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This week on Talk World Radio we are hearing and discussing poetry about Gaza. Our guest, Anita Barrows, is a poet, novelist, and translator from French, German and Italian. She has eighteen published books and a nineteenth on its way. She and Joanna Macy have translated four volumes of the work of Rainer Maria Rilke, and many of their translated poems have been used in weddings and other ceremonies, and set to music. Anita is a clinical psychologist and teaches in a psychology doctoral program, The Wright Institute, Berkeley, where she is a tenured Institute Professor. She maintains a clinical practice where she sees children and adults with a history of trauma or neurodivergence. Anita Barrows worked for five summers at The Palestinian Counseling Center in Ramallah (in the Occupied West Bank) and she has had a longstanding commitment to the liberation of Palestine. See https://poemsforgaza.com
How can we improve communication between practice owners and employees? Sthefany Alviar reveals insights from the contrast between her current role at Mirjam Quinn and Associates and a previous, less supportive private practice. She and Sarah explore issues such as financial transparency, the challenges of transitioning from salaried to contractual pay, and the importance of clear administrative support. Sthefany emphasizes the value of aligning personal values with those of the practice, noting how Miriam's openness about financials and future plans contributes to a positive workplace culture. *** Group Practice (R)evolution is a new platform and podcast series offering insights from owners, employees, and experts, and resources to support this wildly ambitious vision for the future. Podcast episodes are available for free in this feed for a limited time. If you want to hear more episodes like this one and access Sarah's “why do you stay?” interview template… Join other leaders in the Group Practice (R)evolution! Regular podcast listeners can get a full year of membership for only $19.99 by using the discount code PODCAST. So visit: https://tinyurl.com/GPRPodcast and click on “have a coupon” and enter PODCAST to enjoy all the perks of Group Practice (R)evolution for a year! Available episodes include: The Ideals of Therapy vs the Limitations of Capitalism with Jeff Levy Sustainable Solutions for Staff Retention and Satisfaction with Jennifer Froemel Creating Emotional Safety, Belonging, and Buy-In With Your Staff with Mirjam Quinn *** About Our Guest: Dr. Sthefany Alviar earned her doctorate from the Wright Institute in Berkeley, CA in 2020 and now serves as a postdoctoral fellow at Mirjam Quinn and Associates (MQA), a thriving private practice. With an integrative approach rooted in attachment and relational frameworks, she provides virtual therapy for clients of all ages. Dr. Alviar specializes in supporting individuals navigating complex trauma, anxiety, depression, relationship challenges, and behavioral difficulties. Her expertise extends to parent-child dynamics (PCIT), performance anxiety, cultural identity exploration, LGBTQ+ concerns, and neurodivergent experiences. salviar@mqatherapy.com IG: @mirjamquinnandassociates Practice Website: https://mirjamquinnandassociates.com/sthefany-alviar/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sthefany-alviar-psyd-ms-7b9530113
Vanessa M. Blackstone and Olivia S. Sinaiko, LPC, authors of The Pain Reprocessing Therapy Workbook, join us to talk about how we can use the brain's neuroplasticity to break the cycle of chronic pain. Vanessa, citizen of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians Nation, is executive director of the Pain Psychology Center. She earned her MS in social work from the University of Southern California. Following her own personal recovery from chronic pain, Vanessa began her career as a therapist in 2018. She was one of the first clinical consultants at the Pain Reprocessing Therapy Center, and has helped train hundreds of practitioners in pain reprocessing therapy (PRT). In addition to chronic pain treatment, she specializes in sex therapy, substance use and recovery, mindfulness-based relapse prevention, and works on film sets as an onset wellness professional. Outside of her professional roles, Vanessa is a former foster youth who advocates for current and former foster youth by sharing her personal experiences in public speaking events. She lives in Los Angeles, CA. Olivia leads the behavioral health pain program at the tribal health organization, Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium (SEARHC). She has been a featured presenter in the American Society of Addiction Medicine's (ASAM) training modules on nonpharmacological approaches to pain treatment and interdisciplinary care in the treatment of chronic pain, and has presented to the Pain Psychology Center on the relationship between attachment trauma and chronic pain. She earned her BA from Stanford University and her MA in counseling psychology from The Wright Institute, as well as a JD from Yale Law School. She lives in Juneau, AK. Visit our website at www.newharbinger.com and use coupon code 'Podcast25' to receive 25% off your entire order. Buy the Book: New Harbinger - https://bit.ly/3QufxHS Amazon - https://a.co/d/bCIhtKx Barnes & Noble - https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/1144681927 Bookshop.org - https://bit.ly/3X6Ce8Z If you have ideas for future episodes, thoughts, or questions, we'd love to hear from you! Send us an email at podcast@newharbinger.com
• Offers a step-by-step process to unleash the unconscious and intuitive wisdom held in the awareness of your soul: Deep Knowledge Meditation• Includes guided journal prompts to help you listen to your heart and shine a light on your own deepest wisdom and soul knowledge• Shares channeled lessons from the author's late son Jordan on the mysteries of human existence, including what the divine or god is, the nature of a soul, the nature of matter and energy, the role of love in our lives, and the origin of the universeHuman life is surrounded by mystery. At the center of this mystery are the questions: Why are we here? Is there a purpose to our existence, a reason why we're experiencing the beauty and pain of physical life? There is also the mystery of the universe itself. What is it and where did it come from? Religious and spiritual traditions have created complex cosmologies to answer these questions, but each tradition has a different answer, and we are left with profound uncertainty about deeper reality. As psychologist Matthew McKay reveals, we can each discover our own answers to these questions, our own inner truth, by connecting with the wisdom of our souls.In this guided workbook, McKay offers a step-by-step process to unleash the unconscious and intuitive wisdom held in the awareness of your soul. He explains how to use Deep Knowledge Meditation to access all of your soul's accumulated knowledge, everything you have learned across all of your incarnations. Channeling his late son, Jordan, a discarnate soul who has lived hundreds of lives, McKay shares Jordan's lessons on the mysteries of human existence, including what the Divine or God is, the nature of a soul, the nature of matter and energy, the role of love in our lives, and the origin of the universe. Accompanying these channeled teachings are journal prompts to be used with Deep Knowledge Meditation to help you listen to your heart and shine a light on your own deepest wisdom and soul knowledge.Guiding you on a journey of self-discovery, this book offers the opportunity to find your soul's truth about your life's purpose and the nature of physical reality.BioMatthew McKay, PhD, is a clinical psychologist, professor of psychology at the Wright Institute, co-founder of Haight Ashbury Psychological Services, founder of the Berkeley CBT Clinic, and co-founder of the Bay Area Trauma Recovery Clinic, which serves low-income clients. He has authored and co-authored more than 40 books, including Seeking Jordan: How I Learned the Truth about Death and the Invisible Universe, The Luminous Landscape of the Afterlife: Jordan's Message to the Living on What to Expect After Death, Love in the Time of Impermanence, and Lessons from the Afterlife: A Deep Knowledge Meditation Guidebook. His website is seekingjordan.com.After Matthew's son died, he learned how to communicate with him in the afterlife. He shares messages he has channeled from his son, Jordan, and provides simple steps to communicate with loved ones to ease grief and experience love that continues without interruption after death.https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CFM73YPJhttps://seekingjordan.com/ https://www.pastliveshypnosis.co.uk/https://www.patreon.com/ourparanormalafterlife
• Offers a step-by-step process to unleash the unconscious and intuitive wisdom held in the awareness of your soul: Deep Knowledge Meditation• Includes guided journal prompts to help you listen to your heart and shine a light on your own deepest wisdom and soul knowledge• Shares channeled lessons from the author's late son Jordan on the mysteries of human existence, including what the divine or god is, the nature of a soul, the nature of matter and energy, the role of love in our lives, and the origin of the universeHuman life is surrounded by mystery. At the center of this mystery are the questions: Why are we here? Is there a purpose to our existence, a reason why we're experiencing the beauty and pain of physical life? There is also the mystery of the universe itself. What is it and where did it come from? Religious and spiritual traditions have created complex cosmologies to answer these questions, but each tradition has a different answer, and we are left with profound uncertainty about deeper reality. As psychologist Matthew McKay reveals, we can each discover our own answers to these questions, our own inner truth, by connecting with the wisdom of our souls.In this guided workbook, McKay offers a step-by-step process to unleash the unconscious and intuitive wisdom held in the awareness of your soul. He explains how to use Deep Knowledge Meditation to access all of your soul's accumulated knowledge, everything you have learned across all of your incarnations. Channeling his late son, Jordan, a discarnate soul who has lived hundreds of lives, McKay shares Jordan's lessons on the mysteries of human existence, including what the Divine or God is, the nature of a soul, the nature of matter and energy, the role of love in our lives, and the origin of the universe. Accompanying these channeled teachings are journal prompts to be used with Deep Knowledge Meditation to help you listen to your heart and shine a light on your own deepest wisdom and soul knowledge.Guiding you on a journey of self-discovery, this book offers the opportunity to find your soul's truth about your life's purpose and the nature of physical reality.BioMatthew McKay, PhD, is a clinical psychologist, professor of psychology at the Wright Institute, co-founder of Haight Ashbury Psychological Services, founder of the Berkeley CBT Clinic, and co-founder of the Bay Area Trauma Recovery Clinic, which serves low-income clients. He has authored and co-authored more than 40 books, including Seeking Jordan: How I Learned the Truth about Death and the Invisible Universe, The Luminous Landscape of the Afterlife: Jordan's Message to the Living on What to Expect After Death, Love in the Time of Impermanence, and Lessons from the Afterlife: A Deep Knowledge Meditation Guidebook.After Matthew's son died, he learned how to communicate with him in the afterlife. He shares messages he has channeled from his son, Jordan, and provides simple steps to communicate with loved ones to ease grief and experience love that continues without interruption after death.https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CFM73YPJhttps://seekingjordan.com/ https://www.pastliveshypnosis.co.uk/https://www.patreon.com/ourparanormalafterlife
The Wright Institute for Global and Population Health, housed in UWF's Usha Kundu, MD College of Health, will sponsor the National Institutes of Health's All of Us Journey, a traveling educational exhibit that raises awareness about the All of Us Research Program from Oct. 22-25.
In this episode, we sit down with Dr. Michael Changaris, an expert on neurobiology, the mind-body connection, and trauma. Dr. Changaris is a Psychologist, Zen practitioner, a professor in psychology at the Wright Institute, a writer, clinical trainer, and thought leader. Together we delve into his concept of synchromy - the synchronization between the mind, body, and nervous system - and how it plays a role in self-regulation, co-regulation, and healing. Dr. Changaris also opines about the evolution of marriage and family therapy. Plus he details how he uses Artificial Intelligence as a professional to up his game. I think of him like the Dennis Leary of Psychology. A huge compliment. Both have a quick wit and rapid fire speech, can hold your attention, and are passionate, relatable, funny, and accessible. The biggest difference is that Dr. Changaris is arguably more erudite and hails from the South, not Boston. In this episode you may need to hit the pause button, rewind, and get your pen and note pad out to keep up. I also suggest adjusting the speed of your playback system because you will be getting a master course on psychology/neurobiology and don't want to miss one utterance. Of course a single episode is not nearly enough for this brilliant sage with a big heart . . .so hopefully we will get him back in the studio soon.WCMI networking group A networking group for mindfulness-focused clinicians dedicated to learning together & collaborating for more information click here
After-Death Communication with Matthew McKay Matthew McKay, PhD, is a clinical psychologist, professor of psychology at the Wright Institute, co-founder of Haight Ashbury Psychological Services, founder of the Berkeley CBT Clinic, and co-founder of the Bay Area Trauma Recovery Clinic, which serves low-income clients. He has authored and co-authored more than 40 books, including Seeking … Continue reading "After-Death Communication with Matthew McKay"
EPISODE #1070 LESSONS FROM THE AFTERLIFE Richard speaks with psychologist Matthew McKay who reveals how he began Channeling his late son, Jordan, a discarnate soul who has lived hundreds of lives. McKay shares Jordan's lessons on the mysteries of human existence, including what the divine or god is, the nature of a soul, the nature of matter and energy, the role of love in our lives, and the origin of the universe. GUEST: Matthew McKay, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist, professor of psychology at the Wright Institute, founder of the Berkeley CBT Clinic, and co-founder of the Bay Area Trauma Recovery Clinic, which serves low-income clients. He has authored and co-authored more than 40 books, including Seeking Jordan, The Luminous Landscape of the Afterlife, and Love in the Time of Impermanence. The retired publisher of New Harbinger Publications, he lives in Berkeley, California. WEBSITE: https://seekingjordan.com BOOKS: Seeking Jordan: How I Learned the Truth about Death and the Invisible Universe The Luminous Landscape of the Afterlife: Jordan's Message to the Living on What to Expect after Death Lessons from the Afterlife: A Deep Knowledge Meditation Guidebook SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS!!! BIRCH GOLD GROUP - The Precious Metal IRA Specialists Diversify a portion of your savings into GOLD with Birch Gold Group. Gold is your hedge against inflation, and Birch Gold makes it EASY to own. Text STRANGE to 989898 and get your free info-kit on gold, then talk to a precious metals specialist on how to protect your savings from persistent inflation with gold. Text STRANGE to 989898 now. THE WELLNESS COMPANY - Own Your Wellness, Own Your Health, Own Your Freedom The comprehensive Med Kit is meticulously stocked with 8 potentially life saving medicines to address injuries and emergencies. It's your safety net for the unexpected. Visit https://www.twc.health/strangeplanet and secure your Emergency MED Kit. Use CODE STRANGEPLANET to receive 10% off BECOME A PREMIUM SUBSCRIBER!!! https://strangeplanet.supportingcast.fm Three monthly subscriptions to choose from. Commercial Free Listening, Bonus Episodes and a Subscription to my monthly newsletter, InnerSanctum. We and our partners use cookies to personalize your experience, to show you ads based on your interests, and for measurement and analytics purposes. By using our website and services, you agree to our use of cookies as described in our Cookie Policy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://strangeplanet.supportingcast.fm/
Join Trish and Rob for a conversation with... Matthew McKay, Ph.D. a clinical psychologist, professor of psychology at the Wright Institute, cofounder of Haight Ashbury Psychological Services, founder of the Berkeley CBT Clinic, and cofounder of the Bay Area Trauma Recovery Clinic, which serves low-income clients. He has authored and co-authored over 40 books, including The Relaxation and Stress Reduction Workbook, Seeking Jordan, and his latest book, Lessons from the Afterlife.
A guided journey to discover your soul's answers to life's great questions• Offers a step-by-step process to unleash the unconscious and intuitive wisdom held in the awareness of your soul: Deep Knowledge Meditation• Includes guided journal prompts to help you listen to your heart and shine a light on your own deepest wisdom and soul knowledge• Shares channeled lessons from the author's late son Jordan on the mysteries of human existence, including what the divine or god is, the nature of a soul, the nature of matter and energy, the role of love in our lives, and the origin of the universeHuman life is surrounded by mystery. At the center of this mystery are the questions: Why are we here? Is there a purpose to our existence, a reason why we're experiencing the beauty and pain of physical life? There is also the mystery of the universe itself. What is it and where did it come from? Religious and spiritual traditions have created complex cosmologies to answer these questions, but each tradition has a different answer, and we are left with profound uncertainty about deeper reality. As psychologist Matthew McKay reveals, we can each discover our own answers to these questions, our own inner truth, by connecting with the wisdom of our souls.In this guided workbook, McKay offers a step-by-step process to unleash the unconscious and intuitive wisdom held in the awareness of your soul. He explains how to use Deep Knowledge Meditation to access all of your soul's accumulated knowledge, everything you have learned across all of your incarnations. Channeling his late son, Jordan, a discarnate soul who has lived hundreds of lives, McKay shares Jordan's lessons on the mysteries of human existence, including what the Divine or God is, the nature of a soul, the nature of matter and energy, the role of love in our lives, and the origin of the universe. Accompanying these channeled teachings are journal prompts to be used with Deep Knowledge Meditation to help you listen to your heart and shine a light on your own deepest wisdom and soul knowledge.Guiding you on a journey of self-discovery, this book offers the opportunity to find your soul's truth about your life's purpose and the nature of physical reality.Matthew McKay, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist, professor of psychology at the Wright Institute, founder of the Berkeley CBT Clinic, and cofounder of the Bay Area Trauma Recovery Clinic, which serves low-income clients. He has authored and coauthored more than 40 books, including Seeking Jordan, The Luminous Landscape of the Afterlife, and Love in the Time of Impermanence. The retired publisher of New Harbinger Publications, he lives in Berkeley, California.https://seekingjordan.com/Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/earth-ancients--2790919/support.
In this episode, I speak with Dr. Matthew McKay about his most recent book... 'Lessons form the Afterlife: A Deep Knowledge Meditation Guidebook'. This fantastic book breaks down with the journey Dr. McKay took from dealing with the tragedy of the murder of his son Jordan, to the triumph of connecting with him in the afterlife. From there, Matthew talks about the dialogues that he and his son have, which through Jordan, have outlined some of the deepest mysteries of the universe. We also talk about how the books shows the you the concept of 'Deep Knowledge Meditation', and Matt teaches us a technique on how to effectively channel! An amazing episode.. Drop in!www.seekingjordan.comDr. Mathew McKay Bio:Matthew McKay, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist, professor of psychology at the Wright Institute, founder of the Berkeley CBT Clinic, and cofounder of the Bay Area Trauma Recovery Clinic, which serves low-income clients. He has authored and co-authored more than 40 books, including Seeking Jordan, The Luminous Landscape of the Afterlife, and Love in the Time of Impermanence. He lives in Berkeley, California, the retired publisher of New Harbinger Publications. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Matthew McKay, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist, professor of psychology atthe Wright Institute, cofounder of Haight Ashbury Psychological Services,founder of the Berkeley CBT Clinic, and cofounder of the Bay Area TraumaRecovery Clinic, which serves low-income clients. He has authored andcoauthored more than 40 books, including The Relaxation and Stress ReductionWorkbook and Seeking Jordan. The publisher of New Harbinger Publications,he lives in Berkeley, California --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/theanthonyrogersshow/message
Learn to connect with your loved ones on this episode! Psychologist & Professor Dr. Matthew McKay is also a father. After the violent death of his son, he went on an exploration and discovered a technique that works in communicating with his son. He is the author the book “Seeking Jordan: How I Learned the Truth about Death and the Invisible Universe." https://amzn.to/3SOYJwh Professor at the Wright Institute in Berkeley, California, Dr. Matthew McKay who author or coauthor of more than 25 psychology self-help and therapist texts and books. Over the years, Dr. McKay has taught a wide range of classes at the graduate level ranging from cognitive and psycho-dynamic psychotherapy, to systems and brief therapy courses, and specializes in the cognitive behavioral treatment of anxiety and depression. Find his books on Amazon at https://amzn.to/4bQxYjt *Please join me for our free Sunday Gathering with medium demonstration, one of our upcoming medium classes, demonstrations, download past audio episodes and more at https://www.wedontdie.com/ THANK YOU FOR LISTENING! Want more proof of the afterlife?... *Listen to Sandra on iHeartRadio and the Coast to Coast AM Network: https://bit.ly/ShadesoftheAfterlife **Join our Patreon Community for as little as $1 per episode and receive ad-free, early bird episodes, and a full clickable & searchable list off all Sandra's almost 600 afterlife episodes https://www.patreon.com/wedontdieradio **Join the supportive and loving, We Don't Die Listeners Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/wedontdielisteners/ ***Join our free Sunday Gathering with medium demonstration, one of our upcoming medium classes, demonstrations, download past audio episodes and more at https://www.wedontdie.com/
Saybrook University Degree Program: Clinical Psychology, Ph.D.Modality: Virtual with In-Person Residential ExperiencesDepartment Chair: Dr. Theopia JacksonStretching all the way back to June 2020, this Saybrook Insights episode features Dr. Theopia Jackson, who offers our most extended and most downloaded interview on Saybrook Insights. She offers incredible insights highlighting her passion, dedication, and commitment to the field and her work at Saybrook and in the community. In addition to covering the Clinical Psychology program, we dive deep into social justice topics, as we were shoulder-deep in the pandemic and just learning about the very traumatic death of George Floyd. Included below are show notes from that episode.Learn more about our Clinical Psychology program at Saybrook University by clicking here. -----Show Notes from June 2020Dr. Jackson (Department Chair, Clinical Psychology at Saybrook University) offers brilliant, powerful observations which serve as key lessons for how we journey together through these extraordinary, challenging times. Our hour-and-a-half covered a range of topics from humanistic psychology, COVID-19, race, and social justice.Listen. Learn. Be part of the solution… Boldly stand up! To learn more about Saybrook University, visit us online at www.saybrook.edu.About Dr. JacksonTheopia Jackson, Ph.D. received her master's degree in clinical psychology from Howard University, Washington, D.C. and doctorate from the Wright Institute in Berkeley, California. She has held several leadership roles in higher education. She is currently the Department Chair for Clinical Psychology in the Department Clinical Psychology at Saybrook University in Pasadena, California. Dr. Jackson is a licensed clinical psychologist with having served at UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital Oakland; she practiced in the Healthy Hearts program, Department of Psychiatry, and Comprehensive Sickle Cell Center. In addition, she is the President for The Association of Black Psychologists, Inc. (ABPsi) and past president for the Bay Area chapter. Her other professional affiliations include membership in the Association of Family Therapists of Northern California (co-founding member of the Cultural Accountability Committee), American Psychological Association (Division 32 Society for Humanistic Psychology: Member-at-Large), California Psychological Association (Chair: Division VII Diversity and Social Justice; Member: CARE Committee), and Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc.She has also served on the medical advisory council for Baykids Studios and the Sickle Cell Community Advisory Council (SCCAC). Dr. Jackson has a long history of providing child, adolescent, and family therapy services, specializing in serving populations coping with chronic illness and complex trauma. She is an accomplished scholar-practitioner and educator who provides cultural competency workshops, seminars, and consultations. She has been invited to participate on several national and local California initiatives intended to establish integrative health care that is culturally-attuned and linguistically responsive.Dr. Jackson is a lifelong learner who believes that community wisdom shapes and shapes professional knowledge. She and her husband of 30+ years are the proud parents of three children, her best teachers! Honoring culturally affirming spiritual healing of creativity, social justice, and resilience, Dr
Yael Goldstein-Love discusses her time- and genre-bending novel, The Possibilities, trying to put motherhood into words, using quantum mechanics to explain the paradox of parenthood, the way parents birth a child's mind, mom rage, writing humor, her newest project, and more! Yael Goldstein-Love is the author of the novels The Passion of Tasha Darsky, described as “showing signs of brooding genius” by The New York Times, and The Possibilities, a speculative thriller about the psychological transition to motherhood. A PEOPLE pick of the week (“a powerful page-turner with deep wisdom”) and Good Morning America recommendation for summer reading (“taps into those primal feelings every nurturer feels — and fears”), The Possibilities grew out of Goldstein-Love's own rocky transition to motherhood as well as her clinical passion for working with people during this fraught and potentially generative period. Her doctoral dissertation examined how mothers experience their anxiety for the unknown futures of their children. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Boston Globe, and Slate, among other places. A graduate of Harvard University and The Wright Institute, she lives with her six-year-old son and a very patient cat in Berkeley, CA. In another life, she was co-founder and Editorial Director of the literary studio Plympton, which aims to make the digital age a golden age for literature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
"The fact that music is so important for our constitution - that music is almost how we move in the world, that our own bodies are played through by musical forms, that the way we relate to our own way of being in the world is sort of mediated by music - this is powerful stuff. But it's not always very fitting to us. We hear a lot of music in our lives, we don't always choose what we hear. We don't choose our analyst's musicality, we don't first check what kind of musicality an analyst has. We are bombarded by music; music can be imposed upon us, it can make us feel within ourselves in a way that doesn't feel right to us. There is a lot of complexity here as we think about this matter of music being so central to us. But we can find the music that works for us, but we don't create the music. It belongs to the realm of collective cultural life. There is a lot of struggle in music, and in the analytic setting there is a lot of struggle - because for many patients a lot of the work rests on whether there can be any shared sensory experience or not.” Episode Description: We begin with recognizing that the process of human musicalization begins in utero and forms the basis of much of psycho-somatic-social life. Peter, Michael and Adam's written collaboration, Here I'm Alive - The Spirit of Music in Psychoanalysis is intended to be a musical book about psychoanalysis - a representation of how music binds us to the individual and cultural domains of life. We discuss rhythmizing consciousness, atavistic vs enhancing music, and the blues as a companion soundtrack for loss and tribulation. We take up the relationship between Freud's dream book and his joke book, how present analytic melodies contain aspects of the past, and how dissociation requires a remusicalization of the psychoanalytic situation. We close with Adam reading a paragraph which includes "The capacity of the sexual drive to propel the body back into musical movement and transmute the seizure of trauma into conducted energy to ground the current." Our Guests: Peter Goldberg, Ph.D., is a Personal and Supervising Analyst at the Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California, Chair of Faculty at the San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis, and on the faculty of the Wright Institute in Berkeley. He has presented widely and written on a range of clinical and theoretical topics, including the evolution of clinical theory in psychoanalysis, sensory experience in analysis, the concept of the analytic frame, the theory and treatment of dissociative states, non-representational states; and the impact of social trauma on individual psychology. He is in private practice in Albany, CA. Michael Levin, Psy.D. is a Training Analyst and Faculty Member at the San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis. He has taught and presented on topics including the work of Laplanche, phenomenology, and psychoanalysis, and the place of psychoanalysis in cultural and intellectual history. He is in private practice in San Francisco. Adam Blum, Psy.D. is an Adjunct Faculty Member at the San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis. He has written and presented on psychoanalysis and the music of Björk, Kendrick Lamar, Frank Ocean, Stephen Sondheim, Aretha Franklin, and Michael Jackson. He is in private practice in San Francisco. Recommended Readings and Videos: Nicholas Spice, “Winnicott and Music” (2001), in The Elusive Child, ed. Lesley Caldwell (London: Karnac, 2002). Peter Sloterdijk, “Where Are We When We Hear Music?” (2014), in The Aesthetic Imperative: Writings on Art (London: Polity, 2018). Francis Grier, “Musicality in the Consulting Room,” International Journal of Psychoanalysis 100:827–51. Sondheim Teaches "My Friends" from Sweeney Todd (video) . Byung-Chul Han, The Scent of Time: A Philosophical Essay on the Art of Lingering (London: Wiley, 2017). Maurice Merleau-Ponty, The Phenomenology of Perception (London: Routledge, 1962) The Late Late Show with James Corden, “Paul McCartney Carpool Karaoke” (video). Harmut Rosa, Resonance (Cambridge: Polity, 2019). Meshell Ndegeocello, The Omnichord Real Book (2023) (album), Blue Note Records.
In this episode, Mor shares her journey from being a traditional therapist to becoming a traveling therapist, combining her passion for travel and her love for therapy. Mor started traveling internationally alone at a young age and developed a strong desire to see different countries. Originally, her background was in tech, which made it challenging to transition to therapy. Eventually, she pursued her passion and became a therapist, specializing in couples work and Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT). Mor discusses how she incorporated her tech background into her therapy career. She currently work for a tech company called Mentaya, where she serves as the head of provider experience and growth. The company offers solutions for therapists who prefer not to handle insurance directly. Therapists can refer their clients to Mentaya, which handles insurance claims, eligibility checks, and streamlines the process for therapists, allowing them to focus on therapy while ensuring accessibility for clients. The episode highlights the importance of following one's passion and finding creative ways to incorporate therapy into different income streams. It also emphasizes the significance of understanding out-of-network benefits and considering alternative options for reimbursement, especially when working with insurance companies that may not be ideal. Keypoints: Pursue your passions: Follow your interests and find ways to incorporate them into your career, even if it requires a shift in direction. Explore alternative income streams: Look for creative ways to generate income as a therapist, such as leveraging technology or offering additional services beyond one-on-one client sessions. Understand insurance options: Gain a working understanding of out-of-network benefits and consider utilizing platforms to help streamline insurance processes, reduce logistical strain, and maintain financial sustainability. About Mor Goldberger: Mor Goldberger has an MFT from the Wright Institute and an MBA from Berkeley Haas. By day Mor leads Therapist Experience and Growth for Mentaya and by night she works as a couples therapist. Mor is passionate about helping therapists grow their private pay practice and create more time for themselves. You can learn more about Mor & Mentaya here Alma is on a mission to simplify access to high-quality, affordable mental health care by giving providers the tools they need to build thriving in-network private parties. Learn more about Alma. Connect with me: Instagram: @thetravelingtherapist_kym The Traveling Therapist Membership: https://kymtolson.kartra.com/page/travelingtherapistmembership Revolutionize Your Private Practice with AI Course: https://kymtolson.kartra.com/page/ai Signup to learn more about life as Traveling Therapist: https://landing.mailerlite.com/webforms/landing/l2v7c3 The Traveling Therapist Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/onlineandtraveling/ Bill Like A Boss Insurance Billing Community: https://kymtolson.kartra.com/page/blab Subscribe to the Podcast: Apple iTunes | Spotify | Google Podcast | Stitcher | Amazon | Castbox
This week we welcome Dr. Rachel Greenberg to discuss what our sex habits are telling us about our emotional and psychological lives. Dr. Rachel Greenberg is a licensed trauma-informed Clinical Psychologist & Teacher offering seekers from all over the world empowerment & relational practices inspired by various psychological and spiritual traditions. She's passionate about personal and collective justice and liberation. She engages in local activism to deepen conscious engagement with the intricacies that compose our identities. She's been active in a Bay Area based Coalition of Sacred Activists Based in Buddhism & Feminine Mystery Knowledge & also served on the leadership team for a local Questioning Cultural Conditioning mindfulness discussion sangha and served as Co-Chair on The Wright Institute's Integrated Health Psychology Training Program's Diversity Committee which trained doctoral psychology students in an interdisciplinary setting. She's the Founder of The Numinous Path, her psycho-spiritual practice for Whole Self Healing & Transformation. You can find Dr. Rachel via her website or give her a follow on Instagram.
Yael Goldstein-Love discusses the first pages of her latest novel, The Possibilities, how she set the tone of her book with an unusual first chapter, how she managed emotion to avoid melodrama, her background as a mother and psychotherapist and how these inform her work, and the best way to use a therapist and therapy itself in your book.Goldstein-Love's first pages can be found here.Help local bookstores and our authors by buying this book on Bookshop.Click here for the audio/video version of this interview.The above link will be available for 48 hours. Missed it? The podcast version is always available, both here and on your favorite podcast platform.Yael Goldstein-Love is the author of the novels The Passion of Tasha Darsky, described as “showing signs of brooding genius” by The New York Times, and The Possibilities, forthcoming in July. She also practices psychotherapy, with a particular interest in the transition to parenthood, and is working toward her doctorate in clinical psychology. Her dissertation research focuses on how mothers experience their anxiety for the unknown futures of their children. She is a graduate of Harvard University and currently attends The Wright Institute. Her writing has appeared in The Boston Globe, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Wall Street Journal Speakeasy Blog, The Atlantic online, The Forward, Commentary, and other places. She lives with her six-year-old son and a very patient cat in Berkeley, CA. In another life, she was co-founder and Editorial Director of the literary studio Plympton, which aims to make the digital age a golden age for literature. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit 7amnovelist.substack.com
Dr. Dan speaks to therapist and author Yael Goldstein-Love about maternal anxiety, her recent Slate essay In Defense of the Anxious Mother, and her new novel The Possibilites (based on her own harrowing experience as a new mother). On this episode Dr. Dan and Yael Goldstein-Love, a doctoral candidate in clinical psychology specializing in how mothers experience anxiety, discuss:The postpartum experienceWhat exactly is maternal anxiety The normal existential crisis that accompanies having a first childThe new parent experience and the primal need to protectNormalizing motherhood experiences including worryToday's episode is enlightening and validating, and will inform listeners about these common experiences.Yael Goldstein-Love practices psychotherapy, with a particular interest in the transition to parenthood, and is working toward her doctorate in clinical psychology. Her dissertation research focuses on how mothers experience their anxiety for the unknown futures of their children. She is a graduate of Harvard University and currently attends The Wright Institute. Her fiction and non-fiction have appeared in many outlets including Slate, The Boston Globe, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Wall Street Journal Speakeasy Blog, The Atlantic online, The Millions, The Forward, and Commentary. She lives with her six-year-old son and a very patient cat in Berkeley, CA. Email your parenting questions to Dr. Dan podcast@drdanpeters.com (we might answer on a future episode).Follow us @parentfootprintpodcast (Instagram, Facebook) and @drdanpeters (Twitter).Listen, follow, and leave us a review on Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, Wondery, or wherever you like to listen!Don't forget, you can hear every episode one week early and ad-free by subscribing to Wondery+ in the @WonderyMedia App.For more information:www.exactlyrightmedia.com www.drdanpeters.comFor podcast merch:www.exactlyrightmedia.com/parent-footprint-shopSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
My guest today is Dr. Patricia Zurita Ona, or 'Dr Z' as she is commonly known. She a clinical psychologist specializing in children, adolescents, and adults struggling with OCD, anxiety, and emotion regulation problems. Dr Z is the founder of East Bay Behavior Therapy Center, a therapy practice, where she runs an intensive outpatient program integrating Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) and Exposure Response Prevention (ERP). She is the creator of “ACT beyond OCD,” an online class for people that want to augment their ACT and ERP skills for tackling OCD. In addition to her clinical work, Dr Zurita Ona supervises and teaches doctoral students at The Wright Institute, a private graduate school for psychology. She has also authored several books and workbooks which I can leave links for belowSome of the topics we explore include:- The importance of behavioral flexibility in the face of adversity- The difference between harmonious passions and obsessive behaviors- How perfectionism can show up in a range of life areas- Common challenges related to decision making, regret, and the fear of failure - How a connection to a deeper awareness can help us move through difficulty- The role of psychedelic-assisted therapy in cultivating an observer self—————————————————————————Dr. Z's website: https://www.thisisdoctorz.com/OCD Workbook: https://www.thisisdoctorz.com/act-workbook-for-adults-with-ocd/Twitter: https://twitter.com/drz_behaviorist—————————————————————————If you find value in the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes? It only takes 30 seconds and plays an important role in being able to get new guests. I also love reading them! Connect with me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mentallyflexible/Check out my song “Glimpse at Truth” that you hear in the intro/outro of every episode: https://tomparkes.bandcamp.com/track/glimpse-at-truth
Keeping a written account of your thoughts, feelings and observations can be a powerful habit – a source of healing, growth, and even creativity. We explore the art and practice of journaling, from stream-of-consciousness writing to gratitude lists to revisiting your most cringe-worthy teenage poetry. We'll talk with an author, a comedian, and a therapist about the many ways we can document our lives and stories, and we'll get started during the show. Grab a pen and notebook – we're journaling. Guests: Thaisa Frank, author, "Finding Your Writer's Voice" and five books of fiction; writing instructor, the San Francisco Writers' Grotto; winner, the 2023 Pushcart Literary Prize Scott Lifton, host and producer, "Mortified" Jenna Robinson, professor of Psychology, CIIS and the Wright Institute; licensed marriage and family therapist; expressive arts therapist
Matthew McKay is a clinical psychologist and a professor at the Wright Institute in Berkeley, California. In 1979, he co-founded Haight Ashbury Psychological Services in San Francisco and served as its clinical director for twenty-five years. Currently he serves as the director of the Berkeley Cognitive Behavior Therapy Clinic. He has explored spiritual and afterlife issues in two previous books: Why? and Your Life on Purpose. He is also the author of professional and self-help psychology books, including Thoughts & Feelings, Messages, Mind and Emotions, Self-Esteem, Prisoners of Belief, and many others. McKay's son was murdered and after the funeral, he began looking for ways to communicate with Jordan. Working with scientists, McKay discovered a technique that seemed to work well and he had several sessions contacting his son. His book, Seeking Jordan chronicles his quest to communicate with his son and the messages he received.Website seekingjordan.comBooks Seeking Jordan
Are there any anxious mothers out there? Have you ever been shamed for being an anxious mother? Well, I definitely have been an anxious mom, just ask my daughter. Actually I have never met a mom especially a mom of a teen who hasn't had to deal with anxious thoughts. Moms are going to worry. the challenge is how to make anxiety useful and not be a constant source of agony. In this episode we talk about how to get curious about anxiety and learn from it. Joining us today is Yael Goldstein-Love. She is the author of the novels The Passion of Tasha Darsky, described as “showing signs of brooding genius” by The New York Times, and The Possibilities, forthcoming in July. She also practices psychotherapy, with a particular interest in the transition to parenthood, and is working toward her doctorate in clinical psychology. Her dissertation research focuses on how mothers experience their anxiety for the unknown futures of their children. She is a graduate of Harvard University and currently attends The Wright Institute. Her writing has appeared in The Boston Globe, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Wall Street Journal Speakeasy Blog, The Atlantic online, The Forward, Commentary, and other places. She lives with her six-year-old son and a very patient cat in Berkeley, CA. Here are a couple of quotes from Yael's article on maternal anxiety. "There is a mismatch between the primal maternal drive to protect our offspring and our knowledge that we're largely powerless to do so, and this gap between what we long to do as mothers taxed with seeing the next generation in, and what we can realistically do as human beings, is one of the more brutal gifts of evolution. No wonder anxiety is such a fundamental part of motherhood." "We don't often think about the sheer existential heft of caring for a child, and how anxiety is baked right into it. To honor this aspect of mothering would be to look head-on at realities we all find harrowing: that life is fragile, we never know what's coming next, we suffer, and in the end we die. Maternal worry gets at the heart of what is terrifying about being alive, and about loving." Learn more at: https://www.yaelgoldsteinlove.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Over the last 10 years interest in therapy has boomed, and with the greater demand for therapists more people than ever are considering pursuing a career in mental health. On today's episode Forrest speaks to five therapists and therapists-in-training to learn the lessons they wish they'd known when they started. You can watch this episode on YouTube.Key Topics:0:00: Intro2:15: Rick Hanson5:05: Key traits of good therapists17:50: Questions a prospective therapist might not think to ask25:00: Self-employement, emotional regulation, and boundaries27:45: Efficacy, complacency, and respecting the craft31:45: Lori Gottlieb35:20: Emotional intimacy and human connection38:50: Modalities 40:50: Vulnerability, uncertainty, and making mistakes48:10: Terry Real52:45: Learning how to heal yourself first55:35: What therapy is actually like59:30: Messiness1:03:15: Elizabeth Ferreira1:06:35: Somatics, and being yourself1:11:50: How to suffer with someone, then let it move through you1:16:45: Awareness and the bravery of owning what's in the room1:21:15: Chaos, and loving yourself1:27:45: Taylor Banfield1:34:00: Sitting with a client for the first time1:37:45: Choosing a specific career path1:39:10: Boundaries1:43:15: RecapAbout our Guests: Rick Hanson is a psychologist, Senior Fellow at UC Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center, New York Times best-selling author, and frequent guest on Being Well.Lori Gottlieb is a practicing therapist in Los Angeles, and is the author of the bestseller Maybe You Should Talk to Someone.Terry Real is a longtime clinician, the founder of the Relational Life Institute, and bestselling author of a number of books including Us: Getting Past You & Me to Build a More Loving Relationship.Elizabeth Ferreira is an associate somatic psychotherapist working in the San Francisco Bay Area. If you'd like to work with Elizabeth, you can reach out to her through her website or Instagram. Taylor Banfield is a graduate student in the PsyD program at the Wright Institute in Berkeley, California. Support the Podcast: We're now on Patreon! If you'd like to support the podcast, follow this link.Sponsors:InsideTracker gives you the personalized information you need to optimize your healthspan. Get 20% off by going to my special link: InsideTracker.com/beingwell.Finally get that project off the ground with Squarespace! Head to squarespace.com/beingwell for a free trial, and when you're ready to launch use coupon code BEINGWELL to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.Join over a million people using BetterHelp, the world's largest online counseling platform. Visit betterhelp.com/beingwell for 10% off your first month!Want to sleep better? Try the Calm app! Visit calm.com/beingwell for 40% off a premium subscription.Connect with the show:Subscribe on iTunesFollow Forrest on YouTubeFollow us on InstagramFollow Forrest on InstagramFollow Rick on FacebookFollow Forrest on FacebookVisit Forrest's website
Psychedelics researcher Meghan DellaCrosse breaks down her research on psilocybin, the results from a new study looking at magic mushrooms use for bipolar disorder, the benefits and drawbacks of using psilocybin, and the future of psychedelics research for mental health. Hosted by Dr. Emma Morton. Meghan DellaCrosse is a doctoral candidate in clinical psychology at the Wright Institute in Berkeley, CA. Following completion of pre-doctoral internship at Wexner Medical Center's Early Psychosis Intervention Center at the Ohio State University (OSU) in June 2023, Meghan will begin a post-doctoral fellowship at the Center for Psychedelic Drug Research and Education at the OSU College of Social Work. She has contributed to research and manuscript development as a part of the Translational Psychedelic Research (TrPR) Program at UCSF where she also worked as a clinical assessor on various studies including investigations of social deficits in Veterans with schizophrenia, and psilocybin as a novel treatment for depression and Parkinson's disease. Meghan is passionate about interdisciplinary research and holds master's degrees in clinical psychology from Columbia University, Teachers College (NY), and art history from CUNY Hunter College (NY). As a somatic educator and qualified Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction instructor, Meghan's research interests focus on novel treatments and the integration of the body into mental health care to support people with serious mental illness, as well as promoting mental health literacy and reducing stigma. More on this episode: https://talkBD.live/psilocybin-research #talkBD gathers researchers, people with lived experience, healthcare providers, and top bipolar disorder experts from around the world to discuss and answer the most important questions about living with bipolar disorder. Learn more about the talkBD Bipolar Disorder Podcast and upcoming episodes at https://talkBD.live
Ep. 71 See DBT: Dialectical Behavior Therapy in action! DBT is a therapy used to treat people with Borderline Personality Disorder, Depression, and Generalized Anxiety. DBT helps to reprogram your brain by focusing on today and making better decisions based on the information at hand. It also helps with emotional regulation, which is something I have been working on. DBT can be used at any point to help me practice mindfulness, manage my emotions and respond to a situation. It is not just one thing. It's a method of processing information and developing tools that work best for me. To help with this, I have been using a workbook that helps me unpack events that provoke a strong emotional response. The worksheets help me identify the why's of my feelings without judgement allowing me a safe place to develop healthier reactions. In this episode, you will learn the following: The importance of having a guide to assist with understanding emotional regulation. What "tools" look like and how to implement DBT techniques. Learn first-hand how I use DBT when I have an overwhelming emotional reaction during the podcast. Credits Hosted by Coach Kelly Marie, founder of Front Seat Life LLC IG @thefrontseatlife FB @thefrontseatlife Email FrontSeatLife@gmail.com Produced & edited by Jazzy T IG @Jazzytonair Click Here to rate & review on Apple Podcast Rate & Share this Podcast from Spotify Add this show to your collection on Pandora. Support the Show with a one-time donation Support the Healthy Illness podcast! Make your buy 3 get one free Color Street purchase at www.colorstreet.com/frontseat all proceeds benefit the podcast. Resources The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook: Practical DBT Exercises for Learning Mindfulness, Interpersonal Effectiveness, Emotion Regulation, ... (A New Harbinger Self-Help Workbook) Author: Matthew McKay, PhD, is a professor at the Wright Institute in Berkeley, CA. He has authored and coauthored numerous books, including The Relaxation and Stress Reduction Workbook, Self-Esteem, Thoughts and Feelings, When Anger Hurts, and ACT on Life Not on Anger. His books combined have sold more than 2.5 million copies. McKay received his PhD in clinical psychology from the California School of Professional Psychology. In private practice, he specializes in the cognitive behavioral treatment of anxiety and depression. Suicide Prevention Helpline has someone for you to talk to 24/7 call 988 Text GO to 741741 to reach a trained crisis counselor Call 211 or visit www.211.org for help finding public services in your area Podcast Like a Pro! Riverside.FM Promo Code JAZZYCAST for 15% off Remote Recording JazzCastPros.com for help launching, branding or editing your podcast. Other episodes you'll enjoy: #DBT: A New Therapy Tool That Helps Me Understand Emotions | Healthy Illness What is a Mental Health Condition vs Illness? | Healthy Illness Better Relationships Come from Within: Self-Love and Forgiveness | Healthy Illness Check out other Podcasts on the JazzCast Pros Network: Fatha Torch, be the Dad You Wish You Had Getting Real with Bossy, for Women who OWN Business Igniting Hope for Health Equity Podcast Beauty Boss Millionaire How to turn your small business into a million-dollar empire
Jaycee Dugard and Dr. Rebecca Bailey join Kim and Kara in a conversation about their therapeutic relationship turned friendship as they explore the psychology behind survival instincts and the "appease" response. Jaycee Dugard is the survivor of a kidnapping and spent 18 years in captivity at the hands of strangers. Since her rescue in 2009 she has used her freedom and voice to spread her unique survivor experience. Jaycee is the founder of the JAYC Foundation. She started the foundation to help other families that have suffered a familial or non-familial abduction or other trauma and has created educational programs and encourages the collaboration of various entities to provide “Protected Spaces” for families to heal. Jaycee is also the author of “A Stolen Life” and “Freedom: My Book of Firsts”, both memoirs that she wrote herself detailing her eighteen years in captivity, eventual rescue, and recovery process. She has spoken at many venues across the country and hopes to continue writing. An important goal of hers is to educate the media and the helping professions that the term “Stockholm Syndrome” was a media-driven term and is degrading and insensitive to survivors and their families. Jaycee enjoys spending time with her family and her faithful four-legged companions in California. Recently she has started the Polyvagal Equine Institute with longtime friends Dr Rebecca Bailey and equine expert Margie McDonald. They are excited to share educational programs, videos and workshops that focus on incorporating horses with polyvagal theory. Rebecca Bailey, Ph.D. is a leading family psychologist and equestrian who has become a world-renowned professional teacher, speaker, author, and entrepreneur. She is the founder of Transitioning Families, a group of independently licensed mental health practitioners dedicated to Bailey's innovative ideas for helping families through crisis and difficult change. She is best known for her work with survivors of non-familial abduction and is on the advisory board of the JAYC foundation. Together with Jaycee they have created an innovative model which utilizes horses to help teach and educate judges, police officers, therapists and other professionals about compassion, kindness, and connection. She is the creator of the Polyvagal Equine Institute and Connection Focused Therapy an organization dedicated to Equine-assisted psychotherapy and education with a focus on applying Dr. Stephen Porges research on the autonomic nervous system to a variety of populations. She believes that understanding the interaction between the nervous system and our thoughts and actions is key to compassionately responding to and addressing the complexities of today's societal demands. She has appeared on numerous Network shows including Andersen Cooper and ABC's 20/20. A graduate of The Wright Institute in Berkley, CA, Dr. Bailey was raised in the Boston area but relocated to California 35 years ago. She now lives in Northern California with her loving husband and countless animals. Learn more from Jaycee: Facebook: @Jayceedugard Instagram: @jayceeleedugard https://thejaycfoundation.org/ Learn more from Dr. Bailey Facebook: @rebeccabaileyphd Instagram: @dr.rebeccabailey https://polyvagalequineinstitute.com/ Jaycee and Rebecca's CTA: Learn more about the Polyvagal Equine Institute's educational video series and donate to their non profit foundations. Jaycee and Dr. Bailey have officially published their scholarly paper! Rebecca Bailey, Jaycee Dugard, Stefanie F. Smith & Stephen W. Porges (2023) Appeasement: replacing Stockholm syndrome as a definition of a survival strategy, European Journal of Psychotraumatology, 14:1, DOI: 10.1080/20008066.2022.2161038 Like what we're doing here? Be sure to subscribe, rate, review, and show all the love. The more people this show can reach, the more it can help. https://www.survivorsguidetotruecrime.com/ Don't forget to follow us on social media under @SurvivorsGuideToTrueCrime Instagram @SurvivorsGuideToTrueCrime TikTok @SGTCpod Facebook @Survivor'sGuideToTrueCrime YouTube @Survivor'sGuideToTrueCrime Twitter @SGTCpod The theme music used in Survivor's Guide to True Crime is Uplifting Motivational Stomp by MarcusWay
Dr. Matthew McKay, PhD is a professor at the Wright Institute in Berkeley, CA. He has authored and co-authored numerous books, including Self-Esteem, The Relaxation and Stress Reduction Workbook, Thoughts and Feelings, and ACT on Life Not on Anger. His books combined have sold more than four million copies. He received his PhD in clinical psychology from the California School of Professional Psychology, and specializes in the cognitive behavioral treatment of anxiety and depression. Among other accolades, he is the founder of New Harbinger Press. Dr. McKay and Dr. Hoye discuss two new books he has co-authored, Super Simple CBT: 6 Skills to Improve Your Mood in Minutes, and the Healing Emotional Pain Workbook. Topics include:•Process CBT vs. Classic CBT•The role of spirituality in healing and psychotherapy •Underlying psychological causes and constructs of psychiatric disorders and how to approach them systematicallySuper Simple CBT:https://www.amazon.com/Super-Simple-CBT-Improve-Minutes/dp/1684038693The Healing Emotional Pain Workbook:https://www.amazon.com/Healing-Emotional-Pain-Workbook-Process-Based/dp/1648480217/ref=sr_1_1?crid=AMM5TGJQ840N&keywords=Healing+Emotional+Pain+workbook&qid=1651008039&s=books&sprefix=healing+emotional+pain+workbook%2Cstripbooks%2C60&sr=1-1The Psychology Talk Podcast is a unique conversation about psychology around the globe. Your host Dr. Scott Hoye talks about psychology and behavioral health with mental health practitioners and experts to keep you informed about issues and trends in the industry.https://psych-talk.com https://www.instagram.com/psychtalkpodcast/
In episode 361 I chat with Dr Patricia Zurita Ona. Patricia is director of the East Bay Behavior Therapy Center and adjunct professor at the Wright Institute. She is the author of several books including 'Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for Borderline Personality Disorder'. We discuss what is borderline personality disorder (BPD) and super-feelers, what it's like being a super-feeler, what is acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), the 6 micro-skills Patricia teaches, emotional noise vs emotional awareness, OCD and super-feelers, she details some of the micro-skills, attachment, compassion, being a super-feeler while doing exposure and response prevention therapy (ERP), and much more. Hope it helps. Show notes: https://theocdstories.com/episode/patricia-361 The podcast is made possible by NOCD. NOCD offers effective, convenient therapy available in the US and outside the US. To find out more about NOCD, their therapy plans and if they currently take your insurance head over to https://go.treatmyocd.com/theocdstories
In today's episode we are talking with Dr. Matthew McKay. Matt is a professor at the Wright Institute in Berkeley, CA. He has authored and co-authored numerous books, including The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook, Self-Esteem, and Couple Skills, which have sold more than four million copies combined. He received his PhD in clinical psychology from the California School of Professional Psychology, and specializes in the cognitive behavioral treatment of anxiety and depression. Fourteen years ago his son, Jordan, died and his life as he knew it, changed. He has since learned how to make contact with him and in today's episode shares how you can make contact with departed loved ones, too. Matt has had hundreds of conversations with his son and shares with us what Jordan tells him why we are here on earth school, and what awaits us on the other side.
In today's episode we are talking with Dr. Matthew McKay. Matt is a professor at the Wright Institute in Berkeley, CA. He has authored and co-authored numerous books, including The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook, Self-Esteem, and Couple Skills, which have sold more than four million copies combined. He received his PhD in clinical psychology from the California School of Professional Psychology, and specializes in the cognitive behavioral treatment of anxiety and depression.Fourteen years ago his son, Jordan, died and his life as he knew it, changed. He has since learned how to make contact with him and in today's episode shares how you can make contact with departed loved ones, too. Matt has had hundreds of conversations with his son and shares with us what Jordan tells him why we are here on earth school, and what awaits us on the other side.SeekingJordan.com
Matthew McKay, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist, professor of psychology at the Wright Institute, co-founder of Haight Ashbury Psychological Services, founder of the Berkeley CBT Clinic, and co-founder of the Bay Area Trauma Recovery Clinic, which serves low-income clients. He has authored and co-authored more than 40 books, including The Relaxation and Stress Reduction Workbook, … Continue reading "Love and Impermanence with Matthew McKay"
This interview features Zach Blume, Co-Founder and President of Portal A. We discuss how he built a 360 monetization strategy for an early Internet video series, launching one of the first branded content studios with his childhood friends, creating one of the most well-known and longest-running digital formats in YouTube Rewind, how Portal A ended up selling a minority stake to Brett Montgomery's Wheelhouse, why feeling like outsiders is central to their identity, and what's up next for the Portal A team.Subscribe to our newsletter. We explore the intersection of media, technology, and commerce: sign-up linkLearn more about our market research and executive advisory: RockWater websiteFollow us on LinkedIn: RockWater LinkedInEmail us: tcupod@wearerockwater.comInterview TranscriptThe interview was lightly edited for clarity.Chris Erwin:Hi, I'm Chris Erwin. Welcome to the Come Up, a podcast that interviews entrepreneurs and leaders.Zach Blume:We built a business model around it that included merchandise, ad revenue share, ticketed events, and sponsorships. And so we actually ran that show at a profit, even though it was early internet video web series. And the idea was to build an entertainment property on the web that could become multi-season, could eventually travel to TV, which it did. It later became a TV series called White Collar Brawlers. It was super experimental, and I would say, looking back on a fairly innovative for three guys who had really no idea what we were doing and had no training in any of this, we built an entertainment property on the internet that was profitable.Chris Erwin:This week's episode featured Zach Blume, Co-Founder and President of Portal A. So Zach grew up in Berkeley and had a self-described normal suburban life of sports and friends. Zach then went to University of Oregon to study political science and pursued an early career running local political campaigns in California. But an opportune moment reunited Zach, with his two childhood friends to create one of the internet's earliest digital series White Collar Brawlers.After some unexpected success, the friend trio then became the founding team for Portal A, an award-winning digital and branded content company. Some highlights of our chat include his 360 monetization strategy for one of the earliest internet video brands, what it takes to co-found a successful company with your friends, how they landed a strategic investment from Wheelhouse, why feeling like an outsider is central to their identity, and how they're building towards the next massive creator opportunity. All right, let's get to it. Zach, thanks for being on the Come Up podcast.Zach Blume:It's a pleasure to be here.Chris Erwin:From our conversation yesterday, amazingly, I believe this is your first podcast interview ever. Is that right?Zach Blume:It's true. A lot of interviews over the years. Some predating the podcast era, some during the podcast era, but I'm honored to be invited onto yours. I've listened to a bunch of episodes, and we'll see how it goes.Chris Erwin:Awesome. All right, so as is typical, let's rewind a bit before we get into the whole Portal A story, although it actually starts pretty early on. So why don't you tell us about where you grew up and what your childhood was like?Zach Blume:Yeah, I grew up in Berkeley, California, the son of two die-hard New Yorkers who had moved out to California. My dad was born in the Bronx. My mom was from Manhattan. They were part of the New York exodus to California, and I was the first kid in my family who grew up in California and, of all places, Berkeley, childhood filled with lots of sports and playing in the street and all that good stuff. And the really interesting tie to the Portal A story, obviously, is that I met my two co-founders when we were somewhere between four and five years old. The stories differ, but we met in kindergarten, and we're close friends basically since we were little kids and played a lot of basketball together growing up. And the court that we played basketball in was called Portal A, which eventually became the name of our company 25 years later. The founder story of Portal A is very tied up in the childhood story of all for all three of us. I live in Oakland now, so I didn't stray too far from home.Chris Erwin:Got it. I remember in doing a little bit of research for this episode, I was trying to look up Portal A parks around the US, and I kept finding some in Orange County, so I thought you were an NorC kid, but No, you're a NorCal kid.Zach Blume:I mean, I think if there's an opposite of Orange County, it would probably be Berkeley.Chris Erwin:That's probably right.Zach Blume:But the court was actually an El Cerrito, which is an adjacent town to Berkeley, and it still exists. It's still around, and we should probably go play some hoops over there, but we haven't for years.Chris Erwin:Yeah, that'd be fun. So I have to ask, what did your parents do?Zach Blume:My dad has a business background. He runs and, up until actually six months ago, ran an investment advisory firm helping individuals manage their investments. It was a small company, five to six employees, just a great business, really community based, all about relationships and helping people manage their life and their money. And yeah, it's taught me a lot about business growing up, for sure.My mom was a therapist. She's retired now. She was a private practice in Berkeley. They've known each other since they were 20. They actually both went to the Wright Institute, which was a psychology graduate school in Berkeley. My dad was a psychologist briefly for about six months before he went back into business. And my mom was a therapist for 25 years. It was an interesting mix of business and psychology growing up, for sure.Chris Erwin:Got it. And were there any siblings?Zach Blume:No siblings? I'm the only one and-Chris Erwin:Oh, only child. Okay.Zach Blume:Yeah, interestingly, five of my closest friends, all groomsmen at my wedding, were from that same kindergarten class where I met Nate and Kai, my two co-founders. So there's definitely been a brotherly nature of those relationships. And at this point, I kind of consider Nate and Kai almost like brothers. We've known each other for 35 years, and we've been in business together for over 12 years, so it's pretty deep. Those relationships run pretty deep.Chris Erwin:Was there a part of you early on where you thought you might go into business and finance or become an investment manager like your father?Zach Blume:So there was also a lot of political kind of conversation and learning in my house. I remember from a very early age, my dad, when I was like eight, he would try to sit me down and read the Sunday Weekend Review in the New York Times. And it was like torture for me. But I think it got in there somewhere.In college, I actually studied political science and, for years, worked in the political world after I graduated from school. And I really thought that was my path, and it was for many years. I worked on campaigns. I started managing campaigns. I worked for political communication shop in San Francisco for years. I kind of burned out on the world of politics. I've since been re-engaged in a lot of different ways. But when I burned out on politics, that's when I thought I was going to go into business.I left the political world, was studying to go to business school, doing all the GMAT prep, and that's when Nate and Kai came to me and said, "We should make a web series together." Because I had a three-month gap, and it sounded so fun. We had made some stuff together just for fun earlier on. And so, while I was studying for the GMAT, I joined Nate and Kai to make this web series in the early days of internet video. And that's kind of the origin story of where we are today is that that web series, it was called White Collar Brawler. It was totally weird and crazy and awesome, and it started us on our journey to where we are today.Chris Erwin:Got it. So going back even a bit further, I'm just curious because you met your co-founders, Nate and Kai, back when you were in kindergarten, as you said, four to five years old, when you were in middle school, or when you in high school, were you guys part of the theater club? Were you creating any types of videos for your classes? There's something about meeting people early in your childhood, particularly in digital media, that I think blossoms into different relationships. So was there any kind of through line early on where you were interested in media entertainment before getting into PoliSci, which as part of your early career?Zach Blume:Yeah, I think there definitely was for Nate and Kai. There was less so for me. So Nate and Kai started making, maybe not in high school, but in their college years, they both went to school on the East Coast. This is like 2003, 2004, 2005. They started making internet, video, and web series when they were in college. And Kai was a film major, so he had some training, and they started just playing a lot of comedic stuff earliest day pre-YouTube, so quick time player-type stuff.So yeah, high school, I'm not so sure college for sure for them, at least it started building. And then, right after college, the three of us, plus another friend, grabbed a flight to Hanoi, bought motorcycles in Vietnam, and traveled across the country, and we made a web series called Huge In Asia.So it was like a 30-episode comedy travel web series, kind of just chronicling our journey across Vietnam. And then, they went on, I had to come back to the States for some work, but they went on to Mongolia, China, Laos, all sorts of different countries across Asia. That's where it really started for us the idea that you could not be in the formal, either entertainment industry or advertising industry. You could buy a pretty shitty camera, have an idea, start producing content and build an audience. And that was 2006. So the interest in internet video as a medium really started there.Then we all went our separate ways, and all did kind of normal early career professional stuff, but that Huge in Asia as an idea and an adventure was really the starting point for us. So yeah, so I would say the interest in video and film and just the distribution of it online started college years, and then the year after, we went to Asia.Chris Erwin:Got it. So just to add some context here, because I think YouTube was founded around 2004, and then it was bought by Google around '05, '06 pretty shortly after founding. So when you're coming out of college, I think this is around a 2006 timeframe, as you noted, when you guys decided to go to Asia and to do this motorcycle tour, was there a goal of, "Hey, there's an explosion in internet video, we have a chance to build an audience and make money off of this?" Or was it just, "Hey, this seems like a really fun thing to do. We're just coming out of college, we're kind of this in this exploratory phase, we like spending time with one another, let's go do this and see what happens." When you were thinking from the beginning, what was the end goal of that project?Zach Blume:Much more the latter. I mean, it was purely experimental. It was all about the adventure. I think there was a sense that we were at the dawn of something new, and I think that YouTube, Vimeo, I mean all the other platforms in the investment of history at this point, but there was an explosion of internet video technology that was enabling people like us to start making stuff. So I think there was like a sense that something was happening. It definitely was not a money-making endeavor. In fact, it was the opposite. And it was really just to experiment and play and see where it took us.Looking back on it, 15 years later, 18 years later, whatever it is, I think it's 100% served its purpose. We got our feet wet. We started experimenting. We started learning what worked, what didn't work, what audiences responded to, what made us happy. It kind of gelled our relationship as young adults versus as kids. And we never would've known at the time, but it did 100% lead to Portal A, and that's to where we are now.Chris Erwin:Okay, yeah, I hear you. I think, looking back in retrospect, it was definitely a catalyst to the forming of Portal A and where you got to where you are today, but it wasn't because when you came back from that trip, it wasn't like, "Oh, let's found Portal A and let's get going." You actually entered into the political realm for two to three years before founding Portal A, right?Zach Blume:Yep. That was always my plan, and that was the career I was going to pursue for sure.Chris Erwin:So, but the seed had been planted, but yeah, in '06, for the next two years, you become a political campaign manager. What campaigns were you working on?Zach Blume:First campaign was a Congressional campaign in Southern California. That was actually my first job out of college. We got trounced by 22 points in a very heavily Republican district by Mary Bono, who was Sonny Bono's widow. We had a candidate that we really liked, and it was the 2006 election, so it was kind of the midway point or the later stages of, I guess, Bush's first term. And there was a ground swell of just whenever there's a presidential election, two years later, the other party is the one that's like kind of getting their grassroots organizing on.So it was definitely an exciting time. It was an exciting election year. I happened to work on a campaign that was in a... It was Palm Springs. It was like that area, heavily Republican area, but I learned so much, and I was running a third of the district, and I loved it. I loved organizing. I felt like I was on the right side of history and doing the right thing.That then led to this fellowship that I did called The Coro Fellowship. I met one of my best friends on the campaign who had done the Coro Fellowship, and it was a year-long fellowship in political and public affairs. Everybody listening to this podcast will never have heard of Coro, but in the political and policy world, it's well-known and well-regarded, and that was a great experience. I got exposure across a bunch of different sectors, including government, labor unions, business, nonprofits, et cetera.Out of that, I started managing a campaign for the California State Assembly in Richmond, California, with a candidate, Tony Thurmond, who is now the Superintendent of Public Education in California. So he's gone on to do pretty big things. He's an amazing guy.And that led me to work at Storefront Political Media, which was a political media and communication shop in San Francisco that, at the time, ran all of Gavin Newsom's campaigns. He was then the mayor of San Francisco, obviously, is now the governor of California.I ran the mayor's race in Houston, of all places, elected Annise Parker, who was the first lesbian mayor of a major American city. And she was a fantastic executive out in Houston and then had a bunch of different clients, including firefighters unions, individual candidates. Ultimately, I was working for a client that was leading initiatives that didn't necessarily align with my own political values. And that was part of what led me to say I was ready to move on from the world of politics. So it was a fantastic experience, I learned so much, but that's what kind of prompted me to want to go to business school, which is what I was going to do until Nate and Kai came along and said, "Let's make a web series."Chris Erwin:Yeah. When you were working on these political campaigns and also working with Storefront Political Media, which is a national communication media and PR firm, were you bringing some of your grassroots internet video tactics to help build community, to help build influence and sway some of these elections? Was that part of kind of some of the unique flavor that you brought to these teams?Zach Blume:For sure, I was definitely the internet guy at that shop. I mean, there were a couple of us, there was a couple of coworkers who were of my generation. This was just when kind of Facebook was becoming a powerful tool for communications pre-Instagram, pre all those other platforms we're familiar with now. I definitely brought my expertise in video and the distribution of content online to that work. It was an interesting time politically. It was just at the advent of the internet as a powerful communications tool for campaigns.Chris Erwin:So then you're considering going to business school, you take the GMAT.Zach Blume:I got halfway through the class, and White Collar Brawler, that series, came calling. It was all-consuming. It was so fun. And we produced the hell out of that show, and it got a lot of notoriety. We got a big write-up in the New York Times, like big-Chris Erwin:Give us the context for White Collar Brawler again. What exactly was that project, and what were you supporting?Zach Blume:The log line was basically what happens when you take office workers whose muscles have become dilapidated by sitting in front of a computer all day long and train them to become amateur boxers. It just so happened that the two White Collar workers that were the stars of the show were Nate and Kai. So it was very, kind of like meta, we were the creators, and Nate and Kai were also the stars.The experimental part of it was shooting and producing the series in real-time. So there was an experiential element to the show, meaning as Nate and Kai were training to become boxers, fans of the show could actually come out and train with them, run on the beach in San Francisco or go to a training session with a boxing coach. We had events happening throughout the course of the show. It eventually culminated in an actual fight, a licensed fight in Berkeley between Nate and Kai for the Crown. And we had, I think, 1500 people showed up to that site and paid tickets-Chris Erwin:Was it boxing, mixed martial arts? What was the actual thoughts?Zach Blume:No, just old-school boxing.Chris Erwin:Okay.Zach Blume:It was the real deal. And-Chris Erwin:I may have missed this in the beginning. Who funded this? What was the purpose of it?Zach Blume:It was partially self-funded. It was partially funded by a friend of ours who had sold, in the early internet days, had sold his tech company to Google in one of the early Google acquisitions. So he just privately financed, I mean, we're not talking about big dollars here, and we built a business model around it that included merchandise, ad revenue share, events, ticketed events, and sponsorships, which I was in charge of in addition to other things.And so we actually ran that show at a profit, even though it was just an early internet video web series. It was actually a profitable property, and the idea was to build an entertainment property on the web that could become multi-season, could eventually travel to TV, which it did. It later became a TV series called White Collar Brawlers. And so it was actually super experimental, and I would say, looking back on it, fairly innovative in terms of for three guys who had really no idea what we were doing and had no training in any of this, we built an entertainment property on the internet that was profitable.Back to the question, I mean, that's what distracted me from going to business school because I felt like, first of all, I was learning so much, I was having so much fun creating content with two friends, and you just had a feeling that we were onto something and we didn't know what that thing was. We thought we were going to be an original entertainment company that would just make shows like White Collar Brawler, but we knew there was something. We knew there was a lot of activity and interest in this space. And so that took up all my attention and then took up my attention for the next 12 years.Chris Erwin:I will say from personal experience it saved you a couple of hundred thousand dollars and a lot of agony of actually taking that test.Zach Blume:Right, exactly.Chris Erwin:And being two years out of the workforce, speaking from personal experience.Zach Blume:Right. I know, I know.Chris Erwin:So, okay. And look, this is interesting to think about how you guys, as a founding team, were gelling and coming together. When you guys started talking, "Let's do this White Collar Brawler show as a team," what was your specific role, Zach? What was it like? What are you going to focus on?Zach Blume:Yeah, I mean, it actually reflects the role that I now play and ended up playing when we turned White Collar Brawler into a business. So Nate and Kai are more on the creative side, the creative and production side, both had experience. They had both actually before me had left their kind of "normal jobs," moved to LA, and started making internet video with a vision for again, "We don't know what it is, but there's something going on here, and we want to be a part of it."They had background as almost as creators themselves and also some training, actually with the physical act of production. So Nate and Kai were always much more on the creative side and the production side. And then my role was kind of capital B business. I was responsible for sponsorships. I was responsible for the operations of the show. I was responsible for where we were going to have office space, all that type of stuff. Basically the business side of creativity, and that's the same today. I mean, it's kind of like, it was just a foreshadow of the roles that we ended up playing as we were growing Portal A. And we've always had a super clear and complementary division of labor.I would say when looking for business partners, I think that might be, I mean, your rapport and your ability to communicate is lots of things are really important, but making sure that each person, each principal has a clear role and that they actually like that role and can succeed in that role is I think one of the keys to business success. So we've always had very clear roles. We've always liked our roles and felt like we belonged where we were. That's how it started with White Collar Brawler.Chris Erwin:That's awesome. Yeah, I have to give you some real kudos because you take very early on in your career, and in the digital entertainment ecosystem, you take an IP concept, and you create a diversified, sustainable business model around it where you have revenue coming in from advertising, sponsorships, merch, ticket sales, that's what many different IP properties want to figure out today. And many struggle to do that.Zach Blume:The only we could've described it back then as well as you described it now, but yes, that's basically what it was.Chris Erwin:Yeah, you look around at one another, you have this culmination in a ticketed event where there's over 1500 people pay to see the fight between Nate and Kai. And so you guys look around at one another and say, "Hey, we got something here." Is the next step? Let's found a business, call it Portal A and start doing this at scale. Or did it kind of just naturally happen, saying, "All right, let's find the next project and see where it goes from there."Zach Blume:It was much more, again, the latter. I mean, we did know that there was something brewing; I gave ourselves, at the very least credit for that. Did not have a business model. We did not have a plan. We had a kind of a concept and an idea and a good partnership. And I think that was really important too, is just how well we worked together.When we came out of White Collar Brawler, we had this idea credit to Kai. I believe we really wanted to do a show about whiskey, that that was going to be our next piece of IP that we wanted to develop and the concept behind the show, again because we didn't want, we were just going to be doing original series built for internet video was basically a distillery tour type show, but with a twist where there would be a membership model involved. And for anybody who was in a... 99% of viewers would just watch the show for the entertainment value, any type of good travel show that built that type of audience. But 1% of viewers would subscribe to the show and get a drum of whiskey. For each distillery that we were visiting as part of the show, they would actually get samples in the mail, and it would be kind of a whiskey of the month model married to an entertainment property.And we were coming out of White Collar Brawlers, we were visiting distilleries, getting drunk, trying to figure out this model. And we were super hyped on it. We thought it was a really interesting way to monetize internet video through subscriptions. And we even got into the logistics of shipping, and we were really going down that path, and in the meantime, we were broke, we were like 25 years old and-Chris Erwin:That was my next question. How are you funding all of this?Zach Blume:Well, we paid ourselves an extremely nominal salary. I would call it a stipend when we were making White Collar Brawler enough to survive. And then, coming out of that, we were trying to do our whiskey show, but that stipend went away. So we were without income, really. I mean, I remember going to Bank of America at some point, and there was so little... This is one of our funny stories that we tell each other. I remember this parking lot moment where the three of us had gone to Bank of America, where we had this White Collar Brawler account, or maybe it's a Portal A account. I'm not sure. And there was, I think, less than $1000 in there, and it was one of those like, oh, shit-type moments, and I remember going out to the parking lot and being like to Nate and Kai because I was always kind of the rah-rah guy of the three of us. And just, I remember basically having to give a motivational speech about that we were going to be okay, that this is going to be okay, despite the fact that we had absolutely zero money in the bank.That was where we were at that point. We were trying to figure out this whiskey idea, and then all of a sudden, because of the popularity of White Collar Brawler and some big YouTube videos we had made to promote the series, we started getting some inbound interest from brands. And that was never in the plan. We would think about sponsorships on our original series from brands, but never creative service worked directly to brands, and our first phone call was-Chris Erwin:Explain that difference for the listeners. I think that's a good nuance.Zach Blume:Yeah, I mean, if there was a business model, the business model we were considering was building properties like White Collar Brawler that could be sponsored by, in the best-case scenario, Nike or by Everlast, the boxing company, or by Gatorade or that's who we were pursuing for what-Chris Erwin:So think of title cards and brought to you by et cetera.Zach Blume:Exactly. Or like sponsoring events or merchandise or all that type of stuff. And we had some success, not from the big brands, but we had some success on White Collar Brawler with sponsorships from more regional brands, or like there were some beer companies and some smaller merchandising startups that were part of the sponsorship mix.I will say that we sent out about 500 to 1000 sponsorship emails and got about five sponsors. So we worked hard at it. And so that was the model we were going to pursue even for something like the whiskey show. We were going to look for sponsors and brand sponsors in that way. We never thought we were going to build a creative services company, meaning brands, an advertising company effectively, like brands hiring us as a service provider to create content. That was never, ever something we thought about.We started getting these phone calls. I remember being in a car one time, and I got this random call from a number I did not know, and it turned out to be a marketing manager at the Gap. Her name was Sue Kwon. Shout out, Sue Kwon, if you're out there. She was our first real client after White Collar Brawler. And we started making videos for the Gap, as kind of like a little agency production company.Then we got some more calls. There was a Tequila company that wanted us to make a web series called Tres Agaves Tequila. They wanted us to make a web series shot in Mexico about the origins of Tequila. Then we got a call from Jawbone, which was a hot Bluetooth speaker company at the time-based in the Bay Area. They wanted us to make a music video featuring a bunch of early YouTube influencers or creators.So we started getting these, we called them gigs at the time because literally all we were trying to do is pay our rent and so we could make the whiskey shows. We were just trying to get a little bit of income coming in so we could actually go out and make our dream whiskey show. And there were fun projects, and we weren't making advertising. We were making content, and that was a big difference for us. We weren't making pre-roll ads or 30-second ads. We were making web series for brands and music videos for brands and all that type of stuff. And without knowing it, we kind of stumbled across an area that was in high demand, which was brands trying to figure out what to do on platforms like YouTube and social media with video. We had established ourselves as understanding that world.So that's the origin of our branded content business which became the core of our business for many, many years was just one-off phone calls, unexpected phone calls, taking projects as gigs to pay the bills, and just kind of doing our best and seeing where it led.Chris Erwin:Hey listeners, this is Chris Erwin, your host of the Come Up. I have a quick ask for you if you dig what we're putting down. If you like the show, if you like our guests, it would really mean a lot if you can give us a rating wherever you listen to our show, it helps other people discover our work, and it also really supports what we do here. All right, that's it, everybody. Let's get back to the interview.What was the moment where you felt it evolved from, "Hey, it's the three of us rotating between gigs, hiring freelancers as need be, to what became a business, which is called a systematized and efficient way to deliver consistent quality around a good or service."Zach Blume:I think the first year was the gig model. It was just a patchwork of projects in order to generate some form of income. The second year it started to feel real. There started to be a fairly steady flow of inbound interests, and then a kind of something we be started to become known for a type of content. It was kind of humorous, entertaining, felt like it was native to the internet and to YouTube.I think in that second year was when it started to feel like a business, and then some light clicked for me that we actually needed to do some business planning and thinking, and I had no idea what I was doing. I mean zero, negative. Negative idea what I was doing. But I had grown up where my dad was a small business owner, so I had some exposure, but I just remember being it was just like a vast sea of unknown principles and requirements that I had to navigate.Chris Erwin:How did you figure that out? Did you put together an advisory board? Did you call your dad? Were you calling some other friends in business?Zach Blume:One of our earliest advisors was not a business advisor. He was our sensei in some forms in the earliest days. And this is another shout-out to Steve Wolf, who you may know, who was on the executive team of Blip, which was one of those many early internet video platforms. He really helped us understand the space.We did not have a formal advisory board. We did not have a board. And it was truly trial and error. That's the best way I can describe it. It was just using our brains and figuring things out through mistakes and successes. It is a total blur looking back on it, but I think we were a good partnership. We had our heads screwed on straight, and we kind of learned how to operate.Chris Erwin:Another important part, too, is, like you said, when you all looked at your bank account, and everyone's face went white, but you were the rah-rah guy, which is like, "Hey, guys, we're going to figure this out. Where there's a will, there's a way." And I think that's a very important role. Shout to Steve Wolf. He was one of the execs that oversaw the AwesomenessTV network when I was there in 2014, 2015 timeframe. Super sharp guy, OG in the digital space. So not surprised to hear that he was a valuable advisor to you.All right, so then I think there's another pretty big moment where your business takes an even bigger step up. And I think this has to do with becoming the official partner for the YouTube Rewind project. The moment where you felt, "Okay, we're really onto something here."Zach Blume:Yeah, it was coincidental. We were introduced to somebody at YouTube in 2011 as a three-person team that was making internet video content and mostly on YouTube. And Rewind was just a twinkle of an idea. I mean, it was like there was a minor budget. It was basically a countdown of the top videos of the year. The budget was, I think, $20,000 in the first year to make Rewind. And we shot it in a small studio location. It was one of our earliest projects, and it was before Rewind became Rewind, the big thing that many of us are familiar with. It was a major validator for us to start working with YouTube directly as a client. And Rewind eventually became a project that defined our growth for many, many years to come. But it started very, very small.Chris Erwin:From that project. You've been around for now for 12 years, being founded around 2010. What did the growth in scaling part of your business looks like? With YouTube Rewind and other marquee projects, you're starting to get a sense of what are we actually building towards. Was there a point of view there or like, "Hey, we have inbound interests, we're working with brands and advertisers," all of a sudden we're working with publishers, and were you just kind of being more reactive or was it a mix of being reactive and proactive?Zach Blume:The best analogy I can draw is to kind of riding a wave. This may resonate with you, but I don't think we knew what was around the next corner or what the next thing was going to look like. We were just building momentum in those early years and taking each project as it came. We knew we had something. We knew we had a good partnership. We knew we were starting to bring some really interesting, smart people to the team, clients that were really willing to push some boundaries. And I was learning as I went along how to run a business, and Kai was learning, and Nate was learning how to create amazing content, and there was not a lot of foresight. It was mostly about riding a wave and seeing where the wave took us. Then doing a really good job. That was really important because every project, the success or not success for the project kind of dictated what the next chapter was going to look like.So we just focused on trying to build some good fundamentals for the business, trying to make sure we were profitable because we had to be and just making work that we were proud of. That's the extent of our planning, I think, was just what did the next three months look like and how do we keep riding this wave?Chris Erwin:Yeah, and that's something I think worth emphasizing for the listeners where it's, so often people will say you have to be super strategic in planning every single move and where is their white space and how are you going to beat out your competitors to get it? But I think when you are building a small business, and this is something that I reeducate myself on consistently with RockWater, it's really about the basics, which is know your core service offering and nail it and delight clients, from there, that's really the core foundation from where you grow and where other things can emerge. And I think that's a testament to really what you guys have done for well over a decade is you know your lane, and you operate so effectively within it that is now, over the past few years, created some other really exciting opportunities for you, your success in your lane led to the investment by Wheelhouse a couple of years back. So how did that come to be? Because I think that's a pretty big moment for the company.Zach Blume:That fast-forward a bit over years of misery and happiness and everything in between. We threw ourselves entirely into growing Portal A for the bulk of our 20s. It was all-encompassing, tons of sacrifices that were made to other parts of our lives, which I'm okay with looking back. I do think that 20s are a good time to throw yourself and just be completely focused and passionate about something like this. And we built that branded business. We diversified the type of clients we were working with. Projects got bigger and bigger, Rewind got bigger, and all the rest of our projects got bigger.Starting around 2016, we wanted very badly to return to the original thesis of Portal A, which was creating an original entertainment properties for the web. That's where it all started. And we had spent so many years working with brands, and it was fantastic, and it was a good business, and we got to make really cool stuff. But we had this hunger to return to the kind of to our entertainment roots in some ways. And we're not talking at that point about TV shows on broadcast, but about entertainment that was built for internet consumption.So we started taking steps back in that direction. As we were continuing to grow the branded business and expand in that area, we were committing ourselves to the original entertainment dream and started making shows horribly oversimplified what it took to actually start doing that again. But we started making shows again. We kept the branded business running and growing. And-Chris Erwin:When you started making shows, were you deficit-financing these yourself? So you were developing them internally and then taking them out as a slate to pitch and sell? Or were these being funded by other digital and streaming platforms that were going to put this content on their channels?Zach Blume:We were developing them internally, as a kind of a traditional development arm, and then taking them out to streaming and digital buyers. We were not doing the White Collar Brawler model, where we were building properties completely independently. So we did kind of slot in a little bit more into back into the entertainment ecosystem versus building our own properties, which that could be a whole separate conversation about the drawbacks and the benefits of that.So we were finding our way to making original series, again, we hired ahead of originals a guy named Evan Bregman, who's now at Rooster Teeth who's a good friend. And we started kind of trying to build that business again, and eventually, we started to feel like the branded business was running really well and growing year over year. We felt in order to take the next step forward on the entertainment side of our business. We needed a partner.So we had been a completely independent entire course of our trajectory. We were running a really good business at the time. It was very profitable, and the growth trajectory was really attractive, I think to outsiders. And so we started taking meetings with potential partners with the idea of strategically aligning ourselves to somebody who could level us up. We weren't looking for a sale. We were looking for truly a strategic partner.Chris Erwin:Were you running a formal process here where there was a mandate of, "We seek a strategic partner, we're going to take meetings over the next two months?" Or was it, "Hey, these relationships that we create in the industry, we got some inbounds, let's take these meetings with perhaps a little bit more intent than we would've a couple of years ago."Zach Blume:It was not a formal process in the sense that we had a banker or some advisor who was guiding us through it. But it was a process in that it was fairly intentional. Remember sitting down with Nate and Kai and listing out the players in the original entertainment world, whether that was individuals or production companies, mostly who we think would be good partners for us, and starting to navigate through our network to see who would be interested in talking. And the thing that I've found, especially in that period, which was 2017, '18 was when we were starting to have those conversations, it was a pretty hot period for digital media. I think there was a lot of consolidation going on. Our experience was once we started having a couple of those conversations, and people started to see our numbers and see the fact that we were running an actually profitable business that was growing year over year.It just like word got out, and it was a little bit of a domino. And so I just remember over the course of 2017, 2018, we took like 15 or 20 strategic meetings with potential strategic partners. Again, not running it through a banker or anything like that, but just kind of word of mouth. And it was a really interesting experience, and learned a lot about ourselves and about the space. And we just really clicked with Brent Montgomery and Ed Simpson, who were, at the time they, had sold their TV production company to ITV and they were working at ITV at the time but starting to think about what their post-ITV move was going to be, which would eventually become Wheelhouse and just to immediate connection with both of them on a personal and kind of business level.To them, we looked like a really smart partner. They felt like a really smart partner to us. And that's how that started. And there were other conversations going on at the time, but Brent and Ed and eventually Wheelhouse always felt like the right fit for us.Chris Erwin:From that first meeting with Wheelhouse, did they indicate in the room, "Hey, we want to do a deal, we're going to make an offer," or did it take a while to get there?Zach Blume:Well, this story I always tell about Ed, who everybody should know, Ed Simpson, he's an amazing guy, is that within five minutes of our first meeting he asked us, "Are you Butellas?" And I was floored. I was like-Chris Erwin:Gets right to the point.Zach Blume:I was like, we just shook hands. We were just getting to know each other, but I think honestly it's a testament to directness, and I think that actually really helped was kind of just getting our cards on the table from early days. And I think from the beginning. It was clear that Ed and Brent were looking for their first partners. Brent is also like no BS. He knows what he wants, he goes out and gets it, and the intent for an investment, a partnership of some sort, was clear from the very beginning. The eventual process took very long.Chris Erwin:How long was that process?Zach Blume:I think the timeframe from offer letter or LOI to signed paperwork was about a year. But I think there was a six-month or eight-month, even maybe even a full-year courtship before that. So the whole process from first meeting with Ed, where he asked us what our EBITDA was after shaking his hand, to signing paperwork and then collapsing on the floor because we were so exhausted was maybe year and a half, two years.Chris Erwin:Yeah. It always takes longer than people expect.Zach Blume:Yeah. It's incredible. And there were multiple points where that deal almost fell completely apart. In fact, I was sure it was done. It was toast. And what I've learned from other founders that I've talked to that have done deals, whether it's a sale or a minority investment or some sort of strategic partnership like this, is every time there's a deal, it almost fails twice or three times or more.It's just in the nature of things when there's two negotiators that there's going to be some moments of staring into the abyss. And I actually haven't heard of a deal that hasn't had that. So I learned that, in retrospect, at the time, they were hugely existential moments because we had put so much time and energy, and money into making this happen and having the deal almost fell apart multiple times was, it was really intense.Chris Erwin:Yeah. After having been a part of many M&A and capital raising processes throughout my career before RockWater when I was a banker, and then also at Big Frame, where I hired my old investment bank to represent us in a sale to Awesomeness backed by DreamWorks. And then at RockWater now, there's so many variables. You have different business models, you have different team cultures, you have leadership, you have investors, and to align on, are we working towards the same mission? Do we want the same thing in the future? Do we want the same thing now when we integrate? Where are we complementary? Will we actually succeed combined, or there alternative ways to do this? And I think it really is a special thing. We read a lot of deal headlines in the trade, so everyone thinks like, "Oh, deals get done all the time, it's easy."For all those headlines of the success, there's many, many more instances where deals have fallen apart that we don't hear about. I think the best thing that you guys had, Zach, was your BATNA, your Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement, but also your leverage. You had a profitable independent business. It was you, Zach, and Kai as the founders. You were growing, and you were profitable, and you could sustain with a partner or without a partner. And essentially, that led to a great deal for you guys. So it's awesome to say.Zach Blume:Yeah, it's true. I mean, we were not trying to parachute at our business in any stretch. We weren't trying to sell to then do an arm out to then leave. We were trying to level up, and I agree it was our ability to walk was good leverage for us, but we really wanted to do it because we really had committed ourselves to making this type of strategic move. I think it's very different when you're trying to capitalize on a moment in exit versus when you're trying to make an actual partnership to take the next step up in a business. And we just weren't ready to, and we still aren't ready to sunset Portal A.This is becoming our life's work. We are committed. We are always kind of doubling down on our commitment. Sometimes I can't believe I've been doing this for 12 years. It's unbelievable. And I hope that we do it for many, many, many, many, many more years.Chris Erwin:You found your magnum opus in the first company that you founded pretty rare and pretty incredible, right?Zach Blume:Yeah. I mean it's amazing, but it also puts a lot of pressure on that to fulfill a lot of parts of your being and or your professional desires. When you're focused on one thing for so long, as opposed to a lot of entrepreneurs who kind of jump or leapfrog from one thing to the next. We've had to come to grips with the fact that this is our baby, and it's continuing to be our baby. And it's a long play. It's a long run.Chris Erwin:This is actually a good segue to think about how this business is fulfilling to you, kind of over the past couple of years, some key changes that you've made of, how you're rewarding some of your most prominent team members, elevating them to partner and then thinking about what you want to grow into. So let's get into that. I look at your business. In your 20s, it was kind of the freshman segment of Portal A really starting to become into a real business. Then in your 30s, it's kind of like the sophomore years where you're starting to scale up and start to realize some pretty incredible success. And now you've got this incredible foundation.So not to aid you in front of everyone, but I think you and the founding team are entering your 40s over the next year or two years or so, entering the junior and senior years of your business. And for you guys to continue to be excited and fulfilled, tell us about some of the recent moves that you've made at the company and then where you want to go. What does that look like?Zach Blume:It's a great question. I wonder what happens after the junior and senior year sets. We're definitely at a different life stage, just on a personal level, then we were when we were on the treadmill moving 100 miles per hour in our 20s and in the kind of like the first half of Portal A and the deal with Wheelhouse was definitely like a marker, or maybe it was the dividing line between the freshman and sophomore era as you put it.First of all, I mean the last couple of years have been crazy, the pandemic, the election in 2020, there's been a lot of volatility in the world over the last few years, but what we're trying to do in the face of that volatility and kind of coming out of the Wheelhouse partnership, which again marked a new chapter for us is, create A on the business side sustainability and kind of consistency. And we've been able to do that. I mean, we've been profitable, consistent from a numbers perspective for many years, but it definitely felt for many years, we were running on a treadmill trying to keep up.And over the last several years, we've been trying to do as we enter into new periods of our lives personally, as we bring other people into the business as partners is create a business that doesn't feel like you're about to gasp for air and collapse at the end of every year, but actually create something that's sustainable and supports other parts of our lives that are really important to us. Family, having kids, all that type of stuff.I think on the business side, it's like, and I think we've done this over the last several years, but how do we move from sprinting to running at a good pace and building something that feels sustainable over the course of the next chapter of our lives as our lives change. And that's been really important, and you mentioned this, but bringing, we brought four new partners into the business. Our head of production, our head of business operations, our managing director, and our head of talent partnerships all had been with us for five to seven years each. And we made them partners a couple of years ago.We've invested in our team in a way that we always try to take care of people, but we truly doubled down on that over the last several years so that people feel like they're working at a place that they can work at for many years and feel very taken care of and part of a community, et cetera.Chris Erwin:Quick question on partnership front. So when you elevate these individuals to partners, does that mean there's a compensation bump but is also a bigger voice at the table for bigger strategic decisions for the company? What is the value exchange for that?Zach Blume:They went from kind of executives to partners. I mean, they're always executives, and I think what a partnership means is they participate in the profitability of the company. They participate in an exit. If there is a future, another deal on the horizon, they would have a stake in that. And then they have visibility into all aspects of the business and a seat at the table for really important business decisions around the type of work we take on, the type of things we invest in, the vision that we lay out for the company, the priorities for the year or for the next few years, et cetera.So it's been incredible, and I think it was a big moment. It was always Nate, Kai, and I sitting in a room, staring at each other's faces and trying to figure things out. And to bring in Robyn, Emma, Elyse, and Brittani, they're all so incredibly smart and powerful in their own ways, and it's just made our decision-making much more thoughtful, multifaceted, strategic, and I think intelligent, that group of three became a group of seven. That's been a major milestone and moment for us.So that was a big part of things. And investing in our team and doubling down on the team's wellness and creating a pace of work that was sustainable, not working over Thanksgiving, all that type, taking long breaks, giving days, all sorts of steps we've taken over the last several years to make Portal A sustainable business entity over many years.So that's number one in terms of what this chapter looks like. And I think number two is we just want to make good shit. At the end of the day, when we put ourselves in the future and try to look back on what will feel most valuable about this whole experience, what we make because we are a creative company is at the top of the list. So investing in the quality of the work that we do, investing in projects that may not be the most profitable or they may even not be profitable at all, but that are important to us creatively experimenting in new content formats, longer form, feature-length type stuff, short film, all sorts of getting back to kind of our roots in some ways as experimental content producers and investing in the quality of the work that we're making either on the original side of the business or on the brand side of the business that has become kind of central to our whole vision and identity is just this relentless commitment to quality.Chris Erwin:I want to touch on that because when we were preparing for this interview, something that we spoke about was, yeah, your commitment to creative quality and craft. Sometimes that is undervalued, sometimes that feels like it's going against the grain, and like you said, Zach, maybe there's a near-term impact where these new IP concepts, they're not profitable immediately, but there's actually long-term value to it where adherence to that mission keeps the leadership and founding team galvanized and fulfilled. It also keeps your business exciting for new team members that you want to recruit, building towards future opportunity where there can be much more meaningful revenues to generate in the future.So that's hard to do when you face kind of the near-term headwinds of those decisions, but you got to be steadfast in that it's clearly worked for you guys for over 12 years, and I think that that's just an important reminder that this is a founding value of our company and that's what's going to continue to drive long term success for the next 10, 20 plus years.Zach Blume:Everything you just said, I would like you to come speak to our company, and we can all talk about it together. I mean, that's exactly where we are at. What we'll define the next five, 10, however many years of this adventure will be the quality of the work that we're making. I don't want to speak too soon, and I'm going to knock on wood, but I feel like we've cracked the code on how to run this business well and how to find good people, take care of our people, take care of ourselves, find our lane and operate really well in our lane. And what's going to define the next chapter is how good is the stuff we're making. Is it something we're proud of? And that's both from a kind of, almost like, a spiritual or existential level, but it does layer back to business because we believe what will differentiate us is the quality of the work that we're creating. And so it will lead to new opportunity and new horizons when we're making really good stuff.Chris Erwin:Last one or two questions before we get into rapid fire and we close out here is, are there any current projects that you're working on or things that you're thinking about that maybe are good signals to the listeners of the type of things that you're going to be doing more of going forward?Zach Blume:One really interesting one is completely different from a lot of the work that people may know us for, but my partner Nate is developing a feature documentary. We've done one feature-length documentary, we did it with YouTube original called State of Pride, all about the origins and the genesis of Pride festivals across the country. And it's a beautiful film called State of Pride. It's on YouTube. Nate did a really cool, together with Portal A, did a really cool 30-minute documentary in 2020 about the response from the Trump administration to the first year of COVID.So we've definitely played with longer-form documentary projects. This project is called Fault Lines, and it is a longer-formed feature documentary about housing in America and about the shortage of housing in America, which is driving up housing costs for everybody. Kind of like the deep backstory on where that all comes from.No brands associated with that project. It's going to be financed by foundations and private funders, but we're really excited about it, and it's that kind of getting back to telling interesting stories, experimenting with new formats. It's not going to be the core of our business for the next several years, but we are going to be investing in those types of projects where we can kind of make a name for ourselves in new spaces.And then, of course, we're doing all sorts of cool stuff with our brand partners like big, splashy campaigns that are coming out later this year that I shouldn't talk about yet, but doing a lot of work with Target and Google and we have long-standing partners at Lenovo, the computer maker and all sorts of cool branded stuff. We have original shows in the pipeline.So I think the business mix for us is branded content. Again, nothing that we make should ever feel like a commercial, and if it does, we've failed ourselves and our partners. So content that is made in partnership with brands feels like something you'd actually want to watch. That's one pillar. The second pillar is original series. We just released Level Up, which is a show on Snapchat starting Stephen Curry mentoring a new generation of athletes. So there's all sorts of series like that that we're working on.Then this new area, which is short films, documentary feature films that we're investing in as a loss leader, like truly a loss leader, but as a way to diversify the type of content we're making and invest in quality like I was just talking about.Chris Erwin:That's great. You guys are doing a lot. Last quick question before rapid fire, how would you succinctly describe how your leadership philosophy has evolved now, being, call it 12 years into the Portal A business?Zach Blume:When you're building something, especially for us, we started from zero. We didn't come from the space. We didn't have any relationships. It was completely homegrown and organic. When you're building something, it's like you're captaining a tiny little ship in very rocky waters, and it is survival in some ways. I mean, it's both like I'm just picturing someone on the deck of a little dinghy in the middle of the ocean, just like yelling and surviving and getting thrown all over the place, and you're just trying to survive and make it through the first few years. And I think that was in many ways what leadership, just getting through the choppy waters and trying to grow and survive, was what it looked like for many years in the early days of growing our company.I think now that we've made it through those choppy waters and kind of established ourselves and built something that has a foundation underneath it. I really focus on sustainability and vision. And so that means creating an environment where people can be fulfilled creatively in terms of the people that they work with in terms of the pace of the work, both for the team that works with us and also for us, for ourselves. So creating that kind of a rhythm that feels not like you're like a tiny boat in a gigantic ocean and just trying to survive, but that feels steady and sustainable and solid. So creating that kind of consistency and strength, and that's one side of it. And then, for many years, it was just eat what you killed. And that was so many years of growing the company.Now it's like, "Okay, who do we want to be and who are we and who do we want to be?" And I think I spend so much time thinking about that and then communicating that back to the team and then repeating it over and over and over and over again and giving people something that they can understand and hold onto and feel like they're working toward a common cause has become so much more important now than it was when we were just basically in survival mode. So I think, yeah, sustainability and vision have become the most important pieces.Chris Erwin:I love that. Very well said, Zach. All right, so last segment from me giving you a bit of kudos at the end of this interview. Look, a lot of the people that I interview on the show, I've known for years, if not decades or more. I've actually interviewed people that I've known for over 30 years on this show. I've really only gotten to know you over the past. I think like two to three months through a handful of conversations. But I will say some of the kudos is it feels like I've known you a lot longer than that. I think we have a really shared sensibility, and I think that that's a testament to in this space.What I really like about being at the intersection of digital and entertainment is that there's just some really good people in it. And I think that's not the same from a lot of other industries that I've worked in. And I think you really embody that spirit. I think you really care about your people. I think you really care about your clients and your team and your partners, and that's really valuable. And I can even sense that in what the audience isn't hearing in between these segments is I really just love that note, how you are like the rah-rah spirit for your team. You've even been that for me, talking me up about me as a podcast host and supporting our content work where I'm going through a bit of my own existential crisis with RockWater on, I can feel that very positive energy from you, and I think that makes you a very, very, very compelling leader.Lastly, just to reiterate one of the points I made earlier, you have this extreme focus on your core service and product and on your team and doing right by your client partners. And I think that is actually shows incredible strategic focus and vision versus some really complex framework for how Portal A is going to take over the entire digital entertainment ecosystem with 10 different business models. You guys have nailed your core, and it's given you so much opportunity for what I define as the very exciting junior and senior years that are going to come for you. So massive kudos to you and the team for what you've built exemplary, and I look forward to many more conversations in the future.Zach Blume:Thank you. It feels like you understand us, and I really appreciate that. So thank you for that.Chris Erwin:For sure. Easy to do. All right, so to the rapid-fire, I'm going to ask six questions and the rules or as follows, you'll provide short answers. Maybe just one sentence, maybe just one to two words. Do you understand the rules, Zach?Zach Blume:Yes, I do.Chris Erwin:Okay, cool. All right, first one, proudest life moment.Zach Blume:Birth of my daughter.Chris Erwin:What do you want to do less of in 2022?Zach Blume:Worrying about the state of our union?Chris Erwin:Okay, what do you want to do more of?Zach Blume:Making work that we are proud of and stands the test of time.Chris Erwin:One to two things drive your success?Zach Blume:Focus and commitment, and loyalty.Chris Erwin:Okay, last three here. Advice for media execs going into the second half of this year and 2023.Zach Blume:Brace yourselves. I mean, I don't want to fear monger or create an atmosphere of angst or anxiety, but I definitely can see that there are headwinds ahead and many of us have been through these periods before, and we can make it through, but it's definitely a time to focus on fundamentals and be aware of your costs and brace yourselves for what could be a choppy period.Chris Erwin:Yeah, well said. Any future startup ambitions?Zach Blume:Not beyond what we're doing. I mean, if there's ever sunset to Portal A, I would love to get involved again in the political world. And we've done a lot of political work over the years through Portal A but at the moment, continuing to double down on what we're building.Chris Erwin:Got it. The easy final one for you. How can people get in contact with you?Zach Blume:I don't know, old school email, I mean, really old school, I guess, would be a landline, but email Zach, Z-A-C-H@portal-a.com, or you can find me on LinkedIn, but that sounds really lame, so just send me an email.Chris Erwin:Okay. I think LinkedIn is great.Zach Blume:No, I love Linkedin, but I just don't want to be the guy hawking his LinkedIn profile.Chris Erwin:Got it. All right, Zach, that's it. Thanks for being on the Come Up podcast.Zach Blume:It's been a pleasure, Chris. It's a great service to the digital media, community and world and really appreciated being here.Chris Erwin:All right, quick heads up that our company has a new service offering. We just introduced RockWater Plus, which is for companies who want an ongoing consulting partner at a low monthly retainer, yet also need a partner who can flex up for bigger projects when they arise. So who is this for? Well, three main stakeholders. One, operators who seek growth and better run operations. Two, investors who need help with custom industry research and diligence. And three, leadership who wants a bolt-on strategy team and thought partner.So what is included with RockWater Plus? We do weekly calls to review KPIs or any ad hoc operational needs. We create KPI dashboards to do monthly performanc
Rebecca Good is a Licensed Clinical Psychologist and graduated with a Psy.D. in Clinical Psychology from The Wright Institute in Berkeley, CA. She has comprehensive experience working with young-adults and adolescents, as well as with adults, individuals with ADHD or who are neurodivergent, youth impacted by high-conflict divorce, and families impacted by substance use. She also specializes in treating trauma ranging from early attachment issues to acute PTSD symptoms. Julia Herrera is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in Manhattan Beach, California who has 8 plus years experience working with children, adolescents, and their families. She specializes in working with children and adolescents coping with anxiety, depression, academic pressures and parents going through divorce. She also works with parents contemplating or in the process of divorce. She utilizes a nonjudgmental and safe space for parents to navigate the co-parenting process while also providing ways to help their children adjust to family dynamic changes. Breaking Ground Therapy Breathe Family Counseling and Wellness Center The Devastating Effect of Parental Alienation on Children The High Conflict Co-Parenting Podcast ------ Rebecca Good, PsyD on LinkedIn Julia Herrera, LMFT on LinkedIn
Ian Salvage, beloved Hoffman teacher and coach, is our 100th guest on the Hoffman Podcast. What better way could we celebrate reaching our 100-episode milestone than with this vulnerable, wise, and insightful conversation with Ian and Drew? Ian completed the Process three different times, the first time when he was twenty-four years old. Listen in to discover why he did the Process two more times. Ian shares about his journey to healing the 'shame message that he was bad." As a child, he felt bad. As he explains, children internalize their experiences. Since he felt bad, he came to believe he must be bad. One of Ian's main survival strategies as a young child was to disassociate from his body because the emotions he was feeling were just too big for him to feel. As an adult, he found it hard to be present and connected to others. Ian shares that childhood strategies are very helpful, but as adults, they really get in our way. He discovered had to come back into his body and to know he is safe there. In other words, Ian says he needed to come back into "an adult nervous system." In doing the physical work of expression at the Process, Ian heard his body come to understand that he is, "to his bones," innately good. Through this, he allowed his body to "align and connect to what his intellect thought and knew, to what his emotional self felt, and to what his Spiritual Self is." Through his work at the Process, Ian's Quadrinity became aligned in the goodness that he now knows he is. We can all learn a great deal about our own journey from Ian's very human experience of healing. More about Ian Salvage: Ian Salvage holds a Master's Degree in Counseling Psychology from the Wright Institute and is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist specializing in trauma-informed Somatic Therapy. Before being certified as a Hoffman Teacher in 2019, Ian began working in the Hoffman Institute's Enrollment Department in 2011. Ian holds a small private practice where he works with clients remotely from Maui. You can learn more about Ian here. As mentioned in this episode: Two of Ian's sisters have been guests on the podcast: Katie Salvage: Episode 4: Katie Salvage Oliveyah Fisch: S3e14: Oliveyah Fisch – Lean Into Your Courage Dōjō: "A dōjō is a hall or place for immersive learning or meditation. This is traditionally in the field of martial arts... The term literally means "place of the Way" in Japanese." Wikipedia William Lewis: Spiritual Teacher, Lightworker and Energy Channel The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel Van Der Kolk Quote shared by Ian: "We are hurt in relationship and we heal in relationship." - Unknown https://media.blubrry.com/the_hoffman_podcast/content.blubrry.com/the_hoffman_podcast/Drew_and_Ian_Salvage_Podcast.mp3
In episode 346 I chat with Dr Patricia Zurita Ona. Patricia is director of the East Bay Behavior Therapy Center and adjunct professor at the Wright Institute. She is the author of several books including her new book ‘Acceptance and Commitment Skills for Perfectionism and High-Achieving Behaviors: Do Things Your Way, Be Yourself, and Live a Purposeful Life'. We discuss what are perfectionistic, and high achieving behaviours, fears of being a failure and not being good enough, what perfectionism can look like in relationships and friendships, harnessing the power of perfectionism without losing yourself, checking in with what matters, how these things have impacted Patricia's life, choosing to show up to what matters in your life, her new book, finding your own rhythms, values based decisions, OCD and perfectionism, how these traits can impact exposure and response (ERP) therapy, and much more. Hope it helps. Show notes: https://theocdstories.com/episode/patricia-246 The podcast is made possible by NOCD. NOCD offers effective, convenient therapy available in the US and outside the US. To find out more about NOCD, their therapy plans and if they currently take your insurance head over to https://go.treatmyocd.com/theocdstories
https://youtu.be/DQDeBI5Ad14 Matthew McKay, Ph.D. is the author of the book, Love in the Time of Impermanence. Matt is a clinical psychologist, professor of psychology at the Wright Institute, cofounder of Haight Ashbury Psychological Services, founder of the Berkeley CBT Clinic, and cofounder of the Bay Area Trauma Recovery Clinic, which serves low-income clients. He has authored and coauthored more than 40 books, including The Relaxation and Stress Reduction Workbook and Seeking Jordan.
Matthew McKay, Ph.D., is a professor of psychology at the Wright Institute, founder of the Berkeley CBT Clinic, and co-founder of the Bay Area Trauma Recovery Clinic, which serve low-income clients. He has authored 40 books on psychology and spirituality, which have sold more than 4.5 million copies. He lives in Berkeley, CA Love in the Time of Impermanence Matthew's other books on Amazon http://www.seekingjordan.com ------------------------------- As of this moment, we have over 50 hours of premium videos available at path11tv.com, with new videos added regularly. Watch Path 11 TV wherever you want, on the iPhone, AppleTV, Android, Amazon Fire, and Roku Apps.
Today, we welcome Dr Mary Lamia, a clinical psychologist and a prolific author of many subjects. Our subject will be grief and Dr Lamia's new book, Grief Isn't Something to Get Over: Finding a Home for Memories and Emotions After Losing a Loved One.With a heavy but curious heart, we will discuss: — What is grief— What is prolonged and complicated grief?— Can we grieve something we never had?— How grief is tied to memory— And most importantly, How we can turn grief into something lifegiving Dr Mary Lamia is a clinical psychologist in Marin County, California and a professor at the Wright Institute in Berkeley, California. Teaching the public about the psychology of human behaviour has been her endeavour throughout her career. Please visit her website: www.marylamia.comThe book Grief Isn't Something to Get Over: Finding a Home for Memories and Emotions After Losing a Loved One: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09VKG7LGR/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0For more, Please visit: eggshelltherapy.comAbout Imi:imiloimilo.com Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/eggshelltransformationsNewsletters: https://eepurl.com/bykHRzDisclaimers: https://www.eggshelltherapy.com/disclaimers Trigger Warning: This episode may cover sensitive topics including but not limited to suicide, abuse, violence, severe mental illnesses, relationship challenges, sex, drugs, alcohol addiction, psychedelics, and the use of plant medicines. You are advised to refrain from watching or listening to the YouTube Channel or Podcast if you are likely to be offended or adversely impacted by any of these topics.Disclaimer: The content provided is for informational purposes only. Please do not consider any of the content clinical or professional advice. None of the content can substitute professional consultation, psychotherapy, diagnosis, or any mental health intervention. Opinions and views expressed by the host and the guests are personal views and they reserve the right to change their opinions. We also cannot guarantee that everything mentioned is factual and completely accurate. Any action you take based on the information in this episode is taken strictly at your own risk. For a full disclaimer, please refer to: https://www.eggshelltherapy.com/disclaimers/
Matthew McKay, PhD, cofounder of New Harbinger Publications, joins us to talk about evidence-based resources and the ever-changing landscape of therapy. McKay is a professor at the Wright Institute in Berkeley, CA. He has authored and coauthored numerous books, including The Relaxation and Stress Reduction Workbook, The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook, Self-Esteem, and Couple Skills, which have sold more than four million copies combined. He received his PhD in clinical psychology from the California School of Professional Psychology, and specializes in the cognitive behavioral treatment of anxiety and depression. Buy the DBT Skills Mega Bundle—only available at newharbinger.com: https://bit.ly/37GAvAl
Most people believe the loss of the body is the loss of life, but when Matthew McKay's 23-year-old son Jordan was suddenly shot and killed, for Matthew, it was not the end of Jordan's life. It was the beginning of a quest to penetrate the veil of death through some extraordinary communications. These virtual conversations led Matthew to co-author a book, with his son. Matthew McKay, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist and professor at The Wright Institute in Berkeley, CA. The Wright Institute offers Masters and Ph.D. programs to psychologists and provides support and evaluation for the research needs of its students. McKay is also the founder and publisher at New Harbinger Publications. He is the author and co-author of many books, including: The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook: Practical DBT Exercises for Learning Mindfulness, Interpersonal Effectiveness, Emotion Regulation ^ Tolerance (coauthor Jeffrey Brantley) (New Harbinger Publications 2007) and Seeking Jordan: How I Learned the Truth about Death and the Invisible Universe (New World Library 2016).Interview Date: 4/28/2016 Tags: Matthew McKay, hypnosis, Michael Newton, Allan Botkin, Ralph Metzner, channeled writing, past life regression, Akashic records, reincarnation, afterlife, consciousness, God, time, broken vase Wabi Sabi, post traumatic growth, Death & Dying, Parapsychology/Paranormal, Intuition/Psychic, Personal Transformation
Most people believe the loss of the body is the loss of life, but when Matthew McKay's 23-year-old son Jordan was suddenly shot and killed, for Matthew, it was not the end of Jordan's life. It was the beginning of a quest to penetrate the veil of death through some extraordinary communications. These virtual conversations led Matthew to co-author a book, with his son. Matthew McKay, Ph.D. is a clinical psychologist and professor at The Wright Institute in Berkeley, CA. The Wright Institute offers Masters and Ph.D. programs to psychologists and provides support and evaluation for the research needs of its students. McKay is also the founder and publisher at New Harbinger Publications. He is the author and co-author of many books, including: The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook: Practical DBT Exercises for Learning Mindfulness, Interpersonal Effectiveness, Emotion Regulation ^ Tolerance (coauthor Jeffrey Brantley) (New Harbinger Publications 2007) and Seeking Jordan: How I Learned the Truth about Death and the Invisible Universe (New World Library 2016).Interview Date: 4/28/2016 Tags: Matthew McKay, hypnosis, Michael Newton, Allan Botkin, Ralph Metzner, channeled writing, past life regression, Akashic records, reincarnation, afterlife, consciousness, God, time, broken vase Wabi Sabi, post traumatic growth, Death & Dying, Parapsychology/Paranormal, Intuition/Psychic, Personal Transformation
About the book:• Shows how the certainty of change and loss can support rather than diminish love• Shares practices and meditations to help love endure in the face of loss, disappointment, change, or any of the ways relationships and circumstances are altered by time• Explores how to cultivate gratitude for every expression of love we encounter, strengthen compassion for others, and recognize the power of love after lifeCollaborating with his late son, Jordan, psychologist Matthew McKay offers five ways to keep love alive in a world of impermanence. He explores how to see and know what we love, how to actively care for what we love, how to have compassion for the suffering of others, how to set the daily intention to act with love, and how to turn toward rather than away from the pain of impermanence. McKay shares practices and meditations to help love endure in the face of loss, disappointment, change, or any of the ways relationships and circumstances are altered by time. He examines what love is and is not, including how not to mistake yearning and neediness for love, sex for love, and attraction to beauty for love. He shows how to cultivate gratitude for every expression of love we encounter, learn to care for things we don't like, and recognize the power of love after life--a love that reaches beyond death. He also provides concrete exercises for communicating with and channeling messages from loved ones who have crossed over.Ultimately, McKay shows that, by running from pain, we run from love. By avoiding pain, we lose the pathway to connection. Yet, by recognizing love in the heart of pain and loss, by knowing that change and impermanence are inevitable, we can navigate life with a compass pointing to love as true north, learning to love more deeply and making what we love more cherished.Matthew McKay, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist, professor of psychology at the Wright Institute, founder of the Berkeley CBT Clinic, and cofounder of the Bay Area Trauma Recovery Clinic, which serves low-income clients. He has authored and coauthored more than 40 books, including The Relaxation and Stress Reduction Workbook, Seeking Jordan, and The Luminous Landscape of the Afterlife. The publisher of New Harbinger Publications, he lives in Berkeley, California.
The loss of a loved one can be overwhelming. Grief can impact us tremendously, both mentally and physically. How do we endure grief? Can we simply forget, or "get over it?" In her new book, Marin County clinical psychologist Dr. Mary Lamia explains the science behind bereavement, from emotion to the persistence of memory, and shows people how to understand and adapt to death as a part of life. The book aims to expand our understanding of bereavement, placing it in alignment with how emotions work. Using numerous case examples and personal vignettes, Dr. Lamia's latest work helps people recognize the ways in which emotions are connected to memories and influence our experiences of loss. Dr. Lamia demonstrates how negative emotional responses experienced in grief often follow experiences with positive emotional memories. Please join us for a powerful conversation on understanding and overcoming grief. MLF ORGANIZER Patrick O'Reilly SPEAKERS Dr. Mary Lamia Clinical Psychologist; Professor, Wright Institute; Author, Grief Isn't Something to Get Over: Finding a Home for Memories and Emotions After Losing a Loved One Michael Krasny Former Host, "Forum," KQED In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are currently hosting all of our live programming via YouTube live stream. This program was recorded via video conference on May 101th, 2022 by the Commonwealth Club of California. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Dr. Matthew McKay, PhD is a professor at the Wright Institute in Berkeley, CA. He has authored and co-authored numerous books, including Self-Esteem, The Relaxation and Stress Reduction Workbook, Thoughts and Feelings, and ACT on Life Not on Anger. His books combined have sold more than four million copies. He received his PhD in clinical psychology from the California School of Professional Psychology, and specializes in the cognitive behavioral treatment of anxiety and depression. Among other accolades, he is the founder of New Harbinger Press. Dr. McKay and Dr. Hoye discuss two new books he has co-authored, Super Simple CBT: 6 Skills to Improve Your Mood in Minutes, and the Healing Emotional Pain Workbook. Topics include:•Process CBT vs. Classic CBT•The role of spirituality in healing and psychotherapy •Underlying psychological causes and constructs of psychiatric disorders and how to approach them systematicallySuper Simple CBT:https://www.amazon.com/Super-Simple-CBT-Improve-Minutes/dp/1684038693The Healing Emotional Pain Workbook:https://www.amazon.com/Healing-Emotional-Pain-Workbook-Process-Based/dp/1648480217/ref=sr_1_1?crid=AMM5TGJQ840N&keywords=Healing+Emotional+Pain+workbook&qid=1651008039&s=books&sprefix=healing+emotional+pain+workbook%2Cstripbooks%2C60&sr=1-1The Psychology Talk Podcast is a unique conversation about psychology around the globe. Your host Dr. Scott Hoye talks about psychology and behavioral health with mental health practitioners and experts to keep you informed about issues and trends in the industry.https://psych-talk.com https://www.instagram.com/psychtalkpodcast/
Nadia Last leads transformational work through 1:1 mentorship, group work, Human Design readings, and community healing events. She also hosts a podcast unpacking the changing energetic currents of our collective consciousness called, “The Current.” She is also pursuing a Master's degree in Marriage & Family Therapy from The Wright Institute in Berkeley, California. https://www.nadialast.com/
Mary C Lamia PhD joins us to discuss her new book, "Grief Isn't Something To Get Over," and how shame plays a role in suicides. Website: https://marylamia.com/aboutBIO: Mary Lamia, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst who works with adults, couples, adolescents, and preteens in her Marin County private practice. She is a professor at the Wright Institute in Berkeley, California. Extending psychological knowledge to the public has been her endeavor for many years. Lamia's opinion has been sought in hundreds of television, radio, and print media interviews and discussions, and for nearly a decade she hosted a weekly call-in talk show, KidTalk with Dr. Mary, on Radio Disney stations. Her books include: Emotions! Making Sense of Your Feelings; Understanding Myself: A Kid's Guide to Intense Emotions and Strong Feelings; The White Knight Syndrome: Rescuing Yourself From Your Need to Rescue Others; What Motivates Getting Things Done: Procrastination, Emotions, and Sucess; and The Upside of Shame: Therapeutic Interventions Using the Positive Aspects of a "Negative" Emotion.If you want go from feeling hopeless to hopeful, lonely to connected and like a burden to a blessing, then go to 1-on-1 coaching, go to www.thrivewithleo.com. Let's get to tomorrow, together. National Suicide Prevention Lifeline800-273-TALK [800-273-8255]1-800-SUICIDE [800-784-2433]Teen Line (Los Angeles)800-852-8336The Trevor Project (LGBTQ Youth Hotline)866-488-7386National Domestic Violence Hotline800-799-SAFE [800-799-7233]Crisis Text LineText "Connect" to 741741 in the USALifeline Chathttps://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/chat/International Suicide Hotlines: http://www.suicide.org/international-suicide-hotlines.htmlhttps://www.nowmattersnow.org/skillshttps://sobermeditations.libsyn.com/ www.suicidesafetyplan.com https://scaa.club/
Dr. Matthew McKay (Professor of Psychology at the Wright Institute) joined Bob Bain on Mysterious Matters to discuss his journey into conversing with his deceased son, Jordan. And he conveyed many of Jordan's messages. Bob also shared some of his own personal encounters with the other side.