy to discuss. JACK      I would like to learn more. MOCKAM     [on filter]  Unit X-14!  Unit X-14!  Prepare for imminent retrieval. JACK     Did you hear that? TRUDY     What? JACK     [sigh, starting to sound more and more robotic] I am a robot. TRUDY     I know, but somehow it doesn't matter. JACK     I may come to understand feelings such as love, but I cannot feel them. TRUDY     You once said you could never lie, and look how that turned out. JACK     I have completed my time with you.  [error noise]  uh, uh, uh, uh, I have no feelings for this world or its inhabitants.  Uh, uh, I will fulfill my mission. TRUDY     Jack, what's wrong? SOUND     FOOTSTEPS ON GRAVEL, AWAY TRUDY     Jack!   SCENE 23. MUSIC     SPACE AMBIANCE      SPACE SHIP JACK     [very robotic]  I am capable of further use. POCKAM     What?  Did you speak out of turn, X-14? JACK     Destroying me-- this unit would be a waste of resources.  Logic dictates utilizing all capabilities. POCKAM     What did they teach this thing down there?  no wonder three units had the self-motivation to destruct themselves. MOCKAM     The unit cites logic.  Let it continue. JACK     This unit has assimilated enough to remain out of the hands of government entities, and to blend into society on the planet below.  MOCKAM     True. JACK     Continued data gathering is always of use. MOCKAM     One unit is not enough to gather all the data we would need for a full scale attack - not in our projected time frame. JACK     If you go to the Gargon Nebula, this unit can continue to gather information for your return. MOCKAM     It might work, at that.  POCKAM     But it will be forty of this planet's years before we would return from the Gargon Nebula!   SCENE 24. MUSIC     40s MELODRAMA TRUDY     [sigh] No, Colonel.  He had a -- a bad relapse and had to -- go back to the hospital. CHUTNEY     [on phone] Too bad.  Good boy, that.  When he comes back... well, a divorcee like yourself could do a lot worse. TRUDY     [trying not to cry]  I-- I know.  I have to go, Colonel, there's someone at the door. SOUND     AS IF ON CUE, KNOCK ON DOOR SOUND     PHONE HANGS UP SOUND      RUNNING FEET, DOOR FLUNG OPEN TIMMY       [off, yelling, happy and excited] Hey mom!  It's a big wooden box! TRUDY     [excited gasp] Huh? END **************************************************** RADIO SCENE 1 ANNOUNCER     --in the underground caves beneath the tiny mining town. MUSIC STING JAKE     Look, Mack!  It's Frenchy! FRENCHY     Ooooh. MAC     Well, dip me in honey and roll me in a haystack!  He's been slugged! FRENCHY     [bad french accent] Jake?  They took the scrimshaw!  I couldn't stop them! JAKE     I know, Frenchy.  Mack, Check that door - see if it's clear.  We'll have to leave Frenchy someplace safe while we go after the Syndicate boys.  If they find him, he'll be tortured, or worse. SOUND     SHAKING LOCKED DOOR MACK     Well boil me fer a rutabaga sandwich, the door won't open! JAKE     What's that noise? MACK      Sounds like someone went and left a faucet running. FRENCHY     Jake!  The floor!  It is water! JAKE     So that's the plan, is it - they'll drown us here like rats! MUSIC STING **************************************************** RADIO SCENE 2 SNAP HARPER     As long as we have breath, he won't rule the world.  Are you with me Amanda? AMANDA COOL     Anything you say, Snap! SNAP HARPER     If we can just get to the central coolant chamber of his death-o-tron landship, Amanda, I think we might be able to-- TUNIS     [on filter] To -- what?  Go on Snap Harper, I am -- powerfully interested. AMANDA COOL     Tunis the Unstoppable!  Snap!  He's found us, but how? SNAP HARPER     He must have listening devices planted in these service crawlspaces.  Blast Tunis's cleverness! TUNIS     I would return the compliment, Snap Harper, but it would be pointless. AMANDA COOL     Oh, Snap! TUNIS     For you are about to die!  Flood the room with gas! MUSIC STING ANNOUNCER     After just a short word from our sponsor, Tunis the Unstopppable will outline his cunning plan for doing in Snap Harper.  But first-- --END--  

We live in a fast-paced world, with more everyday demands. And we know that we need good health to keep up. Nutrition, exercise, and mindfulness are often hailed as important pillars. However, there is something even more fundamental for better health—sleep. Sleep ensures we can actually perform. With better sleep, we'll be living better lives. But, how many of us actually prioritise sleep?     Dr Kirk Parsley joins us in this episode to explain how sleep affects our lives. Poor sleep can significantly change our bodies and performance. He also shares that we can achieve good sleep through lifestyle changes. A better life is not about taking more supplements or using gadgets and tools; it's about creating new and better habits.  If you want to know more about the science of sleep and how sleep affects our lives, then this episode is for you.    Here are three reasons why you should listen to the full episode: Learn how sleep affects our lives and why it is so fundamental to our health.  Understand that it's more important to change our behaviours and lifestyle rather than depending on supplements.  Discover the ways we can create the right conditions for better sleep.     Resources Get Dr Kirk's Sleep Remedy here!  Gain exclusive access and bonuses to Pushing the Limits Podcast by becoming a patron!  A new program, BoostCamp, is coming this September at Peak Wellness!  Listen to my other Pushing the Limits episodes:  Episode with Mark Divine Connect with Dr Kirk: Website I LinkedIn I Instagram I Facebook I Email  You can also get the free downloadable resource on decreasing stress before sleep here.   The Unbeatable Mind Podcast with Mark Divine Dr. Kirk Parsley - How to Supercharge Your Sleep Dr. Kirk Parsley on Sleep And Longevity Melatonin Supplementation with Dr John Lieurance in the Ben Greenfield Fitness podcast.     Melatonin: The Miracle Molecule by Dr John Lieurance Dr Harch's Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy America's Frontline Doctors How to save the world, in three easy steps. from Bret Weinstein's DarkHorse Podcast   Get Customised Guidance for Your Genetic Make-Up For our epigenetics health programme, all about optimising your fitness, lifestyle, nutrition and mind performance to your particular genes, go to  https://www.lisatamati.com/page/epigenetics-and-health-coaching/.   Customised Online Coaching for Runners CUSTOMISED RUN COACHING PLANS — How to Run Faster, Be Stronger, Run Longer  Without Burnout & Injuries Have you struggled to fit in training in your busy life? Maybe you don't know where to start, or perhaps you have done a few races but keep having motivation or injury troubles? Do you want to beat last year's time or finish at the front of the pack? Want to run your first 5-km or run a 100-miler? ​​Do you want a holistic programme that is personalised & customised to your ability, goals, and lifestyle?  Go to www.runninghotcoaching.com for our online run training coaching.   Health Optimisation and Life Coaching If you are struggling with a health issue and need people who look outside the square and are connected to some of the greatest science and health minds in the world, then reach out to us at support@lisatamati.com, we can jump on a call to see if we are a good fit for you. If you have a big challenge ahead, are dealing with adversity, or want to take your performance to the next level and want to learn how to increase your mental toughness, emotional resilience, foundational health, and more, then contact us at support@lisatamati.com.   Order My Books My latest book Relentless chronicles the inspiring journey about how my mother and I defied the odds after an aneurysm left my mum Isobel with massive brain damage at age 74. The medical professionals told me there was absolutely no hope of any quality of life again, but I used every mindset tool, years of research and incredible tenacity to prove them wrong and bring my mother back to full health within three years. Get your copy here: https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/books/products/relentless. For my other two best-selling books Running Hot and Running to Extremes, chronicling my ultrarunning adventures and expeditions all around the world, go to https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/books.   Lisa's Anti-Ageing and Longevity Supplements  NMN: Nicotinamide Mononucleotide, an NAD+ precursor Feel Healthier and Younger* Researchers have found that Nicotinamide Adenine Dinucleotide or NAD+, a master regulator of metabolism and a molecule essential for the functionality of all human cells, is being dramatically decreased over time. What is NMN? NMN Bio offers a cutting edge Vitamin B3 derivative named NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) that can boost the levels of NAD+ in muscle tissue and liver. Take charge of your energy levels, focus, metabolism and overall health so you can live a happy, fulfilling life. Founded by scientists, NMN Bio offers supplements of the highest purity and rigorously tested by an independent, third party lab. Start your cellular rejuvenation journey today. Support Your Healthy Ageing We offer powerful, third party tested, NAD+ boosting supplements so you can start your healthy ageing journey today. Shop now: https://nmnbio.nz/collections/all NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 250mg | 30 capsules NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 500mg | 30 capsules 6 Bottles | NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 250mg | 30 Capsules 6 Bottles | NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 500mg | 30 Capsules Quality You Can Trust — NMN Our premium range of anti-ageing nutraceuticals (supplements that combine Mother Nature with cutting edge science) combats the effects of aging while designed to boost NAD+ levels. Manufactured in an ISO9001 certified facility Boost Your NAD+ Levels — Healthy Ageing: Redefined Cellular Health Energy & Focus Bone Density Skin Elasticity DNA Repair Cardiovascular Health Brain Health  Metabolic Health   My  ‘Fierce' Sports Jewellery Collection For my gorgeous and inspiring sports jewellery collection, 'Fierce', go to https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/lisa-tamati-bespoke-jewellery-collection.   Episode Highlights [03:28] How Dr Kirk Started Working on Sleep Dr Kirk used to work for the SEALs. Later on, he enrolled in the military's medical school. After getting his degree, Dr Kirk became the manager of a sports medicine facility for the military. Here, he worked with other medical experts.  Those in the military will usually lie to healthcare providers so they won't get excluded from work, but they tend to be more honest with Dr Kirk because they have worked with him before.  After testing for vitamin deficiencies and adrenal fatigue, Dr Kirk realised that many of his patients were taking Ambien, a sleeping drug.  After learning more about sleep, Dr Kirk realised that every symptom his patients were presenting could be explained by poor sleeping.  [17:31] Sleep's Various Cycles With a sleep drug, you are just unconscious and not sleeping.  Proper sleep needs to go through a repetitive pattern of deep sleep at the beginning of the night and then REM sleep by morning.  The different cycles are important since they affect our bodies in different ways.  Sleep can help boost your immunity and memory! Learn more benefits in the full episode.  [20:12] How Sleep Affects Our Lives If you don't give yourself time to recover, sleep pressure can accumulate and have progressively worse effects.  If you go to bed with high stress hormones, this can worsen your sleep. Poor sleep then leads to higher stress levels, and the cycle gets worse.  People who get poor sleep age faster, not just in appearance but also in their physiology.  Poor sleep can lead to protein structure breakdown, decreased blood supply, aged tissues, and more.  As we age, we also face the problem of not repairing as fast. This is how sleep affects our lives.  [23:56] The Foundation For Better Health We are often taught the basics of health are sleep, nutrition, exercise, and stress management.  However, these pillars cannot function without sleep as their foundation, emphasising how sleep affects our lives.  For example, exercise becomes counterproductive when you're sleep deprived because you're not recovering.  Poor sleep can also change your insulin sensitivity and gut biome, which changes your nutrition levels. Because of how sleep affects our lives, it should be our priority. Sleep deprivation is the fastest way to break someone down, this is why it's used as an interrogation technique.    [28:35] How Do We Sleep? We need eight hours of sleep a night. Make your sleeping routine simple. The more complex it is, the more likely you will fail.  First, convince yourself that sleep is important.  We are all born to sleep, and we don't need to learn how.  Before electricity, people used to fall asleep three hours after sunset. Tune in to the full episode to learn more about the neurochemical process of sleep.   [35:36] Creating the Right Conditions for Sleep During sleep, our senses still work, but they don't pay as much attention to external stimuli.  For our ancestors, the sunset will lead to decreased blue light, decreased temperature, decreased stimuli, and increased melatonin.  Better sleep is just creating these conditions in our environment.  If we take melatonin, we should be careful to take only small amounts.  [39:20] Melatonin Supplementation Some have argued that melatonin supplementation does not downregulate our brain receptors, but there are no definitive studies on this yet.  In fact, measuring melatonin is difficult due to its quantity and concentration in each part of the brain.  It's okay to take melatonin supplements but not in physiologic amounts.  [45:15] Can We Reverse Aging? You need to understand your genetics and what ratios will work for you.  While good habits and supplements can improve your overall health, we don't know if it undoubtedly reverses age.  Our bodies are more complex than we think. Shorting yourself two hours of sleep can change over 700 different epigenetic markers.  We can only describe biology. We don't know how to manipulate it most of the time.  Dr Kirk also shares his experience with hyperbaric oxygen therapy in the full episode.  [1:03:36] Paradigm Shifts in the Medical Industry There is a lot of dishonesty in both the media and the medical industry.  Many doctors and medical experts have been silenced on potentially better cures, especially during this pandemic.  Western medicine is effective in treating the sick, but it doesn't keep people from getting severely sick in the first place. A lifestyle change is more important than taking supplements.  [1:12:22] The Importance Of Behaviour Change  People often don't want to work on their behaviour because taking medicine is easier.  We also need to be aware of how the food industry is tapping into our addictive mechanisms to keep us eating more.   Caffeine consumption can also ruin our sleep. More than 200 milligrams can give the opposite effect of staying awake and alert.  Learn exactly how sleep affects our lives, together with caffeine and sugar consumption, when you listen to the full episode. [1:19:40] Widespread Impressions on Sleep and How It Affects Our Lives People have grown to believe that sleep is for the weak and lazy.  This belief also impacts our children, especially since they are still developing.  Losing two hours of sleep can decrease testosterone and growth hormone by 30% and increase inflammation by 30%, among others.   Dr Kirk delved into researching how sleep affects kids after giving a lecture for American kids overseas to professionals in the school system. Kids' brains are still developing. The prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that allows us to simulate things, experiences a shift during adolescence. [1:26:34] How Sleep Affects Our Lives as Kids Dr Kirk delved into researching how sleep affects kids after giving a lecture for American kids overseas to professionals in the school system. Kids' brains are still developing. The prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that allows us to simulate things, is formed during adolescence. Furthermore, adolescents also require more sleep because of a shift in their circadian rhythm. Requiring kids to do more with less sleep interferes with their development. [1:31:40] How Sleep Affects Our Lives When We are Sick A new field in medicine called chronobiology is studying how sleep deprivation precedes any psychiatric disease or psychological flare-up. An Ivy League hospital managed to get their patients off medication by regulating their circadian rhythm and chronobiology. [1:34:34] It's More Than Switching Things On and Off Medications can be difficult to get off because they have too many side effects.  For example, most antidepressants are not just working on serotonin. Instead, they affect several neurotransmitters as well.  Physiological doses are artificial and can cause you more trouble.  Learn how sleep medication and affects GABA receptors that slow down the brain when you listen to the full episode. [1:41:17] Dr Kirk's Sleep Remedy Dr Kirk discusses how cavemen took around three hours after the sun went down to fall asleep. In the present day, what can people do in those three hours? To fall asleep, stress hormones need to come down due to lifestyle. Dr Kirk's Sleep Remedy involves getting the proper ratios of substances. His product comes in the form of tea, stick pouches, and capsules.  [1:46:27] Dr Kirk's Final Advice Change your environment by decreasing blue light and stimulation.  Learn to slow everything down.  Just like how you slow everything down to get a kid to sleep, so should you do the same for an adult.   7 Powerful Quotes ‘You aren't actually sleeping when you're on sleep drugs. You're just unconscious. Your brain is dissociated, but it's not sleep.' ‘Often, if you're sleep-deprived, more is worse for sure. You don't really need to do any exercises. You just stay active until you've recovered, and then you can exercise again.' ‘Insulin sensitivity is decreased by 30%, just by losing two hours of sleep. One night with two hours of sleep. So you go from sleeping eight hours of sleep to six. If you're pre-diabetic, you're waking up diabetic.' ‘Even though I'm known for sleep, the hardest thing for me to coach people to do is to sleep.' ‘The most sleep-deprived years are the most horrible years of the brain development.' ‘Get rid of the blue light. Decrease the stimulation. Lower your body temperature. That's sleep hygiene.' ‘Part of lowering stress is just slowing down your thinking. You can't work on your computer until 9:59 and get in bed in 10 and think you're gonna be asleep.'   About Dr Kirk Dr Kirk Parsley was a former Navy SEAL who went on to earn his medical degree from Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences (USUHS) in Bethesda in 2004. From 2009 to 2013, he served as an Undersea Medical Officer at the Naval Special Warfare Group One. He also served as the Naval Special Warfare's expert on sleep medicine.  Dr Kirk has been a member of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine since 2006 and consults for multiple corporations and professional athletes. He gives lectures worldwide on wellness, sleep, and hormonal optimisation. He believes that many diseases and disorders are unnecessary complications of poor sleeping habits. We can achieve the highest quality of life possible by changing this habit problem.  Interested in Dr Kirk's work? Check out his website. You can also reach him on LinkedIn, Instagram,  Facebook, and email.       Enjoyed This Podcast? If you did, be sure to subscribe and share it with your friends! Post a review and share it! If you enjoyed tuning in, then leave us a review. You can also share this with your family and friends so they can learn how sleep affects our lives and what we can do about it. Have any questions? You can contact me through email (support@lisatamati.com) or find me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. For more episode updates, visit my website. You may also tune in on Apple Podcasts. To pushing the limits, Lisa   Full Transcript of the Podcast Welcome to Pushing the Limits, the show that helps you reach your full potential with your host Lisa Tamati, brought to you by www.lisatamati.com. Lisa Tamati: Well, hey everyone! And welcome to Pushing The Limits. This week, I have another amazing guest for you. I managed to get some incredible people. I have Dr Kirk Parsley with me. He is an ex-Navy SEAL, and also a medical doctor. A little bit of an overachiever, this one. He spent many years in the SEALs, an incredible man. He also was involved with the first sports medicine rehabilitation centre that was working with the SEALs, an incredible expert on sleep. And that's what we do a deep dive into today. We also talk about hyperbaric oxygen therapy. We also go into areas about the current state of the medical system, one of my favourite topics. And I hope you enjoy this episode. It's really, the most important thing is around sleep.  Sleep is something that all of us, I think, are underestimating its importance. And that this is the biggest lever, not food, not exercise, not meditation, not mindfulness, not anything else. Number one of all leverage points is sleep. So how the heck do you get enough sleep? What is enough sleep, and how to get it is what this episode is about.  Before we head over, I just want to remind you we have Boost Camp coming up. This is our eight-week live online program. There, Neil Wagstaff and I, my business partner and longtime friend and coach are doing. And we're going to, if you want to come and hang out with us live every week and learn everything about upgrading your life, basically, your performance, how to optimise all areas of your life, then we would love you to check the information out, head over to peakwellnessco.nz/boostcamp.  On that point, if you're also interested, come and check out our flagship program, which is our epigenetics program, where we look at your genetics, and how to optimise those specifically, all the areas of your life: your food, your nutrition, your exercise, your mood, and behaviour, your hormones, all these important areas, specifically to your genetics. One-on-one time with us and help us to understand everything about your genetics. It's an incredible platform and amazing AI technology behind us. And we'd love you to check that out.  Go to peakwellnessco.nz/epigenetics. Or reach out to me if you didn't get that. We will also have the links down in the show notes, if you want to just click over to that. Or you can just head over to my website, www.lisatamati.com. And hit the work with us button for our programs listed on there as well. So without further ado, now over to Dr Kirk Parsley.  Well, hi, everybody! And welcome to Pushing the Limits. This week, I have a superstar, who is a good friend of Commander Mark Divine, you may have heard previous weeks on my podcast. We have Dr Kirk Parsley with us today. Welcome to the show.  Dr Kirk Parsley: Thank you. I feel very welcome and happy to be here. I'm still here. I'm happy to be sharing this airspace with you or whatever it is sharing.  Lisa: I'm really super excited. I've heard you a number of times on Mark's show and just thought how hefty you're on because you're such an expert. We're gonna dive into a little bit into your background, but you're an absolute sleep expert. So I'm really keen to help my audience with their sleep, and their sleep patterns, and all of that good stuff. But before we get into that, we were just chatting about genetics and endurance. So, give us a little background. You've been a Navy SEAL. You've been in the military, in the naval military. So give us a bit of background on yourself, personally. Dr Kirk: Yes. So ironically, I actually dropped out of high school. I was a terrible student my whole life, didn't have any interest in school. And after you don't do well for long enough, you just convince yourself that you can't do well. And so you're just, ‘I'm just done. I can't do it'. I was always very physical, very athletic. Just fortunately, genetic lottery, I won, just be an athletic and strong guy. And it came pretty easy to me. But I worked hard at it because I didn't do school work. So when I dropped out of high school, to join the military and do the hardest training in the world. And that was what the SEAL training was supposed to be, as the toughest training in the world like, ‘Well, I'm gonna go do that.' So I went to do that.  This was a way long time ago. This is 1988. So, it was long before anybody knew what SEALs were. They didn't have the notoriety they have now for sure. And when I would come home from the Navy and tell people as I was a Sealer, like, ‘What do you mean, you work for SeaWorld or something? What do you do?' Kinda. So, I went through SEAL training, I would say I made it through SEAL training, I became a SEAL. That was pre-9/11, obviously. So we didn't have the combat that the SEALs of this generation do. So it's not really comparable. We were still mainly working in Southeast Asia doing police work and training other militaries.  I did three deployments. It was really the same thing over, and over, and over again because there was no combat. So you just did the same training, and then you deployed, and then came home, and you did the same training. And of course, I was like, ‘Maybe, I'll go do something else.' And I thought I would be—I was dating a woman who would become my wife. She was getting a master's in physical therapy. And I was reading her textbooks on deployment to make myself a better athlete. And I thought, maybe I could be a physical therapist. And so I started working, I started volunteering in a physical therapy facility in San Diego, called San Diego Sports Medicine Center. And it had every kind of health care provider you could possibly imagine. And this building, it's just this healthcare Mecca. It's the most holistic thing I've ever seen to this day.  I decided pretty quickly, I didn't want to be a physical therapist, but I don't know what else I wanted to do. But I got to follow the podiatrist around, and acupuncturist, and massage therapists, and athletic trainers, and conditioning coaches, and the orthopedist, and the family practice, and the sportsmen. I just got to follow them around and see how everybody worked. And a group of young doctors there, who were probably only five or six years older than me, and they were saying, ‘Well, you should go to medical school.' And I was like, ‘Pump the brakes, kiddo. I didn't even graduate high school. I'm not getting into medical school.' And then the senior doctor overhears the conversation. He comes out of the office. And he says, ‘Kirk, the question isn't, “Can you get in?” The question is, “Would you go if you've got in?”' And I said, ‘Of course, I'd go.' So, well, there you have it. So, he sort of shamed me into it/  I studied hard and got really good grades. And then when it came time to apply for medical school, this was pre-Internet, so you had to go to the bookstore and get your book review and look and see what schools are competitive for. And when I was going through one of those books, I found out that the military had their medical school. The military was a closed chapter in my mind. I'd done that. That's something that I figured I'd always do in my life. But it was never meant to be my whole life. And so I had done that. I was, I figured I was done. But I was already married and had kids. And I was like, ‘Well, the military will pay me to go to medical school. Or I can pay someone else to go to medical school and my wife can work while we're in medical school.'  I made enough to support my family and go to medical school for free. And then to pay off in the military's, they'll train you to do anything. You have to give them years of service and your job. So once you finish your medical training, you have to be a doctor for the military for eight years. And so I figured, ‘I'll get back to the SEAL teams, I'll go pay something back to the community that helped me, was hugely formidable in who I became in my life.' And went back to the SEAL teams, really well-prepped to do sports medicine and orthopedics. And I knew quite a bit about nutrition, and performance, and strength and conditioning. I was pretty sure I had the exact pedigree. When I got there, they had just gotten the money to build a sports medicine facility, which was actually their vision was exactly what I told you that I worked in in college. That's exactly what they wanted to build. I'm like, ‘I got this.' So they put me in charge of building this out. And I was a significant part of us hiring everyone we hired. So we hired our first strength and conditioning coach, our first nutritionist, our first PT, our first everything.  We built our own sports medicine facility. And then orthopedics was coming through every week, and they had to do rounds there. And we'd have pain rounds, pain management rounds come through. We had an acupuncturist coming through. And we hired all these people from the Olympic Training Center, and professional sports teams, and the best colleges. And so, we had all these brilliant people who knew way more than I did about what they do.  Lisa: So you went from there to there.  Dr Kirk: Yeah. And so at that point, I was the dumbest person around, right? Because we had all these experts in every little niche that I knew this much about. We hired experts who knew that much about. And so in the military, when you're the dumbest guy, they put you in charge, right and say, ‘Well, you manage this,' right? And so, I'm managing all these people who know more than I do, however that works. But my office was in this facility that we built.  The SEALs are a lot like professional athletes in that you put them on a bench, so to speak, right? Because they're injured, they need some help. So they can't work. It's the worst thing. Worst thing. So when they see a health care provider, they just lie because they don't want to be— Lisa:  They don't wanna be taken out.  Dr Kirk Parsley: They will take money out of their pocket, and go into the city, and find a doctor to treat them so that the doctor at work doesn't know, so they don't get put on the sideline. But because I was a SEAL, and there were still a lot of SEALs at the SEAL team. It was close enough to my time. There are still a lot of SEALs at the team who I worked with, and I trained with, and deployed with. And so they knew me. And I had a good reputation. And so they trusted me, and they come in my office and they say, ‘Let me tell you what's going on with me.'  They reported this litany of symptoms that didn't have any pattern that I could recognise. And so they were saying that their motivation was low, that they're very moody, that they couldn't concentrate. They're super forgetful. Their energy was low. Their body composition was shifting. They felt slower, and dumber, and colder. None of them were sleeping very well. They're all taking sleep drugs. They had low sex drive. They had a lot of joint pain, a lot of inflammation. And I didn't have the slightest idea. I'm like, ‘And I know it sounds like you're obese and 65. But I'm looking at you and you're not. So I don't know what's going on.'  I just started testing everything I could possibly test. I tested literally 98 blood markers. They were giving 17 vials of blood. Now just shotgun approaches, test everything, and see what's abnormal. And I started seeing some patterns. And they had really low anabolic hormones, so the DBTA, and testosterone, and dihydrotestosterone, pregnenolone. All of that was low. They really have high inflammatory markers. They really had poor insulin sensitivity for how healthy I knew they were, and how well they ate, and how much they exercised. But it's still within the normal range. But it wasn't. Everything was in the normal range. But everything that should be really high was just like barely in the normal range. And everything that should be really low, it's just barely inside of that range. They didn't have a disease. And I was a medical doctor, so I had learned how to treat disease, then they didn't have disease. So I was like, ‘I don't know. What am I going to do?' So that led me to having to train with outside providers. And fortunately, at that time, the SEALs did have the reputation. They'd already done all these amazing things. This was in 2009. So, I think they'd already shot Bin Laden and at that point. So I could call anybody, right? I'd watch somebody's TED Talk, read their book, I'd see them lecture. And I'll just call them and say, ‘I'm a doctor for the West Coast SEAL team. Could I come train with you? Can I consult with you? Can I ask you some questions?' And everybody was generous and said, ‘Absolutely'. So I get to learn a lot really quickly. I take a lot of leave from work and just go sit in these guys' clinics for four or five days. And just pick their brain, go see patients with them, and take notes, and learn. And then I just call them every time I have a question. And I just got to learn really quickly. It's like this team of experts who knew everything about the alternative world.  I was trying to treat people for adrenal fatigue. And I was trying to treat people for vitamin and mineral deficiencies, which are obvious from what was going on. And I couldn't quite figure out what it was. And about 100 patients into it, and probably after 30 guys came in, I could have told everybody, they could just sit down. I'll tell you what you're going to tell me. I could have just just route it off; it's so similar. And about 100 guys into it, embarrassing that it took so long, but I remember this guy telling me that he took Ambien every night. What do you guys call it? Stilnox, I think, right?  I was married to an Aussie, so I know a lot. I mean, I know you're not an Aussie, but I know a little bit about your world, as in your language. And I remember putting a note in the margin, ‘Seems like a lot of guys take an Ambien.' Then I go back through everybody's records, 100% of the guys who had been in my office were taking Ambien. So I thought, ‘Well, maybe that's an issue, right?' So, let me go look at the side effects of Ambien. And it was a fairly new drug. And the pharmaceutical industry, they get to cherry-pick their data. So they were like, ‘Oh, it's the safest drug ever. There's nothing, no problems.' And I'm like, ‘I don't quite believe that.'  Unfortunately, like every other doctor in America, I didn't know anything about sleep. I never had a single class on sleep in medical school, didn't have the foggiest idea what should be happening. I knew what you called a mechanism of action on this drug, which means molecularly what does it do. Well, it binds GABA receptors and has an effect called GABA analog, and benzodiazepines are the same, things like Valium. And so that's about as much as I knew, Well, what is GABA doing? What is GABA supposed to do? And then you can't really understand that without understanding what's actually going on in sleep.  Then, I had to learn about sleep physiology. And what's supposed to happen during sleep? And what are the normal shifts and changes? And what does that do? And if that doesn't happen, what effects do you get? So after studying quite a bit, I figured out the general Occam's razor principle of the thing with the least assumptions is, literally, every single symptom that these men told me about, could be explained by poor sleep.  Now, I didn't think that it would be, right? I wasn't naive, but it could have, then, right? So if this was definitely the most powerful thing, because being a Western doctor I wanted to give them Cortef and raise their cortisol. I wanted to give them testosterone and raise their testosterone. I wanted to get like, I wanted to give them medication to improve their insulin sensitivity. I wanted to just go in there and do it. But I couldn't do that, right? Because you can't give SEALs medication that they're dependent upon. Because then, what if they go out on the field, and they don't have their medication, they can't do their job and it's a waste. So that puts people on the bench, that disqualifies people. So I couldn't do that.  I had to figure out, well, what else can I do? So like I said, sleep seemed like the unifying theory. So let me see about that. And this was right around the time that everybody was catching on to the important vitamin B3. And that was associated with poor sleep. So, I tested all my guys. Every one of them had low vitamin B3. So I'm like, ‘Yeah, I'm going to give them vitamin B3. I'm going to be a hero. Everyone is gonna love me. I'm the best doctor ever.' And it helped a little bit. But it wasn't everything.  Like I said, I had this epiphany with this sleep drug. And once I learned enough about the sleep drug, you aren't actually sleeping when you're on sleep drugs. You're just unconscious. Your brain is dissociated, but it's not sleep. Because sleep has to have, as one of its criteria, you have to have this predictable sleep architecture. You have to be going through these sleep cycles that take you through these different stages. And a particular pattern is repetitive, and it's primarily deep sleep in the beginning of the night, and almost exclusively REM sleep by morning, and you have to do that transition.  If you don't do that, then it's not sleep. It can be partially sleep, if you're just getting poor sleep. But I was having these guys do sleep studies. And they were coming back with 99.9% of their sleep study being stage 2 sleep, which is just the transition. It's what we call a transitional sleep phase. So it's not deep sleep or REM. So they weren't really getting any of the benefits of sleep. And of course, that's an oversimplification. They're obviously getting something, or they'd be dead. But we don't know what they're getting.  That's all we know is that healthy sleep does this, and when you go through these cycles, we know these things happen. Like when you're in deep sleep, we know that's when you're the most anabolic, and you're secreting your anabolic hormones like growth hormone, and testosterone, and DHEA is being ramped up, your immune system's being ramped up. We know this happens. And then we know in REM sleep, what's going on in the brain: the physiological changes, forming more durable neural tracks, that neurological memories, shifting things from working memory into long term memory, pruning off useless information, these little buttons that grow on the side of your nerves that are starting to bud new information. You're like, ‘I don't need that.' You clean up all that. You get rid of weak products and you get the brain working better.  The whole purpose of going to sleep tonight is to prepare myself for tomorrow, right? Whatever I do today, that's what my brain and body are gonna think it needs to do tomorrow. It's gonna use today as a template to try to make me better tomorrow at doing what I did today. And if I don't get enough sleep, if I don't get to restore, I still have to do tomorrow. And how do I do that? Well, I do it the same way you do anything. I'm stressed out. I use Marinol and a bunch of cortisol and DHEA. And I start robbing all my nutrients for my cells. My blood glucose is going up, I'm getting fuel sources that way, epinephrine and norepinephrine stimulate my brain and my tissues to be able to get energy where there's really no energy there. And then I'm going to bed with these really high stress hormones, which are supposed to be low when I sleep, and then I'm trying to sleep with high stress hormones. Then, I get worse sleep. Then, I need more stress hormones tomorrow. And that's what breaks people.  In fact, when you see somebody who doesn't sleep well for even six months, they look so much older. ‘Why does he look old? That doesn't make sense. Is it just because they're tired? Is it tired old?' But if you think about it, you're born into this contract. You're born into this contract; you can't get around. It's just like you're born knowing you're going to die, 100% certain you're going to die. There's also this other contract that certainly is your body ideally worked for about 16 hours, and it needs eight hours to recover. That's the way it works. That's what you're born into. There's small variations there. But obviously, you can't get around that.  If you don't get those 8 hours, you didn't recover from those 16 hours. And so if you think about it logically, obviously, when you're a kid, you need more sleep. So it's not a great example, when you're really young. Kids actually sleep a lot more than eight hours by and large, but you see them actually getting better every day, right? They're growing. They're getting smarter. They're getting more coordinated. You can see that every day. But if you think about, say, like, once you hit 25, and your brain's fully formed, and everything's static. If you could recover 100% every night, and wake up the next morning as good as you were that other morning, you wouldn't age, right? There would be no aging because you would have recovered 100%.  Lisa: It's very important, yep.  Dr Kirk: Everything that you're deficient in, if you're missing 10%, you're going to age that 10%. And if you're missing a little more, you're going to age faster. So when you see people who haven't been sleeping well for a year, they are literally older because they've been recovering less and less every night. So yeah, there's a breakdown in their protein structure. There's decrease in their blood supply, their peripheral vascularisation. Their tissues are aging. There's a buildup of waste products that aren't getting out, and that's toxic. And that's damaging the mitochondria and forming more senescent cells, and all these other things, they're building up. And every marker that we have, even genetic marker, when you look at your children and linked methylation on the genes. Every marker, they look older. And then when you look at them, they look older. That's why.  That's really what aging is. It's really just the absence of being able to recover 100% every night. And as we get older, we just don't repair as fast. And that's, unfortunately, when most people quit sleeping as much. And now that's double whammy there. You're getting twice the aging effects that way. And there's no reason to sleep less when you're old. It's typical, but it's not something you have to do. I've had 84-year-old women who haven't slept more than 4 or 5 hours in 20 years, and I get them to sleep eight hours a night.  Lisa: I've got one over there who's rustling around, walking around behind me. She's 80 years old, nearly. Hey, mum. And she's struggling with sleep in the early morning hours. And therefore, you know her memory and things. So I want to pick your brain on that. Can I just slow you down a little bit because we just covered a ton of ground here. Dr Kirk: You just asked me about myself, and I just couldn't stop. Lisa: No, but you were on an absolute roll. So I didn't want to interrupt you because there was so many things, but my brain's just going like, ‘There's so many questions!'  Dr Kirk: That was just meant to be an overview.  Lisa: That was an overview. Now can we dive deeper into some of the weeds because now I understand why you've become, classically, the sleep expert because obviously that was the biggest leverage. In other words, this is the biggest leverage point that you see. When we think of the SEALs, we think of the SEALs as being these gods of amazingness that can do everything. But what you're saying is like these guys are pushing their limits: endurance, and in fatigue, and all things like that. And so they're going to be the Canaries in the Gold Mines in a way because they're going to be coming up against the limits of everything.  For you to say, as an ultra marathon, so I've come up against the limits in certain ways, like with sleep deprivation. And I sort of understand some of the things now that you were talking about. So you've ended up finding out that this is probably the biggest leverage point in anybody's life, basically, for their health is their sleep. So people, take a bit of a grip on that one. It's not necessarily the food or nutrition, it's the sleep. Would you agree? Dr Kirk: When I first started lecturing, I used to say there were four pillars of health: sleep, nutrition, exercise. And then the fourth pillar is audience dependent. It could be mindfulness, stress medication, it could be community, whatever it is that controls your stress hormones, and your emotions, and your mood, and all that stuff. Then after a while, I shift to there's three pillars sitting on the foundation of sleep. Because if you take the sleep away, none of those are going to work. There's nothing you can do. In fact, if you exercise when you're sleep deprived, it's counterproductive because you're not recovering. And we all know that you don't actually get better when you exercise. You damage yourself when you exercise. Then when you sleep, you recover, and you come back stronger. When you deprive yourself of sleep, you change your entire gut biome, you change your insulin sensitivity. You change everything here. And now your nutritional status doesn't work anymore. And when you don't sleep well, as I said, you increase your stress hormones. So you can do the mindfulness training and all of that stuff, meditate and all that, but you're just going to bring yourself down maybe to where you would have been if you just slept well and didn't do any kind of training.  It's really the foundation for everything. And I say that all the time. It sounds hyperbolic, but I'm 100% convinced it's true. There's nothing that you can do that will, nothing that will break you faster than poor sleep, and poor and insufficient sleep. There's a reason we use it as an interrogation technique.  Lisa: Exactly. Yeah.  Dr Kirk: There's a reason we break people down, intentionally, this way because it depletes all your resources. It interferes with your brain function, your willpower, your problem solving, your speech, your ability to formulate plans, your motivation, your mood. Everything goes almost instantaneously with one night of lack of asleep. Never mind keeping somebody up for three or four days in a row. They're just a mess. They're just in input mode. They just want you to just, ‘Tell me whatever I have to do. I'd do it. Then I'll sleep. Anything I can do to get sleep, I'll do it.' You don't have to rip people's fingernails out of stuff. You just deprive them from sleep.  Conversely, there's nothing that will improve the quality of your life and your performance faster than sleeping. Well, if you're an inadequate sleeper, which most people are. They don't even know they are. Everybody has these 30-day challenges and 60-day challenges. I'm like, ‘I only need seven days.' Again, one week where sleep is your number one priority. And you do everything right, and you get eight hours of sleep, at least eight and a half hours in bed every night, and you're sleeping approximately eight hours a night. And give me that for a week. And then, if you're not convinced this the most powerful thing, go back to wherever you're going. But nobody's ever gone back.  Lisa: A lot of us, I can hear people saying, ‘Yeah, but I go to bed, and I can't sleep. And I wake up at 2 am. And my brain is racing and I've been told to do some meditation. And maybe it's my cortisol.' Let's look now because if we haven't got the message across now that sleep is the number one thing that you should be prioritising about everything that you do, we haven't done very well for the last half an hour.  How do we sleep? What foods do we need to eat before we go to bed or not eat? What supplements can we take? You've got your sleep remedy that we'll get into a little bit. What routine can I do to optimise? What light-dark cycles? All of these things that can be leveraged points for us in optimising our sleep. And how do we test that we're actually in that deep-sleep phase? What are one of the best tools that you've found to work that out? So that was a mouthful, but yeah. Dr Kirk: So the first thing we need to do is get away from that phonetic question right there, which is what everybody's going through in their heads up like, ‘What about this? What about that?' And so my job is to make this really simple. Because simple things we can do, and the more nuanced your plan is around sleep, the more likely it is to fail. And we're doing big, macro movements here. So the very first thing is, what you said, I think we've already covered. The very first thing is to convince yourself that sleep is the most important thing. And to make it your priority for at least one week to get everything going.  Now, when I say your priority, I mean the true meaning of that word. There's only one thing there's nothing else, that's the one, including raising your kids, and your dog, and your exercise routine, and everything else. The most important thing is to sleep. The most important thing for winning. If you aren't quite convinced yet go to PubMed, or go to Google Scholar, or something like this, then put in sleep and anything else you care about: being a parent, mood, dating, sex drive, athleticism, strength, endurance, concentration, memory, I don't care. Whatever it is you care about—strength and this, strength and business, strength and I don't care. Anything you want.  Read to your heart's content. It will convince you that the one good thing about sleep, in the sleep sciences, it's not actually controversial. There's no one out there saying, ‘Oh, you don't really need to sleep.' Everybody agrees. There's nuances and people are different. Everybody agrees you need about eight hours of sleep a night. And just convince yourself that is the most important thing. Once you're there, that's the most important thing.  After that, recognise, ‘Okay. I'm going to make this my number one priority.' Recognise that you're born to sleep. You don't need to learn; you need to unlearn some stuff, right? You're designed to do this. And this should feel good. You should enjoy sleeping. You should usually look forward to going to bed and waking up in the morning, like, ‘Man, I feel so much better. I'm ready to go do my day.' This should be as easy as selling sex but it's not. People resist this forever. I have no idea why. It's great. Why don't you like sleep? I've always liked sleep. So then you just think, ‘Okay, when did sleep go bad for humankind?' Probably in the last seventy years.  Lisa: Yeah, when we got electric light.  Dr Kirk: That's about it, right? It's only been, really since rural electrification, right? Since they got electricity out to everybody. That's really when it started. When you look back in America just 100 years ago, look at people's journals in the winter, they spent like 14 hours a day in bed. That's a certain thing they do. So if you think about it, and just say, ‘I know this is simple. I'm going to let myself fall into it.' And then I'll tell you, there's all the sleep hygiene. You can get on the Internet, and you can find, ‘Oh, do this. Drink a hot cup of tea. Drink milk. Do this. Make your room really cold. Make your room really dark. Make your bed really soft. Make your bed really hard. And get a white noise machine. Get rid of all the EMF.' A million people are going to tell you all sorts of different things to do. And I'll cut through all the BS, and then you can pick and choose. The real answer is all of that stuff works, to some extent. All of that's important to some extent. The way I work with clients is at least 95% of all the successes is from lifestyle. And then all these little gadgets, and your mitigation tools, and supplements, and all this stuff back, that's the other 5. It's 95% behavioural. So you just look back, how did we evolve to sleep? Nobody teaches people how to sleep, right? You're born as a baby; you sleep. So how did we sleep as adults in cultures 100 years ago? Well, when the sun went down, we fell asleep about three hours later, and we woke up around the time the sun came up. It was pretty much that easy.  Okay, so let's reverse engineer that a little bit. I think most people know that blue light is a stimulus for being awake. We don't truly have a sleeping program. If you think of it like software, we don't have any sleeping software. We just have lack of awakening software. So we have things that go on in our brain and body that make us still awake and make us interact with our environment. And then when you take those things away, we're in what we call sleep. The blue light, actually, has nothing to do with the vision. There's nerve cells in the back of your eyes. It senses blue light. That's all they do. And then they fire pathways back to the circadian pathway membrane, essentially. And then the pineal gland secretes melatonin. The melatonin is a hormone, the starter pistol. It initiates all these cascades. And then one of the cascades that it initiates is the production of this peptide called GABA, capital G-A-B-A, gamma-Aminobutyric acid. And what that does is it slows down the neocortex.  When you think of the human brain, the picture of the human brain, we all have that big, wrinkly, massive crescent shape. That's what we call the neocortex. And that is how we interact with the world, right? All of our senses get processed in that, and then all of our movement is processed from that, right? So when we're asleep, all that's really different with our sleep, about in a general sense, right? There's nuances in every neuron and every molecule. And then, in the neural sense, there's a barrier between us and our environment is how it's phrased. What it means is we aren't paying attention to our environment anymore. Our eyes obviously still work, right? You can turn the light and you can wake somebody up. Our ears still work, you can make your noise and wake somebody up. Our sense of touch still works. You can shake somebody. They can roll into something sharp, and their pain receptors will wake them up. Heat will wake them up. Cold will wake them. So we still work. Everything still works. We start processing it. We're not paying attention to it.  What helps us do that is GABA. So GABA involves neurons. A neuron has what's called a resting potential. So there's like an electrical current in here. And when you put in enough electrical current, it goes like this. And that neuron fires. And then, does whatever it does and forms pathways. Well, GABA lowers that. Now, it takes more energy to make that thing fire. And you can overcome this by just putting a lot of energy into the cells. So if you've ever been exhausted, woken up exhausted, didn't get enough sleep for whatever reason. Like, ‘I'm going to go to work. I'm gonna come home. I'm going straight to bed. I'm gonna sleep 12 hours a day.' And then your friends talk you into going out or you get a cup of a drink. You stay up ‘til midnight, ‘I feel fine.' And then you suffer again the next day, right? Because you just overcame that.  You can actually read about this because this still exists, believe it or not, they're still I think 35 or 45 pretty large communities around the globe that have never experienced electricity. And they just lived like hunters and gatherers. They go out. And the men go out and hunt. And the women pick, and nurture their kids, and weave. And just when you think of your caveman doing, they still live like that today. And we study these people. And we did actigraphy. So it's not true sleep, say. It's just movement to know when they're likely to be asleep. And what we find is, the sun goes down. Again, the blue light goes out of their eyes. It fires, the brain starts secreting melatonin that leads to a cascade of 365 billion other chemical changes in the brain, right? But that initiation has to happen. Once that initiation is going, one of the things it does is secrete GABA, increase GABA production in lots of regions of the brain that starts slowing the brain down.  The sun goes down. They don't have electricity, right? The best they have is a fire. So what else happens? Their body temperature goes down. So when the sun goes down and it is dark, we can't see well at night, we can't see very far. So there's way less stimulus, right? They don't have flashing lights. They don't have loud music. So there's not much to stimulate them. So they sit around a fire. Maybe if they're lucky, if not, they just stare around the dark, and they have some quiet, calm conversations, and then they drift off to sleep.  That's all sleep hygiene is. That's it. Those three things: decrease the blue light, decrease the stimulation to your brain, and drop your body temperature. You need a cool place to sleep. One of the things that you can do to speed these things up is to concentrate the right nutrients in your brain. If you are going to take melatonin and just take a very, very, very, very small amount. You just want to initiate. You don't want to put so much melatonin in your brain that your brain doesn't need to make melatonin because then you start running insensitivity to melatonin, and now when you take it away, you don't have, you're essentially melatonin deficient because you've downregulated the receptors, and your brain is not sensitive to melatonin anymore. Lisa: Can I just stop in the first, one second. Dr John Lieurance is his name and he was on the Ben Greenfield podcast, and he's written a book about melatonin. And he argued that melatonin, interesting work, doesn't downregulate when you take melatonin, and doesn't cause that downregulation. All the other hormones do. If we take testosterone, we're going to downregulate our own testosterone, if we take right whatever. He said that they didn't. And he was advocating in his book for actually, super-physiological doses of melatonin. Certainly when you're doing things like jetlag, or whatever you're trying to reset, but also for a raft of other ailments to help with many diseases. Have you heard of his work or? Dr Kirk: I'm familiar with him and his work.  Lisa: Yeah. What's your take on that? Because I was like, ‘I don't know.' Dr Kirk: So, I disagree, obviously.  Lisa: Yeah. That's what I want to know. Dr Kirk: But specifically, so what he's talking about, 90% of his work is about the antioxidant. Lisa: Yes. Is it an antioxidant? Yep.  Dr Kirk: The studies that he's quoting are saying that melatonin doesn't downregulate. We don't know for sure. It's like, maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. The only way we would know is if we could actually drop a catheter into somebody's brain and sample their fluid in their brain 24 hours a day and study this over months. And so we can't say for sure. We can do animal models. Again, it's hard to quantify because from the time the sun goes down, which is about three hours before you'll fall asleep, to the entire time you slept, until the sun comes up, you're looking at somewhere between 11 and 12 hours. That entire time your brain will only produce five to six micrograms of melatonin.  Lisa: Tiny amount. Dr Kirk: So how do we study, right? It's really hard to study, and you think of it in a mouse model, how much smaller the quantities are we're looking at that point. And the concentration of melatonin in each region of the brain is not the same, it depends on some cells in the brain can actually be stimulated by melatonin. It's somewhere. It's different. And same with GABA. GABA doesn't go to every region of the brain because it can stimulate regions of the brain. But what we do know, so first, I always go with, we don't know anything. We have research that makes us believe certain things are likely to be true based on the best science we have right now. So we don't know anything. And I believe that to be true about everything in science. Just wait a week, it might change. But what we do know is that every other hormone does this.  Lisa: Yes.  Dr Kirk: But if it doesn't do this, it's the only hormone in the body that doesn't. Pretty unlikely. But what we do know with 100% certainty is that it does downregulate melatonin receptors. Lisa: Right. Dr Kirk: It can take away melatonin receptors. If I normally have 10 melatonin receptors, and I go down to just having one, now even if I'm sprayed with melatonin, I only have one. And I have to have this supersaturation for this one receptor to do all this work. And if I go down to normal physiologic levels of melatonin and this one receptor, there's just getting an occasional melatonin coming by, I'm going to be, it's no different. It doesn't matter whether I'm not producing enough, or I don't have enough receptors, it's the same end result. You have to have melatonin binders stuffing pulled into the cell to have it function. Lisa: So can I ask one question there like, so for elderly, who, from what I understand, in my basic research on melatonin, is that their melatonin production goes down with age, and, therefore, they could benefit from melatonin supplementation. Is that a thing or? Dr Kirk: Yeah, I agree. And so what happens is that the pineal gland calcifies just like our arteries. And every vessel, everything in our body calcifies, right. That's sort of aging. Lisa: One of the majors.  Dr Kirk: And so it calcifies, and you do almost certainly secrete less melatonin, right? And again, the only way we would know is to drop a catheter into somebody's brain. But I'm not saying that you shouldn't take melatonin at all. I'm just saying you shouldn't take super physiologic. So his example of when you're speaking about the melatonin work earlier, right? His example is, well, this is a great antioxidant. Now, if I do these super physiologic amounts, there's all these benefits to it. Well, if I give you 10 times the amount of testosterone that your body ordinarily has, you're gonna feel fantastic. If I give you something that secretes a bunch of epinephrine and norepinephrine, like cocaine. And you have this huge rush of norepinephrine; you feel fantastic. And you're super productive, and your brain's really sharp. Does that make that a good idea? I don't think so. I don't deal with anything super physiologic.  Again, I'm the behaviourist, and 95% of all your health is going to come from re-approximating the way you revolt. This body takes hundreds of thousands of years to adapt to this planet. And now we're just like, ‘No, we're smarter. Like I'm a 35-year-old biohacker. I read a bunch of books. I know I can do it better than–” We know nothing about the body. Lisa: Can we all mean for people–we also know that people tend to die. If we wanted to extend our healthspan and their lifespan, but healthspan mainly, can we, with hormone replacement therapy, there's a raging argument: should you be on hormone replacement therapy, should you not? If you're wanting to optimise. Now, there's downsides. And you need to understand your genetics, and you need to understand all of those aspects.  There is benefits for us to taking testosterone or DHEA or all these things in the right physiological doses of, say, a 30-year-old, like, I'm 50 or 52, I want to be at the level that I was, say at 30–35. I understand my genetics, I know where my risk factors are. I can keep an eye on all of that sort of stuff. Can I all meet that so that I live and function longer? Because I think the core question here is how do we optimise? Yes, we've developed like cavemen but then they die at 70–80, as well. Can we extend that with the knowledge that we currently have? Dr Kirk: Well, so I don't ever promise anybody that I can make them live longer. I say, ‘You might live longer from this.' If you think about it, think about it this way: at first, we talk about what sleep does, right? And if we could catch up every night, we wouldn't age. So what are we doing when we're doing things like hormone-replacement therapy? We're doing metabolomics. And we're doing all sorts of supplementation around that, or we're doing artificial things like hyperbaric, and near-far IR sauna, and ice baths, and doing all these steps to stimulate the production of the thing.  Of course, now we have antibiotics, and we have all sorts of treatments to keep people from dying as young from certain diseases. So certainly, we should be able to either, probably add years to your life. But if not, definitely we can add life to your years, right? If you're going to die at 80 either way, one version of this, you could die hiking Mount Kilimanjaro, another one you're dying in a little chair in a nursing home. So I don't know.  The question is, even with the longevity work that people are doing, really smart guys like Sinclair and all these guys are doing all these things, and they're doing all these things with clearing senescent cells, we're doing all these things with peptides. And now I give my patients peptides for certain things. I don't know nearly as much about the longevity stuff as I'd like to. And we and we're reversing aging genetically, right? We're going in there and saying, ‘Actually, over the course of a year, with a lot of work, a lot of effort, a lot of tries, a lot of modalities, really focusing on your lifestyle and doing everything. Ideally, we can actually, probably, reverse your genetic age a little bit.' Are we actually reversing age? I don't know, we made your telomeres longer. The increased the methylation on your genes, and those are markers for age, does that reverse it? We don't really know, right?  Lisa: We haven't been around long enough to work it out.  Dr Kirk: Right. It's like with omega-3s. If your omega-3s are this, then we know that certain things go this way. Well, but if we supplement your omega-3s, is that the same as you having that nutritionally. Or vitamin B3? Is that the same? We don't know. We're thinking that it probably is. And we're thinking if we're reversing the markers we know for genetic aging that's making you genetically younger. But maybe there's some totally different information in there on aging that we don't know anything about yet. That's possible, too.  I think from what I know about you, you probably agree with me. I think epigenetics is more important than genetics, anyway. You have certain genetics and you change half a dozen things about your day, and your epigenetics are totally different. If you short yourself 2 hours of sleep, you change 735 different epigenetic markers from just 2 hours. All your pro-inflammatory ones are the ones turning on, and all of your anabolic ones are the ones turning off. And again–  Lisa: That's still the biggest leverage point, isn't it?  Dr Kirk: It's still a crazy complex to think that you can decipher what 735 changes in epigenetics mean. We have some ideas of what certain things, how does all that work in synchronicity, but even though we're the smartest animal on this planet, we still have a very feeble mind. Lisa: We're still dumb.  Dr Kirk: When it comes to understanding the complexity of our bodies, we can't understand the complexity of the planet, much less our bodies. And life is just this amazingly complex thing. We don't have systems in our body. We divide the body up in systems as a way to learn it so that we can systematically learn and we can test about the learning, but the body doesn't work in systems. Lisa: I have such an issue with it, too. It's nothing like the way that the medical model breaks us all down. Dr Kirk: The reductionist model doesn't work for life. And if you think about it, most of biology is purely descriptive. All of it is, we've come up with better and better ways to test things and look at things, and then we can describe what's going on. We don't know how to manipulate it most of the time. If we do, it's really clumsy. And it's causing 500 other changes because we wanted to flip this one switch this way. Then what are the downstream effects? We don't know. We'll find out in like 30 years after 100,000 people go through this. It's really clumsy.  I don't know if can I make somebody live longer. I'd never make that claim. But can I make people look, feel, and perform better? Absolutely. I can do it all the time. And me, personally, like you're saying, I just approximate use. Their arguments, there are people out there saying, ‘Well, these hormones will cause this or that.' I'm like, ‘Okay. If high estrogen levels cause breast cancer, why don't young women get breast cancer? Older women, they're the ones who are getting breast cancer, why?' That thing with men and prostate cancer, giving them testosterone is gonna cause prostate. No, it's not. If that were true, then a 20-year-old would have prostate cancer, and a 60-year-old wouldn't, right? It's a lack of this. And I think breast cancer is a lot like prostate cancer. What we know with prosta

CM Punk gets physical! Whoa! Luke and Oli review AEW Dynamite.Sponsored by Beer52.com - get 10 free beers from the WrestleTalk Podcast!Theme song by TALLBuy our new WrestleTalk merchandise hereWrestleTalk In The Office Spotify Playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2sprWyZxCcqhtbzUuKfd0U?si=txG3hFYjSNOlGYpcDipx2gWrestleTalk Discover Playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/00I22mwo6wwMKdBh6Y8Gtf?si=geesBbqiSuaNkW6SVdn3eQSubscribe to partsFUNknown hereWatch the video version of the WrestleTalk Podcast hereJoin the WrestleLeague and become a Pledge Hammer on Patreon hereFollow Luke Owen @ThisIsLukeOwenFollow Oli Davis @OliDavisFollow Laurie Blake @ElFakidorFollow Pete Quinnell @PeteQuinnellFollow Andy Datson @AndyDatsonWTFollow Adam Blampied @AdamTheBlampied00:35 - Intro07:05 - CM Punk Hits First AEW GTS!19:20 - Ultrachat Party!25:53 - AEW Dynamite Sept 1 2021 Review!51:18 - Patreon shoutouts54:18 - Ultrachat Party!1:07:28 - Outro See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Today's word of the day is ‘snoring' as in sleep as in passed out as in Mets acting GM Zack Scott was arrested for drunk driving after falling asleep at a red light. Just another awful situation for the Mets. The GM was fired for being a creep, the players were booed for giving thumbs down, the star studded rotation has all been hurt, and now this. Just more nonsense under Sandy Alderson and Steve Cohen's watch. (9:45) The Washington Nationals made it mandatory for staff to get vaccinated. Nats VP Bob Boone, father of Yankees manager Aaron Boone, has stepped down. Cool. (15:20) NBA teams are going to be in a bit of a situation in some major cities because of COVID restrictions. New York and San Francisco have rules in place that say anyone who enters the arena must be vaccinated. That means Knicks, Nets, and Warriors either have to be vaccinated or they can't enter the building. Whoa. (26:35) Review: Walk of Shame. (31:35) So You Wanna Talk To Samson!? Someone asked me about running a business and how I dealt with lower level employees. They asked if those employees were easily expendable. Interesting. (38:20) NPPOD. (39:20) Nick Castellanos had two home runs through 2 innings against the Cardinals yesterday. Unimportant. What was important was that the Cardinals had his bats checked. Why?  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

-WTH: Mom Fail! -He ate what when Mom wasn't looking? -Ashley's parade recap! -Stattosphere: Getting Out of Jury Duty! -Short Term Memory Game! -Good Vibes: Simone Biles Good Deed! -Who's That Lady! -Dad Joke of the Day! -The Whoa! Keanu Reeves Birthday Spectacular Edition! -Grover calls out Chelise!

Book Vs Movie: “A Face in the Crowd” The Budd Schulberg Short Story Vs the Elia Kazan Classic Film Every once in a while we come across a story that was created decades ago and has themes that transcend time. This is the case with 1957's A Face in the Crowd which talks about class distinctions in America, the power of the media, what it takes to relate to the “common man” and how power corrupts. (Whoa--this one really stands the test of time!)  The original story, Your Arkansas Traveler, was featured in a collection from Some Faces in the Crowd by Budd Schulberg and published in 1953. It tells the story of an Arkansas drifter, Lonesome Rhodes (LR,) who rises to fame on regional radio with his country, “aw shucks” style and eventually becomes an egomaniac as a national TV star. Oh, and he has political clout as well! In the story, he is discovered by radio producer Marcia Jeffries who at first is charmed by LR and his plain-spoken ways. Eventually, she realizes he is a dangerous narcissist and works to stop him from having too much power. LR in the meantime has a wife he needs to get rid of, a teenage bride to keep him company, and a rabid audience that hangs as his every word. In the end, he dies before he can wreak too much havoc.  Schulberg wrote the screenplay for On the Waterfront and trusted director Elia Kazan to tell his story. The 1957 film stars Andy Griffith, Patricia Neal, Lee Remick, and Walter Matthau and while the film received mixed reviews at the time (the New York Times thought Andy Griffith overshadowed everyone in the film)--it is now considered a prescient classic. So, between the short story and the movie--which did we prefer?  In this ep the Margos discuss: The original short story by Budd Schulberg Behind the scenes of the movie fleming    Why it was considered controversial at the time  Starring: Andy Griffith (Lonesome Rhodes,) Patricia Neal (Marcia Jeffries,) Anthony Franciosa (Joey DePalma,) Walter Matthau (Mel Miller,) Lee Remick (Betty Lou Fleckum,) and Percy Waram as General Haynesworth.) Clips used: Marcia meets LR A Face in the Crowd trailer LR and Marcia argue over his marriage “Mama Guitar” & baton scene LR breaks character on the air Walter Matthau's last scene “Vitajex” commercial/music by Tom Glazer Book Vs Movie is part of the Frolic Podcast Network. Find more podcasts you will love Frolic.Media/podcasts .  Join our Patreon page to help support the show! https://www.patreon.com/bookversusmovie  Book Vs. Movie podcast https://www.facebook.com/bookversusmovie/ Twitter @bookversusmovie www.bookversusmovie.com Email us at bookversusmoviepodcast@gmail.com Brought to you by Audible.com You can sign up for a FREE 30-day trial here http://www.audible.com/?source_code=PDTGBPD060314004R Margo D. @BrooklynFitChik www.brooklynfitchick.com brooklynfitchick@gmail.com Margo P. @ShesNachoMama https://coloniabook.weebly.com/  Our logo was designed by Madeleine Gainey/Studio 39 Marketing Follow on Instagram @Studio39Marketing & @musicalmadeleine 

This is the full show for September 1st, 2021. Off the Top, the CDC is trying to tell you who can and can't travel for Labor Day. We Ask the Mamas if Christians are less afraid of COVID than everybody else. In Digging Deep, a new investigative report says at least 44,000 ballots in Georgia during last November's election shouldn't have been counted because they broke state election laws. In a Bright Spot, a Virginia teacher was reinstated by the Virginia Supreme Court. And, Mattress Mack is helping hurricane victims once again, and that will have you saying, "Whoa!"

Whoa! It's re-release time yet again! Please enjoy a wonderful episode from seemingly years ago, featuring Courtney Vineys. Courtney hops aboard to discuss MYST. She's a wonderful improviser, twitch streamer, […]

Korie Robertson speaks with Demi-Leigh Tebow at the LO Sister Conference about keeping your relationships from becoming idols and getting to know your love language. Demi talks about being carjacked at gunpoint, how she broke free from the trauma of that harrowing experience, and how one girl's help that day inspired her fight against human trafficking. She also explains how Miss Universe created a platform for a greater purpose and the hard work that took place behind the scenes.   https://helixsleep.com/sadie — Get up to $200 OFF AND 2 free pillows! https://FunctionofBeauty.com/WHOA — Get 20% off your first order! - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Doug has some thoughts on the transition from one QB to the next for a franchise and also...check out what he says about the Patriots and the lengths he was willing to go to in Buffalo to protect himself against their schemes. Whoa! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Wowie kazowie there is a whole other part of Evening Star by Catherine Coulter where they go to New York and actually fall in love and have lots of pregnancy sex and lots of fights and Thanksgiving but way too early and bust a union and all cause like Women in Business! And man, that stuff really burrows into your grl's brains. Is erasure preferable to hero/ines who acknowledge the problems of their time but don't make act against it? Why do historical romances, especially from the late 19th Century, feel so much hornier? When was the last time your adult body felt worshipped? Does this book punch through the membrane of genre? Do you hear Harry Connick Jr. over this autumnal New York love story? NO! You hear Whoa!mance. Tune in now. Part 1 ovah here! ----> https://bit.ly/2WzoHeb Do you or someone you know have a little sound editing experience and an interest in editing a podcast? Drop us a line with "Editor" in the subject line at whoamancemail@gmail.com to learn more about an opportunity to work with Whoa!

#503 Has this ever happened to you? About a year and a half ago, I discovered a six-minute YouTube video about note-taking, by someone named Ali Abdaal. After I finished watching it, I thought, "Whoa, I really like this guy." So I watched the next video, which was about iPads. (I had just recently bought an iPad Pro and I wanted to learn how to make the most out of it.) Thanks to the way Ali taught, and his easy-to-listen-to accent, I started binge-watching everything on his channel. Ever since I started paying attention to Ali, things have been really taking off him for him. His brand and community have grown tremendously, and he's even released his own online course. And we've become good friends! I knew I had to ask him to come onto the podcast to share his journey from med school student to creating a YouTube channel, and how he's grown it to nearly two million subscribers, with passive income now coming in from multiple sources. We'll unpack the strategy behind Ali's impressive rise, and if you're interested in YouTube or creating video yourself, we also dive into some tips to help you with the algorithm and taking advantage of what YouTube can offer in terms of driving traffic and finding new customers. Show notes and more at SmartPassiveIncome.com/session503.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

[EP 76] In this episode, I visit a Vegan Food Truck, and YOU get to practice listening to something fun in real American English! Use the transcription below to help you! [PODCAST INTRO, where I say the wrong episode number

When I started looking back at my life, I realized that decades of the “Diet Mentality' and all the self-loathing that came alongside it had a cost that I didn't even know to look for — that I didn't even know to try to avoid. And what made it even harder was: No one was talking about this! No one warned me about the 'dark side' of living your life handcuffed to a diet. And no one warned me about the prison that it leaves you in. Including: ★ A Food Prison that had me chained to the handcuffs of restriction, deprivation, control, and OBSESSING over every morsel of food that touched my lips…or (when I couldn't possibly take it any longer) veering over to the OPPOSITE side: care-free abandonment, eating everything in sight, feeding my sugar addictions, and using food to comfort, distract, or numb myself. (And then of course the cascade of guilt, shame, and self-loathing that would follow suit). ★ A Body Prison where I felt like I was walking around in a body that didn't reflect the woman I really was — like the outsides didn't match the insides — but that I felt powerless to change. A prison of wearing ‘fat clothes', covering my body with cardigans, and refusing to wear shorts or tank tops (or god forbid be seen in a bathing suit!) even when it was 95 degrees outside. Not to mention allowing my body to BE the barrier that kept me from doing what I wanted to do, feeling how I wanted to feel, and showing up as the version of myself that I really was…but I just couldn't access her. ★ A Shame Prison where I was outright ashamed that (after decades on this planet) I was STILL struggling with food, still struggling with my body, and still on this up-and-down roller coaster. I felt like a fraud — like if anyone ever “found me out” they would see how crazy or broken I really was. And of course there was the shame that followed me around every single day because of the identity that I had created about my struggles — that I WAS my body, that I WAS my addictions, that I WAS a failure. And of course… ★ A ‘Fat Head' that (no matter how much weight I lost or how ‘successful' I became) my Self-Image saw me through goggles seeing me as ‘fat', ‘unloveable', a ‘failure', 'embarrassing', and that I would never be enough — skinny enough, successful enough, enough period. And all of this left me in a prison of pain, disconnection, and loneliness. Physically. Mentally. Emotionally. Spritually. And in those moments of clarity, that's when I realized: “Whoa! This is not unique to ME!” Every woman that feels stuck on the diet and weight loss roller coaster is paying their own MAJOR COST too! And in this episode of the Stressless Eating Podcast we get into the in's and out's of how to avoid the price you pay for always being on a diet (and what they don't tell you!) ★ Watch The Stressless Eating Webinar: https://www.StresslessEating.com

This is the full show from August 31, 2021. Off the Top, Louis reacts to President Biden's address on the evacuation from Afghanistan. We Ask the Mamas why so many Gold Star Families hate President Biden. In Digging Deep, we look at some of the latest science about COVID and how it goes against the CDC's official recommendations. Plus, Stanford has realized why so many companies are fleeing California, and that's a Bright Spot. And in our Moment of Whoa we introduce you to a baker who's helping prisoners get a second chance.

This is the full show for August 30, 2021. Off the Top Louis talks about the evacuation from Afghanistan. We Ask the Mamas about a mother who lost her parental rights because she hadn't gotten the COVID vaccine. In Digging Deep, we find out why so many people on the left have become "fanatics." Plus, Hershel Walker's first campaign ad is a Bright Spot. And we finish off with the story of a young drummer that will have you saying "Whoa!"

Let's talk about inspirational romance, especially in light of recent events involving the Vivian Award and the RWA. I'm joined by Mara from Books Like Whoa and Changeling Cast. For exclusive bonus content and early access to episodes, consider joining the Chapter 3 Podcast Patreon Looking for a book mentioned in the episode? Check here! *Note that all links are affiliate links from which we earn a commission to support the podcast Books from On My Radar segment: The Heart Principle by Helen Hoang: https://amzn.to/2Wexfab The Inheritance of Orquidea Divina by Zoraida Cordova: https://amzn.to/3jbo3vO The Girls Are Never Gone by Sarah Glenn Marsh: https://amzn.to/3yjezmh The Bones of Ruin by Sarah Raughley: https://amzn.to/3muHAt9 The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood: https://amzn.to/3B5Qd1i Selected Other Books/Authors Mentioned Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte: https://amzn.to/2WnBOyh Romancing God: Evangelical Women & Inspirational Fiction by Lynn Neal: https://amzn.to/3gtutoq The Thrill of the Chaste: The Allure of Amish Romance Novels by Valerie Weaver-Zercher: https://amzn.to/3jgkAMB Faith and Fiction by Anita Gandolfo: https://amzn.to/3yfD1oS Links The Vivian Awards Live Reaction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtjhTgAKWEU&t=1516s The Vivian Controversy Discussion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emZO2C9dkuU Bethany's Judging the Vivian Vlog: https://youtu.be/Vr8DqE8OdPg Bethany's Re-Reading Christian Romance Vlog: https://youtu.be/DFVDMDFWCGQ Mara's Video Essay on Historical Accuracy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqJ1gxngw8Y&t=18s   Follow us on Instagram, Twitter and TikTok @Chapter3Podcast and you can also find Bethany talking about books on YouTube @BeautifullyBookishBethany. You can now find episodes on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCy6yRiktWbWRAFpByrVk-kg Interested in early access to episodes, private Discord channels and other perks? Consider joining the Chapter 3 Patreon! Or join our public Discord. A new episode will be available to download in two weeks!  This episode was recorded using a Blue Yeti USB condenser microphone kit: https://amzn.to/342dnqx

Romance Author Jodie Slaughter joins Shelf Love Live from Copper Dog Books in Beverly, Massachusetts. Can Jodie identify excerpts from her own books? What's her favorite trope and why is it Only One Bed? We play games and share romance recommendations, answer live Q&A from the audience, are ogled by passing firefighters, question if capitalism is the real nemesis in classic rom-coms, and more.Recorded August 11, 2021 in a livestream. Watch the enhanced & edited video recording on YouTube!Part 1: https://youtu.be/Una6yJPyVf0Part 2: https://youtu.be/txultz7mqB8Buy White Whiskey Bargain from Copper Dog Books: https://www.copperdogbooks.com/book/9781733426565Pre-order Bet On It by Jodie Slaughter: https://www.copperdogbooks.com/book/9781250821829Shelf Love:Sign up for the email newsletter list | Website | Patreon | Twitter | Instagram | Goodreads | Email: Andrea@shelflovepodcast.comShelf Love episodes with transcriptsBooks Mentioned:Keep Moving by Maggie Smith: https://www.copperdogbooks.com/book/9781982132071All Things Burn by Jodie Slaughter: https://www.copperdogbooks.com/book/9781074526542To Be Alone With You by Jodie Slaughter: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08Y92DR54/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1Satisfaction Guaranteed by Karelia Stetz-Waters: https://www.copperdogbooks.com/book/9781538735527Take a Hint Dani Brown by Talia Hibbert: https://www.copperdogbooks.com/book/9780062941237Strange Love by Ann Aguirre: https://www.copperdogbooks.com/book/9781658713764His Beauty by Jack Harbon: https://www.amazon.com/His-Beauty-Jack-Harbon-ebook/dp/B08LYL4JKM/ref=sr_1_1?crid=TZF4XPJSNBQH&dchild=1&keywords=his+beauty+jack+harbon&qid=1630370570&sprefix=his+beauty+jack%2Caps%2C326&sr=8-1Bitterburn by Ann Aguirre: https://www.copperdogbooks.com/book/9798554610417Harbor by Rebekah Weatherspoon: https://www.copperdogbooks.com/book/9780578720364How to Catch a Queen by Alyssa Cole: https://www.copperdogbooks.com/book/9780062933966More Romance Recommendations: https://www.copperdogbooks.com/loveyourshelfLearn more about Jodie Slaughter: https://www.jodieslaughter.com/Shelf Love episodes mentioned:White Whiskey Bargain with Charish Reid: https://shelflovepodcast.com/episodes/season-2/episode-31/white-whiskey-bargain-by-jodie-slaughter-with-charish-reid-be-proud-english-majors/Jodie Slaughter Twilight fan fiction episode: https://shelflovepodcast.com/episodes/season-2/episode-77/077-twilight-fan-fiction-climbing-into-a-can-of-worms-with-jodie-slaughter-part-1/Ideologies with Margo Hendricks: https://shelflovepodcast.com/episodes/season-2/episode-80/080-i-now-pronounce-you-colonialism-capitalism-white-supremacy/Strange Love with Whoa!mance: https://shelflovepodcast.com/episodes/season-2/episode-76/076-generous-curiosity-strange-love-by-ann-aguirre-with-whoamance/Jack Harbon as a guest on the podcast talking about Captive Romance: https://shelflovepodcast.com/episodes/season-2/episode-84/084-captive-romance-problematic-favorite-tropes/Listen to Shelf Love Podcast on your favorite podcast app and get more info and transcripts on the website: https://shelflovepodcast.com/Support Shelf Love on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/ShelfLoveTwitter: https://twitter.com/shelflovepod Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shelflovepodcast/

Whoa. How much drama can the NRL pack into one weekend? The boys break down the entire Roosters vs. Rabbitohs saga, Adam backs Trent Robinson 100% and we look at how Annersley continues to create and then compound his own problems. The Brisbane Firehawks and Brisbane Jets aren't the only competitors combining their powers. Why have Channel 9 and Foxtel teamed up and why is the NRL bowing to their request? Adam takes us to Redcliffe Stadium for the Manly vs. Canterbury match and who is leading the tipping comp heading into Round 25? Send us hate or love mail/messages @ https://anchor.fm/6again-ahoy-jmewton https://twitter.com/6againpod https://www.facebook.com/6againpodcast/ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9TYZCXd_2206erHUn9zCtQ --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/6again-ahoy-jmewton/message

Jason Carr started out in retail management, working long hours and crazy shifts. When he met a connection at Express Employment Professionals, he had to reflect on just how awful retail really was. After a journey of promotions and growth, he now OWNS the Gainesville franchise of Express Pros, where he connects talented people with great businesses all day long! I'm so happy I got to sit down with Jason to ask all my BURNING questions about hiring great talent! Where are all the great employees? How will the minimum wage increase affect hiring? Why can't I get people to SHOW UP for an interview? If you have the same questions I do, check out all Jason had to say in this amazing episode! - - - - - Make sure to check out the local sponsors that make our show possible! The Best Restoration is there for you when disaster strikes! With their certified technicians and state-of-the-art equipment, they're here to help you out with water extraction, mold remediation, or just your everyday deep clean! Give them a call at (352) 505-3321 or visit them at www.TheBestRestoration.com. The UF Mover Guys provide full-service moving for your home or business! Packing, bulky items, disassembling furniture, and even storage. You pay once you're fully moved and totally satisfied - that's why these guys are so highly rated online! Call them at (352) 415-0886 or visit them at www.UFMoverGuys.com. Be sure to connect with all of the sponsors that support our podcast at https://www.whoagnv.com/sponsors! Wardrobe provided by Chef Ami!

7 years is a funny length of time. A lot can change. But it also disappears in a flash. It feels like a meaningful timespan too. I'm not sure why. Maybe it was ingrained through school (like many things). Primary School goes from ages 4-11 and Secondary School/Sixth Form from 11-18. Years of formidable (and somewhat unimaginable) change and formation, at both half time (the first 7 years) and full time (the second 7 years). I've been in a reflective mood this week. Perhaps even more than usual...after it dawned on me that it's seven years since the first version of The Haven landed in the world. It started in June 2014 as a clumsy area behind a paywall on my main website (called Sheep Dressed Like Wolves back then). The ‘SDLW Members Haven' was a clunky experiment. At a relatively early stage in what has become a rapid development of membership platforms and plugins. The seven year realisation conjures a whole mixture of feelings. So much has changed since that first version. The screenshots and videos are pretty funny to look back at. The Turtle Head of Shame Yet at another level I have noticed some shame poking its little green wrinkly head out of its shell. I heard a critical voice saying, “you've been doing this for 7 YEARS...the dream hasn't really happened has it? If this was going to succeed it would have done so by now, don't you think?” “Yeah maybe I SHOULD pull the plug on it”, I think to myself, accepting this pretty calm judgement as valid. “Hold on”, I pull myself out of my daze. “What's the dream again?” “Oh it's worse than I thought!” My inner critic exclaims. “Please tell me there's a dream...a plan!? What's wrong with you man! Look around you. Everyone else has it sorted. They're accomplishing personal, work, health, business, community, family goals left, right, and centre. And what are you doing? Wasting your life. You're an embarrassment.” Whoa, alright mate, where did that come from!? I've noticed that my shame gets loud (a bubbling tunnel vision feeling that rises through my stomach) when I'm talking to particular people about ‘progress'. It jumps in with responses about numbers, progress, and the reassurance of future success. My shame leaves me talking about things that don't drive me as if they're all I care about. It's desperate to fit in with the assumptions, demands, and expectations of an ‘up and to the right' world. It doesn't care about the true joy I get, often from how things already are. And it doesn't believe that I'm generally pretty happy without constantly striving for another magical destination. I enjoy experimenting more than accomplishing. Seeing what happens and iterating as I go. I prefer finding a steady rhythm more than chasing after big goals. And I have absolutely no desire to be famous, rich, or in control of anyone else's life. That's someone else's dream. I don't know where I picked it up. ...Oh wow, that felt freeing to write. By recognising ‘The Dream' that doesn't belong to me, I have space to think about what is actually important to me. “I suppose you can say that if somebody doesn't spread themselves too much they can have a more solid and enduring and established success, and if that had been what I wanted, which it never has been, then I shouldn't have tried so many different things. But I've been always more interested in experiment than in accomplishment” - Orson Welles This quote really resonates with me. It's as true within our endeavours as it is across the sphere of our endeavours. 'Society' provides us with measures for solid and established success. This is the default ‘Dream'. The most efficient route to the highest measurable result. We know what accomplishment is supposed to look like. We frame our questions and responses around it. And we see experimentation, not as an end in itself, but as a tool in the pursuit of the overall dream. But what if it's the joy of experimenting and not the accomplishing th...

Some call it mandatory vaccinations and others call it forced. Tomato/ Patato. It's about to get real folks! Many countries are now in a phase of stricter measures regarding how to get this "Corona Virus Pandemic " under control. Will the newly implemented measures create a 2 class system? Does this cross over into church versus state? Does it make you feel more safe or less free? Will Vaccinated vs. Un-vaccinated cause a even more human divide than we are already seeing? Are the global governments doing their best to bring us together or to further divide us? Also, find out why this one dude can't put on enough expensive cologne to cover up the stench of his rotting soul. Wtf...Whoa!?! All this and more inside of this TOO HOT TO HANDLE episode.

This is the full show for August 27, 2021. Off the Top, Louis wonders if Joe Biden has already given Kamala Harris the reigns of power in the White House. We Ask the Mamas about a news reporter who was triggered by a maskless scout leader. In Digging Deep, Stephen tells us about a group of retired special forces who rescued hundreds of Afghanis this week. Plus, it's Fake News Friday, and we finish with a Moment of Whoa about a teen who needed a basketball net, and the neighbors who came through.

This is the full show for August 26, 2021. Off the Top, the Biden Administration gives a "kill list" to the Taliban. We Ask the Mamas about college kids being forced to take the vaccine. In Digging Deep, we try to figure out why YouTube took down one of our videos. Plus, there's a Bright Spot about a dual national soccer player who chose to play for Team USA. And, we finish off with a Moment of Whoa about an American woman who fought to help some very smart Afghani girls escape that country.

WHOA! - Designer Street Drugs - New Earth PlanetsSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

ISIS attacks in Afghanistan, R Kelly's rules, US Open quiet rooms, Demi Lovato: California sober, Maz-karaoke, a Bonerline, Lyla abuses International Dog Day, Locked Up Abroad, and 25 underrated band members. BranDon is taking a personal day... to go party with Who Are These Podcasts in Chicago.ISIS suicide bomb attacks in Kabul, Afghanistan kill 13 US Service Members and 60 Afghans. ISIS-K believes the Taliban is too "liberal". Lyla! is celebrating International Dog Day by taking over the podcast after spending half the day in her "house".Not only will Tom Labuda be appearing at Arts, Beats, and Eats; but Woodward Sports will be making an appearance as well.President Biden has a press conference and has ordered plans to strike back at ISIS-K. Some have been calling to impeach Biden after the attacks in Kabul today.The Bonerline is really picking on Drew today. Please use promo code "Drew" at Manscaped.com to make him feel better.At R Kelly's trial today we learn two of "Rob's Rules".Miguel Cabrera's 500th HR was only good enough for #10 on ESPN Top 10 list for the day... behind highlights from WNBA, NWSL and women's college soccer.Erin Andrews wants you to know that she's on her 7th round of IVF.The only thing that would make a baby gender announcement interesting is by combining it with the milk crate challenge.The US Open is providing mental health resources and quiet rooms for the players.Taylor North has advanced to the semi-finals of the Little League World Series. Drew has some PTSD from playing against a mustachioed 12-year-old in little league.The IRS charged Marc for his autograph.Time's up for the head of Time's Up for helping out handsy Andrew Cuomo.Maz joins us to discuss ESPN v. Rachel Nichols, the return of college football, dropping Lilly off at MSU, and to sing a little Barry Manilow.Demi Lovato is flaunting their "California Sobriety". BTW: It's Raining ThemMarc thinks John Frusciante of Red Hot Chili Peppers is very underrated, leading to the list of 25 Underrated Band Members.Tell someone with an old phone that they need to get a new one.Buzzfeed made a list of celebrities that got the Covid Vaccine and those that refused to get one. Weird Twitter Battle: Fox Meteorlist Janice Dean vs. Matthew Dowd.Tony Hawk has a skateboard with his blood in it and Lil Nas X is upset that more people aren't upset.Drew is "due" to watch Dead Man's Curve, but he cannot find Pump Up the Volume anywhere. Drew's been binging Locked Up Abroad.Bachelor in Paradise has David Spade, but the viewers still want Chris Harrison.Whoa! Joey Lawrence was on the Celebrity Dating Game.He's also still on Cameo where no one gets under 5 Stars. We check out videos from joey Lawrence, Boring Austin Green, Rudy Guliani, Andy Dick, and Rumor Willis.Some dude at Trudi's physical therapy was trying to impress everyone by trying to play Name That Tune.Social media is dumb but we're on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter (Drew and Mike Show, Marc Fellhauer, Trudi Daniels and BranDon).

We all have something we want to pursue, a goal or an objective we want to reach. We might not always know what it is from the get-go, but as we go on, we can find what we value doing the most. Now, there may be obstacles in our paths, making it feel like our goals are but unachievable and improbable dreams. However, when you are pursuing what you value, nothing can stop you from achieving your destiny.   In this episode, world-renowned human behaviour specialist Dr John Demartini joins us to inspire you to start pursuing what you value. He shares advice and a range of wonderful stories on this topic. Learning about delegation can greatly help you with pursuing what you value. We also talk about the neuroscience of flow states and getting people to understand the quality of your work. If you're mulling over starting your journey to doing what you love, listen to this episode! This might be the push you need to reach for what you've thought was improbable.   Get Customised Guidance for Your Genetic Make-Up For our epigenetics health programme, optimising your fitness, lifestyle, nutrition, and mental performance to your specific genes, go to  https://www.lisatamati.com/page/epigenetics-and-health-coaching/.   Customised Online Coaching for Runners CUSTOMISED RUN COACHING PLANS — How to Run Faster, Be Stronger, Run Longer  Without Burnout & Injuries Have you struggled to fit in training in your busy life? Maybe you don't know where to start, or perhaps you have done a few races but keep having motivation or injury troubles? Do you want to beat last year's time or finish at the front of the pack? Want to run your first 5-km or run a 100-miler? ​​Do you want a holistic programme that is personalised & customised to your ability, goals, and lifestyle?  Go to www.runninghotcoaching.com for our online run training and coaching.   Health Optimisation and Life Coaching If you are struggling with a health issue and need people who look outside the square and are connected to some of the greatest science and health minds in the world, then reach out to us at support@lisatamati.com. We can jump on a call to see if we are a good fit for you. If you have a big challenge ahead, are dealing with adversity, or want to take your performance to the next level and learn how to increase your mental toughness, emotional resilience, foundational health, and more, then contact us at support@lisatamati.com.   Order My Books My latest book Relentless chronicles the inspiring journey about how my mother and I defied the odds after an aneurysm left my mum Isobel with massive brain damage at age 74. The medical professionals told me there was absolutely no hope of any quality of life again, but I used every mindset tool, years of research and incredible tenacity to prove them wrong and bring my mother back to full health within three years. Get your copy here: https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/books/products/relentless. For my other two best-selling books, Running Hot and Running to Extremes, chronicling my ultrarunning adventures and expeditions all around the world, go to https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/books.   Lisa's Anti-Ageing and Longevity Supplements  NMN: Nicotinamide Mononucleotide, an NAD+ precursor Feel Healthier and Younger* Researchers have found that Nicotinamide Adenine Dinucleotide or NAD+, a master regulator of metabolism and a molecule essential for the functionality of all human cells, dramatically decreases over time. What is NMN? NMN Bio offers a cutting-edge Vitamin B3 derivative named NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) that can boost NAD+ levels in muscle tissue and liver. Take charge of your energy levels, focus, metabolism and overall health so you can live a happy, fulfilling life. Founded by scientists, NMN Bio offers supplements of the highest purity, rigorously tested by an independent, third-party lab. Start your cellular rejuvenation journey today. Support Your Healthy Ageing We offer powerful, third-party tested, NAD+ boosting supplements so you can start your healthy ageing journey today. Shop Now: https://nmnbio.nz/collections/all NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 250mg | 30 capsules NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 500mg | 30 capsules 6 Bottles | NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 250mg | 30 Capsules 6 Bottles | NMN (beta Nicotinamide Mononucleotide) 500 mg | 30 Capsules Quality You Can Trust: NMN Our premium range of anti-ageing nutraceuticals (supplements that combine Mother Nature with cutting-edge science) combats the effects of ageing and is designed to boost NAD+ levels. The NMN capsules are manufactured in an ISO 9001-certified facility. Boost Your NAD+ Levels: Healthy Ageing Redefined Cellular Health Energy & Focus Bone Density Skin Elasticity DNA Repair Cardiovascular Health Brain Health  Metabolic Health   My  ‘Fierce' Sports Jewellery Collection For my gorgeous and inspiring sports jewellery collection, 'Fierce', go to https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/lisa-tamati-bespoke-jewellery-collection.   Here are three reasons why you should listen to the full episode: Learn about delegation and how you can utilise it to make the most out of your job. Discover the two different flow states that come into play when you're doing what you love best. Listen to a variety of enlightening stories that show how pursuing what you value can change your life.   Resources Gain exclusive access and bonuses to the Pushing the Limits Podcast by becoming a patron! Listen to other Pushing the Limits episodes: #198: How to Prioritise and Reach Your Goals with Dr John Demartini Connect with Dr Demartini: Website | Facebook | LinkedIn | Instagram | YouTube Check out Elon Musk's interview on 60 Minutes. A new program, BoostCamp, is coming this September at Peak Wellness!      Episode Highlights [04:21] Achieving the Improbable No matter what obstacles you face, you will get up again if you have a big enough reason. Each of us has a set of priorities. At the very top is our destiny, which is non-negotiable. When you're pursuing what you value, you'll continue regardless of pleasure or pain.  By delegating low-priority things, you can go on pursuing what you value.  [09:20] The Importance of Delegation As long as you're doing your top priority, something that produces the most per hour, it doesn't cost to delegate. Delegation frees up your time so you can pursue something that makes more income. However, when you don't recruit the right person, you end up losing money because you're having to micromanage and getting distracted.  [14:07] Hiring the Right People  Do the basics, such as references and background checks. Dr Demartini specifically asks what applicants would do if they never had to work another day in their life.  If they don't answer something close to the job description, he turns them down.  Don't hire somebody who can't see how the job you're offering can fulfil their highest value. Tune in to the full episode to hear how Dr Demartini helped one of his applicants pursue what they value! [26:06] Job Security vs. Pursuing What You Value Dr Demartini shares a story about how he guided a young man to chase after his dreams. He sees this man eight years later, the owner of eight franchises. Many people stay in their jobs because of security. However, quitting work and pursuing what you value is your choice. Dr Demartini's recalls a time when he accompanied a ditch digger to work. He was so proud of his job, as he brings water—and life—to people. It doesn't matter if the job seems small, as long as you're pursuing what you value.  [44:30] Taking Pride in What You Do When your identity revolves around pursuing what you value, the higher your pride is in your workmanship. You'll excel in whatever you do, as long as you're pursuing what you value.  People who are pursuing what they value go beyond what is expected of them. Whether you start early or late, you can always begin pursuing what you value.  Master planning is a way to get there quickly. [46:26] The Neuroscience of Flow States There are two flow states. The manic flow state is a high that does not last long, as it is driven by the amygdala and dopamine. You get into your real flow state when you are pursuing what you value—something truly inspiring and meaningful.  In the real flow state, you're willing to embrace both pain and pleasure while you are pursuing what you value. Dr Demartini likens the two states to infatuation versus love. Infatuation is short-lived and only sees the positives; love endures even the negatives.  Manic flow is transient; real flow is eternal. [53:33] Finding the Middle and Paying for Quality You shouldn't get over-excited about good things and over-depressed about bad ones. Stay in the middle. Looking at the downsides isn't cynicism. It shows that you have grounded objectives. Dr Demartini's father, who is in the plumbing business, carefully considers all variables before taking on a project. As such, he charges more than competitors. People will be more willing to pay for your work once you explain what sets it apart from others. If you get defensive about your work, you start to sound arrogant. Instead, try to be informative about the value of what you offer. [1:03:32] Staying Stable and Flexible  Dr Demartini is neither excited nor fearful about the future.  He looks at both sides so that he does not become too elated or depressed. Emulating this can help you be stable enough to keep pursuing what you value. Over support leads to juvenile dependency, while challenges encourage independence.  Adapt and do what needs to be done. If you can't delegate it to others, learn to do it yourself.   7 Powerful Quotes from This Episode [05:34] ‘Nothing mortal, can interfere with an immortal vision.' [07:00] ‘There's wisdom in not doing low priority things; there's wisdom in not pursuing something that's not truly and deeply meaningful to you.' [23:18] ‘Don't ever hire anybody who can't see how the job description you want can help them fulfil their highest value.' [44:37] ‘The pride in workmanship goes up to the degree that it's congruent with what you value most.' [50:26] ‘Fantasies aren't obtainable, objectives are.' [54:31] ‘If you're overexcited, you're blind to the downside.' [1:06:22] ‘People can be really resourceful if somebody doesn't rescue them.'   About Dr Demartini Dr John Demartini has been a public speaker for nearly 50 years. He is a world-renowned specialist in human behaviour, researcher, author, and educator. He empowers people from all walks of life by sharing his knowledge on self-development and financial wellness. One of his fields of interest is personal development where he has developed a curriculum of programs. One of his seminars, The Breakthrough Experience, uses his revolutionary techniques, the Demartini Method and the Demartini Value Determination Process.  If you want to learn more about Dr Demartini and his work, you may visit his website. You can also see him on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and YouTube Enjoyed This Podcast? If you did, be sure to subscribe and share it with your friends! Post a review and share it! If you were inspired to start pursuing what you value, then leave us a review. You can also share this with your family and friends so they too can be pushed to go after their passion. Have any questions? You can contact me through email (support@lisatamati.com) or find me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. For more episode updates, visit my website. You may also tune in on Apple Podcasts. To pushing the limits, Lisa   Full Transcript of the Podcast Welcome to Pushing The Limits, the show that helps you reach your full potential with your host Lisa, brought to you by www.lisatamati.com. Lisa Tamati: I want to welcome you back to Pushing The Limits. This week, I have Dr John Demartini. Now you may recognise that latter name. He's been on the show before. And he's definitely one that I want to have him back on again. He is an incredible teacher, and educator, and author of I don't know how many dozens of books. He's been working in the personal development in space for 50 years, I think. Incredible man.  I hope you enjoy part two of this very in-depth conversation about upgrading your life–how to grow your businesses. We talk about also how to reach your full potential. And what sort of things we put in our own way. So I hope you enjoy this episode with Dr John. Also, I would like to let you know we have a Boost Camp coming up. This is a, not a boot camp. It's all about upgrading your life. This is all about being the best version of yourself that you can be, upgrading everything in your life from your health fundamentals to things like sleep, and understanding your brain better your mood and behaviour. Lots and lots of science, and lots of information, and stuff that's going to be actually practical stuff that you can implement in your life to improve how you're performing your health, your vision and purpose in life. And aligning all of these things together.  I hope you'll come and join us. This is an eight-week program that is live with Neil Wagstaff and myself. Neil is my longtime coach and business partner. And he runs all the programs with me that we do with epigenetics, with running hot coaching, and so on. And he is an incredible teacher. I do hope you'll check it out. You can go to peakwellnessco.co.nz, peakwellness, p-e-a-k, peak wellness dot co dot NZ forward-slash boost camp, b-o-o-s-t-c-a-m-p. To find out more, and come and join us, it's going to be a fantastic writer and you're going to learn an awful lot and get to hang out with a whole bunch of people while you're doing it. So check that out.  I also like to remind you too, of our Patron program. We have a Patron program for the podcast to help us keep this on-air, keep us great content, to help us keep the mission going. If you're into doing that, please, for the price of a coffee or a month. Sorry, a coffee a month, you can be involved in this project. And you can also get a whole lot of exclusive member benefits for your troubles. So check all that out at patron.lisatamati.com, p-a-t-r-o-n dot lisa tamati dot com. Right. Now, over to the show with Dr John Demartini.  Hi, everyone. And welcome back to Pushing The Limits. I'm super excited to have an amazing name back again for a second round, Dr John Demartini. Welcome to the show, Dr John. It's fabulous to have you back again.  Dr John: Demartini: Yes, thank you for having me back.  Lisa: It's just–I was so blown away by our conversation last time. And I know you do thousands of these interviews and in the work that you do that you probably can't even remember what you talked about. But it was a real life-changing episode that ended up– we dived into some of your medical work earlier. We went all over the place with your breakthrough experience. I just felt like we didn't quite cover all the bases that I want to tap into your great knowledge.  Having you back again today, and today I thought we'd look at things like I want to dive into things like, ‘How do we achieve the impossible?' I've been doing a lot of work and researching around, what is it that makes incredible people incredible? And that they had the ability to overcome incredible odds and difficulties and obstacles in order to achieve some possible things. And I'm pretty much into a lot of the big thinkers out there. So I wanted to start directly if that's okay. How do we achieve the impossible, Dr John?  Dr John: Well, I don't know. Maybe that's a bit of a metaphor–the impossible is impossible.  Lisa: But yeah, it's a metaphor.  Dr John: Improbable, the improbable.  Lisa: Yeah.  Dr John: When the why is big enough the hows take care of thems elves. When you have a big enough reason for doing something, no matter how many obstacles you face, you get up again. And there was an interview. There was an interview by a gentleman I think from 60 minutes with Elon Musk. And they asked him after having three launches explode back to back. ‘You ever think about giving up?' He looked at the guy and he says, ‘I never give up. I'd have to be incapacitated.' Meaning that his mission to go to Mars is too important for any obstacle that might arise to stop it. I would say nothing mortal can interfere with an immortal vision.  Each of us, as you know, have a set of priorities. And the very top, top, top priority is non-negotiable. It's where human sovereignty and divine providence come together, where you feel that it's impossible for you not to fulfil your true destiny. I feel that way with my mission of speaking. I just felt that that was my destiny when I was 17. And I've been doing it 48 plus years now, be soon 49 in a few months. So if you'd have a big enough reason for doing it, you'll see the challenges on the way, not in the way. It's like Edison, a thousand ways to that didn't work for the light bulb to get the light bulb. There was no option about getting a light bulb, he knew he would come up with an answer, he just kept, ‘Okay, that doesn't work. Okay, next. That one doesn't work, next.'  When things are lower on your value, you'll do it if there's pleasure; you'll stop doing it if there's pain. When something's tying your value, you'll do it regardless of pleasure or pain. And you'll see both of them on the way, not in the way. So there's wisdom in not doing low-priority things. There's wisdom in not pursuing something that's not truly and deeply meaningful to you. People who do that build incremental momentum that reaches an unstoppable state, an inertia that's unstoppable. That's the key to extraordinary things. And when it's truly aligned with your value, your identity revolves around it, you feel it's impossible for you not to do it. It's not an option; it's who you are. Lisa: So this involves looking at your values determination, how to sort out what your real– because I think this is where a lot of us come unstuck. We have lots of things we want to do, and we're curious about lots of things and have lots of passions, and it's sorting out the wheat from the chaff, so to speak, in order, distilling down that vision so that you're actually hyper-focused and being able to concentrate on the things that you need to concentrate on. I know that's something that I definitely struggle with, when you have so many things that you're interested in. But you're really right when you say like, for me, with my story with my mom, if you remember bringing her back from the mess of aneurysm, there was a non-negotiable. We were doing it, and I was going to get her back or die trying was the attitude that I went inwards. That means sacrificing whatever it took to get to that place. And then we do get there, you know?  Dr John: Well, the thing is not to pursue low-priority things, and to know what those are, and say and delegate everything other than what's important. I don't do anything but research, write, teach. Those are the three things I love doing. But it's all about educating people in human behaviour. So that's the one thing that is non-negotiable that I do. Then I delegate everything else away. That way, you don't have to be distracted and run down. What drains you is doing low priority things. Lisa: Yeah. And this is a lot– yeah, this is a lot that a lot of people, especially startup entrepreneurs, and people that are just getting there, finding your way, are struggling with: the whole delegation thing when they don't have a team around them. What sort of advice do you want to give to people who are at the beginning of their career and don't have a team yet around them to help do all those aspects of it that are draining the hell out of their lives? Dr John: Well, what you do is you ask the question, ‘How is doing this action temporarily until I can find somebody to delegate it to helping me fulfil my mission?' Link it to your brain. Reframe its words. You see it on the way, not in a way, with the knowing that you're going to delegate it. And then, it doesn't cost to delegate. It costs not to. As long as you're doing what's highest in priority that produces the most per hour, it doesn't cost to delegate. Because you're releasing yourself to do the most important thing that produces the most income that produces more than the cost of the delegation, and that they can produce. And yet the person that would love to do that inspired to do that but doesn't have to be motivated to do that. They will spontaneously do it without even thinking about it, you can free yourself up. In 1982, end of 1982, I hired somebody to take care of my financial things: paying payroll, paying bills, bank reconciliations, all that stuff. Because I was sitting there in October of 1982. I was sitting there doing a bank balance, like, ‘What on earth am I doing?' I didn't want to do it. It was distracting, time-consuming. And while I was doing it, I didn't want to think about clients because it was interfering. I needed to get this done, and I'm pushing clients away. I freed that up, and I have not gone back, nor even seen a chequebook. That's 1982. Lisa: Gosh I would love that.  Dr John: I can't even tell you what a chequebook in my company looks like. Lisa: Or accounting or any software.  Dr John: I don't have any of that stuff. I have somebody that does that. That's their job. I– because that's a 20 to $50 an hour job. And why do I value my time? Well, I can make thousands per hour, and tens of thousands per hour. Lisa: But what about the people that can't make the ten thousands of per hour or the thousands per hour, and there's still a net, they're still in taking that leap into getting the first person in the team on board and the second person. I think there's a lot of people in that, jumping from, say, the $100,000 mark to the million-dollar mark of a turnover in a company where it's chaos. I think it's chaos beyond that as well. But it's that getting the initial, taking that risk when you don't have a solid income yet, and yet, you're taking a risk on hiring a business manager or hiring whatever, even assistants. Dr John: If you have a clear job description and you have a clear actions that you can do that can produce more per hour than having to do those things, and you can see, ‘Well, I'm doing five hours a day doing trivial. If I had those five hours, could I go out and close deals?' If you're willing to do that it doesn't cost, ever cost, to hire people.  Lisa: Yeah. So it's a mindset shift, really?  Dr John: Yeah. Because what happens is you think, well, if you're not going to be productive, and they're now, you're just going to pay somebody to do something you were doing, and you're not going to go produce more per hour than it's going to cost. But it frees you up to do something that closes a deal or makes a bigger deal. Makes more income. You're insane not to do it. Now, in my situation, I saw that if I was out doing presentations and taking care of clients, I can make more than tenfold what is going to cost, 20-fold to 100-fold what I was going to pay somebody to do it. It's a no-brainer.  It doesn't cost to hire somebody. Unless you do it ineffectively. You are somebody who doesn't love doing it, you're pushing him uphill, is not inspired by it, and you have the skill by it, and you're micromanaging him and you're having to distract yourself, and you're not doing the thing that produces. That's why it costs money. Not because of delegation, but inadequate delegation. Lisa: So in other words, recruiting the right people to your team is a huge piece of this and getting the right— So what are some of the things that you do when you're analysing somebody to take on into your team? What are some of the processes that you go through from an entrepreneurial standpoint? Dr John: Well, I do all the basics: references and checks and those things. But I just sit them down when I meet them if they get through the screening. I sit down with them. I said, ‘If I was to write a check right now for $10 million and handed it to you, and you never had to work another day in your life. What would you do with your life?' If they're, they don't say what the job is or close to it, I say, ‘Thank you very much.' I walk away.  Lisa: Right? Because they're not. That's not the key thing.  Dr John: That's not their dream. Can I share an interesting story? I don't think I shared this before. Sorry. If I had, just tell me, cut me off. When I was in practice many years ago, I was hiring a manager, and I was scaling up and delegating more and more. We were down to two people's potentials: one was a woman, one was a man. And the man was in for that evening, about five o'clock. I worked till six, usually, but at five, I was telling my patients, five o'clock, this gentleman comes in. He had passed much of the things I thought. But he came into my office. He had a little briefcase, is about 54, looks like a violator jet, this guy. He comes in, sits down on the edge of his chair, and he says, ‘Wow, this is a great opportunity. I've had the opportunity to work with your company would be fantastic. I'm awe-inspired.' I said, ‘Great. Hope you don't mind. But I just got a few questions.' And I had a check. This is back before I got rid of my checks. I got a check that my lady at the front organised. I had the check in front of me. And I said, ‘Your proper name is?' I put his name on the cheque. I wrote 10 million US dollars.  Lisa: It was a real piece?  Dr John: I didn't sign it, but I just put it there. I made sure he saw it. Because any facade he might have, if he saw a check with $10 million on it, his name on it, that's going to distract him. Because the infatuation of that's going to throw any facade that he might try to put on me, ultimately. So I said, ‘If I was to hand you this cheque,' and I showed him the cheque. ‘And I gave you $10 million upfront, and you never had to work another day in your life. What would you do?'  Lisa: What did he say?  Dr John: And he leaned back in his chair like this. He goes, he relaxed a second. He goes, ‘Wow, if I had $10 million. What would I do? I would manufacture furniture. I have a hobby. I love making furniture. I'd make furniture and open up furniture companies.' I said, I got up. I said, ‘Thanks very much.' He stood up and he was like, ‘What?' He said, ‘Well, did I get the job?' I said, ‘No.' ‘Do you mind if I ask why?' I said, ‘Very simple. I'm hiring you for a management position. You said if you had $10 million, you'd love to make furniture. If you're a great manager, how come you haven't managed your life in such a way where you can do what you love?' He just looked at me and he just paused because that's a very good question. ‘And I have nothing I could say, except, you just woke me up.' I said, ‘Thank you,' and I escort him out.  I watched him walk with his head down slowly to his car and sit in his car for a few minutes to just process that. He's like going, ‘Whoa. I thought I'm looking for a job. I'm enthused, I'm really excited, everything else. And I just got slammed with a reality check of what was really important to me. And the real truth was, is I love making furniture.' So he sat in that car, and finally slowly drove off and we ruled him out. We ruled the girl out. So we had to go through another round. Yeah.  Lisa: And so this is part of the process.  Dr John: Three weeks had gone by. And all of a sudden my assistant said. ‘Dr Demartini, there's a gentleman here a few weeks ago that was looking for a job. He's back.' ‘Alright, okay.' He said, she said ‘Should I just sent him back in?' I said, ‘Yeah.' I come down to the same office, same thing, comes in. I'm sitting in the same place, you sit in the same place. But this time, he walks in with a paper bag, a big paper bag, large paper bag with handles on. He said, ‘Dr Demartini,' shook my hand. He said, ‘Dr Demartini. I was here a few weeks ago,' I said, ‘Oh. Yeah, I remember you.' He said, ‘You changed my life.' I said, ‘How so?' He said, ‘When I was enthusiastic looking for the job, I've been looking for a job for three months. I didn't find one. I thought when you said, if I'm such a good manager, how come I haven't managed my own life? And you nailed me. I was a bit depressed after that, and I had a soul searching, and I had a conversation with my wife. Part of the reasons I was taking on jobs is for security instead of doing what I really love to do. And so after that conversation, I told my wife that and I said, “If I was to go out and try to build my own company in furniture manufacturing, would you endure the, whatever we go through to get there?” And she hugged him, and she says, “That's what you've always wanted to do. We'll make ends meet. We'll find a way.”'  He started his company. He started telling people he's there to make furniture and he started making pieces of furniture. He made a bed, and he made a dresser, and he started making furniture and stuff. He also made it available that he could do interior in homes that were being built. He started letting people know in his network. So he's back in my office three weeks later, and he told me that that's the best thing ever happened to his life. He says, ‘I've already got commissioned $5,400 worth of product with the furniture, and that's in three weeks. I'm on track, probably for making $10,000 to my first month now. And that's more than what I was probably going to get paid.'  I said, ‘Congratulations.' And this is what he said to me. He said, ‘You have no idea how much more energy I have, how inspired I am. I don't care about how many hours it is I'm working. I'm staying up, and I'm a different man. I'm loving it. I'm in, I now understand what an entrepreneur is, a bit.' And he said, ‘But this is what I want to do. Because you gave me such a gift. When I came in your office, I noticed the wood. Because you filter with your polar nuclei of your diencephalonic thalamus. You put, you filter reality coin, what you value most. So he noticed the wood in my office.  He said, ‘And I noticed that you had Kleenex boxes sitting on these little rolling carts. It would really be honourable for me if I could actually take those little Kleenex boxes, and melt my Kleenex box systems on your wall that match your wood. All you do is lift them up on a hinge, put the Kleenex box and pull the tissue, put it back down to replace it. And then you have more space on your thing, because I noticed you had less space on there than probably ideal. It really means a lot to me if I can put them in all your rooms.' I said, ‘I would be honoured to have those in there. And I want you to do me a favour. I want you to put your card on the bottom of each one. So I can, for referrals.' He said, ‘I would be glad to do that.' He said, ‘But that would mean a lot. Because you just changed my life.'  He ended up doing what he really loved to do, grew his business. I got complimentary things in all my rooms, which was an added bonus. But it just goes to show that people, when they're doing something that's deeply meaningful, truly inspiring, high in priority, they excel. So don't ever hire anybody who can't see how the job description you want to help them fulfil their highest value. Lisa: Be it personal and be it roles. And not this division of the company. Dr John: The actual actions. So you make sure you have a job description with all the actions and you ask your potential candidate: ‘How specifically is doing this actually going to help you fulfil what's most deeply meaningful to you?' If they can't answer it, don't hire them. If they answer with enthusiasm on all those things, you get them, grab them. If they don't, don't worry because they're going to be microman— you're gonna have to motivate them. Motivation is a symptom, never a solution to humanity. Lisa: And in changing that, I've got a friend Joe Polish. If you know Joe, he's a very famous marketing man and an incredible connector and so on. He talks about, he was talking about entrepreneurship one day, I forget the context of the situation. But he teaches about entrepreneurial things, how to do it. He's hugely successful. Someone said to him once, ‘You've had the same assistant for the last 21 years, for how many years, a lot of years. If she's been hearing you talk about how wonderful it is to be an entrepreneur to do all these things, how come she hasn't gotten that information and runoff and become her own entrepreneur?'  He called the lady over and he said, ‘Why is it that you still with me?' He knew the answer. But she answered, ‘Because I don't want to take on the risk. That's not my job. That's not my passion. My passion is to serve Joe and be the person in the backstage setting all those things up. That is my highest power. That is what I love. That's why I'm still here. I love working with Joe, and I love his mission. And that's what I'm happy doing.' That's the key, is not everybody should be an entrepreneur. Or everybody should be having the same mission. It's that she understands what her passions, what the job is. Dr John: If everybody was an entrepreneur, who would be working for him? Lisa: Yeah. We'd have a hell of a mess. And being an entrepreneur is a long, arduous, often difficult, lonely road full of holes, along the way, potholes. It isn't for everybody, but for people like you and for me, it's, I can go for it. I've got to be running my own ship. And learning from people like you is great for me because then I can see what helps my next steps and what I should be doing. Instead of—  Dr John: Can I share another story?  Lisa: Go for it. Dr John: So, right about the same time when I was hiring that other person, a young gentleman, late 20s, I'm guessing, mid to late 20s, came into my office, and asked if he could have a meeting with me. And he worked with Yellow Pages. There used to be a thing called Yellow Page.  Lisa: Yeah. I'm old enough.  Dr John: They were ads, telephone ads. You put a listing, it's free. But if you put a listing with a little box or a little ad in it, it's a little bit more. You bought the Yellow Page ad. So he was trying to sell Yellow Page ad. So he sat in my office. And he started to do this little spiel. And I had the time. So I took a moment to do it. Because I was curious what the prices were. And at the end of his little spiel, and not even to the end, three quarters through, I stopped him. I said ‘Stop. Just stop.' That was the worst presentation. That was so off. I said, ‘This is not what you want to do in life. What do you really want to do in life?' And he looked at me and he goes, ‘That bad?' And I said, ‘It was bad.' ‘I bet you haven't sold anything.' He says, ‘No, I haven't.' I said, ‘This is not you. What's your heart? Where's your heart? What do you really, really, really, really dream about doing in your career?' He said, ‘I want to be in the restaurant business.' I said, ‘Go to a restaurant today to get a job there, and work your way up until you own your restaurant.' He goes, ‘Well, I needed to hear that. Because I respect you and I needed to hear that from you.' And then I sold him a little audio cassette tape that I'd done, called The Psychology of Attainment. And he bought it, it was only 10 bucks.  He walked out with his $10 thing to listen to because I knew if he listened to it, it would encourage him to keep it going. He left there. Eight years go by, never seen the guy again. Eight years go by. I had moved to a new office. And I was on my way to go have lunch with my CPA. He picked me up. I came downstairs, he picked me up, took me to this little Super Salad restaurant nearby because we both had less than an hour to eat. So it's quick. Get in there and get a salad. You walk in and this Super Salad is a thing where you get a tray, and it's got a whole bunch of foods. And whatever it is they weigh it, and they charge you the acquired weight. So you get salad. You pay less if you get something with it.  As I walked in, and we started going to the line, I saw that young man grown up eight years older in this suit, talking to another man in a suit. And I said, ‘If you don't mind going get me a tray. And I'll catch up. I see someone I must say hi to.' I walk over to this guy. He's talking this man. He's not paying attention to me. I'm standing right next to him. And as he's talking I'm just standing there waiting for him to finish. All of a sudden he finishes, the guy starts to walk off he turns around as if he's going to say, ‘Can I help you?'  Lisa: Yeah, he didn't realise this.  Dr John: And obviously he looks at me and he goes, ‘Oh my god. Wow, wow.' He shook my hand, and ran off and got the other guy to come here, ‘This is the guy I told you about.' And he told him, ‘This is the guy.' And the guy said, ‘Oh, thank you. I'd love to meet you. He's told me all about you, he said you changed his life.' And I said, ‘Well didn't know until today. What impact– Lisa: What are you doing? Yeah. Dr John: But the guy told me, he says, ‘I have eight franchises. I come into my restaurant. That was the manager. I'm checking up on my restaurants and I'll go to the next one. I check them out once a week, I go make my rounds.' He said, ‘That day, I got me a job at Super Salad. I worked myself into a management position for over two years. As I was saving the heck out of my money, which your tape set said to do, I bought into the franchises and I got eight franchises.' Lisa: Jesus! Just from that one tape, that one conversation, see this is the impact– Dr John: I said to him, ‘You just inspired me.' It brought a tear to my eye to know that– because I thought maybe I was a bit tough on you. He said, ‘Sir, you did the most amazing thing to my life that day. Because the truth is, I wanted to be in the restaurant business. And now I am.' Lisa: Just interrupting the program briefly to let you know that we have a new Patron program for the podcast. Now, if you enjoy Pushing The Limits, if you get great value out of it, we would love you to come and join our Patron membership program. We've been doing this now for five and a half years and we need your help to keep it on air. It's been a public service free for everybody, and we want to keep it that way. But to do that, we need like-minded souls who are on this mission with us to help us out. So if you're interested in becoming a Patron for Pushing the Limits podcast, then check out everything on patron.lisatamati.com. That's p-a-t-r-o-n dot lisatamati dot com. We have two patron levels to choose from. You can do it for as little as $7 a month, New Zealand, or $15 a month if you really want to support us. So we are grateful if you do. There are so many membership benefits you're going to get if you join us, everything from workbooks for all the podcasts, the strength guide for runners, the power to vote on future episodes, webinars that we're going to be holding, all of my documentaries and much, much more. So check out all the details: patron.lisatamati.com, and thanks very much for joining us.  Lisa: You've encouraged him basically to have faith in the dream and to– because everybody else, like your family, often your friends, often are, ‘You can't leave that safe job.' I've had this conversation with my husband who's a firefighter. And he says like, ‘I can never leave the fire brigade because it's what I've always done. And that's how I've always, you know, it was my passion,' and so on. And I said, ‘Yes, but you don't have to stay there. That's your choice. Opt for security and– If you want security, if you want to do something, then do it. Life is short.' Dr John: All I know is that if you're not doing something you're inspired by, life can be pretty horrible. I see people. I didn't, I used to get, I lived in New York for a while. And we lived in Trump Tower there, fifty-sixth and fifth, right underneath Donald, so I knew Donald. So I live there for 29 years. And sometimes, you can take taxi. Sometimes, you take, when we're going in the airport, I got a limo. But just going around the city, sometimes I'd have a taxi. I get in the taxi and I– if there was a mess, sometimes I'd pass it by. I go, ‘No, smelly. No, no respect.' But again, in a taxi– if I'm in a hurry, it's hard to get, right? It's 3:30 to 4 o'clock march, I get in whatever I get, because I don't want to wait another 20 minutes. But I get it and I go, ‘How long have you been driving a taxi?' And they'll say a year, five years, 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, whatever it may be. I said, ‘Do you love it?' Some will look in the mirror and go, ‘Pays the bills, man.' And I said, ‘But do you love it?' He goes, ‘Are you kidding, man? If I got a thing in New York, you got to be nuts.' And they have that attitude.  Of course, the car is usually a mess. It's got ripped holes in it. It's got cigarette burns. It's got a little bit of an odour. You know it's not taken cared of; it's not clean. But then you get in another car. And, ‘How long have you driven a taxi?' ‘28 years.' I said, ‘Do you love it?' ‘I love it. I get to meet people like yourself. I meet the most amazing people every day. My father was a taxi driver. My grandfather was a taxi driver in New York. I know every city, every street, I know every part of the city. Here's my card. You want some water?' ‘Sure.' ‘Anything you need to let, give me feedback about my car, please tell me. If there's something not in order, if somebody left something there, if it's dirty, let me know. I'd like to make sure that everybody gets a good experience in my car. If you want to know about the city, you just ask me. Anytime you want to go anywhere in the city, you contact me. And there's my card, I will take you, and I'll make sure you got the best thing, and I'll be on time for you.' He was just engaged. And he loved it. And of course, I got his card. And I called him. And sometimes when I was going around the city, I would use him. He would even come back and pick me up. Lisa: And it shows you that it doesn't matter if you're cleaning toilets or you're a taxi driver or you're at the garbage disposal. Whatever job you're doing, do it well, for starters. That can be your mission in life, is to provide that service. It doesn't have to be taking on the world and flying to Mars like Elon Musk. It's just, do your job; do it well. I don't, I just– I have issue too, with people who just doing the job, getting the paycheck, not doing the job with passion.  You can tell. I walk into my gym and there's a new lady on reception who is just beaming from ear to ear, fully enthusiastic. I see her training; she trains like a maniac. She's just always happy and positive. When somebody comes into that gym now, they get a positive smiley receptionist. ‘Come in' and ‘How was your day?' The contrast to the other person that works at the gym who's surly looking, never smiles. And if you, say ‘Hello, how are you doing?' It's like, ‘Mmm.' And you think, ‘Wow, that is just the difference between someone who's just, “I'm so lucky to be here” and “I'm working.”'  Dr John: They're engaged versus disengaged. Can I share another story?  Lisa: This is great.  Dr John: Right. My father, I started working for my father when I was four. He owned a plumbing business. He wasn't a plumber. He's an engineer, but he had plumbers working for him. And my job was to clean the nipples. And they sound a little sexual, but it's actually, these little pipes and couplings, so it's interesting. But I used to scrape them out with a brush and oil them to make sure they would be preserved because they'll get a little rusty sitting around. Then, my dad would then, every once while, not every day, but most of the time, would give me the opportunity to go out with the plumbers to go on calls to learn plumbing. Everyone, so he would say, ‘Well, you're going to go with Joe today. You're going to go with Bob. You're going to go with Warren. You're going to go with…' And this one day, he said, ‘You're going to go with Jesse.'  I spend part of the day with Jesse. And Jesse was a ditch digger. He was an Afro-American man that was a ditch digger. And I said, ‘You want me to go with Jessie, am I going to dig a ditch?' He said, ‘Yes. I want you to go with Jesse.' I said, ‘Why?' He said, ‘You'll know when you get back.' ‘Okay.' So I go out with Jesse. We drive to this house that is about a 35-year-old house that needs a new water main from the street, the main from the street up to the house. And so he got a T-bar out, and he got a hose, and he got some paper, and he got a sharpshooter, which is a special shovel, and a little round-headed shovel, and a level and a string. This long string thing wrapped up on this piece of wood. And some, and another stick. The stick that had string around it where there are two sticks on either end. You could open them up unravelling. He stayed one at one place, stayed the other place, exactly where the line is going to go. Then he took a T-bar and went down into the ground to make sure there's no roots, no rocks, no anything that might interfere with the laying of a pipe. Then he watered it to make sure that you could go and if you dug it, it was just wet enough that it wouldn't crumble if you turn the sod over. And then he lined paper on one side of it. And then he showed me how to dig the ditch. I would go down to exactly the width of the sharpshooter, which is how deep it had to go. And then we would turn it over onto the paper. And that meant that the grass wasn't even cut, it was just folded over. Right. And we had a perfectly straight ditch. And then he showed me how to create the ditch with this other little thing. And it would go on top of the sides. It wouldn't fall off into the grass. It would just be on top of the paper, and on the inside. Then he took the level and he made sure that the grade was perfectly level from one place to the other because if you have a dip in it, water will sit there and rust and it'll wear out quicker. But if it flows exactly in line, you don't get as many rusting. We put this pipe down, pretty perfectly clear, perfectly graded. We levelled it, made sure it was perfectly level. We installed it to the house, into the main. We then put some of the dirt back over it. Put the sod back on, patted it down, watered it, squished it down, loosened up the grass so you couldn't even tell it had ever been done now. And we had a brand new waterline done. And when you're done, you could not, until you could walk around, you couldn't tell it was done. It was perfect. And then we got in the truck and started to drive off. And I asked, you know, Jesse, his name was. I said, ‘That was neat.' You know, I'm a young kid. And I said, ‘Call me J for John.' He said, ‘J, I have the greatest job on this planet, the greatest job a man could ever, ever, ever ask for.' And I said, ‘What do you mean?' I thought he's a ditch digger. He said, ‘Without water, people die. I bring life to people. My job is the most important job. They can't bathe. They can't drink. They can't make food. They can't do anything without my water pipe. I had the most important job on this planet. And I bring water to people. Without water people die.' And I thought, ‘Whoa.' And I came back and he said to me, ‘My job is to do such an amazing job that they call the office and complain that we never came.'  Lisa: Because they can't see where he's been!  Dr John: It's so immaculate. They don't believe that somebody came and they'll call and cuss out your dad. “Why is it not, why did you not do the main?” And your dad knows. Tell them, “If you don't mind just walk out. They will see that the main is there.”' They're unbelievably astonished that there was no mess and it's perfect. And he didn't tell us about Jesse, and the respect he does when he does water main. He knew that if I would go out there and learn from him, here's a man that does what he loves. Yeah, and he's the ditch digger. And in those days, you didn't make a little bit, you didn't make a lot of money. Lisa: And I love that. And it just reminds me of my dad. He was always cleaning up at the garden. He was a firefighter professionally, but he would be, every spare moment, gardening somebody's garden, cleaning up, landscaping, doing it. And he worked on films as a landscape artist and so on. He was always the one that was cleaning everything up, everything was immaculate by the end of the day. Whereas every, all the other workers were just, ‘Down tools. It's five o'clock, we're off,' sort of thing. Drop it and run. Everything was always a mess.  My dad, he always had everything perfectly done. And was, always came home satisfied because he'd spent, when he wasn't at the fire brigade, he spends his day with his hands in the dirt, out on the sun, physically working in nature, and loving it and doing a proper job of it. So yeah, it just reminded me because he taught us all those things as we were growing up too. And would take us and teach us how to paint and teach us how to, all of these things.  Dr John: The more something is high on your value that you're doing, your identity revolves around your highest value. Whatever is highest on your value, your identity revolves around. As a result of it, the pride in workmanship goes up to the degree that it's congruent with what you value most. Because you're inspired and love doing it. And it's, your identity goes around it. So my identity would rather revolve around teaching. So I'm inspired to do teaching. I can't wait to do it.  Whatever high an individual's values is what they're going to excel at most. And they are wanting to do it not because they have to, but because they love to. People do something they love to, completely do a different job than people that have to. They're creative, innovative. They go out of their way. They don't care if they have to work extra time. They don't care about those things because they're doing what they love. Lisa: Yeah, absolutely. I love it. You have some fabulous stories to illustrate the point. So whatever you're doing people, do it properly, and do it with passion, and try to get to where you want to. You might, this just takes time to get to where you want to go. You come out of school, you're not going to end up being near the top of your game. But you have to start somewhere and head towards what your passion is. I wanted to figure— Dr John: If you start out right at the very beginning, master planning, you can get there pretty quick. In 18 months, I went from doing everything, to do the two or three things that I did most effectively. I delegated the rest away. But my income went up tenfold.  Lisa: Wow. Yeah. Because you were actually doing the things that mattered the most. Dr John: Me going out and speaking and me doing the clinical work was the two things that I was, because that's the thing I went to school for. That's what I wanted to do. I didn't want to do the administrative or I didn't want to do all that other stuff. Hire people to do that. That freed me up. Lisa: Yeah, it's a fantastic message. Now, I wanted to flip directions on you if I could, and I've been doing a lot of study around flow states and optimising. How do we build into ourselves this ability to be operating at our best, which we've been talking a little bit about? What neurotransmitters are at play when we're in a flow state? How do we maintain this over time to remain inspired and not be worn down?  We think about flow state or I don't know how to put this into words, people. By that I mean, it's that state where you're just on fire, where everything's happening really well, you're at your genius place, your talents are being expressed properly, and you're just in it. I would get that when I'm running, or when I was making jewellery and I would, time would disappear, and I'd be just in this otherworldly place, almost sometimes. How do we tap into that? Because that is where we as human beings can be our optimal, be our best. Have you got any ideas around that as far as the neurotransmitters and the neuroscience of flow states? Dr John: Yes. It boils down to the very same thing I was saying a moment ago: not doing low priority things. There's two flow states though, and they get confused. Maybe people have confused a manic elated, utopic, euphoric high, which is a fantasy of all positives, no negatives in the brain that makes you manic. That flow state is a hypocriticality, amygdala-driven, dopamine-driven fantasy high that won't last.  Then there's a real flow state. When you're doing something that's truly inspiring and deeply meaningful, you get tears in your eyes getting to do it. You're not having a hypocriticality, you're having a supercriticality, where the very frontal cortex is actually activated, not the lateral but the medial one, and you're now present. It's the gratitude centre; it's grace. There you're in the flow because you're doing something you really love to do that you feel is your identity. That's where time stops.  Some people confuse a manic episode with that state. But a manic episode crashes. But the real flow state is inspired. That's when you're able to do what you love doing consistently. When Warren Buffett is doing, reading business statements, and financial statements, and deciding what companies to buy, this is what he loves doing. For me, I'm studying human behaviour and anything to do with the brain, and mind, and potential, and awareness. I'm that way. I can lose track of all time and just be doing it for hours. It's not a manic state. That's an inspired state. An inspired state is an intrinsically driven state where you're willing to embrace pain and pleasure in the pursuit of it.  You love tackling challenges and solving problems, and you'll just research and research or do whatever you're doing, and you just keep doing it because you won't stop. That's not a manic episode. Although manics can look similar, there's a difference. Though a manic state comes from the dopamine, you got a high dopamine, usually high serotonin, you got encapsulants, endorphins. But you also don't have, you're not perceiving the downsides. You're just seeing all upsides. You are blinded by little fantasy about what's going to happen. And that eventually catches you, because that it's not obtainable. Fantasies are not obtainable, objectives are.  Eventually, the other side comes in, and osteocalcins comes in and norepinephrine, epinephrine, cortisol, the stress responses. Because all of, all of a sudden your fantasy's not being met. But when you think you're going after the fantasy, just think of it this way: when you're infatuated with somebody, you're enamoured. You're in this euphoria. All you see is the upside, and you're blind to the downside. Actually, at this time, you say, ‘I'm in love.' No, you're infatuated. And then when weeks go by, and months go by, you start to find out, ‘Oh, I was fooled. That person I thought was there is not who I thought.' And you find out about this person. And that's short-lived. Yeah.  When you actually know that human beings can have both sides, and you don't have a fantasy of one side, but you embrace both sides, and know that they're a human being with a set of values. If you can communicate and articulate what you want in terms of those values, you now have a fulfilling relationship. It's a long term relationship. It's not volatile. It's not manic depressive. It's just steady. That's the one that's the flow. That's what allows the relationship to grow. The manic thing is transient. The real flow is eternal. Lisa: So it's the difference between being in love, and infatuated, and being in actual true real long-term love. Dr John: Well, infatuation, people confuse with love. If I have an expectation on you to be nice, never mean; kind, never cruel; positive, never negative; peaceful, never wrathful, giving, never taking; generous, never stingy; considerate, never inconsiderate. If I have a fantasy about who you are and I'm high because I think I've found this person, that's ‘Oh, well, it's all one-sided.' It's not sustainable. No one's gonna live that way. But if I have an expectation, if they're a human being with a set of values, I can rely on them to do what's highest on their value, and nothing more. I respect their value, I see how it's serving my value, and I can appreciate what they're committed to, and don't have any expectation except them to do what they do. They won't let me down. And I'll be grateful for them. Lisa: Why didn't you tell her that when I was a 20-year-old finding the wrong people in my life? Relationship-wise, are you going after the wrong types of people? Dr John: If you go after it a little infatuation, you have to pay with a broken crush. You never have a broken heart; you have a broken fantasy. Eventually, it helps you actually learn to go after what's in your heart. Lisa: And value what is really important. Gosh, wouldn't it be nice to have had never met a lot sooner? Dr John: There's no mistake, so much happened, because you wouldn't be doing this project. Lisa: No. Then this is what every piece of crap that's ever come your way in life has got an upside and a downside. Because I hear in one of your lectures talking about this: don't get ever overexcited, and don't get really depressed. It's always in the middle. You put it so eloquently, it was, whenever something good happens to you, don't get too overly excited about it. And whenever something bad happens to you, don't get overly depressed about it. Because there's something in the middle of there. You're not seeing the downsides of that good thing, and you're not seeing the upsides.  I've actually integrated that now into my life. When something good, I used to have this thing, ‘Oh my god, I have this breakthrough. I've had this breakthrough.' And ‘This happened to me.' And then I'll go and talk about it. And, because I'm a very open person and I found actually that's not good in a couple of ways. Because I'm overexcited about it. I've ticked it off in my brain almost as being happened. Dr John: If you're overexcited, you're blind to the downside. Lisa: Yeah. And you think it's already happened. Say you meet someone, new possible job, or it's a possible contract, or something like that. And you got all excited about it. Because you've got you've initiated the process, but in your brain, you've already ticked that box and got the job and you're off.  Dr John: Then you undermine it. And you said it's related about a job opportunity. You usually have it taken away from you. You're mostly unready for it. If you're really ready for the job opportunity, you're going to know what it's going to take workwise to be able to get paid. You'll already get the downside and your objective. And know, ‘Oh, that's gonna be 28 hours of work here.'  Lisa: That's not cynical, that's not cynicism. That's actually not realism.  Dr John: It's grounded objectives. People who keep grounded objectives don't have job opportunities taken away from them. But people who get elated about it, brag about it, talk about it, almost inevitably disappears. Lisa: Wow. Okay. And so you got to be looking at, I've elated— a couple of opportunities come up that are possibly I'm thinking about doing. I'm like, ‘That one's gonna take so much work in this direction. That means going to be the sacrifice for you.' And the old me would have just gone, ‘Yeah. Let's do it, jump in. And I'm like, ‘Am I just getting old or is this actually a better way to be?' Dr John: My dad taught me something as a plumbing industry. He'd have to, they'd say, ‘Okay, we're going to build this house. Here's all the plumbing that's going to be involved in it.' They'd see the plans. He'd have to do an estimate. What would it cost to produce all that, put that together? If he got elated and he didn't do his cost, by the time he finishes, he didn't make any profit. But if he does his due diligence and knows all the responsibilities, what happens if it rains? What happens if there's delays? What happens if the permits are delayed? He puts all the variables in there and checks it all off. He then goes in to the customer and says, ‘This is what it's going to cost.'  He said, sometimes the customer would come to him and say, ‘Well, yeah. But this other one came in at $10,000 cheaper.' My dad would sit there and he would say to him, he said, ‘I want to show you something. I guarantee you, the man that comes in at $10,000 cheaper, is not going to be thinking of all the variables. You're going to end up not having the job that we're going to do. Let me make sure you understand this. You may not hire me, and that's okay. But I want to make sure you're informed you make a wise decision. Because if you don't, you're going to go pay that side to save $10,000, it's going to cost you an extra 10.'  Lisa: Yep. Been there, done that. Dr John: Well, my dad used to go through it, and with a fine-tooth comb, he explained all the different variables. He says, ‘Now, what I want you to do is go back to the person that's giving you those things and ask them all those questions. If they didn't think about it, they're going to either not make money off you and they're not going to want to continue to do the work. Or they're not going to do a great job because they're losing money. Or you're going to end up getting a thing done, then they're never going to want to do follow up and take care of you again as a customer. So here's what it costs. I've been doing this a long time. I know what it costs. I know what the property is. So I'd rather you know the facts, and be a little bit more and make sure it's done properly. Then go and save a few bucks and find out the hard way.' Here's the questions they go check. They came back to my dad.  Lisa: Yep. When they understood that whole thing. And I think this is a good thing in every piece of, every part of life. It's not always the cheapest offering that's the best offering, which you learn the hard way. Dr John: I had somebody come to me not too long ago, maybe four months ago, earlier this year. And said, ‘I go to so and so's seminar for almost half the price of your seminar. Why would I go to your seminar?' And I said, ‘That's like comparing a Rolls Royce to a Volkswagen.' I said, ‘So let me explain what you're going to get here. Let me explain what you're going to get here. Then you can make a decision. If you want that Volkswagen outcome, that's fantastic. If you want a Rolls Royce, I'm on the Rolls Royce. I'm going to give you something about here.' And once you explain it, and make the distinctions, people will pay the difference.  Lisa: Yeah. And that's– in a business, you have to be able to explain to them as well. When I was a jeweller, when I started, I was a goldsmith in a previous life. And we used to make everything by hand and it was all custom jewellery, etcetera, back before China and the mass production and huge factories and economies of scale really blew the industry to pieces. For a long time you were actually in that hanging on to one of those and not transitioning into the mass production side of it because I didn't want to, but not being able to represent the value that actually what you were producing: the customisation, the personalisation, the handmade, and people wouldn't understand that.  You end up chopping your own prices down and down and down to the point where it no longer became a viable business. And that was the state of the industry and so on and so forth. But people could not see the difference between this silver ring and that silver ring. That one's a customised, handmade, personalised piece that took X amount of hours to produce. And this is something they got spit out of a production line at a team and other people are wearing. But people can't see the value difference. Dr John: Yeah, you have to, you're responsible for bringing it to their awareness. If you've been to a sushi restaurant, they have this egg that's in layers. I noticed that to get some nigiri with an egg on it with a little seaweed wrapped around it, it was like $4 per piece. And the other sushi was like $2 at the time. I thought, just an egg. Why would it be that much? And then I thought, and then I watched him prepare one, and how many hours it took to prepare one of those slabs of egg because he had to do it in layers. We had to loony take a pan, take an egg, poured in the egg, cook it just a certain level. And then lay that, scramble it, laid on top layer to time while it's hot, and layer by layer by layer by layer and cut it and everything else to make that thing. And I realised that is an individual egg-layered piece of egg. And I realised after seeing him I go, ‘That's a $10 egg.'  Lisa: This is cheap.  Dr John: I was thinking, ‘How the heck does he do that for four bucks? How did he make any profit out of it?' I never questioned it after th

This is the full show for August 25, 2021. Off the Top, Louis details how Joe Biden has a history of giving financial support to terrorists. We Ask the Mamas how they go about checking their sources. In Digging Deep, we list all the weapons we know the Taliban took from us and Afghanistan. In Bright Spots, Jason Whitlock is brave enough to tell the truth on air. And our Moment of Whoa tells the story of a VIP who landed a helicopter in a family's back yard.

This is the full show for August, 24, 2021. Off the Top, Louis talks about Kamala Harris' lies about the situation in Afghanistan. We Ask the Mamas why so many people on the left like to make up hate crimes. In Digging Deep, we look at how the failure in Afghanistan may affect Joe Biden's domestic agenda, too. Plus, a dad who spoke out against Critical Race Theory is a real Bright Spot. And, we finish off with a story of a 100 year old weightlifter that will have you saying, "Whoa!"

Hour 1 The schools in Glynn went to code red yesterday. What does it mean and why you should be embarrassed. Also, Jeff Chapman's proposed county manager contract is public. Whoa. Audio from WGIG-AM and FM in Brunswick, GA

It Was a Thing on TV presents their latest live show. What started out as a joke in the pre-shows with Greg when he found out about this straight-to-DVD movie starring Kelsey Grammer and the WWE's Adam "Edge" Copeland turned into an obsession when we saw a recent episode of Honest Trailers on YouTube about the plot of this film.   Now, we present to you a special Live Show about this movie brought to you by the youngest Lawrence brother (WHOA!) Two warnings for this episode. 1. Lots of language throughout the course of this episode. 2. Tons and tons of (tense dramatic music).

This week your girls disembark on a two parter on Catherine Coulter's EVENING STAR aka SWEET SURRENDER. We delve into the kinky, sweaty bordellos and just sweaty dinner parties of 19th Century Rome where young Giana is getting a pretty shallow lesson in womanhood from her uncle and meets an American, i.e. tall, businessman who is equal parts well-meaning and ruthlessly horny. I & M answer the questions Coulter has posed to her erstwhile reader and discover some Rome Truths along the way. Why start with shock? Can we girlboss our way out of ideology? Does anyone have good intentions or are we just negotiating different ways to live with our selfish choices? Sidle up to the velvet curtain and behold the one-way mirror to our conversation, we promise we don't mind if you listen. ;) Whoa!mance is a part of the Frolic Podcast Network

The Verona Quartet — Diffusion (Azica) Jump to giveaway form “I found a special bond. I felt as though I was meant to be the voice that glued everybody together, highly influential, but behind the scenes. I loved that. I even wrote my college entrance essay about wanting to play in a string quartet. Of course, at the time, I had no idea what that really meant,” said violist Abigail Rojansky of the Verona Quartet. That college entrance essay was for Oberlin College, where the Verona Quartet is now serving as quartet-in-residence.  According to Rojansky, music is just one avenue for telling a meaningful story. Its name, the Verona Quartet, pays tribute to Shakespeare, another great storyteller. She is joined by cellist Jonathan Dormand to talk about the stories that make up their debut recording, Diffusion. Why is exploring folk traditions on this album important to you? Jonathan: “It's the end and the beginning of a period of time where you have national identities in a style of playing.  “It's all about how you take from one culture, explore it and made it your own. That is what we've tried to do. We looked back to fantastic music and learned from its traditions. But, how do we make it our own and do we try to put our own stamp on it?” Why is Maurice Ravel's String Quartet considered a masterpiece? Abigail: “The piece is masterfully written, but in terms of form, its breaking with tradition while building upon history. He greatly respected and heard the Debussy quartet. Debussy only wrote one String Quartet, which Ravel loved, but he thought that there were aspects of it that could have been improved. “Ravel's String Quartet was also met with criticism, especially the last movement which people thought didn't have enough of a melody. It was too fast and in an uncomfortable rhythm. Now we look at it and say, ‘Oh, my goodness, this last movement is so spectacular.'“ Can you talk about how Karol Szymanowski creates his unique voice in his String Quartet No. 2? Jonathan: “It has this hyper-romanticism about it. I just don't know another composer that writes incredibly lyrical, but at the same time offers delicious harmonies. He has his own unique take on everything. I'm quite obsessed with his piece. “The second movement also blasts us out of our seats. I'm not going to lie. I was listening and went, ‘Whoa!' You can hear the power and the forcefulness in the music.” How does Leos Janacek's passion for unrequited love come through in his String Quartet No. 2? Abigail: “One energized idea will break and suddenly he'll say something completely different with an entirely different emotional character, subject, or mode of expression. He does that in this quartet and that's part of what makes it so incredibly dramatic. Suddenly, it goes black and then there's something completely different. Nobody else could write like that before him.” Watch now To hear the rest of my conversation, click on the extended interview above, or download the extended podcast on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts. Giveaway Giveaway You must be 13 or older to submit any information to American Public Media/Minnesota Public Radio. The personally identifying information you provide will not be sold, shared, or used for purposes other than to communicate with you about things like our programs, products and services. See Terms of Use and Privacy. This giveaway is subject to the Official Giveaway Rules. Resources The Verona Quartet — Diffusion (Amazon) The Verona Quartet (official site)

I think we can all relate to this, right? You look up one day and think, “Whoa it's been a while since I've gotten an inquiry,” and your mind starts to go to doomsday scenarios of never getting another inquiry and having to shut down your business entirely. Just me? Haha. Don't panic friend. I'm going to show you exactly what I used to do when inquiries slowed down or stopped entirely!   Check out the show notes for this episode here!   I would love to serve you more! If you have any question, submit it here: www.taviaredburn.com/ask and I might answer it on the podcast! Oh and I would love to get your feedback on the podcast! Feel free to leave a review. This will help the podcast reach more people, so thank you!

This is the full show for August 23, 2021. Off the top, most people who voted for Biden weren't voting for him, but against Trump. Do you think they're still happy with their decision? Plus, we Ask the Mamas why more people who speak about women's rights aren't doing more to fight for women's rights in Afghanistan. We Dig Deep to see what the states with the lowest unemployment rates have in common. And, there's a Bright Spot in the COVID era that's leading to more educations freedom for parents and students. And, we finish off with a police dog who found a woman's lost wedding rings in our Moment of Whoa!

​Why is Lazlo late? What's that? He's in the bosses office? The boss across the hall? Oh boy. *Julia found her DARE workbook from the 5th grade and brought it in to share with us. Sounds like 5th-grade-Julia would be pretty disappointed to be hanging out with us. I'm guessing adult Julia ain't exactly over the moon about it either. *Doomscrolling! The Pfizer vaccine is fully approved which is great news because we all took that thing months ago. Floods in Tennessee are the craziest weather story today. Toxic algae blooms, nuff said. Remember Four Seasons Total Landscaping? Laura Jane Grace remembers. You're not a horse. You're not a cow. *The four of us had a little Zoom meeting this morning and it couldn't be clearer which one of us is Mom and Dad's favorite. *Tips for breaking up with someone you live with do not include joint custody of a dog. *Whoa! Nick Wright surprised us with a call today and the story he shares is horrific. *Greatest on-screen couples of all time? If you said, Goldie Hawn and Mel Gibson, you're the only one. *Have a fantastic morning/day/night! See you tomorrow! -Everybody Wang Chung!!! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode we'll review & evaluate a t-shirt that's currently one of the best-sellers on Merch by Amazon My favorite part about it... it's an EVERGREEN niche! (so it can sell year-round!)

What does it mean to be a coach today? Or more importantly, a good coach?  In this episode, I broke down a couple of ways of looking at coaching and holding space for your clients to get them to the transformation they want to be at. I also talked about the different approaches to coaching and starting a brand new business, including what mistakes to avoid. So, if you are a new coach, are thinking of becoming a coach, or becoming a mentor in some capacity where you're working with clients, this episode is for you. What I shared is sure to help you critically analyze some of the processes that you have in your business, and also think of how you can make them much more efficient and abundant.   Highlights:   I often see a lot of new coaches who confuse coaching with consulting when just starting out. Maybe you're one of the people reading this and thinking, “Whoa! Hold up. You're losing me here.” What even is the difference between coaching and consulting? How does consulting get into the picture? I started by breaking down what each of those approaches looks like in comparison to the other. I think that there's this expectancy error where new coaches expect too much in very little time. They see others sharing their milestone wins, and they expect to achieve that level of success within like...a month. Then when this doesn't happen, they get discouraged and even quit. I explained why this won't help you build a sustainable business, and what kind of mindset you need to have instead to hit the mark. One big thing that coaches often do is that they make so many different things mean something about them; things that they honestly don't need to take on, because they just aren't accurate. Your thoughts create your reality. So, the best thing that you can do for yourself is to cultivate a habit of listening to the parts of you that will serve your highest self. And I shared how you can do this so you can start right now. Did you know that you were never meant to be a follower perpetuating someone else's strategy? You were meant to be a leader, and leaders do not look to paths that have already been walked. They forge their own. I'm gonna show you how because I laid it all out in this episode.   Stream & Download The Social Reset Podcast NOW for FREE on Apple Podcast and Spotify!   To connect further with me: Visit my website: www.tiffanycheung.co Join The Social Reset FB Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1580969585443939/  Follow me on Instagram: www.tiffanycheung.co   Sign Up for Business Activation Academy!  https://tiffanycheung.co/baa

Mercedes De La Cruz is a Canadian born actress and model best known for her memorable and charismatic performances in more than two dozen television shows and independent films. After a successful modeling career, De La Cruz made the transition to a versatile supporting actor lauded as a great actress by the likes of Academy Award nominee, Sally Kirkland for her role as Carla, a savvy pregnant prostitute in Ramshackle Blues, De La Cruz was nominated for a best-supporting actress at the 2019 Vancouver Bad-Ass Film Festival. De La Cruz recently wrapped filming a co-lead in the feature Because You're Dead to Me. And also a movie called The Machine where she can talk a little bit more about while we have the interview. And the co-starring role in the Netflix series Made an extensive spiritual journey, led her to overcome an alcohol and drug addiction. Vincent Ferguson: Her in-depth study in A Course In Miracles led her to a massive change in her perspective and gave way to her being able to see energy on objects. This new development opened her eyes to energy work and set her on an even deeper mission. Health and fitness have always been a high priority for Mercedes as a classically trained ballerina for well over a decade, she is no stranger to a strict fitness regimen. She lifts weights, does circuit training, Yoga and Pilates, and when it comes to nutrition, Mercedes has always been interested in pushing her boundaries, everything from intermittent fasting to breatherianism or the Paleo diet to being a vegetarian. She is now a firm believer in being in communication with your body, giving it what it needs, and eating a lot less than we are used to. So let's welcome Mercedes De La Cruz to my Six Weeks to Fitness podcast. Mercedes how are you? Mercedes De La Cruz: Hi. Wow. I'm really good. How are you? Vincent Ferguson: I'm good. I'm good. Before we talk about fitness and spirituality. Let's talk also about your acting career. Mercedes De La Cruz: Sure. Yeah, absolutely. Vincent Ferguson: You started out as a model, a very successful one, and yet you transitioned to acting what or who inspired you to get into acting? Mercedes De La Cruz: Well, I actually, even before modeling, I was a dancer and I started on stage when I was three years old. And I really like performing, ballet was one thing, but performing just being up there and the crowd and the lights and the excitement and all the energy up there. I really, really wanted more of that. And I mean, I was super young, I was three years old. And so I've been on stage kind of ever since. So I wasn't actually inspired by anyone really specific to perform. I just kind of have always done it. And actually my boyfriend asked me this today. We were doing this fitness stretching class a little while ago and I was really flexible. And he's like, "Have you always been so flexible?" And I was like, "Well, yeah, I was a ballerina. And he was like, "Well, but before you were a ballerina?" And I'm like, "Well, there wasn't anything before." Vincent Ferguson: Right. You're a toddler. Mercedes De La Cruz: Yeah. I don't have any in-depth memories of what it was like before I was three years old. So it feels that same way with performing as well. Vincent Ferguson: Well, so you're actually doing what you believe you were born to do? Mercedes De La Cruz: Yeah, pretty much. And that's the funny thing, being a dancer... And it wasn't just ballet that I did. I did ballet, jazz, musical theater, song and dance, like whatever my dance school had. I didn't do tap because I heard it was bad for your knees. That was silly. I was always dancing and performing and I realized later on that it wasn't even really dance that I wanted to do. It was more the performing side, but it was my mom who really was like, "Oh, you're such a great dancer." And I wanted to make her happy and we do that as human beings. We want to please the other people around us and get approval. But I think if someone would have really asked me like, what I preferred I probably would have been acting a lot sooner. Vincent Ferguson: Really? A lot sooner. Mercedes De La Cruz: Yeah. I mean, not sooner than three, but rather than taking all those years of dance, I think I would have liked to get more into acting sooner than I did. Vincent Ferguson: But doesn't having that background in dance compliment your acting? Mercedes De La Cruz: Absolutely. I think there's a lot of major benefits from all the dance classes that I took and in that is discipline. Right. Vincent Ferguson: Right. Mercedes De La Cruz: Also, competence and learning about you, about your body as well. I'm not shy by any means, and I don't know if I would've ever been, but all the years of being on stage or being around that many people I think probably contributed to that as well. And then also listening. Right. Like being able to take direction. I think that was cultivated in dance. Vincent Ferguson: I know you were born in Edmonton, Canada, but you moved to Vancouver. Why did you move to Vancouver? Mercedes De La Cruz: To pursue acting. Vincent Ferguson: Really? Mercedes De La Cruz: Yeah. I've always worked really hard and I left home really early when I was about 13 years old was the first time that I left home. Vincent Ferguson: Really? Mercedes De La Cruz: Yeah. And I always had lots of jobs. I really wanted to be successful. And so I had part-time jobs and even through school, even when I wasn't living with my family, I always worked. And then I started a bunch of businesses and I had a home decor and painting company, and I had a marketing and promotions company and I was modeling and acting and traveling, and I was doing so many things and I was really spread thin. And I think because of that, and probably because I was drinking a lot as well I just wasn't feeling centered. And I felt quite depressed. And a close friend of mine, Robert Andrews, who had been a photographer actually, who's been taking my pictures since I was 17 years old, he sat me down and he was like, "All right, you're not happy. I can see that. What is it that you need to be doing? Or if you woke up every day and you were going to be doing something that would make you happy, what would it be?" Mercedes De La Cruz: And without even thinking, I was like, "Acting." Like, it was like quick. Vincent Ferguson: Quick. Mercedes De La Cruz: Quick answer. And he was like, "Okay, you got to move." And so I thought about two places that I could live in Canada where I would act and it would be either Toronto or Vancouver. And Vancouver was a lot closer. Vincent Ferguson: Okay. Mercedes De La Cruz: To Edmonton. Vincent Ferguson: Yeah. Mercedes De La Cruz: And I chose Vancouver. And so within I think it was three weeks, I got rid of everything pretty much that I owned and packed up what I could fit in my Volvo and moved to Vancouver. And I didn't know what I was going to do. I didn't have an agent. I didn't know anybody. I didn't have an acting class set up, nothing. I had no idea, but I just felt that's where I needed to be. And lo and behold, it worked out perfectly. Vincent Ferguson: Yeah. Most definitely. Now again, you stepped out on faith. Mercedes De La Cruz: I did. Oh yeah. Vincent Ferguson: Right. Mercedes De La Cruz: I do that a lot. Vincent Ferguson: Faith. And you had no agent. Okay. Mercedes De La Cruz: Nope. Vincent Ferguson: Nope. So did you have to audition for your first show, for your first movie? Mercedes De La Cruz: First things first when I got to Vancouver, this was before everybody had computers. Right. So I was going to internet cafes when that was the thing. Vincent Ferguson: Okay. Mercedes De La Cruz: And I doing up my resume at the internet cafe and I was looking for an agent and I was sending my resume to all these different agencies. And then you would have to audition for your agent. They would want to see what you were like. Vincent Ferguson: Yeah. Mercedes De La Cruz: And I mean, I was lucky. I'm ethnically ambiguous so I can play a lot of different roles. And that's definitely something that agencies would like to have. I have like a Hispanic look. I'm very mixed, so I can play a lot of different things. Vincent Ferguson: Yeah. Versatile. Mercedes De La Cruz: Yeah. Very versatile. And in Vancouver, there's very few Hispanic actors. So I did have a pretty big pick of agencies that I could go with, but still I had to audition for that. Mercedes De La Cruz: And in the beginning... I mean, I already had acting credits, I had experience. And I had been taking classes and I had already had a resume of work that I had done, but it was different. Like now I'm in a city where there's TV shows. Right. And I've never been on a TV show before. I didn't even know what that looked like. So I started doing backgrounds and for, I think probably two years, I did background work, which was great because it got you or got me to see how that all works. Vincent Ferguson: Right. Mercedes De La Cruz: Right. What everyone's job is in the production, the hours, and also just like the craziness of having to do the scene over and over and over again. And it's like Groundhog day, right. Mercedes De La Cruz: Not only that let's say it's a party scene and you're dancing at a club. Well, you'll have to do a take where you're dancing with music. Then you have to do a take with dancing without music, probably a few times. Then you have to do it again because you have this person's dialogue and then it's the other person's dialogue. And then there's going to be times where you're supposed to talk to the people that are around you. And other times you have to pretend that you're talking to these people because they don't want to have any sound. It's crazy. Vincent Ferguson: Yes. Mercedes De La Cruz: Yeah. So that was really interesting. And then of course, for anything that I was wanting to be part of it, definitely an audition process. I mean, I was new to the city. I didn't know the casting agencies. Mercedes De La Cruz: I didn't know of casting. I didn't know anybody. Right. So I was going in like completely blind. And I mean, even just to get to these places at the time... I don't think I had a car when I had first, when I first moved down there. Yeah. I don't know what happened there. So I was like taking the bus to weird places and getting lost. Vincent Ferguson: Yes. Exactly. By yourself. Mercedes De La Cruz: Yeah. Everything that happens when you move to a brand new city and you're young and naive, but it worked out great. Vincent Ferguson: Yeah. It definitely worked out. Mercedes De La Cruz: Now it's a different beast as you've been in the city longer, you know the people and it's not so scary. Vincent Ferguson: Right. Exactly. Exactly. But it's worked out for you in Vancouver. All right. Most of your success has been there, correct? Mercedes De La Cruz: Yeah. Vincent Ferguson: But I understand you're no longer in Vancouver is that a fact? Where are you now? And why did you move from Vancouver to where you are now? Mercedes De La Cruz: Yeah. All right. Well, where I am now is Belgrade, Serbia. Vincent Ferguson: Serbia. Oh my goodness. Mercedes De La Cruz: Serbia. Yeah. It's been a while wild ride. Vincent Ferguson: Wow. Mercedes De La Cruz: I didn't even really know much about Serbia until a few years ago. My, partner, my boyfriend, Mario Milanovich, he is Serbian born in Belgrade, but didn't actually live here. He lived in Germany and then Canada and sometime in the U.S. But about five years ago, he came back for some business and we had started to take trips here and we really enjoy it. The people are so welcoming. The food is so fresh. Like GMO, what? They don't have that here. Vincent Ferguson: Really? Nice. Mercedes De La Cruz: No, I mean, it's incredible. And the prices are like... Gosh, you go to the farmer's market and you get bags and bags and bags of produce and it's like five bucks. And the tomatoes are the size of like two hands. Vincent Ferguson: What? Mercedes De La Cruz: It's wild. Yeah. Beautiful. Vincent Ferguson: Really? Mercedes De La Cruz: So anyways, we had been coming back and forth for some time and really enjoyed it. And then when COVID happened, it was challenging in Vancouver. The prices are really expensive, property's expensive, my bills were really high and I wasn't working. So I found it quite challenging to sustain my regular lifestyle. And my partner really wanted to get out of the west. So he came out to Serbia and he persuaded me to come too. Vincent Ferguson: Yeah. Whoa. Yes. Mercedes De La Cruz: So yeah, I did kind of what I did in Vancouver I gave all my things away. I also had an energy healing business in Vancouver. I closed the doors of that. I gave everything, I owned away like all my clothes, all my accessories. I used to style shoot too so I had closets full of yeah, full of everything. And I gave everything I owned to friends and whatever else I wasn't able to give away I gave to charity. And I packed two suitcases and moved to Serbia. And I mean, I didn't know the language. I didn't have any friends or family here. I didn't know what I was going to do. I didn't even know if I was going to act. I was just, again, going on faith- Vincent Ferguson: Really. Mercedes De La Cruz: ... Yeah. And I said, "All right, universe. All right, God, I know that everything's always working out for me so let's just dive in and trust that everything that I desire is still going to be accessible." And then I'm just going to do it and so I did. And within like a month, I got acquainted with an amazing acting coach from New York City, Adam Davenport. Yeah. And he's a phenomenal human being. He's now my acting coach and publicist. And he started an acting school out in Serbia, believe it or not because he came to prep for a movie that he was doing and he is a phenomenal acting coach to begin with in New York. He won like to top 10 acting coaches in the region. So when he came out here, he thought, "All right, I'm going to start a school." So I joined his acting school and met friends that way and got acquainted with casting agencies. And lo and behold, I end up working on a Hollywood movie in Serbia. Vincent Ferguson: Really? Mercedes De La Cruz: Yeah. Vincent Ferguson: A Hollywood movie in Serbia? Mercedes De La Cruz: Yeah. Yes, in Serbia. I've been trying to break into the Hollywood scene for some time and I'd done some small roles here and there or whatever, but I would've never thought that coming to Serbia would land me a role in a legendary picture, feature film. Vincent Ferguson: Amazing. Mercedes De La Cruz: But it did. Vincent Ferguson: Yes. Mercedes De La Cruz: Yeah. Vincent Ferguson: I was just going to say, I was going to ask you, well, most actresses if they want to make it big, they'll usually travel to Hollywood. Okay. But you traveled to Serbia and ended up in a Hollywood movie. Mercedes De La Cruz: Yeah. Yeah. Vincent Ferguson: So, how is the film industry out there? Is it booming? A lot of opportunities for you? Mercedes De La Cruz: Yeah. Actually, it's fantastic. They really have a good foundation for productions to come here now. They have tons of crews ready to go there. The government is offering a tax incentive. It's also cheap. Right. The labor is inexpensive. Vincent Ferguson: Wow. I see. Mercedes De La Cruz: And it's not unionized out here. Vincent Ferguson: Oh, it's not. Mercedes De La Cruz: No, I know it's very different in Serbia. They didn't even have any agents here up until this past year. So even all the actors, they just represent themselves, which is something that is unheard of in the west. Vincent Ferguson: Crazy. Mercedes De La Cruz: Yeah. It's all who you know, right. So you end up knowing casting directors or casting agents and they will find their roles that way. And it's super unusual. But because of that the pay is very low typically for the actors out here. So when a production from, let's say, New York or Los Angeles comes here and they're paying bigger rates, it's a big deal. It's a big deal for the actors here. Vincent Ferguson: Yeah. I could imagine. Must be fighting to get a role. Mercedes De La Cruz: Yeah. But I mean, we always are anyway. Vincent Ferguson: It's so interesting though, because again, wherever you go you seem to land on your feet? Mercedes De La Cruz: Absolutely. Vincent Ferguson: And we're going to talk about that, but I know that you, again, after reading your bio and you've mentioned you are classically trained ballerina. I also understand you are a Miss Hawaiian Tropic as well as being a successful actress, but which tells me that you are someone who pretty much takes care of her body. And yet at one point in your life, you had a drug and alcohol problem. How did that come about and what steps did you take to kick that habit? Mercedes De La Cruz: Well, I've always been very good to my body and then also not so good to my body. And I think primarily... Gosh, like how did it start? I don't know. I mean, I think it first starts like, you're just a kid and you're having fun and you're drinking and partying with friends and then you get a little older and you're still drinking and partying with friends and then maybe your friends are getting out of that and you still kind of doing it. It was a progressive thing for me. There wasn't any specific incident where it was super traumatic and I wanted to escape. But I found as the years went on, I did use it for escapism. Like there's beliefs that were going on, maybe beliefs of not being good enough or worthlessness or lack, right. Mercedes De La Cruz: Or fear. And I think rather than having to feel those feelings, it's so much easier to just numb it out. And that's what I did. And I think also another big part of it was my lifestyle. I had all these jobs and some of them were in nightclubs and some of them were in lounges and bars. And some of them were like in party scenes. Like when I had that marketing and promotions company, I was putting on big events, traveling all over with other models. Even like with the Miss Hawaiian Tropic stuff, you're with other gorgeous women at parties and they're offering you whatever, drinks and drugs. And so, it's a party until it's not a party. Vincent Ferguson: Right. Exactly. Mercedes De La Cruz: Yeah, I think that's really what happened for me. But I think the longer that I drank and did those drugs, the more I felt those feelings of worthlessness. Like the depression would set in the next day. And for five days after, and I hated myself and I hated my life. And it would take for me to get like, "Okay, I got to get up, dress up, show up, get to the gym." Right. And I would do this cycle thing. Okay. So I party all weekend and then come Monday, I'm back at the gym. I got to get my body back and I started feeling better by Friday. And then here we go, party again on the weekend. So I think it was for me, I had to hit a place that was kind of like a rock bottom where I just couldn't do this anymore. And from that, I was able to make some changes, but it wasn't until I put the alcohol down completely that I could make any change. Vincent Ferguson: Okay. So you did this on your own? No one came to you. You didn't go to a drug rehab program, alcohol anonymous, anything like that? Mercedes De La Cruz: Oh my God. No, I tried everything. Vincent Ferguson: Oh, you did? Mercedes De La Cruz: Oh, sure. God, must've been nearly a decade ago now when I chose to quit drinking. I was like, "Okay, there's got to be a better way. Enough is enough." And I was on a spiritual path. I knew that there had to be a better way and I wanted to shift my perspective. And in that I went and stayed at a spiritual retreat center for three months. And I mean, it wasn't a rehab facility, but it was for anybody, anybody who wanted to make a shift in their lives. I started something that I sort of made up called the Yes Experiment where I would say yes to anything that came into my experience. Mercedes De La Cruz: And so if someone was like, "You should try this course." I would say, "Yes." "You should go to AA." I said, "Yes." "You should get a sponsor." I said, "Yes." So I did absolutely everything I could get my hands on. I've gone for silent meditation retreats. Like the Pasana where you meditate for 10 hours a day, 10 days straight, which is a hundred hours of meditation- Vincent Ferguson: Really? Mercedes De La Cruz: ... in 10 days. Yeah. And in that you can't talk to anybody. You can't look at anybody, you have to keep your gaze down. Yeah. That was interesting. I've gone and done like Ayahuasca ceremonies, probably 20 of them. I've gone and done like dark room meditations. I've gone for different sort of body work, energy work. Oh my gosh. You know what? I probably have a list of like 40 different things that I've tried. Vincent Ferguson: Really. Really. Unbelievable. Mercedes De La Cruz: I did not do it alone. Vincent Ferguson: Most definitely. I guess I have to wait for the book to come out right, on your life. Mercedes De La Cruz: Pretty much. Vincent Ferguson: Because I also know that you studied a course called A Course in Miracles. That book, that course was written by Marianne Williamson, correct? Mercedes De La Cruz: No. Vincent Ferguson: This is the original. Mercedes De La Cruz: Yeah. The original is not. The original is actually it was written by Automatic Writing and it was Ellen Schulman. And this was in the seventies and her and her partner, they were psychologists or psychiatrists. No psychiatrist, yeah, at a university. And at the university, it was really having lots of issues and it was going downhill and their faculty was really having a hard time. And her and her partner Bill Thetford, we're like, "Okay, something's got to give." And Ellen started hearing voices in her head. And the voices were saying, "This is a course in miracles, take notes." And at first she thought she was crazy and she didn't want to do anything with it. And she thought, "Oh my gosh, this sounds like schizophrenia." And being a psychologist, this doesn't sound good. So eventually as time went on, she eventually told Bill like, "Look, I got to tell you something. I'm hearing these voices. What do you think I should do?" And he was like, "Did you ever think of taking notes?" Vincent Ferguson: Yeah. Mercedes De La Cruz: Because that's what the voices were saying. Vincent Ferguson: That's good. Wow. Mercedes De La Cruz: [crosstalk 00:26:11] take notes. So she did, she started taking notes and went and showed him the next day. And as he read what she wrote he was like flabbergasted. It was the words of, and this is I mean, it sounds crazy, but Jesus. And specifically, she was an atheist Jew or something like that. So, I mean, this was not something that she was writing herself, but it was very old English, which is not the way that she spoke. But they ended up writing this whole thing. And it was seven years, it took them to write this book. And then there's the Course and there's 365 lessons one per day. And it's all about changing your perspective. And so the Course in Miracles was really transformational for me because, I was stuck in this point of view of believing these ridiculous beliefs about myself and with the shift of perspective you can start seeing how the things that maybe I thought at one time, maybe aren't true. Right. Yeah. Vincent Ferguson: So this has changed your life and your whole perspective on life? Mercedes De La Cruz: Absolutely. I mean, and that's where it started. There's different ways of saying it. There's tons of different books and even like Landmark Personal Development Program was kind of the first step that I had in that direction when I quit drinking. And the same thing, it's about shifting your perspective. And it's like, this is the story and this is what I made up about the story or what the story means about me. Right. And so it's that distinction between this is actually what happened, and this is what I feel happened. And when I can separate the two, I'm not a victim anymore. And when I'm not a victim anymore then I have control and I can choose the kind of reality that I wish to perceive or to have more of or to create. Vincent Ferguson: Hm. Very, very deep. Mercedes De La Cruz: Thanks. Vincent Ferguson: And I love it. Do you believe in miracles or do you believe that we create our own miracles? Mercedes De La Cruz: Well, I think both. I think a miracle and even in the Course in Miracles, what they talk about is a miracle is just going from fear to love. In our experience we oscillate all day long where we're in love... And when I mean love, I don't mean like romantic love, but just feeling joy, peace, freedom, all of that. And when we're in fear, we're feeling anything either than peace, love, and joy. So it could be annoyance. It could be when I say fear, not just fear of like the dog, but like fear of tomorrow, the future, the path. It could be heartache. It could be loneliness, like all of these emotions are all under the fear category. And so the miracle is being in a state of that and then being able to get out of it right and shift to that love state. And I think that's what we're doing all the time. Right. We want to spend more time over there. And when I'm over there, then I get to create more of that because whatever I'm focused on, I get more of. So it's simple. It's just not easy. Vincent Ferguson: Definitely not. But whatever you focus the most of your time and energy on that's what you bring out. Right. That's what you bring about. And it's easy to say, but it's hard to focus on what you really want. Mercedes De La Cruz: Well, yeah. We're so imprinted and patterned with this looking for what's wrong rather than looking for what's right. Vincent Ferguson: Exactly. Do you believe there is a higher power that directs your life? Mercedes De La Cruz: I definitely believe that there's a higher power. I don't necessarily think that it's directing my life. I believe that it's there if I want to take it. I believe I'm directing my life, but when I let go and relax and I trust then I can go with the flow. But because I have free will I can push away from that flow- Vincent Ferguson: Yes. Easily. Mercedes De La Cruz: ... anytime I want. Vincent Ferguson: Exactly. Yes. Yes. So true. So true. Now at this stage of your acting career and your life, how important is fitness? Mercedes De La Cruz: Wow. It's very important to me. Fitness and nutrition both are very important, but it's in a different way. I used to be a crazy gym rat, like I would spend three hours a day at the gym. And I'm that girl that like, if I'm supposed to do 10 pushups, like I'll do 50. Vincent Ferguson: Wow. Mercedes De La Cruz: Like I pushed myself so hard almost to a detriment because I didn't listen to my body for a really long time. And I didn't know how. I think as human beings, we were raised where our parents said, "Listen to me, I know better." Or the teacher says, "Listen to me, I know better." Or the doctor says, "Listen to me, I know better." Nobody said like Follow your inner guidance system. You know what to do." Vincent Ferguson: Right. Mercedes De La Cruz: Nobody said that. And because of that, we don't trust ourselves. We don't trust how our body feels. We don't trust these little bits of insight maybe, or intuition that we get. We don't know that we know. And so forever, I kept reading books about what I thought I should do for fitness or reading books about what I thought I should do about nutrition. And now I do the opposite, I do what I can and I do what lights me up. And with food, I eat what I want. And I don't mean it in a way of like, eat donuts all the time. But I used to have this point of view that I'm supposed to eat breakfast, lunch, dinner, then three snacks in between. And like don't eat after six and all of these things that we read or we heard, and that's fine and dandy, but like, that's not what my body's asking for. Vincent Ferguson: Ah, yes. Mercedes De La Cruz: Right. So it wasn't until I took food away entirely. I became a breatherian. Which a breatherian is somebody who sustains their life force energy by A changing your mind to what's possible in breathing exercises. And in that you don't have to eat food. I know that sounds wild, but I did that for half a year. Vincent Ferguson: Really. Mercedes De La Cruz: Yeah. And at first I thought, oh my gosh, there's no way that I'm going to be able to have any energy or whatever. And it was actually the opposite. Vincent Ferguson: Really. Mercedes De La Cruz: Yep. I had more energy than I had ever had before. I didn't need to sleep as much. And this is why, this is what they say. And I mean, I don't know the facts behind it, but what they say in breatherianism is that we use 80% of our energy to digest our food. Mercedes De La Cruz: So if that's the case and you get up in the morning and you eat, and then you eat lunch and then you eat dinner and then you eat before bed well, you're digesting all day long using 80% of your energy. That means that you're working on 20% energy all day. Vincent Ferguson: Wow. Mercedes De La Cruz: Well, how are you supposed to like drive your car, be creative, basic motor function, have conversations, like that's tough. Well, you take all that digestion process away and all of a sudden you have 80% more energy. So you can be more creative. Your body can heal throughout the day, rather than waiting for you to fall asleep when you're finally not eating. Things like that. So anyways, long story short, I wanted to throw that in there just to say, when I took all the food away and realized that these points of view that I had around... I mean, we were told no food or water for three days, you'll die. Right. Vincent Ferguson: Right. Mercedes De La Cruz: I think of a common "fact". Well, I've gone seven days with no food and no water and I wasn't thirsty or hungry and I could have went longer I was just bored. Vincent Ferguson: Oh my goodness. Mercedes De La Cruz: What I believe will then become my reality. And so that's why it's important to change your mind to what's possible. In doing all of that, I realized like my body will tell me what it needs. And because I took everything away, I could just start implementing what I needed. I wouldn't call myself a breatherian anymore. However, I might go a couple of days without eating and then maybe I'll go a few days with eating a lot. Or maybe I won't have breakfast for a while. Maybe I'll decide, I just want salad. But I just listen to my body and I give it what it desires and I don't have any problems. I feel light. I feel more energetic. Vincent Ferguson: Yeah. Mercedes De La Cruz: I have more energy to go out and... I started running. Like, I didn't think I was a runner. I started doing that. And I love working out. I love working out in the gym. I love heavy weights, but I don't go as crazy as I used to. I just do what feels good. Vincent Ferguson: And you listen more to your body. Correct? Mercedes De La Cruz: That's it. Vincent Ferguson: Amazing. Now you recently wrapped up filming, as I mentioned, a co-lead and the feature Because You're Dead To Me but you said you also wrapped up a movie called The Machine. Talk about that for a minute. Mercedes De La Cruz: Well, yeah. The Because You're Dead To Me is an independent film that we shot in Vancouver. And right now it's being sent to festivals. So we'll see what happens with that. And then The Machine is a Legendary Pictures, feature film from LA. And that movie is about Bert Kreischer. He's a comedian in the U.S. and you can actually watch his special on Netflix. He's hilarious. Vincent Ferguson: Nice. Mercedes De La Cruz: Yeah, he's a jolly dude that doesn't like to wear a shirt. So he's usually topless in all of his spandex. He just doesn't like the way it feels, he's so funny. And actually doing the movie, he wasn't wearing clothes for most of that. I mean the top, he had pants on. Anyway. Yeah. So he's a hilarious comedian. And he has a standup routine called The Machine. Mercedes De La Cruz: And what it's about is him in college taking Russian, which he actually thought was Spanish in the beginning, but is like that good of a student that he didn't realize. He wanted to get out of the class and the teacher was like, "Look, we need X amount of students for this to be a class, just stay in the class and I'll give you a C." And he was like, "Okay." Vincent Ferguson: Really. Cool. Mercedes De La Cruz: And she's like, "You don't have to do..." Yeah, "You don't have to do anything. Don't worry about like writing tasks. I'll just give you a C." And he was like "Score." So he took it. And after four years of Russian, they went on a class trip to Russia where he got involved with the Russian mob. And it's a hilarious skit that he does all about that. So for the movie it's about that. And then 20 years later, him and his dad get abducted by the Russian mob for things that they believe that he did 20 years prior. So it's Bert Kreischer and Mark Hamill plays his father who was Luke Skywalker. Vincent Ferguson: Mark Hamill. Mercedes De La Cruz: The original Luke Skywalker. Yep. And yeah, and I'm in that and I play his teacher. Vincent Ferguson: Nice. And you said you wrapped it up. So is it going to be released in a film or Netflix? How is it going to be released? Mercedes De La Cruz: Well, it's a feature film. So Legendary Pictures also did like Godzilla, The Hangover, they're a big production company. Yeah. I believe it's going to be a Hollywood blockbuster. I don't know when they're going to release it. I don't know. I don't know what's happening with that now that so many productions were probably put on hold because of COVID and maybe aren't released yet because all the theaters aren't back in running. I don't really know. Vincent Ferguson: Right. Right. Mercedes De La Cruz: But I do know that Bert right now is on tour with his standup. So he's probably promoting the movie and hopefully it will be out maybe by next year, I'm hoping. Vincent Ferguson: Yes. I hope so, too. It sounds great. It really does. How can my listeners find out more about you Mercedes? Mercedes De La Cruz: Well, you can check me out on Instagram. I'm Mercedes De La Cruz one. Also, you can look me up on IMDB and my IMDB link is on my Instagram page, also Facebook. But I post on Instagram a few times a week, at least. And I'm always talking about what I'm up to in my stories. And I make little videos here and there as well. And I post a lot of modeling pictures and people can reach me that way. I've also helped people out, when it comes to getting clean and sober, giving advice, whatever. So if anybody needs a hand with anything like that or just wants some advice, drop me a line. Vincent Ferguson: And they can do that via Instagram? Mercedes De La Cruz: Yeah. Vincent Ferguson: Nice. Well Mercedes De La Cruz on behalf of body sculpt of New York, that's my nonprofit organization, and Six Weeks of Fitness I truly want to thank you for coming on my show today. Mercedes De La Cruz: Thank you. Vincent Ferguson: And to my listeners, I truly hope this program was informative, encouraging, and inspiring, and that you will continue tuning in to our Six Weeks to Fitness podcast. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions for the show, please leave them on my Six Weeks to Fitness blog at www.6weekstofitness.com or email me at vince@sixweeks.com. And don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss any future episodes. Mercedes De La Cruz: Bye.  

Author of Happy Ever After, The 7 Dollar Millionaire, joins us again to shed light on the complex world of personal finances. He shares tips on getting started, saving money, and aligning your goals with your family to work your way to financial peace of mind one step at a time. --- Transcript Before we jump into the episode, here's a quick disclaimer about our content. The remote real estate investor podcast is for informational purposes only, and is not intended as investment advice. The views, opinions and strategies of both the hosts and the guests are their own and should not be considered as guidance from Roofstock. Make sure to always run your own numbers, make your own independent decisions and seek investment advice from licensed professionals.   Michael: Hey, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the real estate investor. I'm Michael Albaum, and today I'm joined by my co host,   Tom: Tom Schneider.   Michael: And with us we have a very special repeat guests, the 7 Dollar Millionaire, if you recall, he wrote a book that we had him on chatting about Happy Ever After. And today, he's going to be talking to us again about personal finances, some things you can do to get started, as well as how to talk to your spouse or significant other or partner about personal finance. So let's get into it.   Michael: Awesome. Mr.7 Dollar Millionaire, thank you for joining us again, we so looking forward to recording with you.   7 Dollar Millionaire: It's a pleasure. Thanks for having me back on that says, this is a first for me. No one's ever invited me.   Michael: Well, hopefully the first of many. So how have you just curious how are things out in Singapore?   7 Dollar Millionaire: Things are just improved. Yesterday, we had like a mini re lockdown. So they call it circuit breaker here for about a month. Because there was a bit of a spike in cases. But that ended yesterday. The big change is very little apart from Oh, you're now allowed to go to restaurants, their restaurants are all closed. That's pretty much it. Gyms are kind of reopening slowly, that kind of stuff. But yeah, that was that was nice. It's nice to kind of go and get a meal somewhere, you know. But otherwise, it's you know, as with a lot of Asia, they're taking that kind of minimal risk approach to it.   So I mean, even when there was a spike, it was like 100 cases a day. 5 million people, right? I mean, it's still a very low number.   Michael: Yeah. But everybody in your world is healthy and safe.   7 Dollar Millionaire: Oh, yeah. Thanks. And you guys are on good.   Michael: Yeah, we just chatted with some family friends of ours yesterday, and they are double vaccinated. But she and her daughter just got his tested positive. So she had a breakthrough case. So she's feeling pretty crummy at the moment. But I'm hoping that she's hoping she's not going to go to the hospital or anything like that. So the breakthrough cases don't seem to be as severe as the unvaccinated stuff.   7 Dollar Millionaire: Fingers crossed. Yeah, fingers crossed. touchwood. Right. That's that's the big hope. As long as it stays like that we can live with it. Right?   Tom: I have a friend who had a breakthrough case who's also vaccinated. And he's got a wife and three little kids and his wife and three little kids didn't, didn't catch it. So he's hanging by himself. And you know, I feel much more for his wife, who's managing a house full of Toddlers and Babies versus him who's just hanging out at their their lake. Well, he's men. He's on the men. He's feeling much better. But it's Yeah, really.   7 Dollar Millionaire: Did she get did she get like a second opinion on that? Right. Yeah.   Michael: Thank goodness.   Tom: Yeah. Doing recovering. Well, good, good.   Michael: Well, Tom, it's it's funny as the wrong word. But interesting. This kind of segues nicely into what we want to chat with the 7 Dollar Millionaire about today. Again, circling back and talking some more about personal finance. But a question that I have is, so often people have these target goals in mind, and whether that's net worth or cash flow monthly annual basis. But that's so often based on today's needs, for their whatever family is currently in the picture. And I've got to imagine that changes over time. And so as someone who doesn't have kids, I don't have a really good sense of what kids costs, it could be 20 bucks a day, it could be 100 bucks it you know, I don't have a good sense for that. So how do you recommend folks think about not only their cash flow needs for today, but also for their future selves, as they continue to age but also as additional family members may enter the picture?   7 Dollar Millionaire: Yeah, I mean, it's a it's a there's no right answer, right?   Michael: I mean, I mean, oh, well, then we can we can we can cancel the show. We're done here.   7 Dollar Millionaire: There's just no single one right answer. I mean, the first step with the first answer to this is actually just taking the first step start actually doing some work, right. I think I was working recently with talking about how you make all the progress in personal finance. And a lot of people are discouraged because they think they can't come up with an answer. And it's like painting, right? The first blob of paint on the on the canvas doesn't look like the painting You can't expect it to you go put it on, put it on, put it on. Only after a long time does it actually start to get to the real picture, and it's the same, it's exactly the same with this. You just got to start doing the work. And starting doing the work is actually working out what you want your kids to be like, what kind of life you want to live with them where it's going to be, and the kinds of expenses you're going to have.   So you can roll that stuff out pretty easily. I mean, so For me, because I was an expert, I had to put my kids in international school, there's some serious education expenses. You know, it's like the, for me, when my kids went to college, they got cheaper. I mean, that doesn't happen very often, right? My kids got a lot cheaper when I was paying for them to live in a foreign country, flying them backwards and forwards and paying college fees, they were cheaper than the local education costs for me.   So that's how individually these things can be right? I mean, you just have to do that. So you have to look forward and you think, okay, and I'll give you perfect opposite example, really good friend of mine used to live like five floors below where I had seen the apartment block right here. He's got for various reasons, he ended up with like, kind of one of those joint families who so like, five kids under the age of five, you know, bizarrely, and really bonded, situated,   Tom: Yeah, Brady Bunch situation.   7 Dollar Millionaire: And he's, he's like a, he's a fund manager, based in Singapore. And he worked out that he could actually, it made sense for him to quit his job and move back to California, because paying for five kids in local education system here, when you know, that, and everything else, it's cheaper to move to a place with a good free education system and have a normal job rather than trying to have a high paid job and pay those kinds of costs.   So that's how individual all of these kinds of decisions get to be. The first thing is just to sit down and, and dream a little, right, exactly. Who do you want your kids to be? And how do you want to live with them. And because a lot of the costs, like your actual food costs, it's not a big deal, it's really not going to be an enormous deal. So the basic, you know, adding one bedroom to the house may or may not be a big deal, depending on on where you're at. And then after that is things like education and flying, holiday is right, they do cost literally an extra person on every single thing you do, when you start and that's times 20 years, right?   So there's, there's some, there's a lot of extra costs on that kind of stuff. And it's really just sitting down and working out those kinds of things, and those kinds of budgets. And then as you move closer, closer towards the end, you'll realize exactly what is going on, you'll get a much closer impression. But as always, it's just start, just sit down with a piece of paper and just go, Okay, I think it could be this, and then find out the extra information that you'd actually need. Because it can be a scary amount, or it can be really, if someone for someone like me, that was having to pay man it was 15 years of 14 years of school fees. I don't want to think what that was, you know, really, I definitely don't want to, you know, PV it, I mean, that's just insane amount of money. But you know, had to be done for In my case, if you don't have that you don't need to put it in.   Tom: I love that analogy of the paint, and it just kind of evolving a little bit over time. As far as, you know, practically getting the paint down, would you recommend a model where, say this is in Excel, and each row is like a year, and then, you know, perhaps there's some different sort of expenses within the different rows, or it's just like a really kind of basic form of that is that sort of a rough construct is, and I'm sure it's you know, could be a little unique for everyone. But that's immediately where my mind goes is seeing in that sort of a model.   7 Dollar Millionaire: That's definitely where I think you move it, I actually like to do a pen and paper to start with, I think there's a, there's kind of a free flow, when you're actually kind of sit down with pen and paper and just as scribble stuff out. I've even tried doing it on my iPad with you know, like the sketch but it doesn't work as well, there isn't that sort of connection, which sitting there with a piece of piece of paper and a pen for 10 minutes, and just sort of scribbling out the bunch of the cost because we're all prepared to be kind of messy on a piece of paper, right, and we can just draw in things and loop them around, that connects to that, scribble that out and need this.   And then once you've got probably only 10 minutes in, you can move that to a spreadsheet, seven or eight lines, seven or eight lines is going to get you most of the way to the kind of things you're thinking about.   Michael: And Tom, I'm curious not to put you on the spot here in the hot seat but having a young child is this an exercise that you went through with your wife and was this conversations that you had prior to the little one arriving?   7 Dollar Millionaire: You know, I was actually so I'm in my mid 30s now and when I was in my mid 20s and early 20s actually was way more active about kind of performing out like 20-30 years in advance so I actually had to pull back the old spreadsheets pain analogy I think it's probably time to have another round I love these interviews with you 7 Dollar Millionaire I literally after our last call that we had I went and totally redid all my you know auto deposit into my investing and I already have some immediate action items from from this one. So just to kind of go back I was I not not so much with these with with my current kid but I think it's an exercise to go revisit some work that I did in my mid 20s.   7 Dollar Millionaire: It's always good to know right? It's also good to know how good you are at modeling. Where you make mistakes and modeling, I mean, we we professionally we do that. And it's you know, you can be miles out. But if you actually, I mean, there's a company modeling, we're actually modeling like an investment will have various inputs that we can that we can change them to go back and you look and go, Oh my god, I was miles out, but then you realize that one of the inputs was x, y, zed, which turned out not to be remotely true. So you can, okay, then change that. And sometimes it kind of comes back to closer to reality. So all these things are really, really important to actually just understand how well you model because it's not like you have to stop modeling, or you never stop acts.   And modeling is like, it sounds like it's too specific to what we do. But we're all forecasting all of the time. Now, my favorite analogy for forecasting and how we're all forecasting all the time, is we all pretty much expect chairs not to break when we sit in them, right?   I mean, even some of my weight, I don't expect the chair to break when I sit in it. But I pretty certainly if you if you sat on three chair, three different chairs in a row, and they broke every time, that fourth chair, you'd be like pushing it scratching it thinking, Okay, is this thing solid, you'd have lost all your trust in chairs, that's just forecasting. It's just natural forecasting. We do it all the time. And so knowing if you're good or bad at it is a is an amazing life skill.   Tom: Do you find that most people are overly optimistic when forecasting I guess you could apply this to business or to kind of personal? I'd love to hear your kind of thoughts on, I guess human nature and in applying forecasts and ways to beat yourself and be better at it.   7 Dollar Millionaire: Yeah, I honestly, unfortunately, it really it is really bad answer. But 50% of people are better than average. And there's no other way of looking at it. I think the key is most of us aren't doing it particularly consciously most of the time. And so sense of like actual aware forecasting and awareness of how optimistic or pessimistic we tend to be. Pessimists, I mean, pessimism is one of the reasons that overcaution is what keeps a lot of people out of the markets. Right. And because they think of it as markets, right, they don't think of it as I'm working. I'm living in this economy, and not being in it with my capital is essentially an enormous risk that this economy is going to crash and burn. I'm literally taking that investment option. And not seeing it that way keeps them out because they view it as being very, very high risk and pessimistic because they don't understand it enough.   Let's throw some analogies around that's just like being in the dark, right? It's just being in the dark, you can walk out into your hallway with no light, and you can't find your way along the hallway anymore. Right? That's, it's it's still there. Everything's exactly where I was people without the education. I mean, we're moving back into financial education, right. It's what keeps people out. It's they're unsure, they're in the dark. And that's why I think creates most of the pessimism and overcaution around it.   Yeah, there's a bunch of people who, too, you know, too optimistic, too. But that's what I mean. I tend not to mind it when when investing, I don't engage over optimism. But when I'm doing things like a little bit more entrepreneurial, then yeah, I shoot for the moon. There's just no point right? or shoot for the stars even then you get the moon there's no point not being no point starting an endeavor without thinking it's going to be amazing.   Michael: Yeah, I love that analogy about being in the dark. I wonder though, your take on, when people have gotten out into the hallway realize that it's not that scary. Or maybe they've gotten a little flashlight, it a little bit of education, they understand. And now they think, Well, I know everything. And so how does that that little bit of education, a little bit of knowledge, not get overblown, and a bit turned into overconfidence, where now you are taking risks, well beyond your your light beam, so to speak.   Tom: Great point, Michael.   7 Dollar Millionaire: Yeah, it, it's it's actually why I think it's so important. This gets taught in schools. And, you know, there's, there's a bunch of different sides on this. But it's, that's why, you know, why are we confident reading? Right, we're confident reading because we've been taught it at such a young age, right? This is this is how we have that kind of confidence. Why are we not confident in a foreign language? Because we weren't taught it. We don't know any of the words, we don't know how this thing's put together. And we need that it's, it's about having that broad underpinning to what we do, and it's why it needs to be taught in schools because any other way, you're coming in at some random entry point, right?   So some friend tells you the you know, you should trade options on Robin Hood because I made x, y, zed and then you kind of get in there and you learn a little bit about it. Maybe you have like some Beginner's luck and you do quite well. That's now your little wheelhouse. It may just may be a good wheelhouse for you. It may be a terrible one. More likely the second option, right. So that becomes your think that's what you need that we need the education to make sure we get a little bit of light in all areas.   I mean, I'll give you a perfect example for this. I so the CFA exams Chartered Financial Analyst. I'm not one I did level one.I got way too busy to do levels two and three, my first daughter was born like immediately after getting level one. And level one even just shows you the entire spectrum. So you kind of you get like a beginners entry level on everything. And that's like, you kind of you know where to come back to later. Right? If I need to calculate a bond price, I can't do it off the top of my head, but I know where to read. I know where to look. And then I'd know how to do it. And that, obviously, that's a little bit specific for most people. But that kind of general entry level stuff is I think, you know, what's needed otherwise, you do end up with the flashlight, or moving from analogies. Under the under the street lamp looking for their keys, right?   You know, the stories like, you know, and the guy's looking for his keys under the street lamp and a piece of wedge, you lose them over there. So why are you looking here? Well, this is where the light is, right? That's it's so important to just have like a basic level of light.   Tom: To know what you don't know. Definitely.   Michael: Yeah, that's Yeah. I'm curious to know, in your opinion, if someone is looking to invest in the next 12 months, they're looking to get educated and wanting to get involved, whatever investment class they deem is in their wheelhouse, where should they be keeping those funds? Should that be something that they're investing the whole time labeling? And, you know, dollar cost averaging? Or should they kind of wait till they have enough funds to do something with curious to get your thoughts?   7 Dollar Millionaire: Okay, well, always dot dollar cost average, unless there's like a ticket price that, you know, makes that unavoidable that you have to go in single level, like, like some kinds of property, right, where you have to have a certain amount of downpayment, and that's the minimum you can get involved. The great thing about other asset classes is you can dollar cost average in the tiniest amounts. And you always should, I mean, cuz, you know, you can't predict the future, you don't know if it's gonna go up or down, right. So you should try and remove as much of that risk as possible. And dollar cost averaging is the is the free way of doing that.   Michael: Right.   7 Dollar Millionaire: So right, so always dollar cost averaging, I think there's a one thing that I quite like is what I think of it in my head is like a reverse ladder. So you know how you have ladders on fixed deposits, time deposits, whatever they call them. In the US, you know, where you can get kind of get like a little bit more return, if you lock the money into a deposit account for longer, let's say three months, six months, whatever it is, and you stagger it in. So you put in like a sixth this month and a six the next month, and then you do that over six months. So you got the money, you got access to six of the money every single month, you can put it put it into those and then actually dollar cost into the thing you're putting it into. So you can sort of you're still making a little bit of money doesn't have to sit as pure cash. Right.   Michael: So so go get six CDs.   7 Dollar Millionaire: Yeah, exactly.   Michael: on six month intervals. And okay, gotcha.   7 Dollar Millionaire: Yeah, exactly right. And then you can just plug it straight in. And you might only be making like an extra, like a few bucks. But this is how you make money, right is by it's like that little extra, which for no risk, right? That's always the key a little bit extra, no risk is better than a lot extra for a lot of risk. So just that just that small, those small moves are always useful.   But I think also one of the other things to do is depending on the asset class, if if what you're doing, if the cash you've got is a long way away from the asset class, then it does make sense to have some kind of hedge if it's possible. So I mean, I think one of the things often is say, like, being able to put some of the money into a REIT in advance of buying a property.   So let's say if there's like, if you're going to buy property in New York for some reason, then there's a new york rate, if you can do enough analysis around that read to understand it's like, oh, this is, this is pretty similar, this should go up when my property goes up, it should go down when my property goes down, you can at least put some of the money as you're building towards that downpayment into the REIT and then hedge out a little bit of that extra risk. Because, I mean, the risk on property is nearly always, everywhere in the world, the government prints more money, right? I mean, properties actually don't…   Micheal: Inflation.   7 Dollar Millionaire: Yeah, well, yeah, properties don't often go up in value, your money goes down in value in terms of property, right, that's what actually happens. So actually, removing that risk is is is useful. So I'd always think through these ways, rather than thinking, yeah, just chucking money in now. Just steady push it in steadily as it's just if you can, if you have the patience.   Tom: That's a that's a good discipline. I mean, it kind of related as an act of discipline I can think of like going to a, like a kiss going to Las Vegas or something and playing blackjack and it's like, oh, do I push it all in on one hand or do I slowly and you're gonna have a better time to her a little bit slower. I guess that kind of really kind of relates to having fun at the casino versus having fun at.   7 Dollar Millionaire: It is a good point because I do the exact opposite. I really don't like being in casinos and when I'm forced to go to them, I put it all in on one hand and literally   Michael: Walk away.   7 Dollar Millionaire: Just like get this over and done with either make a lot of money on one hand, or we are I'd leave and have a better time than I would do by sitting at a blackjack table, losing money steadily.   Michael: I love how you knew kind of exactly where I was going with the question with regard to property investment. Because I mean, Tom you were in a similar situation with regard to you had some cash or cash out refinance, you were looking to deploy it. And in the meantime, you were thinking about putting it in the market, and I think you ultimately did. And then there was some fluctuation in the market. And you're like, Whoa, this is not this is not feeling good. So you pull back a little bit, right?   Tom: Yeah, yeah, just, I think like within, there's more, like risky allocations, and then safer allocations. And I think, being cognizant of kind of which risk profile I was investing, versus the strategy I initially did was go running up to the blackjack table and throwing it all down. And, you know, thankfully, didn't get getting didn't get burned too bad. But, you know, stepped back away and left the casino and invested in a nice asset allocation that was comfortable for the time horizon at which I wanted to spend it. So..   7 Dollar Millionaire: That's I mean, that's, that's, that's also the other point is actually nothing wrong with taking a second most important thing of investing is actually understanding your own psychological needs, because you can't invest against them. It's really, really hard to actually invest in a way that you don't think is correct for you. So taking too much risk. And just I mean, I don't have sleepless nights with what I do for a living. Because I don't invest in a way that is wrong. For me. I actually feel like I understand what I do. Whenever I hear people like they have sleepless nights like that's because your style investing does not match what you actually believe. I mean, that just can't be. That can be the only reason I think what you did, there was smart.   So the only way I've done this in the past is that I buy I bought properties in the past in, in foreign countries I have bought in Singapore, once I buy in the UK, I bought in Japan, I bought in Australia, one of the things when I know I'm going to do that is I immediately switch the money into that currency. If I think it's cheap, I think it's expensive. I don't.   But I try and you know, work because current currency, and I do sometimes take a view on the currencies. So you know, but that's it's that kind of move. So for example, I think I kept I think I kept just cash in a deposit in Sterling for about three years before I bought a property there because I wanted to take away because it was cheap. And I wanted to remove the currency risk, that it would get more expensive at that particular time. Basically, the moment Brexit happened and the pound and the pound collapsed, I put money into Sterling, because I knew I'd be thinking about buying a house not long after,   Michael: I think I've mentioned this to you in the past, Michael, but I really took it on the nose with the currency exchange because I bought a place in Portugal. And it was right around February, January, when we were looking at doing a transaction and the dollar against the Euro was like 94 cents. And it has just continued to climb and climb and climb. And so this is going to be great. This is going to be an equal transaction, by the time I go to actually pull the trigger. And so I waited, waited, waited and then COVID hit and the dollar just tanked. And I really got taken to the carwash on that one.   So I think that makes sense is if if you if you know what it is today, that's worth something and how you feel about it, I think is also important, but also a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.   7 Dollar Millionaire: Well, it's it's actually a lot of these things is understanding future liabilities, and not just your existing liabilities, but your future liabilities. And that's one of the ones like with kids, right? You're going to have these are future liabilities, you've got costs down the road. And if you know that you've got, you want to have a place in Portugal, then if you think the currencies pretty decent, and you know, you don't have a view either way, you can just put that money into into euros immediately and just remove that risk, right, there's no risk now. Right?   If that money wa s just gonna sit, and you could have it in euros doing something else, I mean, you can still take another risk on top of that, but at least you've closed off that currency risk. And currencies, they move around a lot. I mean, there's, you know, within like a two or three year timeframe, they can really shift. And that's a risk that's nice not to have or even potentially gain you can make rather than, you know, taking that huge risk.   Tom: So backtracking Just a minute, a little bit ago, you were talking about if you were to evaluating buying property in New York, and you know, parking it into a REIT in that space. I never and then you know, you can research that read I never thought of that, because they're sort of there's this is, you know, primarily single family rental investors. There are single family rental REITs out there. And is the idea to maybe to to learn more about that specific REITs that you're going into that asset class like to benchmark what kind of returns you what are my totally hearing this on a different?   7 Dollar Millionaire: I think you know more about the US property market than I do. So I'm, uh, yeah, you're probably hearing things I don't know, all I mean is is as close as you can remove risk, I'm not talking about actually   Tom: Sure getting as close.   7 Dollar Millionaire: Yeah, the closer the asset thing, the asset class you're going to buy, you're removing as much risk as you possibly can. So if it's in similar geography, in a similar asset class in a similar geography, it still may not correlate, and there's nothing you can do about that there may be a problem with the REIT, and there may be a problem with a manager and maybe a problem with something else. But if you're going to buy commercial property in New York State, if you can find a commercial property right, in New York State, yeah, then maybe maybe there'll be reasonably correlated, and you're taking a risk there, that, you know, there's no reason for cash to be correlated to it, there's definitely no reason for any other asset class to be correlated to that thing. So just a little bit of work and probably find you, okay, what's the new what's the New York State REIT, which ones are similar? Bang, okay, that one might reduce my costs and reads tend to pay pretty good dividends as well. So you actually could get paid out while you're doing it. So the return could be stronger, while being more correlated. And that's kind of all you're aiming for. with that.   But I mean, I'm gonna say as well, I don't know, if I mentioned on last couple of one of my it's a small family single, you know, real estate, is actually just such one of the best asset classes to be in as an individual. Just because it's not not something that big corporations do particularly well. And that's where it's sort of maybe steer clear of big corporations tend to do big properties very well, right. It's just like one guy making a decision pushes a button, and then the whole building does x, y, zed, right? Whereas when you look at what we all live in, so small fixer uppers, those single unit setup takes an enormous amount of management to run as a business.   So that's one of the reasons I love real estate as an asset class is because the world's capital is not trying to jump into this, right, it's just individuals doing the thing they do. So we can have an advantage. But within the REIT, maybe less if you get too specific, too granular. And I just sort of aim, you know, and the other thing would be to not get into to smaller thing, right? You want it to be liquid, you want it to be well traded, you know, one reasonably well known   Tom: That makes sense definitely.   Michael: Makes a ton of sense. I'm curious, Michael, do you have generic guidelines or principles when you're teaching, you know, financial education to folks around how much of someone's paycheck or how much someone's net worth should be broken down and spent on the different typical categories? So housing, or transportation or food entertainment? Do you have a pie chart that you that you utilize?   7 Dollar Millionaire: No. I mean, there is one, right. There's the 50 30 20, that is commonly used. And it's a great starting point, I actually think the 50 30 20 is a great starting point. But I think there's just too many examples of people who do way better than that, than I do. You know, you don't want to set the goalposts too easy, right? You know, you just come across people who are saving half or even three quarters of their of their income, and you don't want to tell them, You should save 20 it's similarly right, you know, it's just like, but the only one I really use is like, never go above like a third of your income on property.   And I think if you can keep it below that number, pretty much everything else starts to slide with it. Right? You start your cut, a lot of other costs are gonna be I mean, so in the book Happy Ever After I use 50 3020 as a starting point, but then say, Well, yeah, you know, but what if you could do 30 30 10? Right, you know, 30 30 30 30 30 40, because it would be, because 30 30 10 doesn't add up great. But if you can keep those costs down, all of those extra the 1530, way below those numbers, you're adding up to a much higher number on the 20. And that's the thing, I think, to use that 50 30 20 is a great thing to say to someone who's saving zero, or 5%.   Tom: Sorry, just to clarify the 5030 is 50% is your needs housing, grocery grocery, all that 30% is the ones and 20% savings. Is that the?   7 Dollar Millionaire: Yeah, that's right. Yeah, that's, I mean, it's not that I didn't invent that. I think that's a standard financial personal finance tool. And, you know, as as with the glob of paint, right, it's a great job of paint, unfortunately, it's kind of it sounds to 20 20% is gonna have you if you did it from the age of 20 20% is going to have you retired somewhere in your 60s. It's not amazing, right? That it's it's, it's better than not, but it's it's not amazing, and that's where I wouldn't want to see it to see us as I try to use it just as a general this is dob of pain. 20 is great, but if you want to do better, you should aim for better.   Michael: Yeah, that makes tons of sense. And I think that's great. I love I love that dob of paint analogy. I think it makes so much sense. I'm a very visual person. So that that resonates with me.   7 Dollar Millionaire: Cool. That's good. That's really good. Because it's because I wrote it for for a new book I'm working on. So I'm glad it works. I'm trying it out with you guys.   Michael: Are you really writing a new book?   7 Dollar Millionaire: Yeah, yeah. This is actually the first morning in about three weeks I am, I've got up to talk to you guys instead of getting up to write. But I've been writing to non stop for last three weeks.   Michael: Awesome. Can Can we get a little preview as to what it's about?   7 Dollar Millionaire: Yeah, it's it's an attempt to combine Zen mindfulness practice and personal finance. So I'm trying to map I'm trying to get that Venn diagram. I feel at the moment, those Venn diagrams are like, here, I'm just trying to merge them. But in many ways, I feel that they merge really easily. It's like, you know, it's what is tracking what is tracking your spending, if not being mindful of what you're doing?   Right. I mean, you sit down and journal but journal your expenses, right actually know what you're doing in life, I actually think they they align quite neatly, I just haven't seen anyone do it before. And, and I, one of the things I've realized more and more about personal finance is that the SEC, the same five or six things, we all need to know how to do the basics. But we need to approach every person in a slightly different way to get those five or six things in. Once you're in, you'll learn them really fast, but you need to get in.   And that's why I sort of just occurred to me will be a fun thing to do. So yeah, I need it to be fun. As well, I need to actually want to be able to, if I have to get up at six in the morning, I have to want to   Tom: Yeah, big, big mindfulness fan, I try and do have a personal retreat every year. And man, I can just see how a lot of those concepts of just being present is so relevant. And you can basically apply it to anything and it's so natural into, you know, the currency that, that our resources that we live off of its camp can't wait for it to talk more about it and for it to come out.   7 Dollar Millionaire: Cool. Well it come at it. Well, if I finish it, it should come out next year. That's exactly what it is. I mean, it is this sense of in every place in our finances, if you're not aware, they take control of you rather than the other way around. And if you can be aware and mindful of what you're doing. So even to the standard market to you over emotional, are you under emotional, you know, how are you what's actually going on in you, that is making you do things that are not to your benefit and understanding those things are such important drivers and in the in the space. So addressing all those things. Equally, what's quite nice is I feel like I can recycle the some of the Happy Ever After book as well, because the middle of the middle bit of this book is a man being the same steps mission, money income saving, spending, investing, owning now those steps.   And so rather than to using sort of like the fairy tale, we sort of really creating a path. And as with so many things on sort of mindfulness, this is a path, you have to understand the path and now you hear whether the dob of paint was coming in, right? Don't get upset that you don't know where you're at, you're just putting a dob of paint is just the first dollar painting this will build. And that's Yeah, that's why I'm so happy like the analogy cuz it's right up the front.   Michael: Oh, this is great. I'm very excited to read the book. I want to shift gears here a little bit. And I'm curious to know if you have any tips or tricks or guidelines for folks to have these types of financial, personal financial conversations with a spouse partner significant other, because so often I hear in the Roofstock Academy is Hey, I'm all on board for real estate, but my husband isn't, or my wife isn't or my partner isn't interested? How do you bring them in in a productive way?   7 Dollar Millionaire: Yeah, it's hard. And you know, you, it's okay, we're gonna get back to the mindfulness, but just for a second, and I'll come back to this, right, because   Tom: It's all part of everything   7 Dollar Millionaire: You have to know is that you, you can only affect yourself, you can't create change outside yourself, you can only create change inside yourself. So you, you can't force a partner to come up to your speed when you want them to. So that's the number one understanding. So you got to be ready for them to not be prepared to do this.   The second thing is, it's why I wrote the book is for the original one happy ever after it was to outsource a lot of the conversation with this time, but that time with my daughter to paper, get her to read it. So I don't have to go through an enormous amount of the background of how this works, right? It I can just imagine it. When I realized my daughter didn't know anything about money. I was like, I've got a teach her this stuff. I don't want to spend every weekend for the next year having daddy daughter money lectures, because that's just you know, it's wrong.   Right? So but if I write her book, she can read it in their own pace, and we can have those conversations and she's already up to speed. Right? So to get some level of outsourcing so to encourage, could you read this book, have a look at this, what do you think about this, and then let the person do it in their own time. So they'll come up to speak because again, we go back to that you can only change you they have to change themselves on on their timeframe.   I think the other thing is too, sometimes it's useful just to have like a group budget as a track as a family exactly where all the money goes. Because that That, to me is like, is the starting point we're spending money on on these things. And you know, if there's any dispute, it's like, let's get the, let's get the receipts out, this is actually exactly where all our money went in the in this period. Because I think that's the, I think it's very difficult to jump from an investing mindset. Jump to it, without going through saving. And you have to warn you that that requires understanding your spending.   So those two things combined to be like, okay, we understand that what we're saving and what we're spending, okay, now we can invest our asset class, we can we can move on to as you said, How do I get my spouse to think about real estate, they're probably not thinking about it, because they're not probably not thinking about the saving and spending, the moment you think about your, I'm going to give up this spending to save the money, you tend to get a lot more interested in how much money that money is going to make for you. So you tend to get a lot more interested in the asset class. So I that's why I do see these things as being a 1234. And then you can get them interested in the asset class.   Tom: Maslow's hierarchy of conversations to have with your significant other. Yeah, it's, so this is a one would be, I guess, spending, saving, and then more offensive investing that I understand this kind of triangle correctly.   7 Dollar Millionaire: Okay, I will never allow spending to go in front of saving savings by okay. It's in the dictionary in the book in life saving comes first, right? Get the saving done first. And the saving is how you top up your yield. So the safe spending is cutting down on your spending is how you top up your savings. Right? Did you put the put the savings away first.   But yeah, and then once you've got savings, you need to do something with them. And so the thing you do with them is what asset class and then you can have those conversations. But if the person isn't engaged in the saving, right, then they're probably saying I don't want to invest in real estate, because actually, I'd rather be spending the money on a car.   And you've got to move the people have got to be with you on those steps. And it's, if then if they haven't got those fundamentals like Well, yeah, we could buy the car, but these savings will double in 10 years time and quadruple in 20, et cetera, et cetera. And then we'll be setting we can have as many cars as we want, if that's your thing. But let's just actually understand our priorities today, and where we want to be with that.   But I do think it's really important not to make that a face to face conversation too often, unless you're both open to that and let that someone like me, let an author let a book, let a TV show, do the heavy lifting, right? I mean, and then then have the conversation subsequently.   Michael: So for anybody listening, needing to broach this subject with a partner, spouse, you can either go get Happy Ever After by 7 Dollar Millionaire, that's great.   7 Dollar Millionaire: I couldn't have said it better myself. Love it, love it.   Michael: I know you're not really familiar with the US system of Roth versus non Roth, but we can talk about it in a higher level discussion. And so in the US, we have Roth and non Roth retirement accounts. A Roth is simply you pay the tax on the dollars that you invest on the front end, and then you get tax free growth and distributions on the back end, versus a non Roth is you get a tax benefit of reducing your taxable income today, it grows tax deferred, and then when you go to remove those dollars, it gets taxed at that point in time. Do you have a sense for pros cons, how people might be thinking about this?   7 Dollar Millionaire: The only thing that go into there is I'm assuming there are some other sub clauses in terms of what your access to the money in the intervening periods? Right? So I'm guessing from what you've said, that the one where you get, like, you pay tax now and you'd be don't pay tax on on the eventual money. You can only take it out on a certain date. And if you take it out between those dates, I'm assuming there's some kind of penalty as the as the price of actually getting a tax tax, tax free later on, are tax exempt.   Whereas the other one sounds more like well, if you know, you're actually if you're not being taxed on the money that goes in that's probably fairly similar. But I'm guessing it's probably a little bit freer money in terms of you can probably access it at any point in time.   Tom: The big gating factor between the two is there's limitations on who has access to use a Roth, this one that's taxed up front, and that your income needs to be under a certain level.   Michael: But the access to the funds are fairly similar in that you pay a penalty on both if you remove them before your retirement age. Yeah, yeah, I mean, I think if you can afford it, you probably want to put the money away that you can take it out later tax free. That to me sounds like you know, because then you, hopefully if it's a long period of time, and it compounds reasonably well, that's a bigger number than the money you're putting in. And that's how the only thing I could think of that. Honestly, these things is weighing me up. I people make tax codes way too complicated.   It's just like they make tax codes complicated. And then don't teach financial literacy in schools. The idea of this is beggars believe, right? The problem with making them complicated is very often, it tells people like, it's like, we go back to a dog with pain, right? We go back to our dob of pain, someone is telling you, I need you to paint the Mona Lisa, and you've never painted before, you're scared to put the first piece of paint on, you won't, you'll just, you know, you'll have you'll kind of you'll have like a punk rock moment, and you'll toss the canvas and break it on the wall and walk out the room.   That's what everyone does. Everyone's just like, this is too hard. I'm not doing it. And so you stop people actually getting involved. So I am going again to run again, all of these systems are way too hard. The correct answer is save them money, one of those will be doing deep, it will be better than none of them and don't over stress it.   Personally, I probably go to have the tax deferred later. Because I want the money to compound my age, that's probably wrong. Because I'm you know, I'm probably begin taking the money out in 10-15 years, so might not compound that much. And I might be better off actually having more money now. And I suspect that's where the differential is. That's probably where, you know, that's where the delta is on that. But God, I mean, that's just way too hard. Sorry, not telling you off it. But it's way too hard a question to put to someone who probably has very minimal financial literacy, I could probably work out what the right answer is with a spreadsheet. That means it's a really bad policy to be offering people. Sorry to criticize your country.   Tom: I like it.   7 Dollar Millionaire: Okay, good.   Tom: My wife's a tax attorney and keeps keeps busy. Yeah, moving tax code.   7 Dollar Millionaire: Oh man. It's actually it's actually also one of the reasons why, you know, the financial literacy thing is so important, because you can't trust governments with this stuff. In the we all think that everything we experience from childhood has been around forever. The reality is, before the Second World War, most people were dying around 65 70, they did not get a pension because they didn't need it. They were literally going to last maybe four or five years after they after they finished work, they would expect to work to death. And only after the Second World War, do we get this mass input of pension schemes? And which is why in lots of countries, they're just paid out of government revenues. And I'm not saying that's necessarily a bad thing. But it does. What it means is it's not necessarily going to be around forever. Tax codes aren't around forever. And it's one of the things that I worry too much about putting too much time into worrying about tax codes. Because by the time you take the money out, you'll have been through five different tax codes. It will all have changed so many times that if you try to think long range about tax, you're doing the wrong thing, because the risk on that is enormous.   Michael: That's such a good point. I think so many people hear about Taxco changing scramble to do whatever they can. And then next president next administration comes around things change scramble to do what we can and then you know, over and over and over again.   7 Dollar Millionaire: The people that make the money are Tom's wife. They make all the money!   Tom: She is just there, interpretating whatever, whatever comes out. Yeah,   7 Dollar Millionaire: Yeah, exactly.   Tom: It's good for the Schneider family. It's good for them.   Michael: That's great. Well, I think we just got to wrap this up, Tom, any other questions for the 7 Dollar Millionaire?   Tom: No, I love it. I think of all of our podcast guests. I never have more like impactful like meaningful, like things that I go off and do after the episode. So I really appreciate you coming on super excited about the book coming out.   7 Dollar Millionaire: Yeah, thanks very much for that. It's, it's, um, I'm really excited about it, too. It was the publishers Wiley to appeal to published happy ever after. And they, they asked me when I kind of that they were actually publishing happily ever after they said, do you want to do a follow up? And I was like, No, no interest. The and it because I took that to mean that did they want me to write teaching my daughter how to invest properly, and not as a cop out? That's just too complex.   You know, the reason I write what I write is I'm interested in getting people off the ground up to being able to understand other books. I'm not interested in the other books, those are all great. They've already been done, you know?     And then, you know, while he was coaxing me and saying, Well, no, we have this book series called “The Little Book of“ Series, which like the Little Book of Common Sense investing is written by John Bogle. And I'm like, kidding, right? I get to write a book in series that that goes in. And actually the bigger one for me was actually The Little Book valuation is by Aswath Damodaran. Who, I don't know if you guys know him, but in my industry, he's a god.   Aswath Damodaran book bbout this thick on on, it's just got damodaran valuation. And it's got every way of valuing everything ever. And it's the Bible for my industry. Everyone's got a copy everyone's read it cover to cover. It's literally and it I mean, it's dense. He's I think he's a, he's a professor at NYU stern. And just like, super clever guy. So he wrote the little book of value valuation. And they're asking me 7 Dollar Millionaire if I want to write one of those. So I thought I've got to think about it. So just like so thinking about it. And I was like, still didn't want to write a follow up on investing. Now, I did literally woke up one morning, I was like, the little book of Zen Money. And just that the title just runs so nice. I was like, Yeah, okay, what, what can I do with that, and I was like, then the subtitle came to my head was like, okay, a simple path to financial peace of mind.   Okay. And literally, I'm writing the thing, first word to last word and like, not how you should write, you should break it up into bits. And Right, right, like the middle first, and then the end. And then the beginning. And I'm literally going from the title. And the last word, all right, will be the kind of the end. And just going that direction, because it just makes sense to me all the way through.   Tom: Yeah, it's there already. just pulling back.   Michael: Yeah, gotta get it onto paper.   7 Dollar Millionaire: I stay away from the other analogy. But the other analogy is chipping blocks off the stone, right to make a sculpture. That's what I'm doing with this one. It's there. It's already there. I've just got to find it. enough fun. Yeah, I wake up every morning and get at it part from today, when it's fun to talk to you guys instead.   Tom: Yeah, I mean, one of the takeaways also for these conversations is like, you know, this 80-20 principle where, you know, you get 80% of your value from 20% of the work and that last 20%, like, that's where it gets, like overly complicated moving targets, you know, anxiety, all that stuff, but just getting up and getting that initial blob of paint? I mean, I feel like I'm probably repeating a lot of the conversation, but it's a really powerful one.   7 Dollar Millionaire: Exactly. I mean, you know, it's it really is that that first move separates you from everyone who's not investing, who's not saving. That's it, right that if you were the stat or last year, it was ended. 2019. Right there, 61% of Americans didn't have $1,000 in an emergency fund.   Just having $1,000, that puts you already in the top 39% of the richest country in the world. That is already that that's the 80 20 rule right there. They're taking their money and opening an investing account, bang, you're probably in the top 10%. Right. And taking those actions is what moves you along these things all the time. That's why is is so important.   Yeah. It's the problem, as you said is, someone tells you, you should invest. Oh, and you should invest in this. So what you know, that's just way too complex. It should just be you should save, you should invest, and probably, you know, VTI just go there. He can be a while before you find anything else. So you can overcomplicate it later when you're ready to overcomplicate it, but to start with just go there.   Michael: Love it.   Tom: Love it. And VTi is the vanguard index fund. That's just kind of just blankets. The economy beautiful. Yeah, big fan.   7 Dollar Millionaire: It's, it's the it's the biggest economy in the world. It's the top 500 companies in the biggest economy in the world. You know, when we if you live off grid, you're not involved in the global economy. Fine, right. But that's like naught point naught naught 1% of us that's discussing this properly off grid. The rest of us are buying stuff to live our off grid life anyway, we're in the economy. That's that the most natural hedge just by that.   Michael: And the folks that do live off grid probably aren't gonna be listening to this podcast on their iPhone, in the middle of nowhere wherever they live off grid, so I don't think we have to worry about them.   7 Dollar Millionaire: They probably are.   Michael: Living off grid with faster Wi Fi than any of us.   7 Dollar Millionaire: Exactly.   Michael: Awesome. Well, $7 millionaire Always a pleasure to have you on thank you again for hanging out with us and bestowing some wisdom. And like I mentioned, and I mentioned very much looking forward to the book when it comes out. I know I'll be getting it. We will both be getting it I'm sure.   7 Dollar Millionaire: Excellent. Well, thank you very much. It really it's always a pleasure. Really good fun. Thanks, guys.   Michael: Awesome. Take care. I'll talk to you soon.   Alright, everybody, that was our episode a big big, big thank you to 7 Dollar Millionaire always such a pleasure chatting with him. Tom, I know you and I get so much value out of our talks with him and after all of our conversations, we have going making some changes to our own personal finance realm. So very excited to do that yet again. If you'd like the episode, please feel free to leave us a rating or review wherever it is just in your podcast. If you're checking this out on YouTube feel, feel free to hit that like and subscribe button. And as always, we look forward to seeing on the next one. Happy investing.   Tom: Happy investing.

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