38 Burst results for "Every Two"
Evangelism on SermonAudio
A highlight from Mystery Meat
"Morning. Ashley wasn't kidding. I am glad to be back. I really, really love this church. It's evident every time we go away, and I absolutely love preaching and teaching the Word of God. I get a little jealous when I'm away, to be honest with you, when I see someone else standing behind my pulpit. Just truthfully, I'm jealous over this. I love doing this. It's the greatest privilege in the world. Well, if you're just visiting us, we go through books of the Bible, and we're going through one of the, as if they can be ranked, right? But John has done some incredible work down through history. This book has been used to convert souls, the most unlikely of souls. And so whenever we have taken a little bit of a break, I've been gone for two weeks, and so some of you may have no idea. Some of you can't remember what you did last night, let alone two weeks ago, right? So whenever I'm away for a little while, I like to do a two -minute review of the purpose of the book so that you know why this book was written. In case some of you are here and are not familiar with the Bible and how it works, it's a library. As a matter of fact, biblio means library, and so there are 66 of these books, and each one of them has a different purpose. And the Gospel of John has its own unique, distinct purpose, and here's the job of every interpreter. Every interpreter's job is not to find clever ways to make it mean something that's relevant for their culture. That's not the job of an interpreter. The job of an interpreter is simple. Get in the head of the original author to the original audience. I have to try to find out what John meant. Who cares what we think it means, right? Give me an amen. We want to know what John says it means, and we want to know what John says it means to the first readers. We're not the first readers. This was written to a unique people group a long time ago in the Middle East. And so let's start up again by reframing our mind according to what the author says he wrote this for. At the very, very end of the book, it's 21 chapters long, and at the very, very end of the book, he tells us flat out why he wrote the book. Here's what he says. He says, Jesus performed many other signs, miraculous signs that is, in the presence of his disciples which are not written in this book. In other words, you're going to have to go somewhere else for those. These, the contents of this book, these have been written so that, here comes the author's purpose statement, so that you may, say the word, be. So that's purpose number one, that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. And there's a second purpose, that believing you may have life in his name. This, what you're reading, is a true, historical, eye -witness account of the life and ministry of a man who lived in the Middle East, who rose from the dead. That means, if someone raises from the dead and defeats something that you can't defeat, you should probably listen to what he has to say, don't you think? John says, I'm recording every word that man who rose from the dead had to say, so that you can, two things. One, believe, and two, live. Here's the point of the book. The point of the book is to help people believe an eye -witness account to the life of a man who died, and then three days later, got up and walked around. But it's not just so that you can say, okay, I believe. No more John. No. It's so that as you experience seasons of doubt in your life, you come back to John and say, oh yeah, this is why I should keep on believing. And when I'm struggling to believe, John will help to reaffirm your feet on solid ground, so that you go through your whole life saying, I believe. Tomorrow, I'm going to believe again. The next day, I'm going to believe again. John is for the person sitting here who's not a believer. And they know they're not a believer, and someone drug you here. You're here on purpose, and John is written for you. But John is also for the person who's been a believer for the last 66 years. And you know John, but maybe you're in a season of doubt. Maybe you're struggling because you just lost your spouse. John is a book for you. So, before we go any further and dive back into John, we are in, I started in April. That's about five months ago. We're in the fourth chapter of 21 chapters, and we're about halfway through the fourth chapter. And so, I'm sure that all of you remember exactly where we left off, but just in case there's one person who can't remember, let's repurpose our hearts. Let's go before God, every individual. I'm not going to do this for you. You're here as a worship service. That means there's a part for you. You're going to go before God right now, and you're going to say, Lord, I'm here to hear from you. And you spoke through John, and so speak to me through your servant John. Let's do it together. Father, I'm just a tool to act on behalf of the people who are here to meet with their God. As Craig said, you are a living God. No one else can claim that, but we can because Christ is alive. And so, we put our faith in you. I pray that you would help every person here to commit their heart and mind to not just listening to the word of God, but doing what it says. Lord, speak to us, for we are listening. In Jesus' name, I pray. Amen. Fourth chapter of John, it reads like a movie script. I read it again. It's like the 20th time that I've read it just this month. And this week as I was preparing, I read it, and I'm like, some chapters read like a movie script, and some are not like that. Fourth chapter of John, it literally is set up for a producer and director to just go and put this on film. And I couldn't help but this week as I was reading it, my mind went back to a show that I watched when I was growing up. It was the original Batman show with Burt Ward and Adam West from the 70s. How many of you know what show I'm talking about? Just curious. I had a feeling. I grew up on that show. My mom would put it on for me when I'd come home from school. And there was this thing that they did in the show where whenever they would transition to another part, the narrator would come on and say, meanwhile, back in Gotham City, or meanwhile in the Batcave, and then you'd see the transition. The screen would roll, and you'd hear the doodle -a -doodle -a -doo, remember? It's showing you what's happening at a different part at the same time. John 4 is written like that because the text we're going to start with opens up in a meanwhile in another part of town, and my mind just went back to the old Batman as I was raised on. Here's what you're going to learn. If you've been here for a while, then you know that we're in one of the most beautiful dialogues that really I've ever taken in history. It's between Jesus and a promiscuous Samaritan woman, and he is tender with her. Isn't he tender with her? We're going to get back to that dialogue next week, but the writer, the narrator of the story, interjects. He pauses the story, and he wants you to stop thinking about the woman and Jesus for just a moment because there's an absolutely important lesson that Jesus wants to teach his disciples, and it is a major, major pause. And so this morning, I invite you to turn in your Bibles to John 4. We're going to start in verse 31, and we're going to go down through 38. Not very much, but it's a meanwhile, so you can see the screen roll in your head, and here's what it says. John 4, 31 through 38.
CoinDesk Podcast Network
Fresh update on "every two" discussed on CoinDesk Podcast Network
"Allison, thank you so much for joining us here today on Gen C. We are so thrilled to have you as a guest. Thank you for having me. I'm excited. Yeah, I would love to have you share a little bit about yourself and your journey, how you landed in this role towards Gen C community. Yeah, thanks. I had a weird nonlinear path into leading the marketing team here at State Farm. I've actually been at State Farm for about two and a half years, but almost my entire career, nearing three decades, was in the Bay Area, where I was born and raised, in the high-tech industry. And most of the time, other than when I was on the agency side early in my career, it was at Hewlett-Packard and Intel. Two small companies no one's ever heard of. Yeah, right. Exactly. So global marketing, always high-tech, always started out on the public relations, so narrative side of marketing, and sort of expanded over time from there. But it was kind of interesting. I didn't start in marketing. I was in pharmacy school, actually. And from a very early age, I thought, I'm going to be a pharmacist. And I'm an only child, and so my parents were telling everybody, our lovely child is going to be a pharmacist, whatever that means. And three years into a doctor or pharmacy program, as I'm counting pills, five, 10, 15, 20, I decided, I don't think I can do this for the rest of my life. And went into an advertising class, the heavens parted, angels were singing down on me, and I thought, I'm with my people. So I kind of had this starting on the science-y side, pivoting over to the advertising and marketing side, being in high-tech in Silicon Valley my entire life, and really digging in there to kind of marry that love of tech and just being in Silicon Valley, it just sort of all collided there. And then State Farm called, and I didn't see it coming. So for me, changing out of the Bay Area, moving from California, where I'd been my entire life, leaving an industry where I was cemented and loved, meaning technology, and going over to one country of marketing versus global marketing was definitely not something I saw coming. Allison, to paraphrase the John Mulaney line. I love him. If I had a nickel for the number of people who started out in pharmacy, who ended up being guests on Gen C, I'd have two nickels, which is not very much, but more than one would expect. Very good. I love that. Oh my God, so somebody else started in pharmacy. Jeff Carvalho from Heisnabiety. Yeah, we need to connect to Jeff. Both started out in the pharmacy business. So there's something clearly about pharmacy and innovation that just goes hand in hand. Allison, speaking of which, I don't think the general public looks at State Farm or even the insurance industry in general as being one that really focuses on innovation, but clearly there's a lot in it. And especially when you think of just the realities of like complex financial instruments, there's a lot there. I'm just interested in like, what's that sort of inside look at your process? What does innovation mean to you and to the role that you are in? Yeah, so for me, I lead marketing at State Farm and I'm bringing with me that technology, innovation, mindset and spirit, which is I think what they were interested in when they were looking for somebody to take over the department and looking outside. State Farm doesn't go outside its doors very often and not at the executive level. So I think that sort of tied to innovation was something that they were interested in and looking for. From the minute I walked in the door here, I started marketing programs that had an innovation slant to them. So I'll give a couple of examples. One was when I was early on, we had a matchup between Patrick Mahomes and our then also Ambassador Aaron Rodgers. They were playing each other in a football game, which doesn't happen very often conference wise. And we wanted to make a big team State Farm innovative activation around it. So what we did was I brought an activation that I had experience with on the tech side at Intel in particular. And it was an augmented reality, I'll call it game, little football find, little footballs you could see in your phone no matter where you were in the entire country. And we were engaging current and potential customers around the country. And what we gave as one of the enterprises was NFTs. And this was when NFTs were six months old. So it was not something that the insurance category would have thought like, why are you doing an augmented reality game? What are you giving away NFTs? What is going on? And for me, it was all about capturing customers, something interesting, intriguing and different using innovation to be at the forefront of marketing. But not only for the earned media sake of it, like, whoa, isn't that interesting? Look what State Farm is doing. But it was for that connection to the customer. And to me, growing up in technology in Silicon Valley, the synopsis is that fire when you're doing something and it's fun and dopamine is spiking and you're trying to win an NFT, something that was so brand new and weird and different. We had dwell times of over 14 minutes on that game. And that was extraordinary plus opt ins to play the game. And so for us, we were doing it using innovation as that way in spiking that love inside the players, giving an experience that was new and different in a category that wasn't activating that way. And that's just like an example. I'm sure we'll talk about what we did on the metaverse coming up, but that was one of them. And so for me, bringing that love of innovation, trying new things, being on the forefront, but marrying it with actual ROI from a marketing perspective, dwell time, engagement, opt ins, those were also measures that were really important to us. I think that there's a little bit of a misnomer that we give to these experiments, which I just think we should recognize, which is you said, oh, well, yes, this is our media thing. Sometimes like marketing is about attention. There's nothing wrong also with doing things for earned media, because frankly, it's a cheaper way than doing it to buy those impressions. So I do think this idea of like the innovation as stunt gets a bad rap, because I think you guys were trying something really interesting and new. You probably got a ton of our media, which never hurts because it makes State Farm, the brand be seen as innovative and forward thinking, which is never a bad look for something. I just wonder, like I know Avery, you probably counsel people all the time on this, but I do think there's a challenge sometimes that marketers like, oh, I don't want to do a stunt, but sometimes like stunts are exactly the right marketing play. I think no one wants to do a stunt, but everyone wants earned media is something that I've heard in my time working with a lot of different brands. And Alison, I think you mentioned that you started your marketing career in PR, so you probably have that sort of muscle built. What is going to get people talking? What is going to generate earned media? What is relevant enough for consumers to care and want to engage with State Farm for 14 minutes, which is an astounding amount of time when you compare that to time spent doom scrolling on TikTok. And you know, how do you use innovation as that like relevance lever to build that experience, I think is so incredible. And I think you all did the same thing on Roblox. You mentioned AR, you mentioned NFTs. State Farm was also one of the first movers on Roblox from a brand perspective. What sort of sparked that? Was that all kind of part of your plan coming from this tech world? Yeah, so we happened to coincide, a couple of things came together. So we have a really great partner in iHeartMedia. We've been partnering with them for a long time and doing some innovative things in audio in general. And it was about to be our 100th birthday anniversary as a company. And so I was already here for about a year already had that augmented reality NFT activation under my earned media plus plus plus plus. And we were thinking about the 100th anniversary and what could we do from an innovation standpoint. So we were talking to iHeart, they had this metaverse idea. And this was when metaverse was still the only thing anyone was talking about. NFTs had been it and then bam, pivoted over to metaverse. And for us, we also in the real world are known for stadium naming rights and in sports. And so we have experience with our name out there in the real world, and experiences around people's passion points, you know, when they go to a game, when they go to a concert, things like that. So iHeart was looking to build iHeartland on two different platforms on Roblox and in Fortnite. And we wanted to take the State Farm Park naming rights in those experiences. So that was kind of number one. So number one was tying our in real world and what authentically people have seen us and are comfortable with our name and how we show up in the world and applying to this new location, if you will, the metaverse. Also, it was important to me that on our 100th anniversary, the only insurer and to this day, by the way, who made the announcement that we are not just gonna be in the metaverse, we are in the metaverse. And when I say we, I mean not only our naming rights, but Jake from State Farm. So we had had experience with him in NBA 2K. He was the first non-playable character on that game for quite a while and our partnership with the NBA was a really great start of that. And we were measuring and learning things like in NBA 2K, now I'm speaking, an avatar like Jake, thinking forward to the metaverse, there. So will anyone come up to and interact with an insurance character, right? Like maybe they won't. Yes. If they do, how long? Dwell time. If they engage for a period of time, can he, that Jake, get them into the neighborhood goods store, which was right there in the amphitheater area or front area of the game? If they go in the store, will they look at khakis in red? Will they buy the articles of clothing and will they wear them around the game? So it's like each one of those is yes, yes. How long? How often? Where? What happens? And so we'd already had kind of a metaverse-like experience for a long time with that character. So it wasn't a leap for us. Again, it would be authentic to us. We are already playing in that space. So let's not just say we're going to be in the metaverse. Let's have naming rights like the real world. Let's put Jake in this experience like we had already in NBA 2K. And we knew the kind of things that got people to interact with that character. And we would just test and learn more and grow and amplify that experience on Roblox. So for us, the metaverse was like a natural next step. Innovation was really important to me. Our 100th anniversary and saying we were there was really important to me. Speaking of earned media, another thing, stunt or otherwise, and even more so the ROI measures that we could get with a younger customer in a situation that we didn't have a lot of experience in, but we had more than others did. Allison, to me, this also really reinforces a thesis that we've been speaking about at least for the last couple of weeks and it's been playing on repeat in my head, which is this idea that we should be looking at immersive spaces as experiential. I cut my teeth in the experiential industry for many, many years. I know the power of building experiences, but when you talk to Angelique over at Allo and she's like, we're approaching 100 million people coming through the Allo experience in Roblox, there's no way any experience would ever do would get that amount of engagement. And they're spending more minutes per person than you get on a TV spot. So I also think that there's something that's, a really great lesson in what you're saying, because you had already had these physical experiences in naming rights on parks and deals with the NBA. And now it's like, how can we personify those in other digital spaces? But it sounds like, which I really love is the idea of how do we kind of closely replicate, but also enhance what our IRL experience is. So we're doing the same naming bits and you see the same kind of signs you would see at a stadium as you would in a virtual stadium. But now the fact that I can be a player who's wearing Jake's and his red shirt is like, there's like a nice meme factor about that. There's like a lot of really good stuff there that I think just are great lessons for our audience to think about, which is that these immersive spaces over time, especially you're going to get more people coming through a Roblox, coming through a Fortnite than you're ever going to get going to the Coachella tent. Yes. And it's so funny you said that because we've done some concerts with I Heart in these parks, I Heartland State Farm Park. And exactly what you're saying, I'd just like to amplify here, like Charlie Puth was one of the first concerts and millions of people versus State Farm Stadium, we can get, I don't know, you know, however, tens of thousands to a concert, for example. And so I Heart and State Farm talked a lot about democratizing access and the ability for people who couldn't get to a concert in real life, couldn't see, afford, travel, whatever. The date doesn't work for them that Charlie comes to their town. But to be able to have this really cool immersive experience in a platform or on a platform in Fortnite on Roblox, where they already are and love and love to be. That was really important for us too. So understanding the customer and showing up where they are not forcing them to try to come to us because again, we also know we're an insurance brand. I mean, I'm not under any notion of delusion here that people love insurance and think about it all day long. They don't. And so we've got to really be out there in ways that are interesting, intriguing, and we have to keep upping our game and innovation is a way to do it. Speaking of innovation, Alison, I love that you just sort of called that out. Insurance is not on everyone's mind day to day, although I just renewed with State Farm. I just switched my homeowner's insurance, bundled it with my car insurance. It is actually on my mind right now. I love the customer service. It was great. And as you think about Web3 and those customer relationships, how is State Farm starting to embrace this? Because you all have done some stuff in the metaverse. You've done some stuff in AR. You've really put your flag in the sand and being a brand that stands for innovation. How are you thinking about this sort of macro world of Web3? We have a labs team too, so beyond marketing. Sam, we love Sam. Yes, yes. That has been working a lot on how we are thinking about Web3 and blockchain in particular for customer data, privacy. As an insurance company, we have to handle a lot of data and where the innovation team and the marketing team work together so well is that I have to make sure that people feel safe and comfortable interacting with State Farm. That's the brand, if you will. And then Web3 allows this anonymous wallet of data. But as long as a customer opts in, we love that. We're happy for customers to be in control. Privacy is paramount to us. We understand the needs and how critical that is for our customers in this category. And so we've done some tests around payments. We've done tests. Even people probably don't know insurance companies pay each other. So this public knowledge USAA and State Farm have been using Web3 for the payments that we make to each other securely, quickly, efficiently. I just want to pause because that is a huge thing and I don't think a lot of people know this. Right. They hear about the brand marketing earned media activations and not so much about the enterprise use cases that are already happening. Huge institutions like State Farms have these teams dedicated to figuring this out and thinking about how to leverage this in a sustainable way. So I just want to double tap on that point. Thank you for that. Yeah, it's payment processing available for on-chain data, for automation, less customer action required, privacy, all of that. We've been doing it. And we're a little bit ahead of our time in a couple of places where the industry, you know, it's hard. It's like, okay, USAA and State Farm and do we as an industry want to jump on this? Is it their thing? We want our thing. So there's a lot, you know, and it keeps changing. Technology changes all the time. So our labs team is on the cutting edge doing more than we realize. Like a long time ago, State Farm was using drones for surveying damage over where humans can't be. And it's funny, my Intel, one of the business units we have was commercial drones when I was at Intel, and trying to show use cases of where drones could go fly over in the middle of the ocean for oil rigs and over places where humans can't be. And State Farm has been using them for a long time. That's not web three. But my point is, all of these different technologies that we're using in concert to be more efficient, to have less strain on resources, to help the customers faster, better, to be in places more quickly than we could otherwise, you know, and catastrophes are right, wrong, good or bad. That's where State Farm shines. And being there for our customers in their greatest time of need. And if we can do that more quickly, that matters a lot. And Allison, insurance is a moment in need sort of product, right? Like not everyone, despite Avery, is thinking about insurance 24-7. That's right. Just like once every two years. Once every two years, right. But so I do think that there is something interesting because I think there are those moments, right? I'm moving, I'm buying a house, I'm selling a house, I'm buying a car. Like there are times when you think about insurance. They're called life events. State Farm has definitely heard of them. Yes, exactly. So there's those times when you think about it. But as we also know, the landscape of digital products, the landscape of immersive products, all of these things are growing so rapidly and changing and falling in favor and out of favor. How do you, because I think what it sounds like is you're really trying to have innovation be part of the core DNA of the brand and the marketing brand, especially. How do you sort of keep it on the cutting edge without expending so many resources to say we have to be in this specific platform today or that specific platform tomorrow? Like how do you pick and choose? So we have a part of our budget that we have set aside for innovative activations and thinking. You know, another one that we did that I thought was pretty innovative is gamerhood. So we created an entire gaming neighborhood that was broadcast in a five-week weekly series on Twitch and YouTube and tied in insurance messaging lightly. It was not heavy on that, but a really fun environment. And my point of that is we start with who's our customer, where are they, and what are they doing? They're on Twitch and on YouTube gaming. Who do they follow? These influencers. Let's go talk to them. How can we activate an insurance message? Use Jake in that audience as an example. And then how do we make it fun and that they're going where they already are? I'm not trying to pull you to come to me. And so the innovation comes there and we have a bit of money that is I'll say set aside. We know we're going to use it and we say, look, we have the ability to spend a little more resources, people, money when we come up with those gems like the augmented reality NFT game, like metaverse activation, like this gamerhood challenge. While we're still keeping all of what people know and love about us, leaning heavy into sports, those passions, leaning heavy into using audio differently. Our jingle is another one that with iHeart is a really nice tie in the metaverse and in audio. And so my point is the expectation is we do what we do and we do it well and that we exercise this muscle that can be implemented in a way that's new and different. So for me, it's hard. I brought in in addition to our agency roster that we had when I walked in, I added a couple in the experiential messages, thought leadership things that we would do. And because we had more of that outside in from the tech industry, from partners I had in the past, that it was just a beautiful mix of different agencies and partners thinking about our brand, keeping consistent the things that we do really well, but having that space to add in some new ideas every once in a while and not overtaking the team, but where they will pop. I love that. And you all have had a lot of pops in the last two and a half years when you've been leading the marketing group. And I always feel like it's helpful for our audience to hear a little bit of the things that don't pop, right? And that's part of that innovation journey. Is there anything that comes to mind when you think about something that you thought would be a great move? They're like, oh, that wasn't the best thing or this didn't work out in the short term, but in the long term it did. One of those sort of like failures that led to success. Yeah, you know, because I grew up in tech, so what I also didn't do in the early 40s or 43 years. So in the 70s, I was growing up as a kid and seeing a female in the 70s heading into Silicon Valley and going head to head with these heady tech male dominated industry and seeing her never fail. And at a company like Hewlett Packard that was so, you know, darling of Silicon Valley. And I say that to say, and tech is go launch, fail, learn, keep going. It wasn't a fail fail. It was just, okay, what's the next thing we're going to do in tech? And for me, I just have that mindset. And so I don't feel like there was a failure. What I feel like is launching things that were ahead of their time or launching things that competitors like to point back to. So the NFTs, we got people like, oh, what NFTs. And then we didn't do it again. But that doesn't mean that was a failure. It was amazing. We got 14 minutes of dwell time, so people could win an NFT. Win, right? Or metaverse. It's like, what is an insurance company doing in the metaverse? We're connecting with current and future customers in a meaningful sticky way where they are. And metaverse isn't being talked about in the same exact way. And we know, and this audience knows Web3 is not metaverse. We know that. Sometimes gets talked about that way. But it's still not a mistake to be there and to show up in places. So that's kind of my approach with the failure question is, hey, now what's the next thing? If I don't do NFTs for 14 minutes of dwell time next time, what will we do? And be open to the possibility that trying a new hot thing is not ever going to be a mistake ever. I love that you sort of went there because the other person who has that same exact theory is my boss, Gary. We've never had a mistake. We're only sometimes ahead of our time. And I love that attitude. It's so true to tech. It's like, you know, in my time at Google as well, nothing's a fail or a flop. It's like, oh, we were a little ahead of people on this one. Moving on, moving on. I think that attitude fosters a culture of innovation, fosters a culture of risk taking. Well, and I will tell you, what I have learned in my two and a half years in the insurance industry is it's actually we're in the risk business and specifically no risk business. So this technology person from the Bay Area who's like, let's do the metaverse. It was a little bit like, oh, I'm not speaking for the legal team here at State Farm, but they were probably like, oh my gosh, who did we just bring in and what is going to happen to us here in the world? And so, you know, the antibodies come out, especially in a risk adverse industry about innovation. So that's why I have to be double, triple sure that the things I'm going to stick my neck out for here are tried and true in a way. Like I knew the Intel, I knew NFTs would be of interest because they were all the rage. So taking enough of the comfort where you're not really putting the business or the company, of course, at risk, real risk, but that is a risky marketing activation. But I will say, and maybe I can say this and you can't considering our different roles, but I think bold, brilliant marketers take calculated risks. And I think that having a bit of a risk tolerance level is inherent to being successful in the marketing world, whether it's you, whether it's Linda Boff, whether it's Raja Mastercard, there are things that could have blown up in everyone's faces. So I think that whether it's working in the creator economy, whether it's working in new technologies, creative technologies, AR VR, immersive worlds, the fact that you did NFTs alone, like all of that stuff, there is some risk element because you're kind of also leaving the opportunity in the hands of other people to build the brand. I do want to say, I think that even though you're in an industry that is about avoiding risk and about mitigating risk, I think there is a boldness to creative and thoughtful marketers that are willing to say, I'm going to take some chances here. And, you know, one out of a hundred may not work, you know, but that's worth the risk and the reward. Right. As long as we're keeping true to our brand, authentic to what makes sense for where we show up and how we show up to me, that's where, you know, so the level of risk, is it worth it? Is it really risky or is it just something we're not familiar with activating? It's that like, what kind of risk are we even talking about here? And I have always done things that are different. I remember at Intel, speaking of commercial drones, we did two things that were really interesting and different. I was the head of brand globally, and we were trying to show how the brand would be appealing and interesting across consumer and commercial minds and people, so broadly everyone, but also highlighting the technology. So we use drones to repair the Great Wall of China was one of them. And we use drones to go over whale colonies, Snotbot it was called, where the DNA from the blowhole was captured on the drone and brought back safely to the ship. So you could test all the whales, not find one spirit, cut its flesh and only test the one. So my point is finding something that's true to the product you're trying to sell, the company that you represent, the values that you are espousing in the world, but doing it in a way that is like, I always call it the Chris Griffin filter. That's my husband, Chris Griffin, 30 year retired San Francisco juvenile probation officer, so could not be more different from me in tech and in marketing. And I would always talk to him about like, is it cool if a drone and Intel were repairing the Great Wall of China? It is one of the seven wonders of the world. And it was like, Chris Griffin, you know, the probation officer was like, oh, that's pretty weird. That would get my attention. I wonder what they're doing. And so it was always with that filter. And I think that and bring that into State Farm and say, look, we have the permission because we're the leader in the United States and insurance, we can lead the way and be a thought leader, do things differently, show up differently in the world. We have to give ourselves that permission because of our position in the market. And as long as we stay true to who we are. And we also would not have those lovely drone light shows that power Burning Man all night long if it wasn't for Intel bringing that to the Super Bowl and for the fireworks shows. Yeah, we opened the Olympics. Actually, that was one of the hardest because it was in the winter and in Korea. And so interesting to be able because we were an Olympic sponsor to do stuff like that. I was so excited about those kind of campaigns. And I think taking chances on things like that was also just, it didn't occur to me that that was risky in that same way. It was well, that's what I do as a marketer. I love your history of sort of doing these innovative things that are always like tied to relevance and drive business results. I think that's exactly how marketers are pushed to think about innovation. How can innovation drive growth and State Farm hasn't existed for 100 years doing the same media plan. It's changed a lot. We have to. And it will change a lot. And it has to change a lot. If you look like into the future, any things that are interesting to you as you start to shape your 24, 25, 26 sort of strategy, what are the things that you think we're going to see really take off that you've maybe done some early pilots with that you could see scaling up much more broadly. So in my past, I always liked product placement, actually didn't do it very often had to be in the right places. And it's been around for a long time, you know, a Coca Cola can in a movie that an actor is drinking, you know, soap operas, yes, wherever. So it was interesting. And to me now, getting our brand in content. So we're working differently with media partners now. And I say this, you know, meet with our media partners all the time, we're a big advertiser, right. So we're very fortunate for the access that we have to some of the biggest media people across around the world, really. And I'll say to them, now, don't freak out about what I'm gonna say, stick with me, and you'll end up understanding. But I'm not that interested in the 32nd spot in between commercial breaks. Now, of course, we're still going to do it. I'm in one of the most competitive categories in the country, and I will and we have to. So I don't mean I'm not going to but you know, where I'm really interested. I'm interested in weaving into the storyline, product placement but in the storyline of the actual show, so that my brand lives on beyond a 32nd spot, that when the show gets replayed a year later, my commercial is not the one that's hitting. 20 years later, look at the researches we're seeing of Suits and Friends and all these shows. Correct. So let me talk about Roblox for a second because similar. Our jingle, the nine note jingle, Like a Good Neighbor State Farm is there, I will spare you and not sing it. That jingle is important. The words, Like a Good Neighbor State Farm is there are important. Our logo, the three ovals is important. And so we put that on Roblox in iHeartland in a couple of ways. So Jake is there, number one, but it's an audio experience that iHeart had on the Roblox platform. It's like be a radio pioneer. And so we said, alright, so let's integrate the sound. So when you're playing a couple of the games that you can do inside that environment, so the logo is turned down and it's a stepping stone ladder to get to a better viewing location of State Farm Park, number one, connecting all that. If you do this and interact with our brand, you get a logo. And when you jump on the logo, I think it's the five note, not the nine note plays. And so these interesting ways to put your brand and keep that slow drip of our assets in the minds of current and potential customers, I think is really interesting. And so that's like another, you know, thinking about pulling audio and not visual as well. So we can expect Jake to be in next season of Yellowstone, it sounds like, as a character. The hot cowboy like wearing the khakis and the red shirt. I know, wouldn't that be fun? We can put Jake almost anywhere. Jake on a horse. It's on a lot of people's mood boards right now. Allison, thank you so much for your time. It was wonderful to hear the stories. There's so many lessons in this episode. So really just thank you for being here and we appreciate all of that. I love the opportunity to talk about the fun stuff. And I appreciate the platform here to get my juices reinvigorated again too, and the questions that you asked. And you know, it's always good for marketers to go back to their own personal why, and you've brought out some of my personal why. So thank you for the opportunity. Thank you so much, Allison. Avery, Allison, Dynamo, what a great conversation. Thank you for arranging that. That was incredible. I know we've been like trying to reschedule with her for so long, but I'm glad we really got it over the finish line. Her and her team are amazing. I want to shout out Baldwin Cunningham, who first kind of brought us into that, who is amazing. I love Baldwin. Baldwin leads their State Farm Labs team is also fantastic. I think when people think about insurance, they think it's all like stodgy and you're like, actually, there's part of that. But there's also like so much innovation that happens at these companies. And it's so cross-functional, like it's a massive company. And Allison absolutely nailed it with insights. I love that she brought in her history from Intel and from HP, everything from drone shows to AR to Metaverse. She really knows herself. To me, that's the big takeaway, which is being bold, but also really putting innovation at the core of your marketing strategy is the way you succeed as a marketer today. It's not 30-second spots anymore. It's not banner ads anymore. It's not newsletters like those are in the toolkit, but it's not the way to really make a difference. And I really love Allison's approach to that. So that was amazing. All right, Avery, until next week, super excited for our next guest, super excited for this guest, super excited that you are who you are. Thanks for that, Sam. Right back at you. And thank you, Gen C community for tuning in. I think this is one of our best episodes ever. So let us know what you think in the comments, hit us up with other suggested guests, and we will see you all next week.
Evangelism on SermonAudio
A highlight from Anti-Evangelism, Faltering Faith, and Gods Saving Grace
"Alright everybody, grab your Bibles and turn with me to Ruth chapter 1. Ruth chapter 1 and we will begin looking at verses 6 through 22. Ruth chapter 1 verses 6 through 22. And if you would allow me to pray for our time together. Father God, we need your help this morning. I need your help this morning. We know that everything that we are doing from this pulpit is completely unhelpful unless you bless it. And so we ask that you would do the work that you have promised to do. That you would convict sinners and that you would sanctify saints and that you would cause us all to stand in awe of your work and your son Jesus Christ whom you sent to be the propitiation of our sin. To be our kinsman redeemer. I ask that you would cause me to decrease and that your word would increase so that your son might be lifted high. That we might see him more clearly. That we might love him more deeply and that we might be transformed more fully into his image. So Lord illuminate these scriptures today and help us to mine the gold that exists. Help us to see it for the treasure that it is and help us to live and love out of what we mine. We ask this not because we deserve it but because Jesus Christ has merited it on our behalf and so we plead with you boldly today that you would be present here with us. Amen. The Amen. reality behind the Christian life is that your faith at times will falter. You will not live as you are to live according to the word of God as often as you would like. And the reason for that is because we are sinners and we are weak and we are feeble. And when we meet afflictions and when we meet trials and we meet different things in this world we are going to fail much like Naomi is going to fail in living out and seeing God as we ought. The question becomes how do we view that? How do we live in light of that? Well, the reality is our text is going to increasingly show us that but the book of Ruth in general is going to show us that. But more importantly what we are going to be shown in the text here is that though our faith at times does in fact falter and fail God is still ready and willing to extend his grace sovereignly to save sinners and sanctify saints. And what that means for you and I is that we can trust God even in our failures. Now what I'm not trying to do is get anyone off the hook. We're going to see Naomi fall on her face in a lot of different ways. And we want to guard ourselves by the power of the Spirit from making those same kinds of mistakes and committing those same types of sins. As a matter of fact that's one of the reasons that this is written. Second Timothy 3 .16 says that all scripture is God -breathed and it's therefore our what? Instruction. And so as we look at Naomi I want you to identify with Naomi and I want you to identify with Ruth but I want you more than that to be instructed by this book and to see God more clearly so that you might love him more deeply so that you could worship him more fully. We're going to see that Ruth has a huge problem with evangelism that is she doesn't do it. She actually engages in a type of anti evangelism and yet God still works in that to save a sinner.
Evangelism on SermonAudio
A highlight from Evangelism: Muslims and Mormons
"Of things, looking at how when we speak and reach out to those who are around us, specifically we'll be talking about Muslims, Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, and then atheists as well. What are some things that as we seek to point them to Christ, what are ways in which we can engage them well? And so we are going to do those things together here. And with anything that you talk about, especially other world religions, I know pastor has been going through different denominations in the morning and kind of looking at some different aspects of denominations. I thought this would kind of be somewhat in line with that, looking at other religions and ones that are a little bit more common to you and I, maybe some less than others, but how is it that we can engage with them well? And of course, many things can be said about Jehovah's Witnesses, what they believe, Muslims, what they believe. And so the point of this isn't to give an exhaustive discussion about everything in which a Muslim or a Mormon might believe, but just to give us some handles that we can hold on to in our brains as we discuss the gospel with them. I know for myself, sometimes if I see someone on the side of the road and let's say I know they're a Jehovah's Witness, you know, there was times in my life where I would say like, ah, well, I don't really want to engage with them because I don't really know what they believe and I don't know how to answer all their questions, so I'm just going to, you know, I'm not going to talk to them. Whereas with Mormons, I had a lot more understanding of Mormonism and I had talked to a lot more Mormons. When a Mormon would come to the door, I'd be like, ah, come on in guys, like you want to come in? I'll get you some water? I'm like, let's chat. Because I had a better understanding of the Mormon faith and I felt like I was ready to engage them. I felt like I was ready to have an answer for questions and try to point them to the gospel. And so the point of all of this is to equip us as a church, to equip us as saints, as we go out into the world, at your jobs, in your neighborhood, with your family members. We might not all have a Mormon cousin, but you probably have an atheistic coworker. And so being able to engage them with the gospel and feeling that you are equipped, and I know many of us are, many of us are, so I hope this will just be a supplemental help to you in that endeavor. And so we're going to begin working through these notes. And if you look at your notes, the first one is Islam. And I recognize that Islam is not huge in the Midwest, in Omaha, Nebraska in particular. For sure there are Muslims. I've talked to a few since we've been here, walking around different parts of Omaha, but you almost have to go and find them. But I'm sure that even, I know, I'm speaking to Dan Williams and others that there are coworkers even here in Omaha that are, hold to the Islamic faith. And so I want to walk through each one of these religions together, give us a little brief understanding of their history. And because Islam is so big, where we are in Mombasa, a large portion of Mombasa is Islamic. A lot of times you'll have Somalis in particular that we're working with. The father will be here working in America and he will, they'll live here as a family for many years, but eventually as the kids get older, they send their kids back to a place like Mombasa because it's not, you know, a war -torn place like Somalia, but there's a large Islamic influence there and they want their children to be brought under that Islamic influence. And so we'll have a lot of Somali Muslims that are there, the kids in the model are there, and they're being taught and trained in that Islamic culture, and while the dad is here in America working and supporting them. And so there's Muslims here and I hope I'm writing that. I hope, I know a lot of times we can be afraid of Muslims, but there's, for the most part, there's no reason for that theory. So what I want to do is spend a little bit more time on Islam because again, it's something that we have been very, very engaged in, spending many hours talking with Muslims, and so it will be a little bit more in -depth, but I will try to walk through this one quickly. So today for the Sunday School, September 24th, Understanding the Other Side, we're going to be looking at Islam and Mormonism. Just out of curiosity, just out of curiosity, how many of you have either, you know, neighbor, relative, co -worker, whatever, who is Muslim, Mormon, Jehovah Witness, or atheist? Just raise your hand. Just probably raise your hand. So at least somebody, right? There's somebody. Now if he just said Muslim, there might be like two hands that go up, but that's all right. We'll get to the others, okay? So very briefly, I'm going to try and be brief, okay? I was trying to be brief with these notes and they ended up being 11 pages, so not off to a good start, but that is all right. So as you've seen in your notes, Islam, A, the history of Muhammad, early life. So of course, whenever you speak of Islam, you're speaking of Muhammad, and so if you talk to any Muslim, they will talk to you about the prophet Muhammad, and then they'll go on to say, just be upon him and ramble on these Arabic blessings about his name, but Muhammad was born in AD 570 and he died in AD 632. And in his life, living in Saudi Arabia, born in the city of Mecca, he had a rough childhood. His parents both passed away as a young boy. As a six -year -old boy, he went off to live with his uncle, or his grandfather, and then as an eight -year -old, as his grandfather died, he went off to live with an uncle, and so he was kind of moved around from family to family. He joined in the family business of being a camel caravan driver, so he would go on all of these long trips across Saudi Arabia, Syria, with his uncle and others that they were working for, traveling all over the place, delivering goods. At that time, in Saudi Arabia, of course, at this time, it was not an Islamic country as we think of it today, but there was all sorts of Gnostic Christianity, which is no Christianity at all. It taught a dualistic type religion and many, many problems with some Judaism, other pagan religions, polytheism. There's just a hodgepodge of religion going on in Arabia at that time. And so Muhammad would have come across all of these things as he's traveling around, listening to stories, discussing with other people. The Quran itself tells us very little about Muhammad himself. We don't really understand much about Muhammad at all if you've got random passages that don't really connect with anything, and you have to have some sort of grid to really be able to understand that. And you find that grid within the other important literature in Islam, which are the Hadiths, the Sirat, and these other religious important books that give the traditions and the understanding of who Muhammad was and what he did and all of that. And so in the Islamic literature, we discover these things about Muhammad, where he was and what it was like for him growing up and these other things. And so you might think, okay, you know, the pastor's going through Quranicals, and so we don't really want to go through any more genealogies with Muhammad and figure out who his grandpa and all of those people were. And that's not the point of discussing him being moved around and all of these things. But it is important to note that Muhammad was exposed at a young age as he's traveling all over to various religions. He's hearing different stories as he's traveling around. He's hearing stories from Gnostic Christians, again, who are not Christians at all. And if you read and study the Quran, you find that Muhammad oftentimes quotes things in the Quran that he either thinks are biblical excerpts, or he thinks that they come from the Jewish scriptures in the Old Testament. But as a matter like the Arabic Infancy Gospel of Matthew and these other Gnostic gospels that no Christian would have accepted, what Muhammad quotes is that he believes that they are, in fact, the Christian scriptures. And so this happens time and time again. Muhammad thinks he's quoting from the Bible, but he's really quoting from the Jewish Talmud. And this happens oftentimes. And so the understanding that Muhammad had of Christianity is by no means what you and I, and so even if you read the Quran, you see that Muhammad believes that the Trinity, the Trinity that the Christians believe in is God the Father, Mary, and Jesus. Of course, no Christian believes that the triune God is made up of Mary, and not even, if you want to try to point the finger at Catholics or Orthodox, not even Catholics or Orthodox go so far as to worship Mary. And so there's just a, in many ways, a bad understanding, for lack of a better word, a bad understanding of Christianity within the mind of Muhammad. But at the age of 25, Muhammad is employed by a woman named Khadija. He starts running his own caravan. He eventually marries this woman, and then he begins, as we get on to point number two there, Quranic Revelation, Muhammad begins to really seek after God. He wants to worship God. He wants to know God. And Muhammad goes away. He begins to go into a mountain near Mecca. He goes up into the mountain. He goes into the cave, and there he's fasting. He's praying. He's seeking to know Allah, which is just the Arabic word for God. And he wants to know God. He's trying to have a closer relationship with him. And again, for the sake of time, we're not going to go into any lengthy accounts of Muhammad and the experience he had in the cave. But what happened as Muhammad is there praying and fasting is Muhammad says that there is an angel named Jibril, which is Gabriel. And Jibril comes to him and says, Muhammad, read. And Muhammad says, I can't read. And the angel says, well, first the angel squeezes him very hard. Muhammad says it hurts him. It squeezes him very hard. And it says again, read. And Muhammad says, I can't read. And so this goes on. It's kind of like, I don't know, a Three Stooges play. But Muhammad just keeps telling the angel, I don't know how to read. And the angel beats him up a little bit and tells him to read again. And it just goes on and on and on until eventually Muhammad, you know, starts to recite parts of the Qur 'an that the angel Jibril is giving to him. And so this happens, and Muhammad comes home. As I'm quoting, I'm not quoting, but the place in which I'm getting this story from is from the Hadith, it's from the Surah, it's from the Islamic tradition itself. It's not some, you know, angry Christian writing from their seminary office saying like, ah, Muhammad was, you know, this crazy guy who's getting beat up by an angel as he's reciting the Qur 'an. And this is all from the Qur 'anic sources, Sahih al -Muslim, Sahih al -Bukhari, and so on. And so Muhammad then, he runs home to his wife, he hides under their covers, and he is petrified from what has happened. And he tells his wife, he's like, I don't know if I was meeting her with a demon or what happened, but it scared me and it hurt me and I don't know what happened. But his wife assures him, no, no, no, it was God, God is speaking to you, you should go back. And so Muhammad goes back, he continues to go back to this mountain, to this cave, and there he continues to receive revelations from this angel. And Muhammad goes on to say, this is a quote from, again, one of the Qur 'anic, one of the Islamic resources here, Sirah Rasula, says, Muhammad is quoted as saying, I will go to the top of the mountain and throw myself down that I may kill myself and gain rest. So I went forth to do so. And then when I was midway on the mountain, I heard a voice from heaven saying, oh, Muhammad, thou art the apostle of God and I am Gabriel. And so the Gabriel goes on to tell Muhammad, do not kill yourself, you're the apostle of God, you can't do this. But there's multiple times in the life of Muhammad while he is receiving Qur 'anic revelations where he seeks to kill himself, he tries to throw himself off of the mountain. And furthermore, there's other accounts of people saying that at that time, Muhammad was possessed by a demon. So these are just some facts to keep in the back of our mind. As we think about this, even within the Qur 'an, Surah, I had printed off, originally it was going to be in your notes, kind of a glossary of terms, because I know using a lot of these Surah and Ayah and all these type of things, you might not all know what that is, but Surah is just chapter and the Ayah is the verse. And so in the Qur 'an, Surah Adam 1, 22 to 25, 69, 41 to 42, Muhammad is trying to refute the idea that he is demon -possessed. And so he's arguing against the Jews and the Christians and are saying like, nah, we don't think you're demon -possessed, man. And he's like, no, I'm not. And he's trying to argue against that idea. And so this is just kind of a bit of a background as to how the Qur 'an was revealed to Muhammad. And so we might ask the question, well, do you think that Muhammad was just making all these things up? Is he just a total, is this all just a fabrication of his mind? I personally believe that Muhammad was not just making these things up. If you look at the scriptures and you see in the Old or the New Testament, you see various times when angels Abraham, appear to Mary, the Lord Jesus, Isaiah, there's many encounters where angels come and speak. Even the angel of the Lord comes and speaks to people. And many times people recognize that, oh man, like I am speaking to an angel and they are startled and there is awe and wonder that is within them as they speak to an angel. Not always, but we never see an angel of God coming and beating somebody up and hurting them and then causing them to become depressed and wanting to kill themselves and so on. And so what I believe is that as you look at the life and the story of Muhammad receiving the Qur 'anic revelations, his desire lines up much more with, as we read in the gospel, these, and again, not saying this to be crude or rude towards the Islamic faiths, but faith. But you see a herd of pigs when they are enveloped by demons, high -tempered toward the cliff and jumping off. We see Judas Iscariot, when he is the son of Perdition, when he is, it says, the Bible says that the devil goes into him and he betrays Christ and turns Christ over. Shortly thereafter, himself, Judas, killing, many believing, killing himself. And so it just doesn't seem that Muhammad truly had, of course we don't believe that Muhammad is a prophet of God, but it would be much more in line that, yes, Muhammad did have a revelation, but it was not from God, but rather, as we read in 2 Corinthians 11, 13 and 14, for such people are false apostles, deceitful workers, masquerading as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light.
Thinking Crypto News & Interviews
A highlight from SEC GARY GENSLER WANTS TO BLOCK COINBASE IN CELSIUS NETWORK BANKRUPTCY RESOLUTION (CRYPTO NEWS)
"Welcome back to the thinking crypto podcast your home for cryptocurrency news and interviews. If you are new here, please hit that subscribe button as well as the thumbs up button and leave a comment below. If you're listening on a podcast platform such as Spotify, Apple or Google, please leave a five star rating and review it supports the podcast and it doesn't cost you anything. Well, folks, I want to start off by talking about scumbag regulator, Gary Gensler and the SEC blocking Coinbase in their role in the Celsius network bankruptcy restructuring. This is big news, folks, because it once again shows that Gary Gensler does not care about retail investors or investors at large. He just cares about power and his next job. And the SEC has fallen far from their core mission of protecting investors. Let me give you the details. Here's the headline being reported. SEC raises concerns on Coinbase's role in the Celsius network bankruptcy restructuring. The Securities and Exchange Commission filed papers raising objections to crypto firm Celsius Networks plan to distribute digital assets to customers as part of a reorganization plan through Coinbase Celsius, which filed for bankruptcy more than a year ago, will seek bankruptcy court approval for its restructuring plan in the coming weeks. Under Celsius's proposed plan of reorganization, Coinbase will provide brokerage and master trading services to Celsius, engaging in activities that prompted litigation by the regulator, which is still ongoing, according to court papers filed by the SEC in the Celsius Chapter 11 case on Friday. The regulators sued Coinbase earlier this year, saying it operates an unregistered securities exchange. So once again, folks, we see that Gary Gensler doesn't care about you or other investors. This is about his power. We know he's unfairly going after Coinbase. The SEC greenlighted Coinbase to do an IPO review their business and much more now is trying to sue them for the same business activities that is asinine. But we know the goal, folks, what we've been talking about for a very long time is that Gary has been weaponized by the tradfi incumbents who want to stomp out crypto startups like Coinbase and others, right, kill them, kick them out, not kill crypto, but rather push these startups out so that his friends on Wall Street, BlackRock and JP Morgan and so forth can come in and take over. Because in parallel with the enforcement actions that Gary has been putting forth, we see BlackRock entering the market, right, Citadel, Charles Schwab and Fidelity launch a crypto exchange and many other big players getting involved. So how can these two things be happening in parallel, right? One hand, Gary is saying this entire market's full of hucksters, scammers, yada, yada, yet I see the biggest institutions in the world and from Wall Street launching crypto services and exchange services in custody and much more. It doesn't add up. So it's clear as day what's happening. And the fact that he's trying to block this, right, when it will help the Celsius investors to make them whole, it shows he doesn't care about the investors. He doesn't care. He just cares about his fake lawsuit here against Coinbase.
Discerning Hearts - Catholic Podcasts
Day 7 The Principalities St. Michael and the Holy Angels Novena Discerning Hearts Catholic Podcasts - burst 1
"Day 7 The Celestial Choir of Principalities The principalities are the first of the choirs most concerned with the earth and are traditionally declared to have the roles of caretakers over every nation, province, county, district, city, town, village, and house, working with the guardian angels who also are assigned to every spot and person. Two other areas of concerns for the principalities are religion and politics. The former they encourage to spread by prayer and spiritual encouragement. The latter they seek to regulate for the good of humanity by guiding the thoughts and especially the ethics what Dionysius termed the leaders of people all over the world.
Discerning Hearts - Catholic Podcasts
Day 7 The Principalities St. Michael and the Holy Angels Novena Discerning Hearts Catholic Podcasts - burst 1
"Day 7 The Celestial Choir of Principalities The principalities are the first of the choirs most concerned with the earth and are traditionally declared to have the roles of caretakers over every nation, province, county, district, city, town, village, and house, working with the guardian angels who also are assigned to every spot and person. Two other areas of concerns for the principalities are religion and politics. The former they encourage to spread by prayer and spiritual encouragement. The latter they seek to regulate for the good of humanity by guiding the thoughts and especially the ethics what Dionysius termed the leaders of people all over the world.
Discerning Hearts - Catholic Podcasts
Day 7 The Principalities St. Michael and the Holy Angels Novena Discerning Hearts Catholic Podcasts - burst 1
"Day 7 The Celestial Choir of Principalities The principalities are the first of the choirs most concerned with the earth and are traditionally declared to have the roles of caretakers over every nation, province, county, district, city, town, village, and house, working with the guardian angels who also are assigned to every spot and person. Two other areas of concerns for the principalities are religion and politics. The former they encourage to spread by prayer and spiritual encouragement. The latter they seek to regulate for the good of humanity by guiding the thoughts and especially the ethics what Dionysius termed the leaders of people all over the world.
Discerning Hearts - Catholic Podcasts
A highlight from Day 7 The Principalities St. Michael and the Holy Angels Novena Discerning Hearts Catholic Podcasts
"A novena to St. Michael and the holy angels. O God, come to my assistance. O Lord, make haste to help me. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and never shall be, world without end. Amen. Day 7 The Celestial Choir of Principalities The principalities are the first of the choirs most concerned with the earth and are traditionally declared to have the roles of caretakers over every nation, province, county, district, city, town, village, and house, working with the guardian angels who also are assigned to every spot and person. Two other areas of concerns for the principalities are religion and politics. The former they encourage to spread by prayer and spiritual encouragement. The latter they seek to regulate for the good of humanity by guiding the thoughts and especially the ethics what Dionysius termed the leaders of people all over the world. By the intercession of St. Michael and the Celestial Choir of Principalities, may God fill our souls with the true spirit of obedience. Amen. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses. As we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. O glorious Prince St. Michael, chief and commander of the heavenly hosts, guardian of souls, vanquisher of rebel spirits, servant in the house of the divine king, and our admirable conductor, thou who dost shine with excellence in superhuman virtue, thou shafed to deliver us from all evil, who turn to thee with confidence, and enable us by thy gracious protection to serve God more and more faithfully every day. Pray for us, O glorious St. Michael, Prince of the Church of Jesus Christ, that we may be made worthy of his promises. Almighty and everlasting God, who by a prodigy of goodness and a merciful desire for the salvation of all men, hast appointed the most glorious archangel St. Michael, Prince of thy church, make us worthy, we beseech thee, to be delivered from all our enemies, that none of them may harass us at the hour of death, but that we may be conducted by him into the august presence of thy divine majesty. This we beg through the merits of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Evangelism on SermonAudio
A highlight from Our Mission at EBCC
"September historically has been the kickoff month for our new church year. In the past, this month was when his kids on Wednesday evening began and when we also started up our prayer meeting on Wednesday nights after taking the summer off. But COVID kind of put a crimps on his kids as well as Stanley's stroke. And Wednesday night in Bible study actually was moved virtually before COVID but then it became virtual during COVID and has since moved to Zoom. So, you know, we still kind of consider this month as our traditional historical, our month for kicking off our new church year. This last Sunday, a past Sunday in September marks my anniversary year as your pastor here. Last week I finished 26 years of ministry here and I'm starting my 27th year. Where has the time gone? Except I see some people that I knew when they were real little kids and now they're now they're grown and married. I had part in marrying them, you know, so I do know I'm getting older but, you know, I thought about this over the passing of time with COVID and we've had deaths in our family and we've kind of been apart and now we're together again. It's very easy for us to forget why we are here, why we exist. In the midst of all the activities, we lose sight of our mission. So, on this Sunday that we have dedicated to missions with our multicultural mission event planned for tonight with Curt and Carol here with us this morning and tonight, I want to spend a few minutes this morning refreshing our memories. You know, Peter talks about refreshing memory in second Peter chapter one, about bringing back to your remembrance things I've taught you in the past. And so, I want to spend a few minutes this morning refreshing our memory and what is our mission here at EBCC? Why do we exist? Well, our mission is simply this. It's to share Christ and to build believers, to share Christ and to build believers. This is our mission statement. This is why we exist. We're here to make and build true, genuine, fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ. But how do we do that? How are disciples created and built? Now, I find this question, how are disciples created and built intriguing on two counts. First of all, we who have accepted the invitation to come to me that Jesus says, all you who labor in a heavy laden and I will give you rest. We are now Christ's disciples and we are in the process of being made or being built up in Christ.
Evangelism on SermonAudio
A highlight from The Light of Nature & Natural Law
"But then, after these first principles have arisen, he reasons from them with the help of reasoning to certain conclusions, okay? Now the way this works is, it's sounding maybe more complicated, it's simple. It works kind of like a syllogism, okay? A syllogism is just a way, it's a logical way of argumentation. So we could say Texans are born in Texas, Dennis was born in Texas, therefore Dennis is a Texan, right? There are many ways you could prove that Dennis is a Texan. But that's kind of what you're doing. You're moving from the principle Texans are born in Texas to the conclusion through reason Dennis is therefore a Texan, okay? For example, listen to how Andrew Willett explains this. And just as he has a good book on Daniel, he has a really good book, commentary on the book of Romans, and he has a whole section on natural law in that book. But he says this, he says, natural law teaches that parents must be honored and that they which disobey parents are worthy of punishment. That's the principle, two principles, okay? Parents are to be honored and they which disobey parents are worthy of punishment. Then he says, but the conscience of the guilty person comes along and supplies the conclusion.
Dennis Prager Podcasts
A highlight from Dennis & Julie: Exciting versus Enduring
"Hey everybody, Dennis Prager with Julie Hartman, Dennis and Julie. One of my favorite hour and 12 minutes of the week. Me too. Isn't that amazing? Yes. And what's also amazing is that we actually do probably three or four Dennis and Julie's a week that are not recorded because we talk on the phone so often. And sometimes, I don't know if you think this, sometimes when we're done speaking, I'm like, wish that were recorded. Really? Yes. That's an interesting point. But you know what's also great? We are very personal on this show. There's really, I can't think of many things that we talk about privately that we wouldn't talk about publicly. I think people understand that. That's why that guy called me and I've talked about this a lot, said, I have a great word for you Dennis, transparent, because I decided early on in my career that as unnatural as it seems, because people obviously hide parts of their lives from others, I thought I'm going to hide as little as possible. That's why people say to me more often than any other things when strangers meet me, you know, I feel like I really know you and I'm sorry and I say, you do. I can attest to that as someone who knows you off the air as well as on the air, listeners really do know you. It's also just easier being transparent because I can imagine that it's difficult to have to think, oh, did I say that? Should I say this? That's right. It's just kind of your default. It's like it's easier to be faithful than have an affair. Aside from all the moral issues and the hurt of my spouse, all of that stuff, putting aside that they're all real. A major reason not to have an affair is because of the amount of hiding you have to do and lying. It is not possible to have an affair and not become a serial liar. Well, one lie begets another lie, which begets another. It has to. I mean, if you say I was at the doctor's and they say, how was it? And then you go, yeah, let's say your wife runs into the doctor. You know, like it just it's this tangled web of of deceit that's I can imagine difficult to keep up. You know, in that regard, it's amazing how our conversations just developed. So I'm going to say something that will strike people at the outset as odd at best and maybe even bad at worst. So when I meet somebody who's having an affair, because people open up to me, in most instances, my first reaction, I may know more and change my reaction, is I feel bad for them. I obviously feel bad for the spouse, that's a given. But my sense is, and by the way, I believed this when I was your age, well before I was ever married. I sensed that most people who have an affair, it is not because they're bad. And oh my God, I can't believe I'm saying this to you. One of my favorite Bible commentaries is by Richard Elliot Friedman. He is a brilliant scholar, University of California, San Diego now. I think he's at the University of Georgia, a major biblical scholar. And if I say that, you can believe me because I know my Bible. And he's written a commentary on the Torah, which I love. I love it. And obviously I'm writing my own. So I refer to his. Under adultery, in other words, the commandment, thou shalt commit adultery. He wrote, I wish I had the entire, I could find it, but we don't have breaks during Dennis and Julie, but I would like to read it exactly. But he wrote, and I just read this to my synagogue this past Sabbath, I read his line about this. That good people commit adultery, and he italicized good. And I thought that this guy's human. And I've been faithful, so I have no self -interest in this. But to assume that everybody who commits adultery is evil is beyond simplistic. You commit murder, okay, if that's not evil, you could say, well, you could say a good person could commit evil, could commit murder. It's a bit of a stretch. It could happen, but generally speaking, that's not true. But anyway, good people who commit adultery, and by good, I mean the non -serial adulterers people who just go from affair to affair, I have no defense of as a human being. You mean like a one -time thing? Yes, or fell in love. If somebody falls in love with somebody else while married, it usually means there's a lot problematic in the marriage. People in love with their spouse don't fall in love with another spouse. Okay, this is such a good topic, and I want to pause and say what we always say. We had no idea that we were going to discuss this. I love that about this show. It just blossoms. Because it's real. It's real, and it's incredibly spontaneous. Okay, a lot of questions. This is where I'm going to evoke the, what do you call your radio show, the Human Laboratory? This is where this is particularly useful. So most people who tell you about their infidelity, I'm assuming most of them are male? Or is it even? Yes, that's correct. What would you say the percentage is? Of those who tell me? Yes. It's high. It's 75%. Male? Yeah. Okay. And usually, do they tell you that they're unhappy in their marriage? Yeah. And what is the most cited reason for the unhappiness? They don't feel loved by their spouse. Loved in what way? You're tough. I'm not trying to be tough. She is tough. All right. Maybe, okay. You don't want to go there. No, no. There's nowhere I don't want to go. Anyway, even if I don't want to go, I go there. That's true. So, okay. For the record, generally speaking, a man who feels sexually fulfilled with his wife is going to stay faithful. This is so foreign to women that they just have to take my word for it. That's not how women think. Women do not have affairs because they're not sexually fulfilled by their husband. Some might, I fully acknowledge, but they don't feel emotionally fulfilled. That's much more a woman's reason, and I have just as much sympathy for her as for him. It's not, all I'm saying is, and I don't even remember how we got on this, but it's amazing that we did. How did we? Yeah. It's funny. I usually remember the genesis of a subject, but all I'm saying is when I meet people, my first reaction is not, wow, that's evil. If I met a murderer, yeah, or not even a murderer. Frankly, doctors who give hormone blockers to 10 -year -olds are doing evil. I have much more contempt for them than for somebody who had an affair. Okay, so let me ask you this. Let's say you got a call from a guy who was five years into his marriage. He has three or two young children, and he calls you and he goes, Dennis, I am not happy in my marriage. It's not awful, but I'm not happy, and I have my eyes on another woman. What do I do? Do I stay in my marriage that's unhappy, or do I leave because I'm unhappy? I'd say do everything possible to make yourself happy in your marriage, which by the way involves obviously working it through with your wife, but it also involves working it through with yourself. So, I'm a guy's guy. I'm male as as they come. So, men really relate to me. Happily, a lot of women do too, but it's not the same thing. Male -male is not the same as female -male. Okay, so I understand men really well, and I explain men to women. So, both sexes have to adopt the Prager notion of not having too many expectations. I think it's fair to say, nobody says this, because sex is ironic. We have a sexually drenched society, and yet people never talk honestly about it. That is very well said. It's mind -boggling. It's mind -boggling. You're so right, and people get upset when you talk about it. That's right, because I'm honest. So here is something I would say to men, guys, just know you are not going to have the sexual life you fantasized in the vast majority of cases. It's just the way it works. You mean when you get married? Yeah, when you get married. I'm sorry, that's right. I wasn't clear. Yes, when you get married. And therefore, you enjoy what you have. Now, obviously, I'm not going to give it a time factor limit. It's different when you're 25 than when you're 55 or 75. All of that is real. But I remember when I was in high school thinking, wow, to be married, you have this woman anytime you want. Oh, gosh. Such a male thought. Exactly. This was worth the entire broadcast. My comment and your reaction? I think I represent all women. Yes, exactly. Watching and listening. And I represent all men. That's the point. So that was my fantasy in high school. Oh, my God, it must be the greatest possible situation being married. She's there whenever you want her. So men… I just looked at the camera. So men have to understand it's not going to be that way. Are there exceptions? I'm talking in general, of course, there are exceptions to every rule in life. So I really ought to, if I had the time, I would write an advice book to men. Oh, you really should. Who is it? George Gilder wrote that man book? That man book? Sexual Suicide and the Naked Nomad. He deeply influenced me. So, men need to understand… By the way, we all need to understand… I don't know what women's fantasies are about marriage. Her fantasies are not likely to be fully realized either. So it's best probably not to have fantasy… I don't care if you have fantasies, it's fine to have a fantasy life, but in the sense of directing you in your emotional reaction is not a good idea. And in your reality, it can't direct your reality too much. That's right. So I have told men, I'll tell you where I feel for men. And that is, if they're married to a woman, I'm just talking the sexual arena now. If they're married to a woman who doesn't take care of herself physically, that's given the power of looks in the human species, it's the female that attracts the male. I know there are gorgeous men who attract women, but most men are not gorgeous. What attracts women to men is not that they're gorgeous. they're Certainly when reached by age of 30, a high school girl is going to go, Oh God, is he gorgeous? Oh God, you know, that's fine, it's part of life. But one of the biggest ways you show you love your husband is by taking care of yourself physically, trying to look good. And the proof is you tried to look good when you dated. Why did you stop trying once you got married? That's not fair to him. You're right, and it's not fair when men have B .O. and also don't take care of themselves, which I know you recognize. No, of course, but that's not the same thing. The B .O. holds for both, but looking gorgeous or as gorgeous as you can, I mean, looking cute. In peacocks, the male attracts the female. In humans, the female attracts the male. It's just the way it works. And if she succeeds in doing it, he gets aroused and they make the next generation. That is how human sexuality works. I really love what you said a few minutes ago about we live in this over sexualized society that also gets so upset when people like you and me talk about sexual matters, not to overhype our importance, but people who are brave enough to talk about sex within with a Judeo -Christian good values worldview are so valuable. I don't understand. Yeah, but a lot of them do, but they're not real. A lot of the religious people who talk about sexual matters are not rooted in the real world. So what is an example? Masturbation. Wow, welcome to Dennis and Julie. But the proof is nobody feels that they can talk about it. Yes, that's true. I mean, I debated a guy, very religious guy, seen by hundreds of thousands of people on the internet. He said, masturbation is evil. And he's speaking from a religious point of view. Evil? I said, I looked at him and I said, evil? I mean, if he says it's a sin, fine. Every religion has a whole list of sins. But evil? And I challenged him. I said, are you serious? It's evil? I mean, child molestation is evil. Genocide is evil. I know. Masturbation is the charge. Of course it does. So religious, you're right about the Judeo -Christian values perspective. Unfortunately, a lot of religious people have made religion look silly and people have therefore rejected it. You know, you're right. I think a lot of people point to something like that and go, that's just, that's too far for me. It's too far, exactly. It's difficult, the job of being religious, because you obviously want to promote good values, but you also want to be real and recognize that there are certain thoughts and proclivities and actions that a lot of human beings partake in. And so it's about mitigating the, I was going to say mitigating the harm of those, but allowing them to happen as long as they don't go too far or as long as they're not harmful. Yeah, that's right. So people should read a book by an Orthodox rabbi, Shmueli Boteach, who's a well -known rabbi, B -O -T -E -A -C -H, in English, Boteach, but it's pronounced Boteach, and it's called Kosher Sex. It's a great book. That's a good title. Great title. And whole his thesis is, you keep sex within a marriage, but within a marriage, do whatever the hell you want, providing the other person agrees, obviously. And, you know, as raunchy as it may sound to the outsider, if you two agree to it, the only restriction is that it's not with another. You know, God, of course, I forgot my train of thought. I just I really marvel at how real this is. And sometimes when you make these comments, I think, God, he is gutsy. He really goes there. You know, I am gutsy. I want to tell you, this is very revealing about me. People will take it for what it's worth. I decided very early in my life, if I want to do good in this world, that's all I've ever wanted to do. I will not shy away from putting myself out there and knowing I'm going to get slapped. And that's the reason I do it. It's not fun to talk about masturbation, but I know how many people are traumatized by the message you're doing evil. And it makes religion and God look bad, and I don't like that. Mm hmm. And here's the thing, also, it's uncomfortable to acknowledge, but it's the truth. People do the like I mean, this is the whole point of the conversation. People do these things. What are we going to pretend like they don't exist? We have to deal with them. And I think it's cowardly to run away. Look, I have told you, Dennis, that I grew up in a house that didn't talk about these matters. And I'm grateful, actually, because I think there are certain boundaries that ought to be respected. And I there's a time and a place to discuss things like this, but we do have that forum to do it. And I don't understand I don't understand when people deny reality. We are seeing the harm in the United States today of denying reality, including in the sexual arena. I mean, that's this whole hookup culture thing by by contorting reality to make women believe that they want sex as much as men is harming women. Plain and simple it is. Is it uncomfortable to acknowledge the reality of males extreme sexual proclivities? Yes, but we have to because we're seeing the consequences when we don't. So I applaud you. And I do think sometimes I'm like, wow, he he's really going there. He's gutsy. But but people need a good role model for these matters. Well, you don't make a good world if you're not gutsy. True. You can't build a good world on cowardice. And it's so hypocritical because people people have sex. People do these things. And I don't I don't I dislike the people that that are on some kind of moral high ground when they talk about this stuff. It's like, please, you do it to your human being. Don't act like you don't partake in these things that you decry. Right. And some of them probably don't. But my question is, are they better human beings in general? You know, I talked I said to you what Richard Elliott Friedman said, that a lot of people who commit adultery are good people. It's because it's it's weakness more than anything or or something else. I'm not talking about serial adulterers.
Simply Bitcoin
A highlight from Saylor Now Own's Almost 1% of All Bitcoin, BUYS MORE | EP 831
"Yo intro first You're against freedom Yeah, we're gonna salute Bitcoin live we're your number one source for the peaceful Bitcoin revolution for breaking news culture manic warfare We will be your guide through The separation of money and state. I hope everyone had an amazing effing weekend I did I got to chill, you know everyone on the weekends like man like like what'd you do? What like, you know, what did you do anything crazy news, whatever? No, man I stayed home and I chilled and I relaxed because the week, you know, it's the Bitcoin rollercoaster making Bitcoin media You know, it's a grind. I'm not gonna lie It's very purposeful and I'm very very grateful and privileged Opti and I are and the rest of the simply Bitcoin crew But but it is it is quite a bit of a grind. So on weekends, I get to chill. Anyways enough of that breaking news Michael Saylor buys Even more Bitcoin the man or micro strategy better said now owns almost 1 % of all Bitcoin sky talk about Conviction this is conviction Michael Saylor is proving to the world and this is something that I've been saying guys in the next two or three years it is going to be Undeniable, it's gonna be an undeniable fact that naim bukele's Bitcoin strategy and Michael sailors strategy on the public company level is Going to be an alternative than holding fiat currencies on their balance sheets Especially with the FASB rule changes, especially with the Bitcoin ETF around the corner there They're gonna they're trying to do whatever it takes and I believe it's politically motivated I'm not the only Bitcoin or that has said this by the way That they're you know, they're trying to slow this down But it's gonna be undeniable and they're gonna have a very hard time Debunking this that Bitcoin Itself, it's just a better money It's just better money and governments are gonna have a hard time disputing that and the reason they're gonna have a hard time Disputing that number one is because they're always going to do they're always gonna want to debase their currency They can't afford the endless wars. They can't afford sending billions of dollars to Ukraine If they didn't have the money printer, so they're gonna have a really hard time explaining that away and number two Censorship, of course, right and the control on money itself, right? A lot of the reasons that the BRIC nations have sought alternatives to the US dollar Not only because the US government is printing a ridiculous amount of money but also because they've politicized the money they've weaponized the money against their political opponents and Fine, you could you can make the argument. I'm not gonna I'm not gonna make those judgments the government of North Korea are bad Okay, and the government of Russia is bad the government of Cuba is bad. I'm not gonna get into those arguments, right? but let's talk about The vast majority of people that live in those countries that are not have nothing to do with the government They're just like you and you and me. They're just trying to get by they get caught in those sanctions they have nothing to do with it and The system that they want you to live in is if you live in a certain if you were if you happen to be born in a certain country You happen to have certain political beliefs. You are not entitled to have to open a bank account You are a danger. You're a risk. Well Bitcoin is for you Bitcoin is your money it works. So they're gonna have a hard time and this is why we call it the separation of money and state This is why we bring up the book the sovereign individuals so much because it absolutely Hit the nail on the head this what we're living through right now, but it's not only money It's also the disintermediation of information which is happening at the same time. You're seeing it with the Russell Brand stuff You're seeing it with the Tucker stuff Independent content creators are now getting more views and more traction than the legacy corporate media of which they cannot control and that freaks them out too, so After we got over this hill after we endure this this this bumpy transitionary period and if we win the race to avoid the war I Agree with Corey Clifton from swan I think that there's a bright orange future ahead of us and I've never been so pumped about it But I got to say one last thing before I bring up my legendary co -host Michael sailor Please leave some Bitcoin for the rest of us. Anyways Opti. How you doing, brother? I'm doing great man doing great. I also unplugged this weekend. It felt good I was literally joking with everyone in the spaces. I literally lived the meme. Did you guys catch the game this weekend? I unplugged completely what game did he catch? I caught all the games. I didn't do anything yesterday I literally did not a thing yesterday, but watch football Throw tomatoes all you want, but it was it's a great weekend It's good to be a big corner and then also guys mad sailor leave some Bitcoin for the rest of us she It's almost like you taking it all it's almost like you trying to buy all the Bitcoin. Yeah. No, he definitely is bro He he owns 1 % he almost owns 1 % of every Bitcoin. We're at that point. We're at that point in the movie, dude Well, I think this is the PSA where we tell everyone to stop selling your Bitcoin to Michael sailor and huddle onto them coins We're in the dark it actually I saw a good tweet before we go on Nico I saw a good tweet this weekend and it was something on the lines of like Dang, I wish I could remember but it was something like Willy. Woo is bearish Someone there is another part and then it's like and Bitcoin maxis are watching d3 football like if you can't tell that this is the deepest parts of a bear market Like are you even watching there? It was a great tweet I wish I could say it off the top of my head But as you can tell we're in the deep parts of the bear market I hope you guys are stacked and I hope you guys are getting your cash flows up and Just you know getting your body right mine, right? This is the time to get your UTXOs in order to make sure that everything is copa static as we move into a crazy Bull run. Anyways, Nico, we were gonna have a guest today But I'm kind of glad that they didn't show up because I wrote an article for once guys And I'm actually really hyped on this one so I'm gonna read it for you I'm gonna do my best guy Swan impersonation today, and I I think you guys are gonna really like this one So, I don't know it. It's got a lot of soul. It's got some spirit in it It gets me hyped up and maybe I'll give you context for it. I'll just read it and see what Nico thinks He I don't even think Nico seen this yet So I'm excited to get his response his reaction to we're gonna do a reaction video on today's simply Bitcoin Anyway, you go let's get into the show. Are we gonna get a Nico Jones take today? Are we gonna get a wild Nico John? I think so. We got something spicy for the numbers, bro. Let's jump in today. I bet The Bitcoin numbers is your Bitcoin in cold storage really secure is your seed phrase Really secure stamped seeds do -it -yourself kit has everything you need to hammer your seed words into commercial grade Titanium plates instead of just writing them on paper Don't store your generational wealth on paper papers prone to water damage fire damage You want to put your generational wealth on one of the strongest metals on planet Earth? titanium your words are actually stamped into this metal plate with this hammer and these letter stamps and once your words are in they Aren't going anywhere. No risk of the plate breaking apart and pieces falling everywhere Titanium stamped seeds will survive nearly triple the heat produced by a house fire They're also crush proof waterproof non -corrosive and time proof all things that paper is not allowing you to huddle your Bitcoin with peace of mind for The long haul stamp your seed on stamped seed. All right, everybody. I literally made it super frickin easy Don't put yourself in a situation while you lost Why you have to explain to your grandchildren while you lost your generational wealth because you stored your seed on paper store it on Titanium scan the QR code on your screen use promo code simply get 15 % off anything on the stamp seed website anyways at the time of recording The Bitcoin price is twenty six thousand three hundred and forty sats per dollar three thousand seven hundred ninety seven block height eight hundred nine thousand three hundred and three blocks to having Thirty thousand six hundred ninety seven having estimate April 21st 2024 total lightning network capacity four thousand six hundred seventy three Bitcoin Capacity value one hundred twenty three million u .s. Dollars realized monetary inflation one point seven five percent the market capitalization of Bitcoin 513 billion dollars with the B Bitcoin verse gold market cap three point nine nine percent All right, everybody so Opti said Nico Jones ran potential Nico Jones rant What what is this potential Nico Jones rant gonna be about? Well, we've talked about the you know It comes from like the political front this this this saying but I'm gonna apply it to Central bankers, I'm gonna apply to politicians Right, and there is something in the in the political Rhetoric recently and it's called the iron law of something projection, right? So we're gonna take away the political rhetoric because we believe on simply bitcoins not left versus right, right? It's a party of orange versus party of green party of central bank digital currencies nihilism poverty slavery versus a party of freedom Bitcoin Prosperity opportunity optimism, right? So that's really what it's about But I'm gonna take that rhetoric because it is very very powerful rhetoric and I'm gonna say the iron law of central bank Politicians projection never fails it never frickin fails let me introduce you to senator Mendez of New Jersey and let's take a look at what he has to say about Naeem Bukele of El Salvador We have an increasing challenging situation in El Salvador one that threatens both the future democracy in the country and bilateral relations of the United States Over the last two years president Bukele has presided over a number a number of alarming setbacks for democratic governance undermining judicial independence intimidating opposition lawmakers by using security forces to occupy the legislature negotiating political pacts with gangs regularly attacking journalists and media outlets and In addition to these actions Bukele has also repeatedly used his network of Twitter trolls to attract and to attack And threaten not only government critics within El Salvador, but also United States officials We have an increasing challenging situation in El Salvador one So this is just internalize everything everything that this guy said right, you know senator meant You know, he sounded so legitimate.
CoinDesk Podcast Network
A highlight from GENC : Innovation at the Core of Marketing with Alyson Griffin, Head of Marketing at State Farm
"Gen C is the generation of the new Internet. In Gen C, the C stands for crypto, but it also stands for creators, the connected consumer and collectibles, both digital and physical with on -chain provenance. It stands for culture and characters, the ones we play in games and the companion ones that AI is building alongside us. It stands for community and digital citizenship and the new set of transparent and trustless tools being built to govern them. These are the people who were raised on a different philosophy on how they look at money, how they look at identity, how they look at privacy and how they look at the hybrid, digital and physical spaces being built all around us. And finally, how they reimagine their relationships with the communities and companies they interact with. We focus on how brands large and small are building for these audiences. Welcome to Gen C. Avery, I have to play you the new intro that I just made for Gen C. So here it goes. Edge of my seat. All right. So you might've noticed that was me not speaking English, but I am going to Portugal next week. So that was me speaking Portuguese. And how did I do that? Well, both you and I have been experimenting with, Hey, Jen's video translation software that utilizes AI to speak in multiple languages. You added an amazing piece that you put up on LinkedIn the other day. If you speaking Hindi, I don't know if you actually speak Hindi or not. Very limited. Very limited. But I just want to throw this stat out before I want to get your thoughts, which our is old friend, Mr. Beast, 50 % of the people who watch his videos don't speak English. And so what he does is hire voice actors all over the world to be the Mr. Beast in their local areas, because he knows that for him to go as global and get as many views as he needs, he has to be in language. And so what do you think about, Hey, Jen, and some of these new tools that are coming that will allow for video translation that is not only only, audio but as you and I have both been playing with, it also literally changes your mouth movements to be speaking the language that you've selected. Sam, thank you for turning me on to Hey, Jen. My first thought was that I was going to use it to connect my grandparents along because we do have a language barrier. And while I was sad to see that Telugu was not a supported language, I was like, it's okay. I'll do it in Hindi. And I sent it and they actually thought it was real because, you know, not everybody is familiar with powers of AI, especially with this sort of intonation, which is amazing. And then I started playing around with it a little bit more. And I want to call out Hey, Jen, but also 11 Labs, which is the voice translation that is powering all of this. Hey, Jen is sort of bringing that video, but 11 Labs does the audio. And we've been working on a couple of little things with 11 Labs in different capacities. I'm really impressed with what they're building. And it's critical because only 14 % of the world speaks English, yet 59 % of the world's digital content is in English. So if you're a person who doesn't speak English, much less, God forbid, is not literate, then you can't access the amazing, wonderful world of the internet that we all know today. It's a massive thing. I think it's early days. And of course, everybody rightfully so has questions on where is this data going? Who owns it? Who's storing it? Hey, Jen is an LA based company. And 11 Labs has raised from a number of investors, including Andre Sinso. We've done some diligence on them, but I think it's early days. But this technology is insanely powerful for brands, but in the immediate term for content creators. If I was a content creator, I would be using this immediately for my target languages, because it'll expand your reach so much, enable you to connect. And by the way, it's not going to be long before that's happening on demand. In real time, I mean. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I did the same thing you did. I recorded a video that I translated into French and I sent it to my friend in Paris. And I said, I've been working on my accent. What do you think? And he gets back to me and goes, oh, like, you're really nailing the language, you're really nailing the accent. Like, you've come a long way. I don't speak French. Because the intonation is like you, right? Right, exactly. It's cloning your voice. It sounds like a white person speaking Hindi. Like, there's some things that are colloquialisms that a local person would never say, but it sounds like how you would speak Hindi if you were very good at it. Yes. I will also say what was fascinating to me was Angelique Vendette, who I also sent the video to, responded and say, okay, here's the problem. It's speaking French Canadian. It's not speaking Paris French. And then I had other friends who because I had put it up on Instagram and for the one in Spanish, I had tagged Mexico and I said, can't wait to get back to CDMX. And someone tagged me and said, no, this is speaking European Spanish. This is not speaking Latin American Spanish. So I do think there is like a lot of nuance that still needs to get worked out in it. But just the fact that I could record a 48 second video that people in Paris and people in Mexico didn't recognize that it was AI at first. I thought it was fascinating. I think you hit it exactly, which is, oh, yeah, if I was a content creator, if I was a brand marketer and I was doing shorts, I think this is a perfect way just to get more reach for your content at a 30 to 90 second level, which should be labeled as AI also. Agreed. Definitely. Cross -country transparency, 100 percent. Yeah, we'll talk about that in a second. But I do think that anyone who hasn't played with the page and video translator or there, you can now do it just by uploading a photo and snippets of your voice powered by 11, as you mentioned. So you can actually create yourself saying anything without even having to record a video at this point. You could all do it by text. So it's pretty fascinating. I'm very excited for where this stuff is going, because this is the kind of use case that I think you and I look at this and we're like, this has a very tactical, tangible opportunity. And I think the stat that you just mentioned, only 14 percent speak English, but 60 percent of the content is in English is such a big business opportunity when you really think about that. So, so relevant. Let's pivot from there to a very related topic, which is I don't know if you saw this week, but TikTok has started using AI labeling and Reddit and Reddit. Right. Exactly. For TikTok, anytime you use one of the filters that utilizes AI, now it's going to be labeled as AI. They also are doing auto detection for people who are utilizing AI software and they want anyone who is utilizing AI for their content to have a label on it. I think this is a step in the right direction. I would love all news content also to be labeled like this, because there's a lot of stuff out there. I read an obituary that was driven by AI about a basketball player who had passed away and it said the basketball player is unliving. So that was the way that AI described him being dead, was that he was unliving. And so clearly there's a lot of stuff that needs to get worked out. But from a brand perspective, from a creator perspective, I think that the idea that we should know when things are being modified feels like the right thing. But do you think that affects the creator economy in any way? I think it's similar to how we do hashtag ad, like trust or transparency is key. We just need to be transparent about using these things. I've thought that for quite a while as it relates to Instagram and TikTok filtering because people get unrealistic like body images. I mean, yes, some of this happens in like magazines and photo shoots and all of that stuff it has for a long time. But I'm all about trust or transparency and the digital ecosystem. Agreed. And I also think there's a healthy respect for knowing when someone might be utilizing a tool. It's a productivity tool. It doesn't mean it has to be less entertaining. It doesn't mean it has to be less interesting. I think our enterprise brands, though, we're still at a place where like we can't just use 11 labs like at scale right now. It's not ready yet. It's like a proof of concept. This is how it could be going. And back to what we've talked about before, it's building the muscle for when this really hits scale, we're going to be ready. Correct. And in terms of just going back to Mr. Beast, who has these 13 actors that play him around the world, he said, our team is very actively looking because it's not cheap to do that. And he said, our team is very actively looking. He thought from his perspective and when their research that it's going to be still a couple of years before we actually see it being good enough where he's comfortable. What he said, which was interesting, is they've done some AB testing where they use the voice actor and then they'll use a cloning. And he said every time he does a cloning, people are calling out that something sounds wrong and it distracts them from the content in the video, which I think for someone like him is just really important to make sure it's landing. Totally, totally agree with that. Yeah. All right. Final story before we get to an amazing guest is Crossmint and MasterCard are going deeper together. So Crossmint powered this artist portal that MasterCard released a couple of months ago. It actually brought one hundred thousand people into blockchain. It was primarily based on music and that was also powered by Crossmint. And it seems that Crossmint and MasterCard are getting in bed together even more with an eye toward small business, which I thought was kind of interesting. Just the idea of easy ways when you think of utilizing your MasterCard to pay for something and then thinking about a reward system that can be on chain, that feels like it makes a lot of sense, right? I hit my 10th time at the coffee shop. I get a little NFT that says I'm a 10 timer and maybe that gets me a free coffee later. But this feels like a very natural, easy way for blockchain and brands to get together. And I want to know if you have any thoughts about that. Yeah, well, I love Rodry and the team and of course, Raja and his amazing team at MasterCard and everything that they've done in this space. So recently connected with Raja and he was like, I'm still very bullish on Web3. And one, I love him for saying that because there's so many mixed reactions right now. And it's amazing to hear leaders who continue to invest, continue to launch programs like their startup accelerator and continue to support these sort of Web3 native businesses, massive bands of what Crossmint is doing. And I think that a partnership between a payment processor and a minting tool makes a lot of sense because you're likely going to be paying maybe not thousands of dollars, but a couple bucks for some of these things. And having that super integrated is a great fit. And shout out to MasterCard for continuing to innovate in this space. I see them. I see Visa. I see the banks really continuing to lean in and identify these enterprise use cases that can make their customers both B2C and also B2B customers lives a little bit easier. Well, we have asked Raja to be on the podcast 27 times, so we're going to continue to ask until he shows up. So, Raja, if you're listening, we're coming for you. Avery, after the break, we are going to come back with Allison Griffin from State Farm, a big brain marketing thinker, so excited to hear her perspectives on marketing, on the metaverse, on Web3, on innovation in general, because she's such a great thinker on that. So we will talk to her after the break. Sounds great.
Dennis Prager Podcasts
A highlight from Operation Atlantic Resolve
"Well then, welcome to the Dennis Prager Show. Bob France sitting in and yeah, you hear the music, you know where I'm coming to you from. Cleveland, Ohio, the home base, therelieffactor .com studios if you will. Our WHK radio, AM1420, the answer here in Cleveland, Ohio. An honor to be sitting in for Dennis once again. And of course today being Yom Kippur, which is why Dennis is off today. As he has of course been celebrating the holy days and starting back with Rosh Hashanah. The Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. And it's a wonderful thing. It really is. I kind of have to familiarize myself not being Jewish myself. I have to familiarize myself with some of the days and some of the reasons and the explanations for the calendar. And Yom Kippur is one of the ones that to me is the most solemn. A Day of Atonement, a day of reflection and looking inside and asking for forgiveness for the shortcomings that perhaps we have and so forth. And so to Dennis and to everyone who is commemorating and or celebrating and or taking part in participating in the Yom Kippur day today. This very important Day of Atonement. God's blessings to you all. Seriously, really appreciate that. In the meantime, we've got work to do. We have a lot of very important things to talk about and I want you to be a part of the show. 8 Prager776, that's 877 -243 -7776. I want to know, is it acceptable for me to be concerned with the plight of others but being unwilling to do any more than I have already done? And yes, if you're wondering, I'm talking about Ukraine. Yes, if you're wondering, I'm talking about the 113 billion dollars we have already sent to Ukraine to help them ward off the invasion of the Soviet, well, the Russians. Who are trying to rebuild the Soviet empire, I suppose, if you think that they are going to not stop in Ukraine and then advance to other European nations and so forth. I don't think so. I don't think they have the ability to do that any longer. I don't think they are the fearsome foe they were when the Soviet bloc was, of course, raining havoc on Eastern Europe and raining havoc on the world. But I want to talk about the Ukrainian situation. Here's two reasons. Two reasons why. The first of which is the fact that in Canada, over the weekend in front of the Canadian Parliament, the Lord Mayor Zelensky, the President of Ukraine, who came to the United States for the second time, hat in hand, saying please drop all you can into the hat here so that we can go back and continue our war with Russia. They came looking for more money, asking for another 25 billion dollars. And again, I'll get to the point about how I feel about spending that money and how I feel about it going forward in a moment, but he came to the United States and then he went up to Canada. And he went up to Canada before the Canadian Parliament and he sat there and he asked for support and financial remunerations from the Canadians as well. And the Canadians, of course, listened happily. And, you know, we're all all for supporting this. But what they did after that is something that is quite simply incomprehensible to me. Canadian organizations Jewish are among those now slamming the Canadian Parliament for giving voice to and a standing ovation to a man who fought for the Nazis during World War II. All because he is Ukrainian. All because he's Ukrainian. Video and photos show the Canadian Parliament erupting into cheers on Friday after President Zelensky's visit to the capital of Ottawa, when Canadian lawmakers also honored Yaroslav Hunka, a 98 -year -old Ukrainian immigrant who fought for the 1st Ukrainian Division, according to the Toronto Star, the division also known as the Waffen -SS Galicia Division, which fought for the Nazis and its paramilitary arm. The Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center said in a statement, the fact that a veteran who served in a Nazi military unit was invited to... And by the way, this story that I'm starting with, this day, this first hour, this story is not because of today being the Jewish Day of Atonement. This is outrageous. This is when it happened is when it happened. Understand that. The fact that it is occurring, though that we're talking about this and it just happened during these holy days, is another point entirely. The fact that a veteran who served in a Nazi military unit was invited to and given a standing ovation in Parliament is shocking. At a time of rising anti -Semitism and Holocaust distortion, it's incredibly disturbing to see Canada's Parliament rise to applaud an individual who was a member of a unit in the Waffen -SS, a Nazi military branch responsible for the murder of Jews and others, and that was declared a criminal organization during the Nuremberg Trials. Some are calling for full -throated apologies from Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau and from Ukrainian President Zelensky. This honor was given to a Ukrainian because everything now has to go Ukraine's way, because Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine. We have to come up with untold, unlimited amounts of treasure and time for anything having to do with Ukraine. So they brought a Nazi military fighter, 98 -year -old Nazi fighter in World War II before the Canadian Parliament, and because he's Ukrainian, he got a standing ovation. That's how, beside ourselves, I think we've become with this, we have to do anything and everything we can to help Ukraine. So that's number one. The second reason, by the way, is we continue to try to make some sense out of the, you know, now that we have the actual official figures confirmed by the White House of $113 billion already spent in support of Ukraine. In addition to that, they say that our commitment to helping Ukraine has no end and there is no cost limit. They will do this no matter what the cost for however long it takes. The problem is, of course, there is no end game in sight. There's no end to the commitment that has been identified. When does it end? What standard would it be to say no matter how long it takes to finish the thought? Chuck Schumer? Joe Biden? Mitch McConnell? I don't care if you're Democrat or Republican. If you are giving an unended blank check, an unending blank check to Ukraine, what does that mean? What does that look like? You say for as long as it takes to... fill in the blank. What? Does every Russian in Ukraine have to retreat back across the border or is that not enough? Does every Russian have to leave Crimea, the peninsula that Russia took in 2014 when Obama was president? Or do they just have to stop bombing and stop the fighting? What exactly does it mean to say we're going to give this money until... or I'm sorry, no matter how long it takes to do what? Define the end game. There isn't one.
The Eric Metaxas Show
A highlight from John Amanchukwu (Encore)
"Welcome to the Eric Metaxas Show. We'll get you from point A to point B. But if you're looking for point C, well, buddy, you're on your own. But if you wait right here, in just about two minutes, the bus to point C will be coming right by. And now, here's your Ralph Kramden of the Airways, Eric Metaxas. Hey there, folks. Welcome to the show. We have a guest on who, man, I don't even know how to start. First of all, I'll try to pronounce his name correctly. John Amanchukwu. I got John correct. I think I got Amanchukwu correct. John Amanchukwu is someone I've come to admire tremendously. He's in North Carolina. He is he's been a pastor for years. He is a brave voice in the midst of the madness, one of the bravest voices. And it's my privilege to have him as my guest for this hour. John, welcome. Hey, thank you so much, Dr. Eric, for having me on your show. You can't call me Dr. Eric because I'm not a doctor, but you can call me whatever you want. Could you call me the Commodore or Admiral? I'd prefer I really prefer that. But no, seriously, you you have been such a brave voice and people have seen you, you know, probably on Instagram reels or whatever. Tell my audience, because this is it's always better when my guest tells the story. But you've been a brave voice speaking out against the. What would be a nice term for it, satanic lunacy of. Profoundly sexual material being given to children in our schools, very tough for most of us to believe that this is happening, but it has been happening. You've been exposing it and you've been bravely speaking against it. So let's just start, John, with how did you get involved in this? At what point did you say I'm going to step up and start confronting these crazy abusers? Because that's what they are, abusers of our children. How did that start for you? Well, I've been involved in this kind of work for the past 20 years. I joined a church in college called Upper Room Church for God in Christ. I joined at the age of 19. And the senior pastor is Bishop Patrick Langwood and senior. And he says that our church is a cause driven church. You know, we believe that there is a cause in Christ. There's a cause in the marketplace for us to bring our biblical world view to it, to engage the culture and to fight against evil and wickedness. Isaiah 520 says, woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness. And so we've just been on the front lines on the abortion clinic issue, fighting against fatherlessness and the black community. And now even with this indoctrination in the public school system, now, some people call it indoctrination and some people call it grooming. But I like to call it mental rape. That's the best way for me to define what has taken place in the public school system. I call it mental rape because it assaults the soul. It stains the brain and it robs children of their innocence. When you put pornographic material in a library and make it accessible for kids, K through 12, a child is going to pick that book up. And I went out to Asheville and spoke about a book entitled It's Perfectly Normal. That book is for kids 10 and up. It's hardcore porn. It's not soft porn. It's hardcore porn. That book gives Hugh Hefner a run for his money. When you open the book, it depicts images of heterosexual sex and homosexual sex. Why do 10 year olds need to see and learn how you should have lesbian sex at the age of 10? That's disgusting. That's evil. It's mental rape. There's an assault taking place upon children, and there's a critical point that's being left out of the equation. And that's the church. The church is not engaging. We need some modern day Karl Barth. We need some modern day Martin Niemol. We need some people who are willing to engage the culture and tell the church, listen, we are not supposed to be co -opted by the state. The state is not supposed to run the church. And when we go into a public school, we have this thing called parental choice. Some call it rights, but I call it parental choice. I call it parental choice because our rights come from God as parents. But choice parents have had the choice and the knowledge of being able to assess and know what's going on in the public school system and to have the freedom and the liberty to push back when there is an assault upon their children. Well, listen, everything you say, I mean, I agree with it violently. I am in churches effectively preaching what you just said in a little different way. But what basically this is called, what you are advocating for is called the technical term is Christianity. This is called Christian faith. If you do not do what what you're describing, if you're not pushing back, if you're not being salt and light in the culture, if you're not being a warrior for truth and speaking against evil, then you are not living out your Christian faith. But there are many, many churches and you and I know about that that do not do this. They don't get involved in this. They say we don't want to be divisive. These are the same people that would say, you know, we don't care if there's slavery happening, as long as it's not happening in my church. That's right. It's complete hypocrisy. And as Christians, we are called to step up. And I keep saying that the Lord has allowed it to get this bad to wake up those who are still sleeping, because what you just described is very tough for me and most people, even to hear that children would be exposed to this absolutely evil stuff. What do you call it if you don't call it evil? This is evil for children to be exposed to these kinds of things. And it's shameful that they're just a handful of brave souls like you speaking against it.
The Eric Metaxas Show
A highlight from Jay Brock (Encore)
"Ladies and gentlemen, looking for something new and original, something unique and without equal, look no further. Here comes the one and only Eric Mataxas. Folks, welcome. I've spoken previously on this program to our friend Rabbi Jason Sobol, who has certain many books. The new one is called Signs and Secrets of the Messiah. And last time, Rabbi, you were telling us some of these amazing correlations between the Old and the New Testament and the Jewishness of the New Testament, which people should know, but sometimes they forget how profoundly the New Testament is a commentary on the Old Testament and points us back and how the Old Testament points us forward over and over. And last time you talked about the paralytic or the man who was unable to walk for 38 years. And you said that that relates to the Israelites wandering in the desert for 38 years, and you explained about how they had been prepared by God for two years, but then they wandered for 38 years. I just find that kind of stuff so fascinating. So I know the new book is called Signs and Secrets of the Messiah. What other things like that do you mention in Signs and Secrets of the Messiah? I mean, we get into so many miracles and, you know, God is in the details, right? So if there's a detail in the Bible, it's there for a reason. So, you know, again, the first miracle we talked about last time I was with you is the first miracle we talked about in Signs and Secrets, which is the water into wine. Well, there's a detail there. It says that he said fill six stone pots to the brim. Well, the question is, if it says six stone pots, what's the significance that there's six stone pots? Why not seven? Why not eight? Well, some of the significance there is that we have to understand there's a lot. Man was created on the sixth day. In Jewish thought, we fell on the sixth day. When Jesus comes and he gives his life for us on the cross, OK, he dies on Friday, which is the sixth day of the week. He dies on a cross. Why? Because the first man and woman stole from the tree. So God puts Jesus, who Paul calls the second Adam, back on the tree for you and me with the crown of thorns on his head. Why? What's the sign of the curse of creation? The ground produced thorns and thistle. He takes the curse on his head to break it and restore the blessing. And so when Jesus dies on the same day man was created and fell and he does his first miracle with six stone pots, he's saying, I am restoring the fruitfulness that was lost at creation. And I don't want you to any more live out of the lack, but to live out of the overflow. And by the way, the number six in Hebrew is written with the letter Bob. It's the conjunction and it's a letter that connects heaven and earth. When we sin, we broke the connection. Jesus comes back to restore it, that we might experience his blessing. That is some heavy stuff that is absolutely amazing. Say that again about the letter when you write the number six in Hebrew, talk about that again, because I want to make sure I catch that. Yeah, absolutely. So Hebrew is alphanumeric. So there's no Roman numerals in the Bible. Both Hebrew and Greek have an alphanumeric component, meaning that if I say open up the chapter one in your Bible, I'll say open up to chapter Aleph, because it's the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet has a numerical value of one. The sixth letter of the Hebrew alphabet is the Hebrew letter of love. It's the most used letter in the five books of Moses, and it's the conjunction. And the first place the letter of love occurs in the Bible is in the first verse of the Bible, Genesis one, one. And in Hebrew, there are seven words in Genesis one, one corresponding to the seven days of creation. The sixth word of Genesis one begins with the sixth letter. God created the heavens. That's the fifth. And that's the sixth. And Earth is seven. When we sin, we broke the vow, the letter, the number six, the letter Bob that connects heaven and earth. When Jesus dies on Friday and does the miracle with the six stones pots, he's restoring the connection and the blessing that was lost in the beginning.
DerrickTalk
A highlight from 50 Year Old Rapper Krayzie Bone Fighting For His Life In ICU...
"Spotify for Podcasters has revolutionized the world of podcasting by allowing the novice and seasoned podcaster to create a podcast painlessly and in real time. No cost, no hassle, and you can even record from the comfort of your own PC or phone. That's right, and the Q &A polls allow real -time interaction between the host and his audience. What are you waiting for? Download Spotify for Podcasters now and make your voice heard on sites like Spotify, iHeartRadio, Deezer and more. Prayers go out to Crazy Bone. He is a member of the infamous hip -hop trio Bone Thugs and Harmony, and of course everyone pretty much I would assume you probably know who Bone Thugs and Harmony is. They've been responsible for such hits as Crossroads, First of the Month. I mean, man, you know, if you are a 90s baby, you probably definitely have heard of Bone Thugs and Harmony, Crazy Bone, Busy Bone. I've actually seen them in concerts, so the guys were absolutely amazing on stage. I think I saw him at Chop Suey here in Seattle. But anyway, Crazy Bone is going through a medical emergency. It's not looking good. He is actually fighting for his life. According to sources, he checked himself into a Los Angeles hospital after he was coughing up a lot of blood. So he checks himself into a hospital, and obviously there's some type of bleeding going on with one of the arteries in his lungs, and doctors have been unsuccessful in stopping that bleeding. So they are attempting a second surgery after the first one was unsuccessful. So, they are attempting a second surgery to try to stop the bleeding, and he is on a ventilator. He is having to have assisted breathing, so it does not look good for Crazy Bone. Fifty years of age, just a bad situation. So we are praying for his recovery. I have not heard any updates, except the fact that they are performing a second surgery and the family is being very, very quiet about his medical condition. Obviously, the only ones that really know what's going on with Crazy Bone is probably family members at this point, but we are praying for a speedy recovery. Obviously, I think it's pronounced sarcoidosis, sarcoidosis. I think this is the disease, it's kind of like an inflammatory disease that attacks the lymph nodes, the lungs, the eyes, the brains, pretty much any organ in the body. For some people, they kick it. It's not a problem, but for some people, obviously, like anything, it can be very detrimental to their health. Bernie Mac, famous comedian, he passed away from sarcoidosis. So it's definitely something that can be fatal if not treated properly, if not caught early. We are praying for Crazy Bone, that he makes a speedy recovery. This obviously is very, very bad news. People like LeBron James, other celebrities are reaching out to extend their prayers. Definitely, we are asking that the audience members here on Convo Over Cigars pray for Crazy Bone, that he makes a speedy recovery after this medical emergency. You guys have been locked in to another edition of Convo Over Cigars on a Monday. I'm your host, Derrick Andre Flemming. It's a rainy one in Seattle. Everybody be blessed.
Bloomberg Radio New York - Recording Feed
Monitor Show 16:00 09-25-2023 16:00
"With Bloomberg, you get the story behind the story, the story behind the global birth rate, behind your EV batteries, environmental impact behind sand. Yeah, sand. You get context and context changes everything. Go to Bloomberg dot com to get context. Has been for a stronger one. We're going to watch it, though, to see if somehow global economic demand is decreasing and maybe that plays a little bit into it, maybe longer term. All right, as we get the closing bells here in New York City, what had been a really mixed market here from oscillations, from gains to losses, and now back again to gains. The Dow Jones Industrial Average higher by about 40 points or a tenth of a percent. The S &P 500 higher by about 18 points or four tenths of a percent. A similar move higher on a percentage basis for the NASDAQ composite and a similar move higher on a percentage basis for the Russell 2000 girl. Yeah, the Usher index, though, on a tear. I saw what you guys did before. Are we going to talk about Taylor Swift at any point? I know we have some stuff together. Later, later, later. All right, the S &P, let's do the divide. 300 names to the upside, 199 to the downside. Katie for unchanged. All right, I'll save the Taylor Swift comments. Let's take a look at some of these industry groups here. Like we were saying, energy top of the pile. That's true on the industry group level as well, up 1 .3 percent. You can see also chips getting some love. So, too, are some of the auto names. Actually, more green than red. If you do look into the red, though, it's definitely some strong trends there. Household products, for example, off by about half a percent. Food and beverage off by seven tenths of a percent. The staples today really taking a beating. All right, so let's get to some of the individual gainers, if we may, and here's one. It's actually, I think, the number two gainer in the S &P 500, number one gainer in NASDAQ 100. We're talking about GE Healthcare. I couldn't find any real catalyst. This company, though, on pace for its worst full quarter since being spun off.
Bitcoin & Crypto Trading: Ledger Cast
Fresh update on "every two" discussed on Bitcoin & Crypto Trading: Ledger Cast
"Right, that's what I'm saying. But if there is inherent value in what you're creating, and inherent value could be art appreciation, just like it is in other types of art, then to some degree it can be. That can still continue to exist, but every second grader that paints pictures in their art class, their stuff is not valuable. That doesn't make art worth zero. I was just talking to somebody about this, that what we consider highly revered and important art in today's society was definitely not always the case historically. So it's not like impressionism or whatever else. Certain waves of art that came through history. So it'll be interesting in 50, 100 years if people look at crypto kitties and crypto punks and are like, oh my god, you see in the Louvre and stuff. I think that'd be very interesting. Or maybe they'll look at them as these were pioneers of digital art, and now look at how much digital art there is, and they're worth millions. Like the third airplane that was ever in existence is probably not worth very much, but the first airplane probably is from a pure historical value perspective. Well, here's an interesting data point for you. I just saw that they're selling the Bob Ross Foundation or whoever owns the paintings. So Bob Ross was this famous painter on public access, public broadcast television, for those unaware, in America. And he taught many people how to paint anyway. And he would always paint during his broadcast. And they're looking to sell the first painting for 10 million. And this is just like the equivalent of a retail painter. Like he's very good. But he's just a guy on TV that teaches. Yeah, but he's just, you know. But he had network effects of his audience. He impacted other people. Right, right. You know, it's an interesting story. It is, yeah. But I think it's a bit cocky to say like, okay, well, I know what's valuable in the art world. No, you know what's valuable to you. Like what's valuable to others is up to the market. That's what the market decides. It's not the same as businesses. Art and business are not the same. You look at business, you can look at the risk of failure. You can look at the yield that the business generates. You can look at the durability of that business in good and bad times. You can look at stuff that shows up in a pro forma and that allows you to analyze that business and even still there's ambiguity because different businesses then trade in public markets at far different levels. And so, you know, how are you going to then tell people what they should value art at? I agree. I think we can also agree that it got a little out of control. Of course, of course, because people overweighted the technology behind the digital art relative to the digital art itself. And the technology behind it will carry on in other ways and there will be business value created from that. And you'll see NFT technology be brought to other industries where it'll help to create make them better. And art is just one industry that NFTs can support. But there will be others. That's the value add for NFTs. Yeah, I'm not going to disagree.
The Tennis.com Podcast
"every two" Discussed on The Tennis.com Podcast
"Right. Like, you know, I probably wouldn't watch like a tournament in Palermo or something like that but you got to sit on the screen and commentate on players outside of the top. Right. You know, right. And now you're still in the country like are you playing her okay do business this service. This is this. Every time she's down she was here, so you're sitting in a small room but it's big TV. Right. It's like you now players that you may never even play, you just learn how to pick apart. Right, right. Definitely, it's a really unique experience in that way, and it. I mean, same. There's, I probably wouldn't be watching the mug. Right, if I were, you know, like, but, like, you almost start to pick up things like I've never been great on clay but now I start to see some of the things they're doing with the movement and I'm like, Oh, like, Okay, yeah, maybe, maybe that would have been helpful to implement in my own game on the, or like this is how I'd attack this person in there. You really start to strategize more. So, have you ever thought about this becoming a double specialist because you look at somebody with some injuries somebody that was top 63 in the world and singles. And you look at guys who are top 10 in the world and doubles and never broke 150 and singles. Right. I mean if you stick a good singles player on half the court like jack sock, you become the best player ever to play a game right right. So, you know what my last ditch effort at this. I'm gonna go try singles give it a year if not, I'm gonna play half the court. It crossed my mind last year, when I play in San Diego. We made the semis there I hadn't been playing that much and I was like, Oh, like,
The Podcast On Podcasting
Fresh update on "every two" discussed on The Podcast On Podcasting
"Being strategic about the pace of release, if you have a bunch of content, definitely would help increase your brand awareness and your income from whatever podcast you're doing, but also being smart and strategic about the guests you have on and then the order that you put those out. Most hosts never achieve the results they hoped for. They're falling short on listenership and monetization, meaning their message isn't being heard and their show ends up costing them money. This podcast was created to help you grow your listenership and make money while you're at it. Get ready to take notes. Here's your host, Adam Adams. Hey, podcaster. It's your host, Adam Adams. And today we are with Jay Agner, who is a quality assurance specialist. He's got a podcast and his podcast is part of the way that he gets in front of people. And one of the things that I wanted to point out is he's got tremendous and I'm not just saying that tremendous amount of traction based on ratings and reviews. So if you're listening, typically what ends up happening is 10 percent of podcasts have 30 ratings or more. So 90 percent of them have less than 30 ratings and reviews and only 0.6 percent have 100 or more. And he's getting close to that 0.6 percent. He's probably in the top one or two percent with 61 ratings. And here's what's interesting. He's got 44 episodes, so he has more ratings and reviews than he has episodes. And that doesn't typically happen. So as a podcaster, he's been doing this for about a year. And I want to get into a story. How does his podcast support his business? What is he doing in order to make money through this? And especially how did he get that social proofing of so many ratings and written reviews? So, Jay, first and foremost, welcome to the show. And I want to jump into the very first question, which is, what did you do and what can the listener do in order to get more social proofing through ratings and written reviews on their podcast? Thanks for having me, Adam. I ask people, man, I ask people for reviews, just like with anything that simple. You've got well, you've got a network, right? I mean, you know, people, you got friends, you got a family. Most of them will be more than happy to help you out. And it's not going to take it to 100 or 1000 reviews. But it took me from two to like 30 in about a week just because I opened up my phone. I started going through. I'm like, oh, this guy used to work with he's a friend of mine. Oh, this guy just went through my list and sent out to a bunch of not everybody replied. But I got a good amount of them from that. And then from there, I joined Pod lottery, which is another pod match. I think service. I don't know how they're structured these days, but it's one of their companies under the pod match umbrella. Great site. You can win reviews on there by leaving other people reviews after you listen to their podcast. So it's just another way to do that. And then also, again, on the flip side, asking the people who are on your show say, hey, could you just do me a huge favor and hop on iTunes and leave me a review or Spotify or whatever is easier for you? So ask, ask, ask, ask is my main advice. So let's talk about two of those ways right now. One of them is you mentioned that you called friends, family, people that you used to work with, have worked with, enjoyed working with you. And did you text them? Did you call them? Did you email them? Did you do all three? And what did the conversation look like? So for the listener, if they're about to do this, it obviously works for you. What is it that you did? I can actually tell you exactly what I said. I literally opened up my phone and just started scrolling through a bunch of my friends, like I said. And I started with coworkers that I used to work with. I mean, you got to have a good relationship with people before you go ask them to do stuff like that. I'm just looking now to see, like I literally said, oh, I've been working on the ratings of my podcast would be super appreciative. You could swing by and give it a five star review when you get a second. And then I like my podcast. And that was it. And I probably got 30 to 40 reviews just off doing that. OK, so it's basically I've been working on ratings. Would you stop by and give me a rating reveal? I mean, you're a likable person, right? Like you can't be just like a rude person and not have like and then reach out. Like I feel like I have pretty good relationships with the people that I asked and I wouldn't go ask my enemy to do that. Not that I have many, but I wouldn't go out and ask somebody you aren't really good friends with or you haven't done business with or you are and you know, whatever. But yeah, just like anything else, you're starting a business. If you're starting a service or whatever, just like go ask people. Yeah. Tell me real quick about your company that you're the CEO of. Tell me a little bit about who you serve and how you serve them. And then it'll open up some other questions for me to support the listener. Sure. So JDAQA, it's a software testing agency. We're based out of Philadelphia, PA. I started doing freelance and a long time ago after I was working in the software quality assurance testing space for a long time. And basically we serve custom software development companies and SaaS companies. So anybody who builds products for themselves or for other people are our customers. Right. So a lot of companies just want to build cool stuff. They want to build the next big app, the next big web app. They want to do these things, but they don't worry about which devices it has to be on the browsers. How do I deal with 100,000 people logging on my website at the same time? How do I make it secure? All these different things. And so they'll bring us in to either be their full quality assurance as a service resource, where we're just an augmented, scalable team that handles all their testing. Or if they're a little further along, they have a QA team and they need some augmented resources or services that they can't really handle, like automation or performance or other things. They kind of bring us in as hired guns to engage in those efforts from small 10, 20, 30 person shops up to some Fortune 500 companies we do performance and security testing for. So it's a real big range of companies we work for. But I'm the CEO and love running that business and love all our customers very much. So you mentioned a couple of things that you would do. You would help to make sure that it was secure. And you said that you would test it and a couple of other things. But what I'm thinking about is for people that have apps and software for their company, is there something that they don't know that they need? I think most of us would know, hey, we need to make sure this is secure. So nobody can hack in and steal a bunch of information. I think that they probably understand that it needs to work. But what's something that somebody might be listening? Maybe your perfect client, they have 30 or 60 employees and they're doing something that could use you. What would they miss? What would they like not even know is something that you need when you've got an app or a software? A real team to test it. A lot of our customers that have really benefited from our service have had their project managers or their developers or their C-suite of people testing their software for as long as they possibly could because they didn't know how or when to build a QA team. And building a full time W2 QA team is expensive. And that's where the benefit of working with us is we're scalable so we can work when you need us and we don't when you don't. And the software development lifecycle is very cyclical. So there's lots of times where you need a lot of testing, test, test, test, test, get it out the door, and then it has to breathe out there in production in people's hands for a while. Then you scale your testing efforts back down or do some automation work in that kind of downtime. So, yeah, I would say one of the things that they really haven't known that we've been able to help them with is just how important it is and how much more valuable that time is for a developer to be sitting down writing code instead of trying to test his stuff or somebody else's stuff or a project manager trying to test it real quick before it goes out the door. Having that high quality product, like we're talking about reviews and ratings, is the number one thing that people care about these days. Right. So like the quality of the application that's in your customers hands is going to dictate not just that customer's experience, but all the people downstream and whether they're even going to download your application or use your web app. If everybody knows it sucks, they're not going to use it. So I think just having a dedicated team that's not pulling from your existing resources is really important. How would the podcast called The First Customer, how would that support you in growing the company? And I've heard sometimes people want a huge listener base and they want to sell to their listener. I've heard some people like me who I actually interview other podcasters and I hope to work with some of them. And so I interview my perfect avatar and potentially work with them. For you, what is the direction of the podcast? What does it serve and is it partly to grow the business? Yes, it was more to grow. First of all, somebody told me to do a podcast like a couple of years ago. So that's the dumbest idea I've ever heard. I would never do a podcast. I have no idea. I don't know anything to talk about. It's just I wouldn't be good at it. And now I love it very much. I would say that my original approach was to increase my personal brand awareness. Right. As me as a person, as what I do, getting in front of people, getting on other people's social media feeds, doing that sort of thing. As I've worked on the podcast and worked through a lot of different guests and talked to a lot of different awesome people. And I really love all the people I've ever talked to. It just started to click like, OK, now this is how you can start to aim this at your avatar like you were mentioning. And even if it's not the direct avatar for me, because I talk to founders. Right. So I have a founder based show. A lot of the time the founder isn't necessarily the guy that has the problems with quality assurance, with the software testing. Right. That's usually the CTO or the VP of engineering or somebody that's dealing with the code in the application. But if I come highly recommended from the founder of the company to the CTO, there's somebody who can help solve their quality problems. That's a pretty damn good recommendation. Right. And he doesn't get much better of a referral than that than the CEO or founder of a company referring me to the CTO of a company. So that, I believe, is the path forward for the podcast is to find those people and to talk to them, hear their story. I don't really see it as a direct driver of business. I just see it as another channel where I see running a business. To me, it is if you depend on one channel, you're destined to probably get kicked in the teeth at some point when that channel dries up. So having multiple channels is very important and having a podcast is a strong one for us. And I think that it's just one of many that we're going to keep going with. I like that, that we need to be thinking about multiple channels. Like, I think if you're a real estate investor, you want to have multiple different rentals, multiple different streams of income. If you're a business owner, a lot of people that are business owners, they end up having more than one business. They might start one, get it going and then start another one, get it going. So they have all these different streams and talking about multiple ways of growing your revenue, your company, like different types of marketing, connection, networking, hosting events, hosting a podcast and direct mail and so many other things can support us to make sure that we don't ever lose. And I've heard of people that are doing, for example, Facebook ads and then Facebook ads just stop working. And that's the only way that they were doing it. And they go from being really, really well off to having nothing and freaking out and scrambling. So for you, you are being intentional about the multiple different ways to grow the company. And I think it's smart to be able to work with other founders and have them to be able to refer their CTOs, et cetera, to your company. So definitely wanted to highlight that. I'm looking at the amount of episodes that you have today. You've been publishing for about a year, give or take. And currently you have a little less than a year's worth of episodes published, but it looks like you're doing two episodes a week now. So I want to go through your journey just to understand, did you start out with one a week, one every other week? And what did that look like? Did you ever skip weeks for whatever reason? And what got you into being consistent on two a week just to kind of understand that part? Yeah. So I think initially it was one every two weeks. Maybe I'll have to go back and check. But I think it was one every two weeks. And then I was telling the story that I called a mistake, but it was a great mistake I made. I used LinkedIn automation a lot and I used that for my business. But I also said, hey, why don't I see if I just send out a message to all my network, if they want to be my podcast or not to anybody who has the title founder in their LinkedIn that you're already friends with or that I'm already making my side, like three or four thousand connections or whatever. And boy, oh, boy, did I get responses. I mean, I sent it out to about a thousand people, probably got a 50 to 60 percent at least reply. If not, yes, I want to be on your podcast. So if you can do the quick math there, that's like five, six hundred people that replied and probably three to four hundred people that said yes, which is a lot of people. I've networked my friends that own businesses and stuff very quickly. I had done 10 or 15 of those. And then the floodgates opened. I was doing I still do probably sometimes 10 a week, 12 episodes of recording a week. So I've got them like lined up past the end of the year into next year for releases going twice a week. So once I started getting that many, I went from once every two weeks to once every week to now once every twice a week. And now, as I've delegated the process of production, because that takes up a lot of time, I can now probably look to do Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and then eventually just one a day every weekday, especially for a while to clear out the queue. Just because I have so many lined up and I don't want to push people that far away. Right. Like you want to get their episode out. They spent the time to be with you. I want to be fair and respectful of that for them. So I'm trying to get them out quickly as possible. So it was very long-winded answer to your question, but that was how we started from once every two weeks to twice a week currently. Interesting. I'm thinking through a couple of clients that we work with who recorded a certain amount of episodes. We're huge advocates for record more than you need to produce. So that way you're allowed to get sick, you're allowed to go on vacation, you're allowed to take summer off or winter vacation or whatever it is. We actually had a client, Jay, who his name's Corey and Corey loves Hawaii. So he and his wife went and visited Hawaii. This was at the beginning of the pandemic. He had like six weeks of episodes. So he thought he was doing pretty good. Like he was like, yeah, we've got a month and a half. And he ended up going to Hawaii for like three weeks and he caught covid, which is just random. He caught covid. Then unfortunately, he had to stay in Hawaii for a couple of extra weeks until he tested negative. And then he comes home and work had been put off for five weeks. And so he really needed to get some of his other work done because he was two weeks behind. And so he starts working his ass off a lot harder than normal to try to get it all done. And then he has emergency gallbladder surgery just randomly. Who knows if it was covid related or what? But he all of a sudden had to go to the hospital and that put him out for another couple of weeks. And so he ended up not being able to publish for a few weeks. And so with you, you've got some interesting things happening. You reached out to a thousand people on LinkedIn that you were already connected with because you had three or four thousand and about a thousand of them had founder. And you've been recording a lot more than you needed to produce. You were recording 10 per week when for a while you were only maybe producing one or two a week. And so you're banking all of this content ready to go. And it's getting you to a place you are able to delegate the production. So now you're able to focus more on other stuff and you don't have to deal with the twenty dollar an hour stuff. You can focus on the stuff that really makes your business go forward, like being the star of your show. And you mentioned and I thought this is interesting that you don't want to push it out because you said through the end of the year and even into next year, you're feeling like you don't really want to push it out that far for people. And so it sounds like you're going to be doing one a day for a while just to be able to get those out. And we've had clients is what I started to mention. We've had clients that they have a lot of anxiety about recording today and it not being able to come out for another six weeks or three months or six months or whatever it is. And so you're fixing that by publishing more. Now, here's the big question. Now that you're doing even more episodes and you have a lot of content available and you're going to be producing one per day for a while, has your business or your network or your income changed? Or do you think that it'll change as you go to daily episodes for a while and having all those different conversations per week? Basically, if it has, can you share what has changed or in what way you think it's going to change because of doing all the extra content? Yeah, I think if I had been a little more diligent about my targeting, the answer probably would be yes. I think the answer is going to be maybe just because I interviewed people who made sunscreen and like interviewed people who just did random stuff that people knew. And then like somebody knew I was doing a podcast like, hey, I'd love to have, you know, my friend would love to be on your podcast. And like I was accepting just about everybody. It took me a while to get a little more selective. And I think pod matched help with that, honestly, were just a process of like identifying better, better people. That's not the right way to say it. Everybody that has been on my show, I think is fantastic. But people who serve my target persona a little bit clearer would be the way to say that. So, yeah, I think if I do it properly, which is to front load, and this is another thing I didn't mention, potentially front load some of those guests that have more followers that have a closer tie to my target persona, even if they recorded further down the line. I started kind of figure out, like, not just do I release more sooner, but also release more impactful episodes potentially sooner. Right. I got a guy that does A.I. And of course, that was the big buzzword of the summer. Right. So why not get him moved up and get him in the mix when we're going out? I've got people that are thirty to fifty thousand followers. I got a guy that just released last week. Jake Henry has a half million followers on TikTok and he just was selected for Forbes twenty five under twenty five or whatever. And he's like, hey, man, like this is about to go live. Do you think we could potentially move this up? I'm like, absolutely. It makes sense for us. It makes sense for him. It makes sense for everybody. So I think being strategic about the pace of release, if you have a bunch of content, definitely would help increase your brand awareness and your income, quote unquote, from whatever podcast you're doing. But also being smart and strategic about the guests you have on and then the order that you put those out. And also, like, for example, during the summertime, right? Like, I don't think that there was as many people around listening to business podcasts towards the end of summer where, like, everybody's trying to squeeze out the last few days of summer with their family. They're not going to be on the beach. Listen, it's like a business podcast. Right. But I think when the kids go back to school and every good it kind of hits that September, October into mid-November, when everybody starts to take their break for the end of the year, I think September and October are going to spike again. So I think being strategic about putting as much content out of your target at your target when they're going to be around is probably going to benefit my business the most and would benefit anybody's business the most. Right. Like, get as much content as you can in front of the people that are going to subscribe to your services when they're around. So, again, long-winded answer to your question. I want to ask how you get some of the guests that you mentioned before, people that have 30,000 to 50,000 followers and the person who had about a half a million followers. I think somebody listening is considering this to themselves. Well, that would be great if I could even get somebody who has that many followers on my podcast. They might feel like they're not worthy. They might feel like their podcast isn't getting enough traction yet that they're afraid to even ask somebody who has that. And secondarily, maybe we're afraid of it. But also, it's like, how do we even get a hold of that person? So do you mind maybe sharing? How did you get in front of some of the people that have 30 to 50K or even a half a million followers? How did that strategy go? Because you're talking about being strategic and how did the conversation go and who did you talk about? Did they have gatekeeper? So I know that's a lot of questions. But yeah, how did you basically get the people with big audiences? Those are great questions. Again, ask, ask, ask. I think as entrepreneurs, like we take the fact that a little bit of our hesitance to just ask for stuff that we want isn't exactly how everybody operates. So we're like, just ask. But like, it is as simple as that, right? Like, you'll never know unless you just ask people. A lot of times they'll say, sure. Yeah, I'd love to be on. Like, there's a guy who has a hundred thousand followers on LinkedIn and he said, sure, I'll be on your podcast. And I think that's awesome. Now I'm chasing him around to get on. But I mean, that'd be huge, right? A hundred thousand LinkedIn followers. And I'm trying to drive traffic through LinkedIn. Of course, that'd be great. And I just reached out to him because I saw some content he was doing. I'm like, dude, I would love to have you on. So it's a two pronged approach. Now, pod match will allow you to filter by follower account so you can be a little more selective about the people that you have on your show. So you can say like, I want people that have over ten thousand social media followers. That's kind of the barrier for entry, right? Wait, let me. Sure. I want you to get back to where you are right now. So I'm hoping I don't distract that. No, but what I think I'm hearing is that you're filtering on LinkedIn, you're on LinkedIn, you're looking for the right people and you found a way to filter if they have five thousand followers or ten thousand followers on LinkedIn and you're able to just go after them. Is that correct? And if so, where do you find that? On pod match. Oh, on pod match. Pod match. You can do that. You can filter by that. LinkedIn's a little tougher. You can't really search by and I tried that. I actually tried to use a couple of tools to help me export all of the contacts I had and like rank them by follower account. But it's not that easy. It's not like a metric that you can like mass get on LinkedIn, probably on purpose. But you can certainly if there's somebody I mean, I would start looking for people in your space, right? Like, look at people that are your target persona, right? Like, look for CTOs in your area, right? Minor CTOs, if yours are I don't know what other people search for them. So into my own business, but like if you were looking for other podcast hosts, right, you would look podcast hosts in Denver, Colorado, right? Like, that's where you start and you just look at all of them, go to their pages, see how many followers they have, see if they're active and then just reach out. Like you can use a tool like Dripify is the tool that I use for LinkedIn automation is a million different LinkedIn automation tools. But simple tools like that will allow you to search for a persona type, right? So podcasters and then you pick Denver and you pick I don't even know what are some of the other cities in Colorado, but like you pick Boulder, you pick some other ones, right? Just some other kind of bigger cities in Colorado. And you literally copy that search bar, the URL that's in the search bar, and you stick it in this tool and it'll populate a campaign for you. Right. And you can decide to say whatever you want in there. You can say you can set up a sequence that has 50 different steps, or you can just send them a message, send a message to every person that's a podcast host in a connection request to everybody that's a podcast host in Colorado. Right. And maybe 30 percent of those people connect. You're just like, hey, we'd love to connect with you. I see you're a podcast host. I'm a podcast host to blah, blah, blah, just something like kind of nice and generic. But like if people see that you're in their area, they're much more likely to accept your connection request on LinkedIn. After that, reach out to them on LinkedIn to say, hey, I would love to have you on my podcast. If you're interested, here's my link to my calendar. I would love to have you on. And either they'll ignore it or they'll say yes or they'll say no. But like there's a good chance that you're just going to net a bunch of people off of that approach. Right. So there's a bunch of different ways to do it. PodMax makes it a little easier from a paid perspective. You can pay to play a little bit. Right. It's 60 bucks a month, whatever it is, to filter down and find the higher user count guests to get on your show. And also, those are people who are actively looking to be on your show. Right. So they have a lot of people apply to be on your show that you don't have to go out and look for. But the LinkedIn method is much more targeted where you can look for your persona type that's in your target. You can go to their individual pages. And I think it shows their follower count somewhere on the individual pages. Right. If you go pick the top five, top 10, top 20, whatever, and then to send a message, man, just connect with a very genuine, like humble connection request message. People don't want to be pitched in their connection request message. Those are the ones that typically people ignore or like hit X on. But if you just connect and then follow up, but there's a quick message about, hey, I'd love to have in my pocket, if you want to be on podcast, people think, you know, I mean, look, here I am. Right. Like people feel honored for the most part, unless I guess there's some massive celebrity that they're too cool to be on a podcast. But like people love to be on a podcast and share their experience and their advice. So I would not be hesitant at all for anybody anymore. I'd ask anybody. There was nobody I think would be too cool or the rejection would hurt too bad for me not to ask these days. So I would just say, like, ask everybody and anybody that you think would be a good fit. Super good. So we'll actually take a quick break in a second. I'm loving this. Ask, ask, ask, just ask. I just reached out because I saw some content he was doing. And the idea of that it's OK to ask that you don't really get anything unless you ask. Very, very powerful. And something that we can all implement right away is just, hey, be OK to just ask. Some people are going to say no, but it's all in the numbers. You're going to get a few people that will say yes. And sometimes we'll be surprised at who would say yes. You mentioned about the pod match and finding their follower account, which is awesome. You mentioned LinkedIn and finding podcast hosts like, for example, I'm in Colorado and I could go to different cities in Colorado and find people that are in that city. And they say that they're a podcast host and I can find them. Now, you mentioned that you reach out with a humble, polite message. Here's the question. Do we do LinkedIn automation? Do we automate this and push a button and have it connect with those people? Or are we spending the time and effort that it will take to individually go one by one by one? I would automate it. I mean, at this point in my life, I automate just about damn near anything I can. So I would say, I mean, if there's somebody specific, right, like if I want Adam Adams on my show, I'm going to listen to your show. I'm going to look at the episodes. I'm going to go, Adam, absolute huge fan of your show, would love to be on. I really love the episode with Jay because he was the smart, handsome guy. Right. Or whatever, like whatever gets their attention. And I would say it would be an honor to connect with you. Right. And then people are going to connect with you. And if they don't, then I mean, I don't know, there's no hard feelings, but then you could try email, right? Try send them an email. There's a million ways to get people's email addresses these days. I use Apollo for email stuff. I don't use that as much for podcasting, but I use apollo.io for email outreach stuff, which is certainly another option if you wanted to play the numbers game a little more. How do you spell Apollo just to make sure that when we get it in the show notes, where is it A-P-O-L-L-O dot I-O double L? Okay. We'll make sure that apollo.io is in the show notes. And this is a way almost like skip tracing. It basically helps you to find people's contact information like emails. Is that correct? It's that in email sequencing. So you can set up a sequence and say like, Hey, on the first day, send Adam this email and then wait seven days and send them to, Hey man, I don't know if you saw my other email, but I would love to have you on my show. And they wait another 14 days. And you say, Hey man, just bring this to the top of your email address or email account. Would love to have you on my podcast if you're interested. And then another 20 days later you go, Hey man, last time I'm going to bother you. Just want to see if you want to be on the podcast. And like that last email is sometimes very powerful because people are like, Oh, he's done now. I'm going to actually reply to what they were saying. To fear of missing out. Right. The FOMO hits and they finally go, Okay, I'll hit this guy up. So yeah, it's just another tool. So the part that I think that the listener might be saying is a concern is what if I set up a sequence of four emails to go over the next 30 days or whatever, and they reply before one of the other one goes out. Like, how do we turn it off or does it automatically turn? It's all automatic. Any tool at salt these days will context aware. And a lot of those tools, even Apollo now has like this, I hate AI, but like, I hate AI. I just hate to kind of plug it, but it's like an AI assistant thing where you can just say like what it is you want to say, and it'll write you a sequence of three to five emails. You can say how long you want this sequence to go on for. And basically it does it for you. I would say that's probably less successful than a LinkedIn campaign would be, just because LinkedIn is a little more direct. Everybody hates email spam. But again, look, man, some of the biggest contracts I've got in my life were emails that I sat down and typed out myself and I sent to somebody and they knew that I did that. Right. There was no question that I sat down and sent them that email. And those are the ones that people go, Oh, wow, that guy really is. If you sent in, I mean, look, if you want to write something automated, same thing with your LinkedIn stuff. It's going to be a little more generic, so you're going to get less response. It's just common sense, right? If somebody is pitching at you something and you have no interest and it's not personalized to you at all, you're going to ignore it. Even if you're not interested, but somebody took the time to write you something on a connection request, you may accept it just because you go, this guy actually listened to my show and he heard what I was saying. He said he liked this episode or whatever. So I'm going to take the time to accept this connection request. Yeah, I want to ask three more questions. They can be short. I want to find out what you would do differently if you started your podcast today, if there's anything that you're struggling with now, because the listener probably is seeing all your success and wondering, like, is there anything that he's struggling with? And the third is just your absolute best advice for a new podcaster. But first we'll quick word from our sponsor. Hey, my friend, as you know, this episode is sponsored by my company, growyourshow.com. We want you to be able to have the best tools at your disposal without costing you a whole arm and a leg. So right now you can get a free list of vetted equipment that like mics, mixers, webcams, sound treatment, editing software, everything that you need. I created the whole PDF with direct purchase links just to save you time and money to help it be more convenient for you. So this free PDF will help you skip all the guesswork if it's on there, it's vetted and approved by yours truly. And if it's not on there, it's probably not worth the money. So go ahead and get yours at growyourshow.com forward slash PDF. Let's get back into the show. We're back with Jay Agner, and we've gotten a lot of value talking about how his podcast can form with his business to grow his business, how he has multiple types of marketing, how he found the big names, a couple of really cool takeaways of how to find the big names, how to find people's email addresses, how to make it automated for you so that you can reach out to those people. And right before the break, we mentioned the three last questions that I really wanted to ask him. The first of which, Jay, if you launched your podcast today, what would you do a little bit differently? I would take in the advice of a lot of people and taking the time to really understand who my target persona is. And it's hard to do that, I think, when you've never done any episodes and you never had any guess. And I would probably sit down and sketch it out like you do like the business canvas thing, right, where you talk who they are, where they're from, get very specific about it and try to understand who that is, because that'll shape your episodes and shape your marketing and shape a bunch of different things. So I would say really defining who is going to be listening to this show and envision yourself in their shoes and say, would they really want to listen to the show or not? Right. Because if they don't, then you're wasting your time. That's really good advice. Second question, if we've got a listener, they're new at their podcasting journey, they're thinking like, is everything easy? Do you run into mistakes? Are you always learning? What would you say? Is there anything that you're even after about a year of podcasting? Is there anything that you would say that you're still struggling with that you might be able to share? Yeah, I would say doing an interview style podcast is the easier route than doing a informative based podcast, I think. I assume so. I haven't done the other kind, but I assume that just like you, right, I'm doing most of the work on this episode, right? You did most of the work on my episode. You're just asking questions and then the other person talks, right? I would say that the thing that I'm struggling with, maybe it's not a struggle and maybe it's just a constant process, is how to keep things interesting for myself.
The Tennis.com Podcast
"every two" Discussed on The Tennis.com Podcast
"But to have the strength to then go ahead and win another round in the main is actually a step forward. So you recently talked from another. Yeah. So then, you know, and it's, it's been a little bit of just never feeling like I've been able to capture some of that momentum, like get injured again during COVID tried to play. Once the U .S. Open came back, I was in the main. Well, I got to play that. And it's, you know, it was a weird feeling having nobody there, but it's the U .S. Open and end up having another surgery in December of 2020. And that really, that was, I'm very happy and proud of myself for sticking with it and being able to come back and compete again, because that was, it was a more, it was a double microdiscectomy on my back. I hadn't had that before. I'd blown out two discs. And at that point, it was my third surgery. And it was like, you know, everyone around me, like, are you serious? Like, do you really want to keep coming back? Like, at what point is enough enough? And right, right. And it's, and it was true. It's like, yeah, you know, I do want to have my body intact for the rest of my life. And whether I mean, now you're seeing guys extend it, but it was one of those things where I wanted to end it on my own terms. That was, that was, I think that's, and everyone defines that differently. You can't all walk out, like Sampras winning a major and just the ultimate mic drop piece. But everyone, everyone defines that on their own terms a little bit differently. And for me, it was like, the match that did it for my back was the first time. I've never retired in a professional match other than that last match that I'd played before my back surgery, because I couldn't actually walk. Like, I tried to go up and serve. I couldn't. There was no way I'd be able to, the first time where I felt defeated on court and like utterly hopeless. And I just didn't want that to be my last, last match and work myself back. And so, I'm that like the, the goals have certainly changed throughout the years from wanting to be top hundred and then top 50 to now it's, it's more like, find a way to go out on my own terms and enjoy the tournaments and compete and enjoy that competition, knowing that it doesn't last.
The Tennis.com Podcast
"every two" Discussed on The Tennis.com Podcast
"And so there's a lot of like, one, is it worth it? Two, like, do I need to change something? When am I going to get on court? There was a lot of, there's a lot of tears. There's a lot of fear of what's next? Is my career really going to end prematurely at 25? But having that success right out of college and being able to hit like a 63 has been my career high, but, and that was less than two years out of school. But having that, that showed me that I had the level. It was one of the things I was like, I know I can play, but how can I keep my, like, what do I need to tweak? How can I keep my body healthy? Because if I can just allow myself to be healthy, then I can let my game show through. And finally, I found a new strength coach. I just, I started working with a new psychologist and I really actually started to believe in almost like create my own desk, like just tell myself that I was like destined to overcome this, this injury and get back and surrounded myself with a team that believed in me. And more importantly, like allowed me to believe in myself again. And I finally got back on tour and it didn't take, it took a year from the time I got back on tour. I remember the first time I went back, I qualified, I made the quarters of a challenge. I was like, well, it's like riding a bike. I'm back. And then I did win more than a match in a row for the next, at the challenger. I think I only made one quarter final after that for the next six months, got injured again and went through that whole questioning. And then I started working with Peter Lucas and after the U S open that year, I just remember going playing the U S open. I didn't really have a stable team. I lost the match and it wasn't losing the mass, but it was the way I was playing.
The Tennis.com Podcast
"every two" Discussed on The Tennis.com Podcast
"Were you hoping for the stadium with the crowd? Yeah, I want the stadium. I want the stadium. That's, that's what I play for. That's, I think that's, that's all part of what makes the slams great is playing in those stadiums, playing in those electric crowds. I mean, New York in the summer as an American, like my best tennis memories as the pro tour, most of the best memories have been at the U S open. I can rattle off so much. My first five set win was my first grand slam win there in 2012 when I beat Meltzer after qualifying for the open. I played Michigan Corey and the, the new Louis Armstrong and lost the tight fourth, fourth setter, like playing Lopez, like second round U S open 2013. Like even some of them that were losses are still memorable because of like the crowd support that I had and the way I was playing and just, it was one of those win or lose. It was, they're always going to stick out in my head. I remember the Lopez Matz's day and just the agony of defeat. It was the first time where I really felt like I should beat this guy who's 20, 25 in the world. And it's like, Oh wow. Like that's the realization that I have now. Okay. I can, I can play at this level. Like if I'm having these thoughts, like that should be me in the third round and not just like the year before I played Gasquet, he wiped me off the court. I was like, wow, that was fun. And then a year later, I'm like, this should be me in the third round. It's, it was quite a change from the year prior. So you've had a lot of your career sort of like interrupted by injury, right? You know, like stop talking about some of those injuries, because I think like five years after you turned pro you had like sort of a major sort of injury. Tell us about, hey, tell us about the injury and then tell us if you kept going.
The Tennis.com Podcast
"every two" Discussed on The Tennis.com Podcast
"My winter quarter junior year and like some of it was filler like I made sure that it wasn't like for econ class because I majored in econ. I wasn't just going to go nuts with the econ. But that was where I started to pull in. Okay, I need this elective. Let's load this up here. Let's find where I can get my unit count up and where I'm missing so that I can give myself that opportunity. And so I set myself up where I only needed two quarters to graduate my senior year. And then I had, I hurt my back junior year. That was the first time I had surgery. I had surgery the fall of my senior year, but I knew going in, I was injured the whole junior season with my back, it just kept getting worse and worse. We couldn't figure out what was going on. And before the fall quarter, I knew I wasn't gonna be able to play for three months. So I was like, okay, if I can't play, then I'm going to go back and just go to school. And I had the surgery and I finished the two quarters out fall and winter quarter and then it worked out well as I was getting healthy. I'm done with school. I can really, I still play the team matches. I finish out my NCAA career, but I can now train like a pro. So you got U .S. on the wildcard, you win NCAA, you got U .S. on the wildcard. And when I think of like the U .S. Open, the energy around the American players is amazing. Whether you're a young player, wildcard, old, and you got to play Sam Querrey, another American, right? It was probably at that time, a bigger known name. So very rarely are you an American U .S. Open and not having the whole crowd cheer for you. How was that experience playing Sam Querrey? First of all, I'm sure the U .S. today was like, wow, you got to play Sam Querrey?
The Tennis.com Podcast
"every two" Discussed on The Tennis.com Podcast
"And that was really the first time I was like, okay, I'm going to give this run like I'm going to play professional tennis, when I'm done with school. And I started looking at it even in college that way. And I wanted to double A's and I really struggled that summer after I won I didn't really handle the pressure of, am I going to get a US Open wildcard Am I not should I play pro should I not like all these decisions really didn't allow me to play freely, and then I thought about the life I built at school. My friends, the education that I was working towards and realized I, I would not regret having a Stanford education and a Stanford degree when I was playing pro. If I left, there might have been that what if, should I finish should I not. But I was able to complete that I finished it all the way I graduated a quarter early, and that was a really proud moment for me to be able to say I have a degree from Stanford, and then go play tennis after. So, what school, other than Stanford, were you considering Stanford is hard to say no to. But it's beautiful others that are like UCLA looking kind of tempted in Florida, Texas and UGA all those are also great options for tennis players, what was the second loser. USC. I really only looked at West Coast schools, I looked at UVA and Duke, a little bit. It was. I was 100 % going for a combination of academics and athletics. And, but USC being from Southern California, I remember watching the mat liner Reggie Bush era of USC football as I was early in my high school years, I saw Reggie Bush play in high school. Down at helix. They played power high. I remember going to the game and watching him and Alex Smith. And I was like, Oh man, I gotta go be a part of that like that football, like, I just want I
The Tennis.com Podcast
"every two" Discussed on The Tennis.com Podcast
"And we drive at 5am and we'd be pitch black and we'd stop and like we'd wait till it started getting a little bit lighter and then we'd, I think we'd stop at like the San Clemente High School, the headquarters, be able to open a gate. The sun would just be coming up and it helped both my parents get hit so they could warm me up. So we'd stop there and hit and just keep on driving. so So, much of my childhood memories are like positive in that regard is just being able to bond with my parents and and certainly my mom had a lot more knowledge of tennis, and so was, I would say more of the coach and just would relay stuff whereas my dad was a little. My dad was very athletic but he didn't play tennis as much so it was like, we go do like it was more. Let's go to Dave and Busters in between matches and and blow some steam off. So, it was a good mix of both. So, you then go you obviously get good right top 14 in the world. So, ITF. How did you decide, I mean it sounds like your parents were like academically inclined, wanted you a good education and perhaps go into business right. How did you choose, I mean, you're a California kid. So if you can go to Stanford, you never say no to Stanford. Right. So that's an obvious choice but how did you decide to go to college because I know now. The kids top 25 ITF. And they play three of the four junior slams. They're like, maybe I go straight to the pros maybe I like the kid Mickelson now right you know right. Pretty good. Yeah, it's funny I just saw the training room an hour ago we were talking about it. He won the tournament in Chicago and final Newport. That kid might not go to college right so how did you decide that I'm 14 in the world, but I still need to go to college.
The Tennis.com Podcast
"every two" Discussed on The Tennis.com Podcast
"My parents wanted me to use my tennis, get the best education possible. Once I got into tennis, obviously, they—you know, it was nice, I guess, backtracking to when I started. It was certainly nice. My mom and I could go hit. My dad played tennis a little bit as he got older. Both my siblings learned about the same time I did. So, it was certainly fun for us to go on vacations and we could be able to play and, you know, I don't know. My mom obviously went through. She played junior tennis, so she had an understanding of what junior tennis was like. I certainly—she certainly told me plenty of stories from her junior tennis days, parents sitting up in the trees coaching their players and their kids. So, you know, it's funny. When I was growing up, I felt like she really took that to heart and was very, like, she was quiet during, you know, she found me a coach. She tried to stay out of it as best she could. She let the coach run things. And it helped going to tournaments because she is knowledgeable of the game and she could relay the information that the coach was trying to implement and keep the message the same, but also knowing to step back and just be mom and, like, wouldn't get involved in tournaments. It was very quiet. If anything, she'd just bring her book and a chair and read while I was waiting to play and very supportive. But my mom's always been, I'd say she was quiet, but you knew that you had her support. It was, you know, she was competitive. She was a great competitor herself. And I learned a lot from that. Just instilling that toughness in me, battling it out, just the old mentality of you get what you get and you don't throw a fit. Just put your head down and control what you can and compete. So, no matter how cool a tennis parent is, and like in the California scene, you all can drive up and down that long state, right, and play tournaments.
The Tennis.com Podcast
"every two" Discussed on The Tennis.com Podcast
"California, which I've never been to and never met anybody other than Bradley. We've been there. Bradley Klein, thanks for coming to the show. Thanks so much for having me. So tell us about Poway, California, because I literally had to like look it up on a map and be like, where the hell is this place? And I found it close to San Diego. So now it all makes sense, right? All your California roots. But tell us about Poway. Yeah, so I was born and raised out there. My parents are from the Midwest. My mom was born in Rockford, Illinois. My dad was born in Kansas City. They made their way out to San Diego before I was born. So I, a lot of really good childhood memories from Poway, you know, good tennis. I trained at a community center with my coach Lee Mary from the time I was 11. I played a lot of other sports. Tennis was the last one I picked up. My soccer coach didn't really want me playing on the All -Star baseball team. Over the summer, they were conflicting and I loved baseball. And I was like, screw it, I'm done with soccer. Like if you get a cause me problems like that, you're gonna punish me for missing practice, like I'm out. And then I needed something else to do with my time over the summer. And I had a buddy from T -Ball. We'd grown up together. My mom's still good friends with his mom and he just, he was athletic and we'd go down and we'd play two out of three sets and I don't even know if we knew what we were doing at the time. But we could keep score. And we just started battling. And I loved it and I picked it up from there. a It was great place, obviously, weather -wise. Southern California, you're close to so many great tennis players. You can play year -round. I love going home to Powell. It's just, it's peaceful. It's still home for me.
My First Million
"every two" Discussed on My First Million
"It right so it's just a it's a much it's a it's a big acquisition of the final numbers are were still in the middle of the earn out. But it's it's oh it'll it could be close to one hundred twenty five hundred thirty million just me now right in so that that unto itself as a really significant single transaction that is that very few people ever experience so again. It's an it to me. It's the first company that i built. That was in the built to sell structure right of Taught myself business completely built system. For how i would create businesses. It was the very first one that i built to sell and built it in sold in three years right and went i to investment bankers said. I'm on a bill production and sell it. The people that only sell a production companies. They're like okay. Here's how you got to do it. If you build it sell it. Then i went and hired a person who just went through a build an acquisition was the number two at the company to help me build it. Then i went out and began to build it at what happened a whole lot of magical shit apple. You know what i like because like like all of these different things like occurred that allowed me to go from zero revenue. Fifty million in the first year that allowed like the trajectory of growth in the eba in the company to scale based off of ridiculousness. Having second resurgence and maybe no negotiate the value of the company based off a now understanding production the unit economics of what the network would need these unpredictable things that that in the beginning. But i said it where i would build it and sell it in three years and then took it to market went back to those bankers three years later. Here's the numbers. Let's take it out and see if see who would be interested now as fate would have it. The group that acquired it was the same group that offered me the three sixty deal that said i had no value in two thousand and thirteen. And when they acquired it. Part of the acquisition made him also acquire my professional skateboarding. Leading is part of the roll up that they create right. It was a very poetic justice than beautiful sort of three sixty moment as it relates to they as the single sort of private equity that drove me to reevaluate and and really it pushed myself to leg design my life and then they come around and also provide the opportunity that sets me up for the future instead of only half of me for the rest of my life. They acquired the only two assets. I kept from that era. You don't know the from. But sam is kind of a nut like you are he at the age of. He showed me the spreadsheet. He's like i made this. I think he's twenty three twenty four..
My First Million
"every two" Discussed on My First Million
"Coffee at five. Fifteen god bless her. She started doing five. Thirty calls for business Which means she's going to be tired earlier. That means we could go to bed by nine. Thirty which is another sort of blessing and this is happening in la. Right you're zero. And then but you know. I i pop out a meditation at seven. Wake the kids up. getting both down to breakfast at seven thirty my trainer dr comes to the house Seven thirty to eight thirty Training and then take the kids to school at eight thirty right and then the day depending on what the week is you know. Sometimes i go to breakfast dates with wife. Sometimes it's you know on mondays. You i basically run a flat organization. Right so i have. You know. Ten core divisions at iran by an executive and spend monday fully organizing from when i get up four o'clock into my chief of staff our in my president. Ceo for an hour and then half hours for every single person that runs that The vision so that we can just be highly organized in plan the rest of the week. Which of course is inside thursday night date nights in friday night sushi night with my wife and my kids up in all of i've designed balance then i only work within the structure of balance an independent on how i feel depending on how my wife feels then. I'll even adjust that to lean into making sure that my family's feeling priority above business always you. You're like you're like you know the people make fun of silicon valley people because they're like. Here's my calendar. I've got adjusted like this. This and this. But i'm sitting here looking at you. I think it looks like you're wearing a black blazer with a black sweater and you've got these slick air pods in. You're more silicon valley techy in tune with this like the stereotypes of it. And i i love it. I think this is look on. I am human optimization and optimized to to be what though to just be happy you know what. I mean like at the end of the day. That's why you're playing the game and you gotta figure out yourself to understand what truly makes you happy cause your goal is to not be happy in pockets. Your goal is to be happy every single hour of every single day of your life right. And that's really what i've accomplished. And i'll tell you something if you think about you live. You can live in two places that will get you nowhere dwelling and being negative right or it's being helpful in like wishing right either of get you nowhere but real life is lived as you're either problem solving you're either creating the future or your experience in the president right in the truth is whatever you're experiencing. The president is based off of the decisions you've made in the past and it's your choice to create. Whatever you your reality is that you're going to eventually experience or god forbid something hit you rather than dwelling on it or hoping. It didn't happen if you problem solve in handle it you're not going to. You can basically live a life with no negative thoughts if you learn to live in a state of either experiencing creating a problem solving in your entire life right but it's all on you to understand what that is to be able to live in that state..
My First Million
"every two" Discussed on My First Million
"When you look at the overall balance and i could show you this because they track it every day and it pumps all of it into this beautiful dashboard. Because what i've done over time because to give you an idea shot two hundred fifty episode of television this year. It's exactly four percent of my total. That's how highly optimized it's become right because you basically have a certain level of human capacity order to scale it you either hire automated so i live this deeply automated life That that hires people in to add capacity in at the end of the day. I just live super balanced in happy when software. Are you using track all that time. Yeah i created. I had a i had a program or write me a script that goes inside google. The google calendar. It's an app on your phone. Or interest on a spreadsheet based. It's inside do calendar in pops it populates a google spreadsheet right in the beauty of it is i- qualitative data. Quantitative data is what. I live my life off of right so every day for the last five years i asked. I wrote down how i feel about my life. Work in hell's you were ten in so i could show you buy the qualitative numbers. How i'm living a higher quality in happier life in in the result of that is based off the optimization that i've done on quantitative stuff but quantitative stuff is that i get up before five. Did i brain train. Did i get in the gym. That i meditate that. I have a clean diet. Did i not drink. I could show you the quantitative numbers that i have done all of those almost every single day of this entire year now eighty seven percent of those quantitative things that have just driven those qualitative. Numbers how i feel about my life my work and my health higher and higher by the numbers. I could tell you what a high quality life that. I'm living compared to justify not. Wanna take a quick break to tell you about a video that i was watching the other day and it was a video of dharma. Shot was the co founder of hub spot. Who brings you this lovely. Podcast were part of the hudson podcast network and he was on stage at this thing called. Inbound is their big annual conference for marketers. Sales people business people that sort of customer success and he was giving this talk and it was all about starbucks starbucks really set. It was amazing talk. He goes you know starbucks. You know they sell coffee okay. Well you could sell coffee beans just a commodity and that'll get you one price or you could kind of process those beans. You can do the work to make a cup of coffee out of it. That'll get you a higher price or you could strap a label on top so that it's stands for something. Put it in a nice cup. Nice packaging like starbucks does and that could charge you higher price. So how the heck starbucks charged three dollars fifty because they do all those things but the also give you a ploy place to sit a place to work place to be quiet place to not be alone but not be distracted as it not bothered at the same time and that's what coffee shop does for a lot of people. They create these coffee shops with power outlets and free wifi nice music and some snacks and some coffee because of all that they could charge three dollars fifty cents four dollars for a cup of coffee and nobody bats an eye and i loved that talk and i also just love going to conferences like this. So this is my my Promotion for inbound twenty twenty one that's spots big annual conference call inbound and they have crazy speakers they have dharma shah. They have brian halligan. The ceo spot that oprah david change housing montage the comedian and more you can grab a free starter pass or powerhouse.
My First Million
"every two" Discussed on My First Million
"Capital flows into this single llc. And then i'm distribute that capital into a real estate holdings right cash flowing real estate holdings or distributed into ventures that i co-signed Right so i co fine and create almost every single company. That i build. And i've i do. I co- find common shares and then i do the initial funding using eight hundred two million half a million dollar sort of pre money and then i put two to fifty to five hundred into every venture a try to own between twenty five and seventy percent of every single venture that i have at maturity I have built seventeen company. Sold six per in netted. Four hundred fifty million since i launched the company in two thousand sixteen one of those is the production company but all of these entities sit under the umbrella of the venture. Saad dudek machine business including rob beard television business so y production company that was acquired. Earn out goes into the llc. Um that i own one hundred percent of right and then Mitalent money lives in that same same thing than i paid myself salary. That goes through that. And then i invest all of that in in basically non correlated cash flowing a real estate investments whether veteran manufactured housing multifamily units storage units like. I've been investing a lot of rv arts lately. Did the music to my ears. Yeah it's very sophisticated. It's a very sophisticated you know. Hybrid family office. That i built for myself right now. Keep in mind. Every venture that i create has has time structure we call it the unified theory. We at the very beginning we lay out the entire capital path and growth path in win. We want to sell it how much we want to sell it foreign. That's our target Everything is built itself from the very beginning whether that's pig out. Chips and outstanding foods or mind. Ri- bars luso comfort way or any of the bill builds at i've done over the last five years but all of it is connected to this idea of of the capital that you've earned tax efficiencies on how you earn it and then ultimately the irr on every dollar wherever it goes inside the system. And what do you do you keep your expenses within the range of your dividends that come from your real estate so you basically play the entire game for free and then as you scale and have big exits big big liquidity events. You just pump more money into the overall system and you basically live this extraordinary free life now to that point i do all of this with thirty percent of my time right because i i manage..
My First Million
"every two" Discussed on My First Million
"Can you see that. There's my trae flip a full tray. Schlieffer i hear fully caught. Look straight. I could still. I still have it in me. A little bit cameron. We'll come back in a second but so you You you started skating very young. And i think you are sponsored by alien workshop and you're like thirteen fourteen fifteen something like that right Context i got sponsored it at a eleven years old but i i connected with the group and when they founded the alien workshop and i turned pro for when i was sixteen and you but now i think you own alien workshop right or your part owner no i acquired it for four million dollars and then i gave it back to the original found free and clear on top of buying a bunker in ohio so they could run the company out of it and gave that to them clear. Now is the worst. I've ever was wire a skateboarding business. look i you know. I didn't more. They were acquired by burton in i every advisor around me was like this company does not make money. It has terrible margins leg burns cash like this is a terrible investment. I didn't care. I didn't understand business. Well enough. I just wanted it for the story to home. Town kid buys back. You know the alien workshop that he sat in the room and help to choose the name. Create the brand when he was sixteen years old and finds great success and comes back and acquires the business. And when i acquired it. I felt like i acquired hornets nest and i i learned so much about the operational side of business in culture in and the dynamics of what i'd consider a a a toxic culture than i just realized that that my passion was to create build and create an roi an irr for the stuff that i created in that that doesn't align with skateboarding very much right like they're really like misery loves company. Let's all be broke. Let's all barely survive. Let's all keep your everything starving artists syndrome. And i literally like was on another call and was like man. I don't even want be on it. I don't wanna put another bit of my energy in here and you want to know what the real hero story will be. I'm going to give back the original founders. Who built the company and sold it. I'm going to just give the entire thing back to them. And that's what i did so we have to talk about a second. That's crazy to me Not a bad way but it's crazy and so you're skater. You know. I used to watch you in a lot of trans roll videos as a kid and a bunch of other stuff and then you were early ish at i think very early at dc shoes before dc shoes was even named dc right That ended up becoming a pretty monster success. And so you see a bunch of stuff then you started some of the early shows which crushed it at a now. You're telling you're sitting here talking about ridiculous the way that you're describing things i'm like it. Just the evolutions crazy right from ape quarter to like talking about how you own sixty percent of the programming on mtv. I wanted to give context there..
WTOP
"every two" Discussed on WTOP
"For every two you buy. Buy. Four. Get for free. No limit, plus pay 0% interest for 24 months. Window nation dot com Bob W. B. Travis Strong team for four day forecast in Matt Ritter. Well, the Hotter temperatures came back over the weekend, and so did the humidity. It's going to stay muggy this evening. Temperatures will stay in the seventies for the next couple of hours and will stay warm and muggy overnight. Partly cloudy skies lows will be in the mid sixties to low seventies and tomorrow. Oh, and Wednesday for that matter will be a lot like today. Partly sunny and hazy, hot and humid Tomorrow and isolated like a thunderstorm will be possible out towards the mountains highs in the mid eighties, too low nineties. Then Wednesday, a better chance of scattered late day thunderstorms out towards the mountains and in far northern Maryland highs will also be in the mid eighties to the lower nineties. Then on Thursday, a cold front coming down from Pennsylvania will try to move through the area will be mostly cloudy and we'll have more numerous showers and thunderstorms, so it won't get as hot, but it's still going to be humid in high speed. The upper seventies low eighties I'm starting four meteorologist Matt Ritter. I, It's Phil 81, Fredericksburg, 82. Eastern at 79 degrees, and some of us could drop all the way to 65 overnight. It's a 30 this is w t. O p your source for today's top news, traffic and weather. Always connected and constantly updated in your car at home at work and on the go. W T O p Never miss a moment. Evening. I'm Dimitri sodas. Alicia A. Belson is our producer. Coming up. Secretary of State Blinken pushes back against Harsh GOP Criticism of the withdrawal from Afghanistan,.
WTOP
"every two" Discussed on WTOP
"Windows free for every two you buy, Make no payments and pay no interest for 24 months visit window nation dot com Today Jack Taylor. W T o p. TRAFFIC Matt Raiders got the forecast mostly to partly sunny for today, hotter than yesterday in a bit more humid, with highs in the upper eighties to near 90 few clouds tonight warm and muggy lows in the upper sixties low seventies. Hazy, very hot and humid for tomorrow. An isolated thunderstorm possible late in the day, mostly towards the mountains in northern Maryland. Highs will be in the low to mid nineties Wednesday. Hazy very hard in human this time. Scattered thunderstorms late in the day. Highs will be in a little bit nineties. Mostly cloudy on Thursday, not as hot but still humid. More scattered thunderstorms highs in the upper eighties on store team four meteorologist meant better. Temperatures having quickly rising around the area this morning, we're up to 78 degrees outside the w T o P studios now at 8 30. This is w t o p your source for two days. Top news, traffic and weather. Always connected and constantly updated in your car at home at work and on the girl. W T O p Never this a moment. Good morning. I'm Bruce Allen. And I'm John Dome and Teddy Gilman is our producer and coming up. As Florida prepares for Tropical Storm Elsa Cruz have now demolished the remaining portion of that partially collapsed condo building. We haven't seen the fireworks before. It was the first time for a lot of people who ventured out to watch DC show I'm Valerie Bonk. The National Guard still facing possible cutbacks.
Your Gardening Questions
"every two" Discussed on Your Gardening Questions
"Fred we had an email from terry fred at plant. Talk radio dot com. And she wants to talk about sweet william okay. She says back in the nineteen sixties on the farm. We had the flowers that bloomed every year and smell wonderful two years ago. I found sweet william at a garden center already in bloom but the next year and the year after no blooms any ideas. Yes a significant idea what what was in youth. In this case was plants that came up and flowered did the thing that is remembered and then what was not remember his that the plant that was in flower. This year probably died after flooring going into winter. The little seeds from the previous year are now growing. They're just green little rosettes. they will bloom next year. So what happened. I think is of the purchase of the sweet. William was in flower. That's its second year. They are called biennial as compared to perennials and annuals. They're a two year stage where the first year. I'm gonna call her little rosetta little blip of foliage. But you don't pay much attention to and then they they settle in die down to the ground like a perennial does and come back the next year and flower. So what needs to be done in that case is to buy some this year in flower and then by some next year in flower and get that cycle going that was remembered in youth. Because that's the chances are that's exactly what happened. It is not a deceiving process. People don't know to ask. Sometimes they're the they well anyhow. The plants are beautiful. they are fragrant. they're wonderful and yet you have to start them to different years or seed them and expect just rosettes the first year and then flour the second year. But it's a cycle thing that just simply takes two years..