The Hollywood Radio Theater. Hollywood Radio Theater. Adaptations of famous motion pictures with Hollywood's greatest stars. Here is your host, Frank Brzeeve. Greetings again, ladies and gentlemen. When the average man starts out in the morning for his average job, he may sometimes hope for an escape from the routine he knows to what he thinks might be a glamorous adventure. Our play Pitfall is the story of such a man who, through the accident of a single mistake, stepped across a narrow boundary separating his world from the world of danger, violence and death. We have the same stars who were in the popular screen success with Dick Powell as our average citizen, Elizabeth Scott as the girl who completely disrupts his way of life, and Jane Wyatt as his wife. For now, the first act of Pitfall, starring Dick Powell as Johnny, Elizabeth Scott as Mona, and Jane Wyatt as Sue, with Raymond Burr as McDonald's. The Forbes live in a suburb of Los Angeles. Typical family, husband, wife and nine-year-old son. Exactly the sort of family, a living exactly the sort of life that people classify as their good old middle-class average. Oh, and your breakfast is on the table. Where else would it be? Huh? Oh, nothing, Sue, nothing. Morning, Dad. Hi. Don't forget, you're going to give me five dollars. Five dollars? Well, don't you remember, dear, his school's raising money for a summer camp? Well, the way prices are these days, the kids better start raising money for us. Dad, you promised. All right, all right here. Just make sure you don't spend it all on women. Oh, that's Harry. I've got to get going. Anything you want me to do today, Dad? Yeah, until my wrench uncle dies, stop going. Bye, Mom. Goodbye, dear. Hope the selling's better today. Bye, Dad. Bye. You better finish breakfast, Johnny. It's getting late. So what? What? I said, so what if I am late? Oh, nothing. I just thought you'd like to know. Oh, let's not go to work today. Let's go fishing. Oh, fine. Let's pick Tommy up and get in the car and just keep going. It's about the time. Thanks all the same. You think the world would stop if we did? You think the Olympic Mutual Insurance Company would go out of business if I didn't walk through that door at exactly nine o'clock every morning? You never can tell. Oh, Sue, you were voted the prettiest girl in the class. I was voted the boy most likely to succeed. Something should happen to people like us. Well, something did. We got married. And I had a baby. I never did hear what happened to you. Hmm. No fishing, huh? Well, maybe next week. So what time will you be home, dear? Now, why do you ask me a question like that? You know to the second what time I'll be home. I leave the office at exactly three minutes after five. It takes four minutes to walk to the parking lot and exactly 32 minutes to drive home unless I hit a couple stop signals and I'm kissing you on the cheek at exactly five, 39. Old man routine, getting you down again? I feel like a wheel within a wheel within a wheel. You and 50 million others. Backbone of a country, darling. Average American. Oh, but I don't want to be an average American in the backbone of the country.  Ah, goodbye, Sue. Hey, wait a minute.  I think you can do better than that. Oh, sorry, baby. Thanks. That's more like it. Well, let's have a better mood than you come tonight, huh? Oh, I'll give it all I got trying. See you at five, 39. Ann Johnson started meeting there and after details next Friday. I'd better get back to my desk. Oh, thanks, Ed.  Oh, that tonight? Oh, of course it's tonight. Ed, what did we do a week ago tonight? We ate dinner, played bridge. Two weeks ago tonight. Two years ago tonight. You mean we're in a rut? Six feet deep. Ed, let's revolt. When the girls bring out the cards tonight, let's stand on our constitutional rights. Do you want to? Sure. Maggie. Yes, Mr. Ford? Bring in the file on the Continental Finance Company, will you? No, and tell McDonald I can see you. Sit down, McDonald. Well, all you got. You know, my boss doesn't believe in hiring private detectives who can't get our money back. Tell your boss to relax. I've located about 4,000 bucks. Smiley had it well hidden. Where? With a girl named Mona Stevens. Here, here's the address. 427 North Stockton. Oh, nice work, man. No strain. You know, we're still on the hook for plenty. Smiley worked for Continental Finance and are out that bonds all their employees. He was bonded for 10,000. We want as much of it back as possible. Now, about this girl. Did you talk to her? Yeah. Yeah, when I wasn't busy just looking at her. I don't blame Smiley for robbing his company. She's worth it. Smiley is in jail. I wonder if he thinks she's worth it. What does she do? Oh, she's a model. Department stores mostly. You know, hats, dresses. Right now she's looking for a job. About 4,000. Does she have the cash? Oh, nothing so crude. He bought her a lot of prettys. Her coat, things like that. Does she know they were bought with stolen money? Smiley's been in the can for four months. I think she has a vague idea. You know something? I bet you never thought of me as a man who could fall in love. You'd be surprised how little time I have to think about you at all, Mike. This is Mona Stevens. She's quite a girl. Well, I'll have another talk with her today. You're part of the job's finished. I'll handle it from here. What's the matter with me handling it? You're destroying it along. Just see the girl again. What business is that of yours? If you want any more work from us, just stick to your detective agency. You, uh... You don't mind if I see her on my own time, do you? Not at all. Johnny. Johnny, when you see her, put in a good word for me, huh? Sure. Sure, Mike. I'll see you this afternoon. I'll set up the whole thing for you. Mona Stevens, come in. Make yourself at home. Thanks. Put down your briefcase. Olympic Neutral Insurance Company, huh? Well, I don't need any insurance. Or do I? That man you sent to see me. That McDonald. I've met some weird ones in my life.  Oh, uh, McDonald isn't with the company. He's a private detective. We sometimes use... I don't care who he is. I'm sorry if he annoyed you. He shouldn't be let loose without a keeper. I suppose you're after the gifts Bill gave me. Oh, Smiley. That's right. I don't imagine you'd believe me if I told you I didn't ask him for any of those things. It doesn't matter when we're the other. Doesn't it? I'd like a list of the articles if you don't mind. What will you do with them? Quite a realize what we can. My company bonded Smiley for $10,000. We had to make good when he stole the money. I thought it was paying for that in jail. Unfortunately, the fact that Smiley's in jail doesn't give us back a penny. What if I decide to be difficult? Then we'll be difficult. You'd have a hard time proving any of those gifts were bought with stolen money. We'd have a hard time, but we'd do it. Aren't you going to cooperate with Stevens? I don't know. What good would it do Bill? Well, he's eligible for a pardon soon. If we recovered some of the money, it might help him. Then again, it might not. Who cares? I don't want this stuff anyway. All right, I've got a fur coat. I've got a car. He made the down payment. I have a few dresses and an engagement ring. It's not a very good diamond, but believe it or not, it's the first engagement ring I've ever had. And I'm quite fond of it. I'm sorry to have to do this. I don't think you are. I don't enjoy doing this sort of thing. No, I don't imagine you like it or dislike it. What do you mean?   So, here you are. And tonight, when you're sitting around with the boys, you'll say, you should have seen the babe I ran into today. Not bad. But you know me, fellas, strictly business when I'm on the job. Oh, that's what I'll say, huh? That's the way I impress you? That's the way. How should I be, Mr. Stephen? If you were a nice guy, you'd cry a little with me.  And would I take the ring? I mean, if I were a nice guy. Sure. That's part of your job.  At this time of day, according to statistics, Mr. Forbes, insurance men drink one in three-quarter hot balls every day, but only after the sun goes down. You know, I'd shoot myself if I thought I was turning into the sort of man you just described. What about the boat? The boat. Yes, the boat. You mean you and your playmate McDonald didn't know about it? No. Well, you might as well make a complete haul. I'll show you the boat now. If you don't mind a trip down to the harbor. Now? Oh, of course. The fur coat, the dresses, my engagement ring. Don't worry, Mr. Forbes. They'll still be here when we get back. You'd rather not go, is that it? No. No, I think I'd like to go. You can leave your briefcase. I hardly think we'll be gone overnight. Well, there she is, Mr. Forbes. Like her? Hey, somebody's been kidding me. Crime does pay. One of both. Oh, no, it's not that one. It's this one over here. Oh. What did you expect, the Queen Mary? You should have seen her before I painted her. Well, you painted her. Oh, you'd be surprised what a little elbow grease will do when you're short of money. Of course, you wouldn't know about that. No, I work for an insurance company. Let's take her out in the bay. You mean you want to take a ride? Why not? It's a company's time.  Like another drink? No, thanks. I'm doing fine. You never mentioned how you like to vote. Oh, I liked it. You can get a lot of fun out of a beat-up launch.  I'd rather have it more than anything I've ever owned. But I like this too, being here. Have you ever noticed, if for some reason you want to feel completely out of stuff with the rest of the world, the only thing to do is sit around a cocktail lounge in the afternoon? Why? Well, you have a few meditative drinks and a gloom, and you get everything figured out.  And you feel like something that's been drinking in a go-for-home. Tell me, how did you happen to get mixed up with someone like Smiley? As the girl said, just lucky, I guess. Anyway, he's too much in love with me. He wanted to buy things for me, and he didn't have the money. So he went out and got some. Did you have to? Was it that important to you? No, but he didn't know that. I liked him mostly because he was nice to me. Very human-like. What do you care about me? Oh, just curious, I guess. Well, that's flattering. No, I didn't mean it that way. I guess I'm out of practice. I'm a little unsure of myself whenever I crawl out of that briefcase. I'm sorry I let into you like that. That could be a part of it. You got your free drink, didn't it? Do you have to be someplace for dinner? Dinner? No. No, I don't have to be anywhere. Well, Mr. Fogg, here's to dinner together. I told your secretary I'd wait for you here. You want to see me about something special in McDonald, or do you just like to sit in my chair? Why the chill? No chill. I've got a lot of work to do. I've just been looking at this report on your desk. A list of the things you recovered from Mona Stevens. You must be slipping, Johnny. What about the boat? Boat? What boat? The boat Smiley bought for her. I must have missed it. I didn't know she had a boat. She's quite a girl, isn't she?  I've got another job for you, Maggie. Fine. I'm always glad to go to work. Maggie, get the file in the hall case, will you?  Take this, Mona Stevens. Maybe she wouldn't appeal to most guys, but for me, she's got everything. The minute I saw her, it was just like that. I don't think she feels the same about you, not from what she said yesterday. She's a little coy, that's all. But once she gets used to me, we'll make a great team. The whole case file, Mr. Ford. Thanks, Maggie. About Mona, Johnny, what did you find to talk to her about for such a long time yesterday? Look, Mac, are you interested in a new job or not? Well, sure, sure. Sorry. Can't let women interfere with business, can we? Here, take a look at this file. Fairly cut and dry. Oh, hello. Hello. Come in. Just passing by, or did you go out of your way to make this call? I went out of my way. That's nice. How's the insurance business? And what's happened in the outside world that I should know about? Oh, a couple of things. We just took possession of your board. Oh. Mac Donald found out that I let you keep it. He could have caused trouble at the office. The man who walks like a mountain. He was pounding on my door last night till all hours. It's funny, isn't it? Why? Well, I meet someone who's kind. He tries to do something nice for me, and almost immediately he's in trouble. You, uh, you mean I'm nice? Yes, you've tried.  You could have phoned about the boat, or just waited until I found it was gone. Well, don't worry about it. Why is it that you get attached to things that really don't make any difference? I don't know, but I know how it is. I had a car once that was repossessed. I've had ten cars since then, but I've never liked any of them as well as that one. It was probably our first car. It was. This was my first boat. Don't try, Johnny. He'll end up with Bill Smiley as... but thanks anyway for wanting to. You're funny. How? You're not at all like the man who walked in here about twenty-four hours ago. Well, from the way you described that man, I'd say anything would be an improvement. Maybe that's what I mean. Oh, yes, Johnny, a big improvement. McDonald, what are you trying to do? Adopt me? I've been waiting for you to come home. Look at the time. One o'clock. What's your wife say when you come home at one o'clock at night? She gets curious, especially about mugs who wait for me in the driveway. I just wanted to see you to make a report. That hall case, Johnny, I didn't get very far today.  I will as long as it doesn't interfere with mine. Johnny, I told you I liked that girl. I don't care what you like or what you don't like.  All right, Johnny. And whatever, let me catch you prowling around my home again. You won't. Maybe this will keep you home where you belong for a few days. And don't bother to tell me I'm fired. I quit. Our stars will return for a clue of pitfall in a moment.  How would your grades be today? Let me tell you how you can get all these. Take part in the school advisory committee of your God's school. It makes recommendations and suggestions, evaluates the curriculum, and even keeps the community informed about what's new at school. God's is a quality school system, and you can help keep it that way through your school advisory committee. Attend its meetings regularly and speak up. That way the system hears what you have to say, and at the same time lets you know more about the program. That kind of dialogue that keeps God's one of the finest school systems in the world. So participate in your school advisory committee meetings, and if you're elected to the committee, serve properly. And now, here again is your host. Act 2 of Pitfall, starring Dick Powell as Johnny, Elizabeth Scott as Mona, and Jane Wyatt as Sue, with Raymond Burr as McDonald. Several hours have passed since John Forbes, bruised and bleeding from the beating McDonald administered, staggered into his house.  Well, that'll hold you, Johnny. You'll be uncomfortable for a while. How long will I be laid up, Doc? Well, a week or so. Well, just hold up, man. How much did they get? Well, I was only carrying about $20. There were two of them, Dr. Adams. If there was only one, Dad would have knocked his block off, huh, Dad? No, sure, sure. Dad was a boxer in college. Well, I think he was wise to go into the insurance business. I still don't know why he won't let me call the police. Well, we've been all over that, Sue. They won't be back. Maybe if they did, you and I could beat them up, huh, Dad? Why aren't you in school? It's Saturday. Then go out and play or something. Okay, Dad, if you're sure you won't name me. This prescription, Sue. Better get to the drugstore this morning. What is it? A course in boxing. Don't worry, Sue. He'll live. Johnny, what really happened? Oh, I'll be up in a few days. Nothing to worry about. All right, dear. If you don't want to talk about it. Call the office, Sue. Tell Maggie I've got a bad cold, flu or something. Well, I'm certainly glad you're back, Mr. Forbes. Sure you feel all right? Yes, Maggie. Oh, a little weak, maybe. You know what the flu can do. How are things here? Oh, like always, Mr. Forbes. Here's all your mail. Phone calls? A list on your desk. That Ms. Stevens called several times, but she said it was nothing important. Ms. Stevens? A smiley embezzlement case.  Well, I better start waiting through the mail. Here we go again, Johnny. Cocktails in the middle of the afternoon. I had to see you, Mona. It wasn't easy getting away. I have a job now. Oh, where? Franklin's, third floor, modeling dresses. How do you feel? Oh, I had a sort of a cold, laid up for a few days. Yes, McDonald told me about it. Oh. You don't think it overlooks a chance to play hero in front of me, do you? I didn't come here to talk about McDonald. That suits me. What will we talk about? Well, a couple of things I should have mentioned before and didn't. You mean like the fact that you are married? Mona, I... Would you like to know how I found out about it? Simple, Johnny. When I heard you were sick, I bought some food to take to you. Hi. I saw your wife. She was just leaving the house. What did you... Don't worry, Johnny. I pretended I had the wrong address. Right number. Long street. What do you want me to do? About what? You, of course. I've done something I'm terribly ashamed of. I'd like to make it up to you. If you think I'm going to compete with a wife and child, even I have more sense than that. What's going to happen to you? Do you care, really? Honestly, Johnny, aren't you a little relieved to get out of it this easily? This is a setup. The kind of girl you've always dreamed about. I'm going to let you off without an angle. Why? I'm not going to be nasty. Tell me, Johnny. What happens to men like you? If I had a nice home, I wouldn't take a chance with it for anything in the world. I'll do anything I can. Will you really? Then go home. Stay there. Okay. That's the way you want it. But that's the way I want it. Have you any other ideas? Mona, wait a minute. No. No, I'm leaving. Oh, I... I almost forgot.   You left it the other night. I'm sure you'd be lost without it. Goodbye, Johnny. Appreciate this, Pop. I didn't know you knew how to put model airplanes together. My boy, it's all a matter of patience and glue. Never forget that. Gee, you know all about everything, don't you? Just about. Hey, Dad, where'd you do during the war? Anything I was told. I mean, where were you? Almost the time. I was stationed in Denver, Colorado. Oh, Colorado. Well, what's the matter with that? The Jap's never got into Denver as long as your father was there. Thanks, dear. Henry's father was decorated. Well, your father got a good conduct medal with four oak leaf clusters. Oh, really? Way like your Henry. His father only got the Silver Star. Son, I don't think I'd mention that if I were you. It might sound like boasting. Yeah. We going on a trip this summer, Pop? I don't know. Why? I'm tired of this town all the time. Well, what's the matter with this town? People all over the world would like to live here. That's a trouble with your generation. You don't appreciate the things you have. You've got one of the nicest homes in the block. Security. Not a thing in the world to worry about. Wow, if you want the strangest husband I ever married, what come over you? Contentment. And that's the secret of happiness, and don't you forget it. All right, I won't. Come on, I'll take you to a picture show. Now, here. Give me a minute.  Easy, partner. There's a child around. Thanks, Mrs. Forbes. Come on, Tommy, picture show. Why don't you give up, Mac Donald?  I got plenty of patience. You're wasting your time. Maybe I feel like wasting my time. Let me alone, Mac, and don't ever come to Franklin's again. I've got a job and I want to keep it. I see you, Mona. I like to see you wearing those nice dresses. All right. Let me put it another way. I don't like you. I don't want you around. Suppose I'm just stubborn. Suppose I figure I know you better than you know yourself. I've asked you nicely, Mac. I can always call the police. I wouldn't call the police if I were you. You wouldn't want to cause Johnny and Mrs. Forbes any trouble, would you? Now, come on. Picture your face and we'll go somewhere nice and have a good day. Hi, Officer. I'm looking for Mrs. Stevens. She's a model here. Oh, yes. The salon's over there to the right, sir. Thanks. Hello, Mona. It's nice to see you. I hope I didn't inconvenience you, asking you to come over here. No, not at all. I wouldn't have bothered you only. It was absolutely necessary. I know that. It's Mac Donald, Johnny. I don't know what to do about him. What's he done? Well, for a month now, he follows me all the time. He just won't leave me alone. I even threatened to call the police. Well? Well, he said if I did, he'd go to your wife.  Oh, so that's it. Well, I'm glad you told me. I know where he lives. I'll have a talk with him. Is everything else all right? Thanks. Everything's fine. Oh, I heard Bill Smiley will be getting out of jail soon. Probation. Yes? Let's seem to help. We're covering some of those things he bought for you. About Mac Donald, be careful, Johnny. I will. He won't bother you anymore, Mona. Oh, it's you, Johnny. Greetings, Mac! This is just a warning, Mac. If you're smart, you'll take it seriously. Leave the girl alone. And if I ever hear you threatened to do anything about my family again, I'll...  I mean that. So long, Mac Donald. Since I was in the neighborhood of the county jail, Mr. Smiley, I thought I'd drop in and see you. Who are you? What do I mean to you? My name's Mac Donald. I was the insurance investigator when you took off with that 10 grand. You don't mean a thing to me, Smiley. Only I don't like to see a guy get a bad deal. Who's getting a bad deal? I'm getting out on Friday. I just thought you should know that I met your girl. And I know all about Forbes. Forbes? What are you talking about? Forbes is the insurance man.  How do you know so much? Anyway, so what if it's true? What am I supposed to do, bust out of here? I didn't mean to get you so upset, pal. I guess I better go. Yeah, yeah, I guess you better. And leave me alone. How do I know you're not lying? You don't. So long, pal. Lucky you, Mona, getting the afternoon off. Going to the beach, huh? No, Terry. I thought I'd go downtown. I want to see Bill Smiley. Oh? I thought that was all over. Well, he's getting out tomorrow. And we have some plans to make. Sure you're not making a mistake. Well, I've been thinking we might as well try making some sort of life for ourselves. But I thought there was someone else. As a matter of fact... There isn't anyone else. Be careful, Mona. You're too nice a girl to have anything else to worry about. That's Mr. Stevens. Okay, Smiley. This way. Get your girlfriend. Hello, Bill. Hello, Mona. Well, ten minutes isn't very long, so I better get right to the point. You're getting out tomorrow. Who's Forbes, Mona? And who's this guy's been coming to see me? McDonald. Who is he? McDonald? He's been here. He's been driving me crazy. Look, Bill, let's not get tangled up in a lot of things that don't matter. Don't matter to who? Anything he tells you, Bill, don't pay any attention to me. Who is he? He's star at me because I wouldn't have anything to do with him. That's why he's bothering you. That's great. He's making a play for you. It comes to me with a story about somebody named Forbes, and I believe... Where's your ring? I gave it back, Bill. That's why you're getting out so soon. I gave all the things back. Thanks. Thanks a lot. I see they're sweating it out to give you some things, and you take them back. Maybe that McDonald guy is right. He could be wrong, too. Yeah, yeah, maybe. But I'll know the answers tomorrow, won't I? I said I'll know the answers tomorrow! I thought it might be a lot less conspicuous if we met here in the park, Johnny. For a girl who asked you to stay away from me, I call you up an awful lot. That's all right. McDonald been bothering you again? Not me. Bill. Bill Smiley. McDonald's gone to the jail a few times to see him. I don't know how, but he gets in. McDonald used to be on the police force. Anyway, he's told Smiley about us. He's been needling him till Bill's almost out of his mind. Oh, I see. How long is this going on? I thought the whole thing was finished. If you don't mind, it isn't exactly easy on me, either. What do you want me to do? I don't want you to do anything. I needed someone to talk to. I thought you were the one. When's Smiley getting out? Tomorrow. I don't want him to get into any trouble, Johnny. He used to be on the police force. Anyway, he's told Smiley about us. He's been needling him till Bill's almost out of his mind. Oh, I see. How long is this going on? I thought the whole thing was finished. If you don't mind, it isn't exactly easy on me, either. What do you want me to do? I don't want you to do anything. I needed someone to talk to. I thought you were the one. When's Smiley getting out? Tomorrow. I don't want him to get into any trouble, Johnny. And I don't want him to ruin anything for you. He won't ruin anything for me. I'm sorry I bothered you. I just thought you ought to know. Oh, thanks. Thanks, Mark. Well, let's get back to the car and I'll drive you home. No, I'll walk, Johnny. Oh, pretty story, Ed. Tonight when I met her in the park, she said she had to have someone to talk to. So do I. That's why I've come to you. I just don't understand you, Johnny. It's like a case of temporary insanity. You take a chance at losing your family, your job, for what? I've asked myself that time and again. But what do I do now? Do I tell Sue? Certainly not. You think you're going to ease your conscience by making Sue's life miserable? You've got nothing to think coming. Suppose she finds out, wouldn't it be better coming from me? You can't change anything that's happened by telling her. I assume you're still interested in keeping your marriage together. Well, you know I am. I do anything.  I already have. I don't know what to say. Do you want to go to the police? No, I'm not interested in telling this to anybody else. What about taking Tommy and Sue and getting out of town for a while? What good would that do?  No, I don't know why I bother to tell you. I don't either. Oh, you know I don't mean that. I'll do everything I can, Johnny, but give me some time to think about it, huh? You'd better get on home now. Oh, thanks. How does it feel, Ed, to be a decent, respectable married man? Yes, Sue? You want to talk about it? Talk about what? Whatever's on your mind. We've been reading the same page in that newspaper for an hour. Johnny, listen, if you have any troubles, they're half mine. Maybe you wouldn't want half of them. Well, whether I want them or not, I have a right to them. Besides, nothing's too tough for us. We won the war together. We brought Tommy through pneumonia. What is it, Johnny? So I... I don't know how to tell you. What is it? It's all right, Tommy. We're coming. All right, darling, you were just dreaming. Dreaming? Something was coming after me, coming in the window. Well, Tommy, I've looked everywhere. Nothing out there at all. You just had a bad dream. Is this what you were reading before you went to sleep, those comic books? Where does he get this stuff? Grandma's sent them to me. I'll burn them tomorrow. Mom, please. While you're at it, send Grandma a little too. I'd... I'd love to, darling.  Well, Chief, everything under control now? I think so. Dad, what makes a dream? Well, uh, you know how a camera works? Sure, it takes pictures. That's right. That's how the mind works. Evidently, from the day we're born, the mind takes pictures and stores them away. Now and then, one of those pictures comes loose and I sleep, and that's what makes a dream. So the trick is, take only good pictures and have only good dreams. Who should try, Dad? Good night. Good night, Tommy. I scared you. Johnny, where are you going? Just down to the kitchen. You want me to fix you something? No, thanks. I'm not hungry. I'll just have a glass of milk. You know, sometimes I'm awfully proud of myself. Why? Are you giving Tommy such a wonderful father? He thinks you're the greatest guy on earth. He could be wrong. My son's never wrong. Johnny, before Tommy called us, you were going to tell me something? You know, I believe I could eat something, at that, some eggs maybe. So you won't talk? No, it isn't important, so it'll work out. Just something at the office. Okay, Johnny, whatever you say. That's right, William Smiley. What do you want to see him about? This is a jail, you know, not a hotel. Oh, I'm from the Olympic Mutual Insurance Company. He was involved in one of our claims. Isn't that funny? He was let out at eight o'clock this morning, not an hour ago. Oh? And he left with you. What are you talking about?  McDonald? Oh, okay, thanks. In the next 30 seconds, the average person will blink about a dozen times. It's nature's way of cleansing and lubricating the eye. The lids also protect eyes against dust and dirt. But in order to maintain good vision, eyes also need protecting in other ways. And yet two out of every three adults who don't think they need glasses have never had an optometric examination. Do you know for sure what condition your eyes are in? Isn't it worth finding out? A public service from the American Optometric Association. Vincent Price for direct deposit. You all know me. I'm a peaceful man. I wouldn't even hurt a fly. But now I'm going to get out of line. I'm going to sign up for direct deposit. So I'll never have to stand in line with my government check again.  I always want to cut ahead. With direct deposit, I don't have to. My money is deposited in my account every time. Automatically, it's there waiting for me. Helpless. Direct deposit frees up my time for my other interests. Like my experiments. Get direct deposit wherever you have your checking or savings account.  A public service of the ad council and the department of the Treasury's financial management service. Come on, get direct deposit for your federal government check. Your host, Frank Brezee, returns to the microphone. Following our play, Miss Scott will join us for a curtain call. Now it's time for Act 3 of Pitfall, starring Elizabeth Scott as Mona, Dick Powell as Johnny, Jane Wyatt as Sue, with Raymond Burr as McDonald. It's early afternoon now. Mona's taken the day off, waiting nervously in her apartment for the caller who finally arrives. Hello, Bill. Hi. You've been celebrating, huh? Yeah, I had a few drinks. Oh, I don't blame you. Tonight will really do the time. Yeah, yeah, tonight. I didn't know what time you were getting out, or I would have been there to meet you. That would have been nice.  Who says I don't? Yeah, I've seemed like I didn't want to kiss you. Bill, what's that? There's something in your pocket. The gun, see? Your friend of yours was kind enough to let it to me. If they caught you carrying that, you'd be back in prison for good. You seem to get along without me. Don't believe everything you hear. You don't know McDonald. How do you know him? He was off to me, Bill. He'll do anything. Why does he want me to kill fours? He's jealous of him. Why? It's all over now, Bill. It never amounted to anything really. In order for something to be over, it's got to start first. We all make mistakes, Bill. You made one. For you.  All right. I was wrong. Didn't you ever hear of forgiving anyone? You, I can forgive. The Forbes guy, no. He takes back the things I'm sweating out of jail rap to get for you, and then he takes you. No, it wasn't that way at all. We'll see, Mona. Bill, please, please. Forget it.  It's almost over. Can't you read me another one? As soon as I finish this, you're going to go to bed. Now, uh, I'll hurry up. No, oh, yeah, here we are. Uh, and then as they came around the corner, Ralph and Ted, the fun-loving Busby boys, came upon an ancient grizzled mountain lion with perfect coordination, the two boys dove for shelter. Well, how come they didn't use their atom guns? The Busby boys don't have atom guns. They use slingshot. Some doves. What's the matter with kids these days? The only kind of stories they like are trash about men from Mars, women getting tortured, and... No, I'll get it. Really, Tommy? That's good enough to read to you. The least you can do. Hello? Johnny, this is Mona. Has Molly been there? Yeah, no. Only got out today. I know that. MacDonald gave him a gun. He's been threatening to go over to see you. Where is he now? I don't know. We've hurt him, but he isn't here. All right, I'll watch out for him. I don't want him hurt. I'm back in jail. I'll take care of it. I'll come right over. You stay right where you are. But Johnny, I know how to handle it. You know you can't come over here. I'll call you later after I've talked to him. Who was it, Dan? Everybody. Hey, uh... Chief, how would you like to go to a picture show? Why?   Johnny, you're out of your mind. It's almost nine o'clock. Well, you can make the last show. Sure we can, Mom. Easy. I don't know what's come over you. I'm not going to any shows tonight. Go up to bed, Tommy. I'm not going. Run along now. I'll come up in a minute. Johnny, what's the matter with you? Well, uh... There's a man coming from the office. He'll be here in a little while. I... I don't want him to talk with him alone. Well, we've got more than one room. I'll stay upstairs. You can talk to him down here. Yeah. I'll... I'll talk to him here. Soon, Tommy. Upstairs. Winters and doors are locked. The lights out. Come on, open up. Don't move. I've got a gun sticking right in your back. Are you forbs? I'll talk to you tomorrow. Why not now? You're drunk. How do you know? Come on, give us both a break. Get going. Did Mona tell you I was coming? I'm not kidding. Get moving. And stay away from here. You better call the police. I don't know what's coming. I don't know what's coming. I don't know what's coming. I don't know what's coming. I don't know what's coming. You better call the police. I just killed a man. It's you. Who are you expecting? Smiley, maybe? Maybe Johnny Forbes? Get out of here, McDonald. You don't mean that, Mona. I'm here to help you. There's been a shooting. What are you talking about? I sort of expected it would happen. I've been sitting in my car listening to the short wave. Police calls. Get out. You don't believe me, do you? You got a radio? Turn it on. I'll give you my word. If anything's happened to either one of them, I'll see that the police get the whole story on you. What did I do? You gave Smiley the gun. Who says? He says so. Anyway, don't you think they can trace it to you? Not unless they're a lot smarter than they were when I was on this course. Who are you calling? The cops. You want to talk to them? Operator, give me police headquarters. No, no way. Don't take it easy. I'm your friend like I always said I was. Hello? Lieutenant Howell, please. You see, Mona, all it said on the radio was code three. That means a homicide. But who's dead, Smiley? Johnny? Maybe even Johnny's wife. So there's no use. Frank? Frank, this is McDonald. Yeah, sure, sure, fine. Say, I was just driving down Bradner Drive, 5,400 block. Saw a big commotion over there. What? Oh, a prowler. Anybody hurt? Oh, no, no, just thought there might be something in it for me. Thanks, Frank. Smiley, he's dead all right. How do you like that, Johnny Forbes? He told the cops Smiley was a prowler. What happened to Johnny? You'll read about it in the papers tomorrow. You know, it's funny. I didn't figure it would work out this well. I thought they'd just throw a scare into each other. Imagine Johnny killing him. You'd think he'd have more sense. Smiley wasn't a bad guy. He never hurt anyone, really. He didn't hurt anyone. He didn't help anyone. He wasn't anything. He was a nice guy. That wasn't enough. For who? Me. People are born to have certain things. Smiley didn't have the nerve, and Johnny Forbes didn't have the chance. So it's me you end up with. Pack your things, Mona. The best thing you can do now is to get out of town. You and me. I think we'll spend a few days in Reno. You like gambling, Mona? I'm a great gambler. What's more, I'm a lucky gambler. Look at tonight, for instance. A thousand to one shot, I'd get rid of them both at once. You'll forget about Smiley in a few days. You don't think so now, but you will. And you'll realize the only reason I did all this was because I love you. That's why I... Mona, you... You'd better give me that gun. Mona, don't be crazy. You're... Mona, you should! Forbes, I think we have all the information we'll need for the moment. Yes, Lieutenant. There'll be a few routine questions, so keep yourself available for the coroner's inquest. All right. Thanks a lot. You've been very cooperative. We're leaving now, Mrs. Forbes. I'll have somebody pour up that window. Johnny, I know how terribly you must feel about this, but the important thing is that you weren't here. It could have been so much worse. Try to forget about it, dear. Please try. I... I'll fix you a cup of coffee. Sue, Sue, I want to talk to you. I got to get this off my mind or I'll go crazy. The man I killed tonight, he... He wasn't a prower. I knew he was coming. Johnny... That's why I wanted you and Tommy out of the house. He had good reasons for wanting to kill me, Sue. Better reasons than I had for killing him.  Because... Because of his girl. I met her on the case a couple of months ago. She was the one who phoned. She told me he was coming here. What about this girl? The man, he... he got out of jail today. Somebody told him a lot of things about... About her and me. Were they true? Yes. I don't know what I can possibly say. I can't give you any explanation. I've wanted to tell you. I've tried. I... Sue, say something. Please say something. I can't go on with this on my conscience. Conscience? You make it sound like a dirty word.  But I've got my son to think about. I thought about that too and ended up by covering one lie with another lie. I wanted you to know before I... Before I went to the police with the truth. The police? No, Johnny. No. You're not going to the police. You lied once, came easy enough for you then. You've got to lie now. I mean it, Johnny. If you drag this family through the dead, I'll never forgive you. Good morning, Maggie. Mr. Forbes. I... I was just reading about it in the newspaper, Mr. Forbes. Yeah, I guess we had all the auditions. I didn't think you'd be in today. Oh, there are a couple of men from the district attorney's office waiting for you. Thanks, Maggie. Mr. Forbes? Yeah. You're from the district attorney's office. Yeah, I know. A couple of questions we'd like to ask you about last night, Mr. Forbes. Look, I... I've decided to make a full statement on the case. There are quite a few things I didn't tell the police last night. I'd like to see the district attorney. Sure, Mr. Forbes. Let's go. When Smiley came to your home for the first time, you chased him off. But when he came back, when he broke the window, I saw he had a gun. I... I had to kill him. Not if you'd called the police in the first place. I've explained why I felt I couldn't do that. Explain. Makes a lot of sense now, doesn't it, Forbes? Well, your story all checks. Your statement, the report of our investigators, the statement Ms. Stevens gave us. Ms. Stevens? She's been here? She's here now, upstairs, under arrest. For what? That depends on McDonald. She shot him. If McDonald dies, it's one thing. If he doesn't, it's another. Oh. Can I, uh, talk to her? Nobody can talk to her. Personally, I think we've got the wrong person in the cell upstairs. But there's nothing I can do about it. If so happens, the homicide you committed was justifiable.  But just one little phone call to the police, and you could have avoided all this mess. But no, you kill a man. And that's not a pleasant thing to live with for the rest of your life.  Get out, Forbes. Go on. Get out. Sue, how did you know where I was? I phoned the office. Johnny, get in the car. I'm taking Tommy out of school. I suppose that's best. How much does he know about everything? You can't expect to keep too much from a child of his age. I think you should ask Ed for a transfer to some other town. Are you sure you don't want to divorce Sue? I thought about it. There's no use kidding you. I thought about it a lot. And I'd almost made up my mind. And then I got to thinking. Your man has always been a good husband, except for 24 hours. How long should he be expected to pay for it? I don't know, Sue. I suppose some people would say forever. I'm not sure it'll ever be the same. Not for a long time anyway. But we've weathered other things. Maybe we can handle this. That is a, of course, if you want to try. Of course I do. All right, Johnny. That's what we'll do then. We'll cry. And now here is Frank Brezee and our star. Elizabeth Scott, thank you for joining us again on our show and for a fine performance in our radio adaptation from the film Pitfall. Thank you, Frank. It's so nice to be here. You and Dick Powell are two of the stars from the original cast, aren't you? Yes, Frank. It was fun making the movie. And it's just as much fun doing this radio show. Well, I understand around the time this program was broadcast that you were one of the busiest actresses in Hollywood. Yes, it was around that time that I finished three pictures without a day off in between. Well, that can be a pretty hectic pace, but some of those Hollywood hunks aren't hard to take, are they? I'll say they're not. And as I recall, you worked with some of the best. Oh, God, yes. Humphrey Bogart, Robert Mitchum, Kirk Douglas, Michael Cain, and on and on. And don't forget those two funny guys on the Paramount lot, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. Oh, yes, we made the movie Scared Stiff. It was a laugh a minute. You also worked with one of the legends of show business, too. You mean Elvis Presley? I sure do. Oh, making the picture Loving You with Elvis was an experience I'll never forget. And an experience I'll never forget is having you as guest on our show. Thank you, Elizabeth Scott. Thank you for joining me for another production of the Radio Theatre. This is Frank Brzee saying good night to you from Hollywood.


This episode was prerecorded as part of a live continuing education webinar. On-demand CEUs are still available for this presentation through all CEUs. Register at allceus.com slash counselor toolbox. I'd like to welcome everybody to today's presentation on behavior modification, universal application. And what do I mean by that? A lot of times we think of behavior modification in very narrow terms like Pavlov's dog. But what we're talking about with behavior modification, think about it really what it sounds like, modifying somebody's behavior. And isn't that in large part what we're wanting to do as clinicians? I mean, we want to help them modify their thoughts, and you can kind of think of thoughts as internal behaviors, if you will. So we're going to talk about the different ways behavior modification can be useful, not only to our clients and helping them figure out how to change their own behaviors, but also in helping them modify their environment to make it work a little bit better for them. If you have clients who are parents or clients who work in an office where they've got coworkers or bosses or whatever, we'll talk about some different ways that they might find behavior modification principles useful. Obviously they're not going to put their boss on a schedule of reinforcement, particularly, but they may learn some tips and tools on how to enhance that interaction. So it creates a positive rewarding experience. So we'll talk about how to apply behavior modification in the home workplace and for self improvement. We'll explore rewards and punishments examining the positives and negatives of behavior. And we're going to look at the positives and negatives of both rewards and punishments, because, yeah, there are some drawbacks to rewards, too. We will look at triggers and stimuli for new and old behaviors, because there are a lot of things in the environment that trigger our behavior. I mean, think about your day to day, and it's lunchtime. Wherever you are, it's probably somewhere close to lunchtime. You woke up this morning. You opened your eyes in bed. Now what was the trigger to get out of bed? Maybe your alarm clock, maybe you're hungry, maybe you had to pee. That was a trigger or a stimulus, if you will. It got you to get up and get out of bed. Now some of these things we know have to happen, because we've got to go to work in order to get paid so we can buy food and, you know, keep a house over our head or roof over our head and everything. But there are a lot of triggers in our environment that remind us of the things that we need to do. If you take medication, you may have your medication bottle set out where you remember to take them. So we're going to talk about different ways you can add triggers to prompt positive behaviors, as well as eliminate triggers that may be reminding people to use those old behaviors. For example, if somebody's trying to quit smoking and they still have ashtrays and cigarettes around the house, those are probably going to trigger the desire to use. Likewise, if they can still smell the smell of cigarette smoke, that's likely a trigger for them to want to use again. And then we're going to finish with a little bit of chaining and troubleshooting. There's only so much we can really cover effectively in an hour. But we'll talk about some of the reasons why behavior change applications, things that we try to do may not work. And we're going to start out with each section.  So we'll talk about some of the things that I've done to help shape his behavior a little bit since he came into my care. So I want you to think about a situation in which you want to change the behavior of, and I want you to do it for each of the following. A pet and, you know, it can be your pet cockatiel, you're trying to get to whistle the Andy Griffith song, tried and failed. It can be someone you live with, such as a child or a roommate, somebody you work with.  It's not hard to get them to do group or individual, but paperwork, most of us just really don't like it. And a behavior you want to change in yourself. And as we go through these things, I want you to think about the applications because what's rewarding for Fido is not necessarily going to be rewarding for you or for your child. So it's important to be able to individualize and differentiate the reinforcers and the punishments. So rewards increase the frequency of behaviors. And I will tell you on the quiz, I don't ask you about the difference between positive and negative rewards, but from a behavior modification perspective, it is kind of important. No, these terms come up. So just so you know what we're talking about. Positive rewards adds something to somebody's life. It can be presents, raises, praise, you're giving them something. You're saying you did a good job. So here you go. Negative rewards take away something unpleasant such as chores. When my kids have a really good week at school, they may get to take Sunday off from doing chores. I know it's a big thing. Actually around our house, it is a big thing if they don't have to do any chores.  Or as a boss, you could say if you get all your work done and get your progress notes turned in, you can go home early. Now you can't always say that, but those are some things that, and I don't want to say works unpleasant, but when you compare staying at work versus going home and vegging out in front of the TV or whatever you do when you go home, work is probably less pleasant, less rewarding. So we're giving them the opportunity to do something more rewarding. So the question comes, what is rewarding? And you know, like I said, for Fido, this may not apply so much. He's pretty good with love, attention and food. Lots of food. But for humans, when we're talking about the people that we live with, that we work with and ourselves, what is most rewarding when you do something? If somebody were going to give you a reward, what would you want? Words of affirmation, somebody acknowledging it, going, wow, that is really awesome. Acts of service, you know, maybe if you get all your stuff done on time and, you know, I used to do this for my staff occasionally, I would bring, I would have the cafeteria cater lunch at our staff meeting. So I was feeding them. It's kind of an act of service, kind of a gift. I don't know how you want to look at it. We had really good chefs. Receiving gifts and, you know, depending on your relationship, if it's a spouse or a significant other or a friend, you may give them small gifts or cards. If it's an employee, I found that even just leaving notes or occasionally bringing in, you know, we had a list of what our employees that were on our team, we had a list of their favorite things, their favorite drinks, their favorite snacks, you know, things that were under $5. And occasionally I would bring in, you know, one of my employees used to love you who's. So I would bring any you who for her.  That was a little less often because they're more expensive. But you kind of get the idea where if they're doing something and they're doing it well and you want them to keep doing it, even if it's not an expensive gift, the fact that you thought about it and you went out of your way and went to the effort to get them a gift for it. It is definitely helpful. If you don't work in the same building as your staff, sometimes just getting an email. And, you know, in our day at world where everything is digital, an email or a text message from your boss can go a long way. Spending quality time together. And this can be, you know, a staff meeting where you guys actually do some team building and fun activities, not just work or, you know, with significant others. What does quality time mean to that person? If you're going to spend quality time with your kid, my daughter loves horror movies, not my thing. But if I want to spend some quality time with her where we're sitting on the couch and, you know, watching a movie together or whatever, I'm much more likely to get her to stick around when I put on a movie that she likes. So understanding what quality time looks like to different people. For some people, watching a movie together wouldn't be considered quality time. So it's definitely very individualized, which is why I want you to think about each person, not just, you know, for the people in my life, I will do this. You know, each person has different love languages. Each person has different things that they find most rewarding. It's a physical touch.  For humans, hugs, those can be rewarding. But that's not true for every person. Some people grew up in situations where they weren't touchy-feely. So hugs and stuff feel uncomfortable. It's important to know who you're interacting with so you know what's rewarding and what may actually be punishing.  Don't want to go there. So think of three positive and one negative reward. That means three things you're going to give and maybe one thing you take away.  For a child, like I said, with my kids, I eliminate chores for one day. If they've done their chores really well all week or they've done really well in school all week and they've met expectations, if you will, then they get to take Sunday off. They don't have to do chores. They don't have to do the normal stuff that they find Monday. If you're talking about a roommate and a lot of our clients have roommates that they live with. They may not be in a committed relationship. They may have three other people living and they share a common space. So thinking about if you want to increase their behaviors and oftentimes it's something like chores. A lot of times it comes down to chores with roommates and picking up after yourself. How would you reward that behavior? And we're going to talk about how to sort of monitor that behavior without being overt about it necessarily. Somebody you work with, thinking about what it means, what's rewarding to them. Some staff members really may not care what you have to say. Most of them do if you're their supervisor. But if it's a colleague, what can you do to help that person out? What can you do to reward that person if they're changing their behavior in a way that's meaningful? We used to share offices at the place I used to work in Florida. And every clinician shared an office with at least one other if not two other clinicians. So when you were working with a client or you were on the phone, if the other clinicians got noisy, it was hard to concentrate. So one of the things that we would often address with people working in the same office is if there's a client in there and the other people are needing to make noise for some reason, not just do paperwork, if they would get up and leave. And then generally the therapist who was working with the client would thank the other therapists for leaving and giving them some time. And yourself, that's the easiest one. What can you do to reward yourself? And what things, hint chores, can you give yourself a break on? If you've had, you know, you've worked hard and you've met your goals this week. So what can you take away that you don't like doing? Or maybe skip a week. It's not really taking it away if you don't do laundry because all got to be done eventually. But you may not do it this weekend. So punishment decreases the frequency of behaviors. And I'm going to say this later, but it's important to recognize that we have a repertoire. We have a certain set of behaviors that we use to respond to a situation. And when we just punish that behavior, when we just punish a behavior, we're not leaving the person or organism, if you will, anything to respond with. For example, Brewster, when I come home, he used to jump on me and bark and carry on and he was just so happy to see me. 85 pounds is a lot to be jumping on you. So if I would have just punished that behavior and not given him something, he's like, well, what do I do instead? I just want you to greet me and tell me hi. Eventually he learned that if he would sit, then he would get what he wanted. So I needed to give him an alternate behavior. If you just punish behaviors, then the organisms left going, well, I've got all this anxiety I've got to respond to and coming out of my pores. What do I do? I can't jump. I can't bark. I can't bite. What do you want me to do, Ma? In terms of punishment, and one of you got ahead of me a little bit, limiting attention, whether it's a child or an adult that's doing something you don't like, you don't necessarily have to give them the silent treatment. But if they're doing something you don't like and you just don't pay attention to it, or an animal, if they're for Brewster, the first thing we started doing when I would come home, he would jump and carry on and lose his ever-loving mind. And I would turn my back to him and he would run around and try to get in front of me to do it again. And I would turn my back to him. And eventually he was like, well, this isn't any fun. And he would settle down to the point where he could think clearly and I could give him a command, which was sit. He would sit and then get his reward. So yes, negative punishment, if you will, is taking away something positive. So if they want your attention, you got to take that away until they can get their head around it. And positive punishment adds something unpleasant. I shouldn't have used the word negative. But so like a lecture and when my son was little, he used to get in trouble like all little kids do. And I remember distinctly one day, because I don't believe in spanking. He had done something wrong and I put him in timeout and I went into his room after the timeout and we had to have a talk about what happened. And he looks at me. He's like, I wish daddy were here and he would just spank me. It gets it over a lot faster. I'm like, thanks, son. I love you too. But so a lecture from a parent or a supervisor can be considered a punishment. Giving somebody additional work when Sean would misbehave. We've lived on a farm since he was knee high to a grasshopper and he would have to go outside in the yard and pick up sticks. Now we lived in Florida up until recently. So in the summer, it's really pretty hot out there and he doesn't like the heat. So it was unpleasant of environmentally as well as he was having to do additional work. Trying to keep rewards and punishments with natural consequences when possible is helpful. So if somebody's acting out in a store, removing them from the store, if you can't behave, then you can't be here. It can be helpful, but don't get too caught up on that. Negative punishment takes away something enjoyable like attention, air conditioning for my son. Television is another one or freedom. And I use that term kind of loosely when we put somebody in time out or we put a dog in its pen or send him to his bed to lay down or taking away their freedom of movement or taking away their freedom temporarily. So it is a form of punishment. So, you know, okay, they find that unpleasant. They're like, okay, I'm not going to act that way again. But the next time I'm feeling anxious, angry, upset, and I have all those feelings going on, what am I supposed to do so I don't get put in time out? We've got to make sure we give them an alternate behavior. Punishments not necessarily the opposite of reward. Sometimes they're kind of unrelated. You could reward like I can reward Brewster by giving him pets. And I can punish him by not giving attention, but more likely I punish him through other means that we'll talk about in a minute. Generally behavior change is more successful if you reward the positive. Remember I said we have the repertoire. So if you have behaviors in that repertoire and 17 out of 20 of them are good behaviors, when those behaviors occur, reward those. Because the more they're rewarded, the more likely they are to happen. And if this one's more likely to happen, then it reduces the frequency just by sheer mathematics that the unpleasant behaviors are going to occur. Simply eliminating behaviors leaves the person with no response options. If you have little Johnny and, you know, every time he gets up out of his seat during class, he gets punished for it. Then when he has a need, he doesn't know how to get that need met, you know, maybe he has to go to the bathroom or who knows what his, what his issue is. But we need to make sure we tell him, okay, so the next time when this happens, this is what you need to do with humans. We can reason with them and explain that with, with animals. We want to give them sort of an immediate option. Like I said with Brewster, I would turn my back and turn my back and turn my back until he would calm down. And then when he finally quit jumping, I would turn around and I would give him a command, which we use hand signals. I would say sit. He would sit. He would get the attention that he wanted. And he finally put it together like, oh, this is how I get the attention. So think about punishments. And I say one positive and three negative cause, you know, generally we're not putting punishments. A lot of times it's removing something pleasurable attention. If you have roommates, maybe you don't, you don't cook that weekend or you can't go out that weekend. Some, someone you work with. Thinking about things that they might enjoy.  You may choose not to do that. If you two aren't getting along very well. Now, ideally you're going to have some communication because just putting them on blackout doesn't solve any problems.   One important thing to consider is an extinction burst. And it occurs when a behavior fails to provide a reward or prior to stopping a cherished behavior. So think about, at least for me, if I'm thinking, okay, Monday morning, I'm going to start my diet. Well, Sunday, I am going to have a good time eating. I am going to eat everything that I'm going to feel deprived of during my diet, which is one of the reasons why diets don't work, but that's a whole different class. When people want to stop smoking or stop drinking, a lot of times they do the same thing. They will, the behavior will increase briefly right before the stop day. So it's important to consider what might be bringing on this behavior from occurring. Extinction bursts will, the behavior will intensify until the energy to get the reward exceeds the value of the reward or a punishment is put in its place, which obviously makes it not so rewarding. So think about your stereotypical kid in a candy aisle where the kid is going, I want some cookies. And mom's like, no, and the kid gets louder. I want some cookies. And the mother says, no, well, this keeps going on back and forth until the kids throwing an all out tantrum. I want some cookies. Now, if the parent gives in at that point, then the kid knows where to start next time and he's not going to bother with asking. He's just going to start with the tantrum. But if the parent doesn't give in, then the kid at a certain point is going to be like, you know what, I don't want cookies that bad. It just ain't worth the effort. Another example is a client becoming more symptomatic the week before discharge. So we have a lot of clients that come to us, hopefully, talk with our clients ahead of time. And we say, you know, things are getting better. It seems like you're about ready to discharge next week. We'll talk about the progress you've made and kind of wrap things up and handle any last minute details. And then they come in that next week. And all of a sudden the world is falling apart. So we want to have them be aware that right before this old behaviors may come up. Why? Because we, if you will, therapy is secure. It's safe. It's comforting. And they're getting ready to get rid of that. So there's a fear factor that comes up. So they may want to kind of subconsciously stay in treatment. The important thing for us is to empower them to look at how can you prepare for this extinction burst? How can you prepare for a resurgence of symptoms? Because even if it doesn't happen today, it may happen a month from now if life hands you lemons. What tools have you developed now that you can use and empower the clients to take the reins? Because they have developed those skills and tools now instead of enabling them to stay in treatment. And you know, it's a fine line. Sometimes clients really do need to stay for a little while longer, but a lot of times if they're prepared ahead of time for what might happen and they're reminded of how strong they are and how many tools they've developed, they're kind of ready to go out and try, especially if they know, you know what, if things start going really south, you can come back for a tune-up. I don't think you're going to need to come back for therapy, but you are always welcome to come back for a tune-up. That makes them know that there's still a home base. It's kind of like when kids move out, they know that they can go back home at a certain point if life gets a little bit too chaotic. It's important to examine the motivation for the extinction burst. Why is it the person doesn't want to stop the old behavior? The kid in the candy aisle, he wants candy. That's pretty obvious. The day before we stop, start a diet or stop drinking, well, that behavior is pretty darn pleasurable. So we want to make sure that whatever behavior change we're embarking on has some pleasurable aspects to it because we're not going to keep doing something that's painfully rewarding or painfully punishing. I mean, a client becoming more symptomatic the week before discharge, well, why wouldn't they want to stop coming to us? Well, it's like I said, it's safe and they know it's a routine that they have. They've probably been coming for a couple of months and they've got a rhythm. They know that you're there, you're going to listen, you're going to accept and all the things that we do as clinicians. So, yeah, it's an ending of a relationship and that's hard. So they may not want to face that either. So it's important that we talk about, what fears do you have or what concerns do you have about ending our therapeutic relationship? Now, behavior strain is another thing when there's behavior strain, that means there's not enough reward and generally there's an extinction burst right before it. Behavior strain occurs when the reward is not rewarding enough.  Well, that's probably not going to be overly rewarding. If you've eaten really well all day long, not saying that you want to end your day with a food reward necessarily, but a bubble bath or a trip to go to the movies or something that has more rewarding power is probably going to maintain that behavior better than rice cakes. The punishment is not strong enough to deter the behavior. So if the old behavior keeps coming back, you're trying to quit smoking and, you know, you just keep relapsing. Well, we want to look at, well, what are the consequences when you relapse? You may feel bad about it for a few days, but it may not, that feeling bad may not be unpleasant enough to completely stop the behavior. When you compare feeling bad over the relapse versus the cravings you were having, those cravings are probably worse. So we need to address the cravings and we also need to up the ante for what's the punishment when you do relapse? What do you need to do instead? For alcohol, for example, and it's not the same with cigarettes and don't ever use nicotine when you're on the patch because it can cause all kinds of cardiorespiratory problems. But antibus, when people drink and they're taking antibus, they will throw up.  So that's pretty punishing and it is enough to deter a lot of people. If the rewards punishment or follow-up is inconsistent and as a parent, as well as a supervisor and just a human, you know, in all three areas where I've tried to apply this and even with animals, if you're not consistent with, you know, when this behavior happens, it's giving a reward. And there are different schedules of reinforcement for those of you out there who are behaviorists. But in general, if there's too long between the reward, between the behavior and the reward, you know, maybe you've done the behavior seven times and there's still been no reward and you're like, well, what the heck? Think about playing the slot machines. At a certain point, you're just like, yeah, move on to a new machine. If the follow-up is inconsistent, it's likely to not maintain the behavior. When I've tried to have my kids start doing more chores, you know, I'll give them a chore list and everything and I will tell them, I'm going to inspect tonight when I get home. And I inspect the first night, maybe even the first five or six nights. And then generally, after about five or six days, if they're doing what they're supposed to do, I tend to forget to follow up. So it's really important to put triggers in the environment that remind people, the person who's providing the reward and maintaining the contract, but as well as the people who are supposed to be doing the behavior. So everybody is consistent on following up on this behavior. If there's too long between rewards, there can be behavior strain. Having a four-year-old behave all week to get a reward is often too much. Usually they need at least small rewards at the end of every day.  For a lot of kids, that means if I get six stars, then at the end of the week, there's something even bigger waiting. Even younger children need more frequent rewards. And when you're initially starting a behavior change, regardless of your age, it's important to get rewards more frequently because it's hard. Remember change causes crisis and crisis causes change. You're doing something new. You've got to reward yourself and go, oh yeah, this is the reason I'm doing it. Or if there's an alternate reward, think about teenagers. I know it makes your head hurt sometimes. Teenagers generally want to please their parents because it keeps them from being lectured at and getting grounded and all that kind of stuff. So there's definitely a benefit of paying attention to the parents. But there's this competing reward out there of peers. The peers that want them to sneak out to go to a party that night. So if you're being consistent and if you're providing rewards, and these rewards have worked before, then all of a sudden they're not working. Is there an alternate reward out there? Is there something more rewarding that you're missing? So thinking about other examples of behavior strain comes up. Losing 30 pounds before you get a reward. 30 pounds takes a long time to lose. So it's recommended if people are trying to lose weight or get in shape to make sure that they have some sort of reward set up every week for doing well. It doesn't have to be necessarily a weight loss because we all hit, if you're trying to lose weight, you can hit weight loss plateaus. It doesn't mean you're not doing the right thing. It just means your body's adjusting. So how do you set your rewards? And what rewards are available? It can be going shopping, maybe going out to dinner, maybe a movie, something that you can look forward to at the end of the week and it makes your effort worth its while. Going from being a couch potato to completing a 5K, this is another one. It takes a while to train that much. You don't want to say, well, this will be rewarding when I get my medal. No, let's give yourself a reward for getting to the gym the first week. And then the second week, maybe for walking a mile on the treadmill. And then the third week, maybe walking two miles on the treadmill. Make sure that there's rewards implemented frequently enough that you're like, okay, I can do this. Because remember, rewards are the energy that keep that change moving forward. Completing paperwork by Thursday staff meeting each week. This used to be one of my goals for my staff. And you know, if I wouldn't follow up on it, then a lot of times paperwork would start falling behind. So making sure that I collected the paperwork every Thursday when they came to staff meeting and there were consequences. There were rewards for getting your paperwork in on time and there were consequences if you didn't get it in. It was really important because that's how we get paid and all that kind of ethical stuff. Other principles, rewards and punishments should use natural consequences when possible. With our dogs, when they start to act out. You know, sometimes I just need to give them a stern look. But initially, especially like with Brewster, he'd never really been in a house before. He'd been an outside dog. So we use the technique and I'm not saying that this works for everybody, but we use a technique that mimics what they experience in the wild. And when he would misbehave, I would push him, not hard just enough to get him on his side and I would pin him down. And when he would calm down, he'd realize I was dominant. We'd be good. Did that a few times, you know, maybe a dozen. The first month he was with us. And after that, I haven't had to do it. But looking at what would happen in the wild if a puppy was misbehaving.  Well, the natural consequence of being too distracted by having this is to lose it. If you can't get your stuff done, then you don't have the privilege of whatever it is.  And this is another one we used with Sean. He would get irritable and it was 40 minutes into the closest store. So I really didn't want to just go home. So his father would take him and they would sit outside in the heat and wait for me to finish shopping. He only had to do that about three times before he didn't do that anymore. Because behaving and getting to stay in the air conditioning was better than acting out and having to go sit outside. Some parents will say, you know, I got to do a bunch of shopping today. If you're really good while we're in the store, then we can go to McDonald's and you can play in the PlayStation. That's great for kids too. Making sure that they have a reward for a child. Again, it needs to be pretty proximal, pretty close to when the behavior occurs. It's ineffective for, especially for children, but even to a certain extent for anybody. If a reward comes too late after the behavior, because you're like, well, I'm glad I got this check, but what's it for? Or I'm glad you're praising me, but what did I do? Because there's too much time in between. One thing I see a lot of times is people yelling at the dog when they get home for something he did hours ago, like tearing through the trash. Well, when he comes in, he's coming up to greet you and he's all excited and you start screaming at him. He thinks you're screaming at him for greeting you, not for tearing up all the garbage. Now you may say, well, my dog's smarter than that. He knows when he's done wrong. Maybe, maybe not. But strictly behaviorally speaking, if it's something that he didn't just do or you didn't catch him in the act, then whatever he's doing right before you punish or offer the punishment or reward is what he will pair with that punishment or reward. So for humans, again, if you're trying to eat healthfully, charting your nutrition after each meal, so you can see what you ate, what your breakdown is, what your nutrients were, if that's rewarding for you. It's rewarding for me. Coffee when you get to work. Another little peek into my psyche. I love my coffee, even though it's decaf. When I get to work, first thing I do is make coffee and it's like, okay, good things are going to happen now. If you are a supervisor commenting on case notes as soon as you review them. So if somebody did a really awesome job, make sure to say that, reward the positive. Pairing is conditioning a person or animal so that a token, and I use that term broadly, marks the good behavior and they know a reward is forthcoming. So with animals, we can do clicker training. Initially, the dog does what they're supposed to do. You give them a treat and click at the same time. Eventually, when they hear the click, they're like, oh, I did a good thing, a treat's coming.  You can also pair praise with some sort of a treat and it doesn't have to be food. So for example, you take a kid to the doctor and they don't like the doctor, most of them don't. If you tell them, you know, if you behave at the doctor or thank you for behaving so well at the doctor, let's go out for lunch. So it's not happening, happening right, one right after the other, but the child knows that if I behave, then I'll get a reward. Or if you're talking with a roommate, you know what, if you help me get the house cleaned, it'll be done faster and we can go out to dinner. That works for my husband all the time because he likes to go out to dinner. So I don't know what that says about my cooking, but I digress. Anyhow, so it works to my advantage to offer this reward if I want somebody to get something done. Because again, reward is the fuel that moves the behavior. There are stars on a star chart with a behavior log for a reward at the end of the week. Another thing we did in my adolescent unit that I ran is they literally would get tokens. And if they had good days when they completed treatment plan objectives, yada yada, they would get a token. At the end of the week, we had a closet that had stuff donated in it and stuff we had bought. Generally it was food stuffs but they were able to buy passes for video game time and they would be able to exchange their tokens for things they wanted from the reward closet. So that helps. You can do that at home too with children. Not going to work so well with roommates. But it's helpful to make sure that yes, the rewards are so important because you've got to keep that momentum going. So triggers that prompt a behavior must be interpreted. When I train our dogs, we have down, we have sit. And those are the two big hand signals that we use. I have come as well. But if you have an especially smart dog like a border collie, they may think that this means sit but this may mean something completely different to them because it's not the same exact movement. So you need to make sure that whoever is interpreting the signals from you is interpreting them correctly. My mother had different looks she would give me and there was one where she would look at me kind of like, what did you just say? And then there was another one where her tongue went to the side of her cheek and I knew I was, yeah, it was bad news at that point. So make sure that the person can effectively interpret what's going on. What are my thoughts about using candy in the classroom as a primary form of reward? I typically don't like to use food as a reward simply because it can generalize to stress eating and other things. But that's one of my idiosyncrasies. Some people think it is effective. I've been to a lot of seminars where they've handed out chocolates to people who answered questions. So it depends on your philosophy, it depends on your approach and can everybody in the class eat candy and do they like it? My son doesn't like candy. Yeah, he'd prefer to have an apple. Go figure. Making sure that the rewards are rewarding is important and that it meets the goals that you're working towards. Does candy usually meet your objectives? Yes. So is there a huge ethical thing with it? I don't think so. Again, it's just one of my preferences because I don't want people to think that the only reward or the primary reward they get in eating, going out to dinner or getting treats.  But he does this peepee dance for a lot of different reasons. When he gets nervous, he's a basset hound, and he will do this excited moving around whining thing. And it can mean that he heard thunder, but it can also mean that he's got a pee. So it's important for me to understand his signals because he's trying to modify my behavior and tell me to either take him out or get out the essential oil of Valerian because we've got a thunderstorm coming. So it's just as important for us to be able to interpret other people's signals and triggers. For a lot of dogs, you get out the leash, they lose their minds. They're like, oh, we're going on a walk. This is so awesome. For my dog Raina, we found that sometimes on the weekend, she would just lose her little mind and we couldn't figure out what it was. Anyway, for the sake of brevity, she doesn't mind anybody else's lawnmower in the entire neighborhood, except for the guy that lives catty corner from us. And it makes some weird sound, but we figured out that the only time she loses her mind is when he's mowing. So when that happens, we need to move her to a room that has white noise in it that's on the other side of the house. But paying attention to behaviors don't seem to generalize. It's not every lawnmower. It's not every classroom that Tommy misbehaves in. What's different when Tommy is misbehaving? If company's coming, we tend to behave a little bit differently. When my parents come over, I tell my kids, okay, we're doing chores. Grandma's coming. I get a whole different level of clean than if grandma's not coming. You can set alarms. You can have notes and to-do lists that prompt people to do behaviors. Meditation, mindfulness, do their homework, school homework or therapy homework, clean the house, whatever it is, you can set triggers that remind the person. Put it in the way. This is one of my favorites. When I do laundry, I hate putting it away. So I will put it on my bed. Not in the hamper either. I dump it out. So I have no choice but to put that laundry away before I can go to bed. Homework is the same way. If you put it right on your bed or right on the dinner table where you can't do anything else until you finish it, theoretically, it prompts you to do it. Evaluations often trigger people to behave better. If they know that their annual evaluation is coming up, work performance generally improves. Once they've had their evaluation, especially if there were areas where they needed improvement, work performance generally is improved for a little while. But then once you get away from that reward or punishment temporarily, you get three, four, five months down the road, unless another reward was put in to remind them to keep doing that, then that behavior may come back or the work performance may go down. So if you've got an employee to improve on certain behaviors, it's ideal to have evaluations on a much more frequent basis in order to maintain that level of responding. Habit, time of day, can also trigger certain behaviors. My mother used to smoke the minute she rolled out of bed. That was just what she did. She didn't even think about it. She'd light up a cigarette. So helping people identify the risks that you need to break. And what can you do to break that habit? For her, she quit keeping cigarettes in the house. So she couldn't just roll out of bed and light up a cigarette. So she needed to choose a different behavior. Stress eating, when people start to feel stressed and they go to the kitchen cabinet or they're bored, it's another reason for eating or we eat, looking for that kind of something to make you feel less bored. And that's the side of the cabinet that says are you really hungry? There are other things you can do to trigger yourself to choose a different behavior. And energy levels can also trigger unfortunate behaviors. If somebody's got a really low energy level, they may have a poor work product that day. Or maybe they've been going through stuff at home and they've had a low energy level for a while. So their work product has gone way down. It's all the things that might be triggering whatever this unfortunate behavior is. And what can we do to trigger an alternate behavior? Habituation is getting sufficiently used to the stimulus that it fails to prompt the behavior, especially if the reward or punishment are insufficient or inconsistent. Think about sitting in an uncomfortable chair. When you first sit down, you notice it. You're like, oh, this is really uncomfortable. I've got to sit here for an hour, really. But after about 10 minutes, you quit noticing how uncomfortable it is. You've habituated to it. An alarm. I have alarms that go off all day long, prompting me to do my social networking, prompting me to do this, to do that. And a lot of times I'll turn them off and I'll say, okay, I'll get to it in a minute. Then I never get to it. And there's really no super negative consequence for it. So the alarm, I become habituated to it. And I'm just like, oh, just hit cancel. So it's important to make sure that if you put stimuli in your environment, that you remember to do whatever it is. If you put a note on the mirror to remind yourself, for example, to practice mindfulness, you'll probably notice that note the first week or so. And then it becomes part of the decor, and you almost don't even notice it anymore. So it's important to move those triggers. If you've got visual triggers, move them around so you remember, you actually notice them and you don't just habituate to it. So what trigger, what would trigger the behavior you chose for your pet, for example? For Brewster, if I hold my fist up like this, he knows he's supposed to sit. It doesn't matter if I just walked in the door or we finished dinner or something.   Generally they know that it's time to start chores. So I don't even have to say it anymore. I walk in the door, they start chores. For yourself, triggering a behavior that you want to do, if you want to start doing 50 sit-ups every morning, what would trigger that behavior? And some of you are going there is not a reward in the world that could possibly trigger that. So paying attention to making sure that you set the occasion for the behavior to happen. You need to remind yourself, oh, I need to do this now. And when you do it, it needs to be rewarding. So you can't have one or the other. Both of them need to happen. And whatever behavior you were doing before, anything that reminds you to do that, for example, going back to bed, if you make your bed, then the sheets aren't there going, come back to bed. They're all covered up. So removing that trigger that says, oh, that looks really inviting by making your bed can help you kind of get energized and start with the day. All of this adds together because behavior is often complex. You don't just get angry because of what just happened a lot of times. A lot of times there are other things that contributed to it that added to it. So chaining helps us explore the question, how did you get to this point?  So think to yourself, you know, this is not where I want to be. How did I get to this point? So you can start from a known point in the past, like getting up. All right, I woke up this morning and I woke up late. And I got up and I stepped on a hair ball. And the hot water heater broke. And then I was driving to work and there was a lot of traffic. No, none of this happened today. Just spitballing in here. So, you know, this person has already had several unfortunate things happen. So if they're in a bad mood, if they are reacting more strongly to things that normally wouldn't bother them, I totally get it. The other time you can look at instead of going all the way back to when you got up is when did your mood start to change?  And then a lot of times it's working with cognitive behavioral things and distress tolerance interventions to help people deal with whatever triggered their unpleasant mood. So chaining, your dog starts pooping on the floor. Brewster's done this recently. When did it start? Well, we've had him for a year and a half and all of a sudden he started crapping on the floor every night. Well, what changed that might be triggering it? He's been going upstairs. He hasn't been sleeping with me. And his buddy, Duke, has been sleeping with me. That's really the only change that happened. So what can be done to address the change? Well, I tried letting him sleep down in my room. And lo and behold, he didn't poop on the floor. So anyway, we did a couple A-B tests. Turns out if Duke sleeps in my room, then Brewster is going to poop on the floor. That's his way of marking his territory or, you know, I attribute emotional components to it, but whatever. So then you have to say, all right, what can be done to address this change? And my resolution or solution was to kick Duke out too, because I need my rest. If your roommate starts to fail to pick up after himself, think to yourself, well, he was doing this before. And now all of a sudden I've got underwear everywhere. What's changed? And it could be he has a big project due for his, one of the classes in his major, or he broke up with his girlfriend or something else happened.  We want to look at what triggered this behavior and how can we address that trigger?  Or you can have a conversation about what's going on. If a client has an anxiety relapse, for example, again, we're asking what changed. Well, the client says I was busy all weekend. I got up this morning, Monday, I didn't sleep well. I got bad, bad news first thing in the morning and drank an extra cup of coffee at work. And then I just started feeling really lousy. Now, in my mind, it seems pretty obvious. You're exhausted, didn't sleep well. You've already got some adrenaline going from the bad news and you added stimulants to it. So I'm not surprised you've got a bunch of anxiety going on right now. But we want to help people see how there's often a lot of things that contribute to their mood state. So troubleshooting, is the reward sufficient for the target behavior? What are the benefits of the new behavior? And what are the drawbacks of the old behavior? So we need to make this new behavior awesome and we need to have them look at the old behavior and go, you know what? That wasn't all it was cracked up to be. Make sure you've considered all of the benefits of the old behavior. And there are some that people wouldn't have done it. Are there competing additional triggers or stimuli, such as peer pressure or like we've talked about before, if somebody is acting out in a group, you know, they've got an audience. So is that rewarding for them? Is their behavior strained? Maybe you're not providing sufficient rewards or rewards often enough based on the person's needs, whether it's how hard the task is or the age of the person. And are you sure that the behavior means what you think it means? My son, when he was in public school, would come home every day and it was like, I swear he had radar. He knew when I was starting to make dinner because he would lose his mind. He would just start to melt down and make poor choices. And I had to step back and think, what's going on here? Because he's not a disrespectful child. And he was just, he was been rude, contrary. And all day long he had had to hold it together and behave and he had all this pent up energy. So it wasn't that he was being, intentionally being rude and disrespectful. He was just at pressure point ready to explode.  So when it came time for me to make dinner, he wasn't desperately in need of stimulation and an outlet for his energy. And like the example I gave earlier, Duke's pee pee dance.  Oh no, he's too good for that. And he will walk outside and he'll walk back in and be like, no, it's all good. So the question is in my mind is, well, did he hear thunder and that's why he was doing his dance or did he really have to pee and he's just not going out to get his feet wet. And I'm still trying to figure that one out at a hundred percent of the time. Are the signals and triggers clear? Make sure that what you're telling the person, for example, telling a child to behave.  Are they behaving in their mind? They may be telling your roommate to clean the house but not defining what that means. Does that mean wiping down the counters or does that mean doing baseboards and mopping the floor too? Or telling your coworker to give you notes on group. You know, I need, when you do group for me, I need you to give me the notes but they're not specifying when. In your mind you're like, well, of course they're going to give it to me by close of business.  So you might have a misunderstanding there. It's important to be clear about what you're asking. Be consistent on your follow up and make sure there's a suitable alternate behavior that, you know, when they're excited, you know, if we're talking about the dog, when he's excited he knows how to get attention.  If the child needs attention, he knows that what he can do in order to get the type of attention he wants. So behavior change is a part of life. Current behaviors serve a purpose and are generally rewarding in some way. So we need to look at what is, how is this rewarding? And when we think about clients who are depressed, you need to get past the depression, mood, and look at the behaviors. What behaviors are they doing that are rewarding, which may be maintaining the depression, like eating junk, sleeping at all hours of the day, et cetera. What's rewarding those behaviors? What are some alternate behaviors that would work to help them? How can we make those rewarding? When trying to change a behavior, examine what triggers it, what gets it going, and what maintains it. So after it happens, what makes them go, I'm going to do that again. What is the desired alternate behavior and how can you get it to occur, such as doing your homework? How can you reward it? And how can you punish it or at least prevent the rewards of a current behavior? So, you know, I used to do my homework for fourth period and third period because I was really bad about not doing my homework. I got rewarded for that. I got good grades, and I was always able to get it done the period before. So you'd want to look at how can you prevent that from happening?  So how can you make homework happen when it's supposed to? If the behavior suddenly stops or changes, explore the competing demands or rewards, and remember that accuracy, consistency, and effective rewards are the key to behavior change. Are there any questions? Alrighty, everybody. Thank you for your input today, and I look forward to seeing you on Thursday when we're going to go over some group interventions or group activities to teach cognitive behavioral therapy. If you enjoy this podcast, please like and subscribe either in your podcast player or on YouTube. You can attend and participate in our live webinars with Dr. Snipes by subscribing at allceuse.com slash counselor toolbox. This episode has been brought to you in part by allceuse.com, providing 24-7 multimedia continuing education and pre-certification training to counselors, therapists, and nurses since 2006.


was younger so I went bow hunting for the first time last summer in Maui Hawaii and as I was out there it's this insane sensation like literally like all the cliche things like feeling like more alive than I ever had and all that stuff it was quite true because I was being forced to have this sense of sound and wind and you know everything like behind me to the left I was measuring distances okay cool like that bush is 20 yards and you know taking my my range by that bush is 30 yards that bush is 50 yards you know so I'm literally like just by me just posting up here I'm I'm enlivening my brain I'm so like I'm like an electrical storm inside my mind to be able to cast a net in my environment and like become the environment whereas when you just put all of that information of that moment into some like bow hunting special on TNT you're like like you're kind of dying in a way Wow if if if the reference point the other side of the spectrum was becoming enlivened by your environment right I think capturing all of that putting it into a screen and calling that your your life I think that would you know be kind of the opposite always an interesting time hanging out with you doing yeah thanks for coming yeah man yeah it's always a good time how long in the area for I don't know few more hours just for this oh hey that's great I was trying to double it up with an I'm coming up here again in like three days and I've been trying to stay with my word I think that's a very important thing it is and so we appreciate it and so I think in general it's a huge it's a huge deal like it's into so now you're going back to the oven yeah well I leave the don't burn your vegan pizza so here's so here's the plan hopefully we can come back and do another podcast assuming this plan goes through because I'll have stories and I'd love to have you guys back on mine and all that all that stuff I'll probably co-release this if you guys permit it or something no let's do that we'll figure it out but the plan next spring would be to have a whole bag of new stories because this winter the plan you know world permitting is to go out to Papua New Guinea and Tanzania and Sri Lanka and all sorts of places that people have been kind of living the way that they've been living for lots of years and be able to have a more real visceral anthropological perspective of what the hell has been going on in our bodies for thousands of years and then that would be the beginnings of book number two oh I'm excited for that dude I hope world permitting we'll see what the heck is happening in the world yeah I know but I appreciate you guys so much having me here thanks brother this is the first interview since yeah since physical interview we haven't had anybody here since the pandemic started yeah how was that I know we need to wrap up how has that affected you guys not having in person versus doing remote well luckily for us our podcast episodes with just us do the best and we have each other so we're able to build this interviews haven't been as good typically right we have some interviews that do very very well and we enjoy it I love meeting people but it hasn't hurt us business wise from a from a personal personal perspective I like being around people and it does suck that you know it's the way things are right now and it's a bit difficult to to work through but but yeah we're open back up we had we started with you that's great man well thank you so much thanks for coming man I'm honored to be here really appreciate spending time with you guys thanks brother thank you great way to progressively overload in a time when people or weights are scarce totally it's so many people are having a hard time getting plates or getting weights it's like you could we always I think that's like the default and that's trainers are just as guilty I am too of like when I first start training you always just think like more reps more sets or more weights like this is how like we're gonna get better we're gonna keep


and the Blue Jays win it in a walk-off. So Jack, they take two of three. And the Yankees have just tried to get over that hump with most of their pitching, starting pitching at least, in their offense. And it felt like they were sort of getting there, but they couldn't quite get there. They couldn't, Bob. We mentioned on the pregame how important it was for the Yankees to play a complete game. Play nine clean innings. Go out there in every facet of the game and excel. And they didn't do that today again. Corey Kluber only lasted four innings. Their starters continued to struggle to give them length. But even with only four innings from Kluber, they were in position to win this game. They had a four to three lead. But then their offense vanished. Their last 18 batters produced two hits. And their vaunted bullpen was unable to hold on to that lead. Now, they've asked their bullpen to do a lot. But it was a wild pitch from Loisica that ended up tying the game. And then in a hitter's count, Chad Green decides to throw a curveball. And Beshetch has loaded up and hit that the opposite way for his second home run. And the Jays get the series. And now the Yankees in the fourth series played this year. Bob, they've lost three of them.