So my talk is on supporting mental health as an effective leader. As you can see, my name is Jesse James at Marginal Chaos and pretty much everything. So if you wanna reach out to me. So today, what are we gonna cover? We're gonna cover what the problem with mental health is in tech specifically, what we're doing about it now, why I'm here, what we can do about it, and kind of a few variations of remote versus onsite, and then tips and responsibilities for both managers and individuals. First off, a thank you, kind of a dedication. Basically it's a woman in my life who basically helped me through my own mental health issues. And so she was instrumental in me being able to talk about this and do the work that I do now. So who am I? I am a Marine Corps veteran. As Alison said, I'm a developer advocate for SparkPost. We do email infrastructure as a service, kind of like SendGrid or MailChimp.  Cordies are the bomb. Currently living in Portland, Oregon, and I love it there. And he, him, his pronouns, just because solidarity. And also zombies are awesome. If you didn't see them yesterday, it was amazing on the streets. So what is the problem? The problem is mental health rates and suicide rates in tech and just in the world in general are increasing steadily every year. There's been a 24% increase in suicides since 1994 to 2016. 18 and a half percent of all U.S. adults suffer from mental illness each year. One in 25 U.S. adults suffer from debilitating illnesses where they basically have key parts of their life disrupted by the fact that they have this mental illness. And the World Health Organization says depression will overtake any other illness by 2020 to become the leader of missed work and productivity in the workplace. So what are we doing? Not nearly enough. Like for all the lip service we hear about it and all the good things we hear in the perks and whatnot in Silicon Valley and elsewhere, we're not doing nearly enough. A recent survey by the open sourcing mental illness, sorry, basically here are a few of the facts. Most employees don't know what's going on with mental health at the workplace. They don't know if they have benefits. They don't know what the benefits are. They don't feel comfortable discussing them. So in essence, we're in a situation where we all know there's an issue but none of us are really doing much about it. And in the few cases that we are, that's great, but we're not talking about it with other companies. We're spending most of our time just almost pretending it's not a problem. One thing here that I like to point out is while 31% of those who responded said they wouldn't bring up a physical health issue with their employer or a potential employer, over 62% said they wouldn't mention a mental health issue. And the thing is it's the same thing. They're both illnesses. It shouldn't be this disparity of, oh, I can bring up the fact that I broke my leg or that I have diabetes, but I can't bring up that I have PTSD or depression or anxiety. And that's just not right.  So why am I here? I am a Marine Corps veteran. I do suffer from PTSD, anxiety and depression. And I have held both managerial and individual contributor roles in a variety of companies. And I've had some of the best and worst experiences at workplaces having managers and the company support me. I've had ones where I felt like every day going to work was going home. Like those are my friends, those are my people. I was safe there. I've had companies where I burnt out in three months because I literally dreaded every meeting, every interaction with the coworker. So what can we do? Well, first we have to kind of set some ground rules. There is no one-size-fits-all approach. Any of the things that I tell you today may or may not work for your company or may or may not work for your people.  You're gonna have to make a few mistakes. That's just the nature of it. What works in an onsite? Probably won't work that well on a remote and vice versa. Especially if you have a hybrid work site, it's gonna take a lot of managerial and executive support to make these things work. Like you can't just do it on your own and trying to have like, oh, hey, we have an onsite team and we have a remote team. We do these things the same way for both teams. It's not gonna work that well. Somebody will burn out and you may not know it until it's too late. Now, the hard part of anything dealing with illness is the fact that HR is gonna wanna get involved. They're gonna have their hands in it and say, hey, you can do this, you can't do that. And that's great from a legal standpoint. But HR is HR. They are not fun to deal with. So your mileage may vary, but I highly encourage any of you who wanna start some of these things, just go ahead and do it and ask for forgiveness later in most cases. It's better to have started the program and have some sort of positive change from it than to not have started it and then have people still rolling out. Because HR in certain organizations is a benefit, but in most, it's pretty much red tape. So on all sides of this, managerial and individual contributor, you have to be empathetic to your coworkers and to yourself. You have to be willing to realize that, hey, people are going through something else that I may not know about. And that's one of the hardest things for most people to do, especially on remote teams is you don't have that empathy because you don't see each other every day. You don't know each other. You don't see that Terry or Bill or Mary had a really rough week or you may not know they're going through a divorce. And so things like that really play into just being able to say like, hey, you missed work, but I'm gonna trust that you did it for a good reason. Proactive, this is more on the managerial side. Managers have to be proactive. You have to be the one to start the conversations.   Hey, you're gonna go for a walk really quick. Managers who sit, oh, I'll just sit back and I'll wait for like, I'll see what they're doing. I'll see how they go. It's always the wrong move. You need to reach out. Now, willing to take the hit, this is still more managerial, but individual contributor. You have to be willing to take the hit of if you ask somebody or you talk to somebody, they may blow up in your face about it. They may say, hey, there's no problem. Why are you asking me this? This is inappropriate. You have to phrase things correctly on one hand, but you have people willing to say, yeah, I'm gonna keep trying. There's something wrong here. I know I need to keep trying because they're not gonna tell me right away. Anxiety and depression and PTSD are scary things to deal with just on your own.  You're gonna talk about it.  Open to communication. Communication is the most important thing you can do. Having open lines of communication with your employees, whether that be with direct reports or as a mid-middle manager, like anybody in your chain of command is you have to have it. Like if you have silos where people can't reach out and talk to you, they won't and they won't talk to anybody else either. Able to set aside ego. Ego is one of the other big factors I see, especially in large organizations where you get this buildup of, oh, hey, like I'm a senior developer.  I can't take personal days. Like I have to be there for the team. And so the ego gets in the way. Like, well, I'm so important. I can't have this problem, so I'll just ignore it. On the managerial side, you don't wanna be the one to say like, hey, there's a problem on my team. We're underperforming for X reason.  You guys wanna be like, I don't have to keep pushing forward. Like the team will be fine. We just need to cover it up. And so you start turning the screws somewhere else on the team. And so when people are starting to kind of get a little amped up and it's just not going well, you have to be willing to say, hey, no, we're gonna take a hit this quarter. Like things aren't gonna be great. I'm gonna look back to my manager, but that's worth it. And patient. Patience is incredibly important with dealing with mental illness. Myself, it took me a good, well, I got out in 2004 and I really just started feeling really good in the last six months. And it took patients of family, friends, coworkers of just like, hey, things are gonna get a lot worse before they get a lot better.  You have to have the patients like, all right, okay, give them time. When they do get treatment, it's gonna take a while. It's not gonna be a six month thing or a one year thing. It may take them longer than that or it may not. But you have to be willing to say, hey, they're a valuable portion of the team and we want them here.  But you have to be willing to say like, hey, maybe this isn't the best position for you right now. Maybe you need to take some time, find something that's more in line with what you want. Now on the individual side, you have to be willing to accept that. Like, you know what, maybe this job isn't right for me right now. Maybe traveling three weeks out of the month isn't what I need to be healthy. And so you have to have that on both sides. So what kind of things can we put in motion? Kind of taking a more systems-based approach. A lot of companies will do like, oh, hey, here's an anonymous line. You can call and things like that. And those anonymous things are great because it removes that stigma. But there's still the apprehension of, well, somebody might know. But a lot of the times, non-anonymous things are great too. A lot of companies will have like, oh, they'll play Magic the Gathering at lunch or even small social activities build a level of comfort amongst the team that eases people into that whole like, hey, I can talk about this. These people are friendly, they're nice. And it also gives you as a manager the ability to say like, hey, I see some weird social dynamics that aren't the norm like somebody's excluding themselves or being excluded. Why is that happening? And that can sometimes give you a clue of someone who's withdrawing or feeling like they're being attacked. No repercussions. Now this is a hard one because everybody likes to think that, oh, we don't become vindictive on somebody if they report something. But I've seen it in companies I've worked for where somebody had a health issue that none of us can know about because HIPAA and things like that, personal privacy. But as soon as that person started missing work people were just like, so why is he out again? Like really, like we're all overworked and he's out. And so the no repercussions isn't just from an HR standpoint or managerial, it's also from a team standpoint. Like your team has to understand that, hey, we're all here for each other. And being able to say like, hey, like I know he's out, I'm gonna trust the both in the managerial sense and in his sense or her sense that it's on the up and up. That there's definitely something going on. I don't know what it is. I shouldn't know what it is. And it'll take care of itself in some way or another. Resources should be easy to find and easy to use. It doesn't make sense to have a call line like, oh, they can call in and they can talk to people, it'd be great. If it's a separate entity that you hear about once when you first start you get a little plastic card. And then after that, oh, who knows the number? No one's gonna ask because that's the whole thing. If you ask for that number, it's saying, oh, hey, I have a problem. And so no one's gonna call HR for sure because, and then freedom to change the system. This is where I deviate from the HR thing where they say, hey, here's our system. This is what we're doing. This is how we handle things because sometimes the systems don't work. Sometimes you're able to say like, you know what, we were doing that. No one's using it. There's obviously still a problem. What can we change to make this better? And so that's why I advocate sometimes for not listening to HR and just doing your own thing. Now getting into the difference of on-site and remote. On-site, I don't wanna say it's easier but it's easier to be more aware. Your team needs personal attention. And I don't mean code reviews or one-on-ones here and there but even just the occasional like, hey, do you wanna go have a cup of coffee?  Do you wanna talk about that? Like you have to be willing to go out of your comfort zone as a manager and find out more about your team. If at any point you're like, I really don't know what she's into. Like does she like dogs or video games or comics or none of that. If you have a person on your team where you don't know at least that much about them, you don't know them and you don't know what they're going through. And that's a big, big cause for issues. Safe spaces. Now there's a lot of talk and people make fun of the whole safe space thing.  Safe spaces are very important for people because sometimes especially in tech companies with open office environments, there's nowhere to go. Like if you start feeling overwhelmed, where are you gonna go?  Like that makes you just feel worse. So having private spaces where people can just go to do whatever, whether it's work or just be alone is super important for their mental health and for you as a manager. Like if you see them go, that gives you another opportunity to be like, oh hey, there's something going on there. And you have to make these safe spaces open to everybody. It can't just be like, oh well that's for mental health right there. So if you need that for mental health, go there.  But so it has to be more than just that. Oh, awareness and acceptance training. Going back to that, Osby survey, most companies don't do mental health training. Like they might do racism, sexism, like things like that. But as far as mental health goes, no one really talks about it. And so it's one of those things where we sit there and we all deal with the problem. We see the problem, but our companies are basically just like, well, I don't want to touch that. So that's all on you guys. So the knowledge of resources and benefits available. This goes beyond just the initial HR, hey, we're gonna reach out to all the new hires, let them know what's going on. You have to make this a proactive thing at least once every three months. Reach out to your team like, hey guys, this one lets you know, here are the resources that are available. This thing might have changed, nothing changed, but here they are again. It kind of removes that issue of that little plastic card for the call line. If every three months, everybody gets it, everybody still has a constant reminder of, okay, these things are here, the company wants me to use it. They're expecting me to use these things. Work from home allowances. Now this one, you will get pushed back on sometimes because it's scary to let employees work from home. Like are they working? Are they not? And people will take advantage of it. That's just human nature. Somebody will eventually be like, hey, I can just game that system. That's a small price to pay for the people who need it to use it, especially for mental health reasons. Like to know that I have a big office, I love my coworkers, but I'm having a really rough time right now, but I can just stay home for like a two, three days, get things done still, and then come back when I'm better. That's incredibly beneficial.  I don't wanna bring a doctor's note that says, hey, like his PTSD was going nuts and so he didn't wanna go outside at all. Because he wants to take that to their manager because they look at that and like, oh, okay, that's creepy. And then private space is kind of back to the safe space thing. Just even if you don't have dedicated space for like a room or something like that, just have a certain section of the office that is like, hey, you know what, there's a desk over there. If you just need to focus on something, not be around to the people, just go to that desk. No one will ask you questions. People will just leave you alone. And that could be good just for, hey, I just need some quiet time to work on this or it could be, I'm having a rough day. I just need to kind of focus on something that's not work. Now remote, I find remote management, especially with mental health issues, is a lot harder because you don't have that personal connection with anybody. You oftentimes don't know your team. It's like, hey, you know what, I gave John and Mary a jure ticket and then three days later it was done. Great, they're happy, I'm happy, things are going fine. You'll see them in Slack and Slack messages are fine. There's emojis, everything's great.  They hate the job, they feel like no one likes them at work. They're going through personal crises and literally the last thing they wanna do is log into Slack or talk to anybody that day. But they have to keep up, they feel they have to keep up that presence, like, oh, if I don't, they're gonna fire me. Now community for remote positions is kind of a hard thing because there's companies who wanna gamify that like, oh, if you participate in Slack or the forms or do this or that and you get points and you can get swag, which t-shirts are great but it's not everything. I think true community comes from developing people's interests. So yes, have Slack groups that aren't work related. Like have things that are just like, hey, a lot of people here like Magic the Gathering. Let's just create a Slack room for that, let them do whatever they want to in that Slack room. Talk about it. A lot of it is, you know it's gonna cost money of our budget but let's fly some folks in, like just have them here and we won't even work. Like for two days, we'll just come to the office, we'll go do something, we'll hang out, we'll just get to know each other. Like having that in face time is paramount to not only you as a manager knowing your team but the team knowing each other is that way you can have that kind of trust that, oh, hey, like, you know, I know Tina, like she's gonna be out for two weeks for whatever I don't know but she's a good person, we had fun and yeah, it was good. Another big thing for management and this is especially true for me in the military was, oh, if I don't hear anything from anybody, things are fine. In our remote, you aren't gonna hear anything. Like you'll get people who will say, hey, I don't like this, I don't like that but if someone's having a hard time, they're not gonna reach out to you. If they don't feel already a connection to where you would already know something's kinda going a little off, they're not gonna reach out.  People are not Trello cards or Jira tickets. I've been in several companies where the remote team, it was just essentially like, all right, here go the user stories, work on it and I'll see you guys in a week.  But that was it, like essentially you tracked your entire team by whose name popped up first on things were being completed and that dehumanizes your team. To you as a manager and to the rest of the team. And all you see is that Greg is always three days late on everything.  So you really have to, from the business standpoint you do have to track those things.   So when you don't do something that I think you should do, I don't like you for it.  Code reviews are especially difficult given that almost all of them for most remote positions are done via text.  And normally that's fine. But sometimes if you're having a really rough time, that text that just says, like, hey, this part right here, I'm not really sure what you were trying to do here becomes this part right here. I'm not even sure what you were trying to do here. And you feel crappy. And so text can work, but I do think you need to send the text if you're gonna do it that way and then follow up with a video conference or a phone call to explain like, hey, here's what I meant about this. And it has to be immediate. You can't be like, oh, hey, here's this and I'll talk to you in three days.  I have no idea what I'm doing or my boss is just, oh. Preferably, what's worked well for me is code reviews over ring central or go to webinar. They don't have to be super formal or anything like that just sitting down and saying, hey. So in these three things, I didn't quite know what you did, but on these things over here, these were great. Because even in text, if you still give me the, hey, this was great. I don't understand these three things or why you did them, but it was great. You still, especially if you're dealing with PTSD, anxiety, depression, all you see is those three bolts in the middle that said, hey, you didn't do what I expect you to do. You didn't measure up. You didn't meet expectations. You will ignore the rest of it. Trust, communication, and teamwork. This goes back to the whole thing where even as a manager, you have to facilitate that for your team. Whatever that takes, whatever your resources are, you have to make sure that happens. If you don't build trust between your team and then between you and your team, no one will say anything, no one will talk, and it will be toxic.  There's no start talking in the background.  And soon you have people who are basically like, well, I think I deserve a raise because he was out for three weeks and I've been here the entire time. It gets into a really rocky situation where you really don't know what's going on in the team and they don't know, and so they start turning on each other and turning on you. So as a frontline manager, a direct manager, it starts with you. You are the person on the ground right there. You really have to know your team. There's no excuse. Like, if you can think of somebody on your team who you don't know something personal about or know how they're feeling during the workday or the weekend, it's wrong. You need to know. Even if it's, they are fine. There's no mental illness. They're having a great time. You should still know that. You should never be at a point where like, you know what, I really have no clue with how their day's going. Clear roadblocks. This is kind of the usual management thing where as a direct manager, you're supposed to be there to remove issues for your team. This means the things I mentioned earlier, like building trust and things like that. You need to remove those roadblocks of communication and trust between your team members. Now a lot of this is just you being open and honest with things that you can be. Talking to your team like, hey, you know what, something's going on right now. So and so has to take some time off. We're gonna do these things to make sure this work gets covered and then things will go back to normal. Like, not just saying like, oh, hey, so Sarah's gonna be out for a week. So that's a thing. And I've seen companies do that. You have to tell your team exactly what's going on and clear the roadblock of not having information by sharing like, hey, here's our plan. Here's how we're gonna handle this and here's what I'm gonna do to repay you guys for the extra hard work. And also you need to be a roadblock for upper management because they're gonna push back. They're gonna be like, what do you mean?  You need to be the one that says like, hey, that's fine. Talk to me about it, don't go to them. I don't wanna see emails from HR going to them asking what's going on. Like, you need to be the person who intercepts all that noise because it's somebody who's had to take time off for those things, like getting that random email from like a middle level manager or HR like, hey, so we know she was taking a lot of time off. Like what's going on with that? It freaks you out because you don't know this person. There's no trust built up. And all of a sudden now you're getting those questions that you don't even wanna answer to people you know. And it's corporate so they're pushing for it. Focusing on people is way, way, way more important than focusing on metrics. And we all have to focus on metrics. There's no way around that. But the thing is you have to be willing to say like, hey, this metric is for this person based on what they can do right now because of their mental state and physical state. I've worked at a company where one of my co-managers did not like an employee. An employee did have severe depression issues and so he was just always very down. And so the Spanish just kept looking at his metrics like we'll see his metrics are going down here, here and here, like he shouldn't be an employee here. Like he's just always a bummer to be around and actively focused on getting this guy removed from the company. And he was amazing in his job. Like the rest of the time he was great. Instead of supporting him and saying like, hey, do you need help with this? There's something we can do. He just focused on reminding him of all the negative things he had done.  So what's going on with that? There was no support. Then lastly, in the military, there's always a saying like mission accomplishment comes first and then troop welfare comes second. And I have always had a huge issue with that. Troop welfare is the most important thing. Troop welfare is what gets you mission accomplishment. Those tickets you're pushing through the work you're trying to get done, it's the people you work with who are doing that. Those numbers aren't, that work isn't coming out of thin air. You have to support the people and if you support the people, the work will come. That's the only way to do it.  Now mid-level managers are a special kind of crazy. These people have the power to make things happen. These are your VPs, your directors, sometimes even C-levels, like CTOs and things like that, who have the ability to make things happen. They can say like, you know what? Go ahead and do that. Your team needs a little time, do it. I'll cover it, we'll figure it out, don't worry about it, we'll make it happen. These are also some people who are like, no, these metrics need to be met, like we have a quarterly business review coming up, like what are you guys doing, you're killing me here. The ones who force the teams to work, the 12, the 16 hour days, the weekends, when they're already stressed out, because all they see is the metrics, they don't see the people. What you have to do at that level is give your direct reports, so those direct managers, give them the power to make those changes, give them the resources to do that, and then give them the leeway to say like, hey, that didn't work out, probably not the best idea, we won't do that again, but let's keep reviewing it. All too often it's like, you get the one who's like, oh yeah, go ahead and do this thing. It doesn't work, they're like, oh, never again, you never get to do something special again, because it just didn't work this time. Another thing is, especially in big organizations, it's like, okay, well this worked well for the engineering team, so this is gonna work for QA too. No, they're completely different teams, they're different people, you can't apply the same solutions to each one and expect it to work across the board. You have to let the teams build their own solutions, you can help facilitate that, but you can't force it on them. And like I said before, numbers matter, people matter more.  That's important, but people matter more. At the end of the day, no one's for the most part for most of what we do, no one's going to lose their life if we don't get that code chip today. Yes, something might not get out the door on time, we might lose money, but from a human perspective, the fact that you're taking care of people means more in the long term. Now, on the individual level, we all have a responsibility to ourselves and to those around us. So this means if you do have mental health issues, you have to take time for yourself, you have to be willing to say like, I know the team's counting on me, but I have to do this for me. And on the other side of, maybe you don't have issues or you do, but it's not currently a problem for you, you have to be willing to say like, hey, I don't know what's going on with Mary, but you know what, that's okay that I don't know what's going on. You know, she's a good person, I'm just gonna go ahead and have that responsibility that I need to help out in case she can't. This is kind of a side note. One of the big issues with depression and anxiety, and things like that is, especially in technical folks, we try to think our ways out, think our way out of it. So we spend a lot of time, like you know, if I just sit here and think about this problem long enough, I can get through this or you know, if I just plan my day a little bit better, I can get the same amount of work done, I can keep pushing, keep pushing. You can't think your way out of a cognitive issue like that. This is one of the biggest things that I had a problem with is, I just kept thinking like, I'm an engineer, I can figure this out, like okay, I got a bad thought process, I'll just do this, this and this, you can't. Because the whole problem is, you're coming at it from a wrong standpoint of thinking, not wrong, but a affected standpoint of thinking, where you can't make those connections, you really don't know because you're part of the problem. But the furthest, the furthest, the first hardest and most rewarding step in getting help is asking for the help, being willing to take the help. All too often, that's the biggest hurdle, because once you get into help, it's tough, but you've already made that first jump. Like you've already said, hey, I have a problem, I need to get help, what do I do now? Admitting that you have the problem is 90% of the battle in the beginning. Being able to say like, yes, okay, there is something wrong here, but I can take care of it, or I don't know how to take care of it, but I know something's wrong. So what are our takeaways? Supporting mental health is a team effort. Managers, all up and down the chain of command, individuals, we all have to be part of this. It can't just be, oh, that's a management or HRs problem, not my problem.  Communication and empathy are key. If you aren't talking to people and they aren't talking to each other, you don't know anything. That's the only way you can know is if people are interacting. Systems are a great thing and anonymity does promote action through ease and privacy, but it's not enough. You have to be willing to go the extra mile and have those volunteer day events or times like, hey, where's it all go out and do whatever. It can be something as simple as, hey, there's a local animal shelter you can go take tours and pet dogs for an hour because that is amazing. I have done that and, like I said before, managers need to know their teams in and out. Don't get creepy with it. Don't ask, yeah, don't get creepy with it. We'll just leave it at that. But you should still know. I've had teams where one of the managers didn't even know that somebody was married. They had worked there for three years and it was just like, how do you not know somebody who's on your team is married? Like you've had company functions. Like what happened there? But I've been on teams where I can sit there and think like, oh yeah, I remember Sarah. Like yeah, she got married and they had two kids. I think like Jeff and John are the names and they think this recently moved over to Hillsborough, Oregon. Like yeah, they're good people. Like there's a whole like great area in between there but you need to focus on at least being able to like talk about members of your team. Like you actually know them. Not just like, oh, the HR sheet says 34 and, but yeah. Like I said before too, learning to accept help is the hardest but most rewarding step. And this is on management side too. As a manager, you have to be willing to accept help from other people. It's like, hey, I don't know how to handle this. Like something's going on. What do I do? That might be from other managers. It might be from outside assistance, HR. But you have to be willing just to say like I don't know what's going on. Something might be I don't know enough. And that's it. I'll give you guys back seven minutes. So thank you all for coming. Yeah. Thank you.


You're listening to barbell logic brought to you by barbell logic online coaching where each week We take a systematic walk through strength training and the refining power of voluntary hardship Welcome to the barbell logic podcast as a principles series edition. I'm here with my brother Chris Reynolds and he has been a tough day for us at the Reynolds household Chris. Yes we we we lost our I lost my pup and Of 14 years Bentley my boxer beautiful black and white boxer I've had for 14 years and Got up this morning. Yeah, he's he's old 14 years old and The good news is is that he didn't appear to suffer at all Let him out last night to go the bathroom before I went to bed put him in his kennel along with our other other dog our boss interior and he was completely fine and Pedidum told him good night close the kennel put a little blanket over the kennel to make it nice and dark in there for him and Got up this morning to let him out to go the bathroom. I opened both kennels and I didn't think anything was wrong. He was like he was still sleeping You know, sometimes we're still sleepy when I get I get up so early like let the boss interior out and then I was like why isn't the boxer moving and So he passed in the night and it's been tough at the Reynolds household And so it was hard to say goodbye it for for People who have pets first of all people would know me know that I'm not a big pet guy I'm not a huge animal guy and it's been very difficult. We actually lost a cat a kitty cat About ten days ago as well So we've lost two animals in a span of a week and a half and the kitty cat was only two and was my Youngest daughters and it it had just it just got some something wrong We took it to the vet a bunch of times It stopped eating wouldn't eat and kind of just waste it away. We had to watch the kitty cat suffer which sucked But my my dog Bentley the boxer he didn't seem to suffer at all He was just old and it appears that probably his heart just stopped him over the night still made for a hard day and You know and sort of having a little like kind of family memorial And we buried him in the backyard and stuff and it's all just super emotional So it's been a tough tough day. He was great a great dog I think the thing that is maybe the most emotional for me is that 14 years to think about how much my life has changed in 14 years No, yeah, and that and that he saw all of it and It's we lost two in the last over the last several years and In the first one when we lost our first dog I mean these are our dogs that we had before we had kids Yeah, so they were our babies before we had babies and they're the only thing your kids ever knew Yeah, and we just walked around crying for a week. That's what we did That's we crossed each other in the hallway Jenny and I would we just cried and And you know, it's man, it's freaking hard. It's you get really really attached to a dog and and this way it should be and I Do I in some ways I envy both of our dogs We we got to the point where they had to be put down Because they were in pain. They were in so much pain But Bentley went out like a champ man. I mean that's that's that's the way to go if there is a way to go Yeah, I agree like in and he I you know again I didn't even know and he didn't bark in the night We're fairly light sleepers, especially my wife like if he had had any pain or anything in the night He would have barked Amazingly enough. I don't think that Bella Are Boston who literally sleeps right next to him and a separate kennel But the kennels are literally touching each other and they're and they're open so they can see each other I don't think she knew it was bizarre I don't think she knew that because when I let her out this morning She went running out to go to the bathroom and then he didn't come and then she came back to the door like where's Bentley and looked in and then she saw that I was I was messing with him, you know And she started barking like what the hell's going on? But yeah, so it's it's been tough lots of tears around the house and But good memories and a wonderful a wonderful dog and so we'll miss you Bentley for sure So we want to talk about something again, you and I had kind of a long conversation before this and and I want to be sensitive and recognize that that again the world is crazy in the world's hurting and man, I want to stay as Apolitical as we possibly can right now on the show. I want to be I want to be a source of Encouragement and entertainment and I recognize that some people think maybe that it is We are called to maybe speak our minds a little bit more I'm trying to run a company that wants to get people strong and I want to be able to provide Some relief from the stress that's going on in the world right now And so that's what we're gonna do today We're gonna talk about some of the things that actually one of the things that I've really enjoyed over the last few weeks that in the midst of COVID in the midst of of all the stuff that's going on in our country politically and culturally that I can still find brings Me value and actually gives me a tremendous amount of stress relief and for me. That's actually good old-fashioned hard work like actual manual labor hard work and I just love it. I love what it gets me So I wanted to spend a few minutes and talk about the actual value that I get from hard work There's there's nothing like it. It's so crazy how Your it's like your body's made for it.  You get this rush of endorphins When you're out doing your physical labor, we our family cleared some area in the backwoods of our house last week, I think or the week before and You know, you get done and you can you can look over it and you can see what you did You made an impact and it's cool, you know And also when you get done with it, you're done.  We lived on like five acres and mom and dad Demanded that we mowed and weed eat all of it five acres is a lot to weed eat and trim around like the fence The fence posts and all that stuff. I hated that stuff or to shirk Carrying the groceries in you know from a grocery trip or whatever those things were and I went through this period even when I back when I was a teacher Because even as a teacher your work is really never done, right? Like you just and it's very hard to tangibly see what you were what I was doing as it as a teacher Like you you know You hoped you were helping the kids and you hoped you're making an impact But it's hard to really know and we've talked about this on the show as well that I would I would spend some time like renovating your house Renovating our cousin Phil's house and I got a lot of value out of that for those very reasons. It was a great I could go do it It didn't take a tremendous amount of thought mental thought so there's actually it opened up Mental capacity to think about Important things because a lot of the stuff you're just doing this good hard manual labor And so your brain gets to think about stuff and like you said There's there's this wonderful amount of closure that occurs when the stuff's done you can look back even every single day You can look back and say oh look what I did today It didn't look like this at the beginning of the day and now it does and so and that's come with me in my In my life here now We did a we've done a pretty nice garden this year Raised bed garden and built it with the family and kind of did that for in the midst of the quarantine and I've really gotten into my yard lately. I'm that guy I'm neat dad, you know from the neat dad account on Instagram Instagram where my white new balance shoes and Not really the white new balance shoes But yeah, just you know like I like working in my yard and I like I like trimming the trees I like trimming my garden and I like you know putting the posts in and and planting flowers and doing like doing that stuff Working in the garage or you know, we bought the bought the rural land And going out and clearing land clearing land is that's some of the hardest work you ever do chainsaw brush cutters But gosh you're talking about what a what a satisfying piece of work a job to do when we're out there we when I was Think I was 14 When our uncle Steve who's our our dad's brother had a job for me to go basically clear land mo that kind of thing over a summer in a place close to Branson and That job was so hard you got $4.25 an hour remember right it is under minimum wage and we were below the age limit So we were younger than 16. So like they had my legality is questionable. Yes. So for sure all the child labor But I was excited to earn, you know earn a buck and But what was really shocking to me is we could get up so early and go out and do this work And when I got done at the end of long days, I mean we did 10 12-hour days of that type of work you got done. You're drenched in sweat.  But the combination of fresh fresh cut grass at BO and BO in a sweaty and gas 11-year-old It always is always some gasoline smell in there. That's right But you get done and man to look over a vast quantity of land and see that you had done this work That now looks nice like you've cut trails and you've done all this stuff and it just it's such an incredible feeling and I remember being young and Recognizing how great that feeling was and I think to some degree that is that can be especially if any of you have Kids who are sort of entering their teen years. That's one of the great things you can give them They may not feel that way Sorry, but it's like the first domino that knocks over other dominoes later That you can you can be someone who does this hard work And you actually get this incredible feeling out of it and physical hard labor has even the extra value of the endorphins and all those things Yeah, I it's funny as we both talk about our memories of doing hard work growing up. I Think we did the job for the money But looking back now as adults We don't remember the money and we don't remember what we bought with the money But we remember the way we felt at the end of the day when we did the work And so I'm often trying to explain especially to my oldest daughter, but to both my kids The value of hard work and when I and I've told them like I'm talking about the value Beyond what the work gets us ie money. It's not about the money like yes We making money for working is important because at some point you have to support yourself and do the thing, right? And they also watch me specifically work really hard at my job here at Barbell logic as the CEO of a company which looks nothing like planting the garden, right and And also doesn't ever have closure and also does, you know, it's gonna give you the same endorphins I don't get any that stuff. So it's a well, I love my job here But I like to do the hard work outside or the manual labor because it gets me something that my normal job doesn't It gets me those things like the value of the work itself There's value in that hard work and and I love it It's it's I think it's just it's an extreme sense of satisfaction for me To be able to experience that and so yes Even it is very nice to be able to look back and see like I did this thing and like, you know I trim the trees or I cleared the brush or I planted the garden and all those things are good But there's actually something about the internal Satisfaction you get from the work itself That nothing else can give you it's the only thing that'll do that for you. Yeah, I've read a couple of accounts of Where apparently there is this effect is a little stronger in men than it is in women Almost like that Hard physical labor that you're doing X there are extra endorphins that you get from doing that type of work and so it's a There's definitely there's a scientific background to this that helps part of it is I mean, I think all of us could agree that If it's evolutionary design or whatever you however you think we got to this point as humans we it's a very new phenomena for us to sit in front of computers for 10 hours a day and There's there's a lot going on You know, we we know that our brain is affected by the things that we do with our body We know that exercise for example helps with depression and anxiety and all these other things Well, it turns out that a lot of that stuff is because For an enormous amount of time we had to go out and physically work We had to go out and labor to find food and we had to go go do all these things And if it wasn't rewarding in and of itself, then it probably would have been a real struggle Yeah, you would be to survive. That's right Yeah, for all of human history We were hunter-gatherers farmers Those things right like that's like even the technological advance from hunter-gatherer to agriculture Was it was that was a big that was a big step in in in human Humans moving forward and yet they were they're both still super super Manual labor work intensive and so yeah, I think that we were made to be that way And we live a life, especially the past 50 years or so Where most of us now sit in front of a computer or at an office in a chair And it's not really what we were we were called to something better And I don't I don't mean that even in a religious sense although certainly can be taken that way as well But I mean we're just like there's that's not what we were made to do. It's like it's like taking It's not the same thing as a domesticated cat. It's like taking a tiger It's like taking a lion and trying to put them in zoo But they're not made to be in a zoo They're made they're made to be wild and free and so I think For us there's there is some of that deep rooted in our instinct Say this is what I'm I'm wired to do this stuff I there's something about being out in the heat and sweating and doing the work and seeing the fruits of your labor That is extremely satisfying and and I can't get that when I'm on zoom calls all day I don't get down to be like, you know what crush seven zoom calls today only did five yesterday I never have any satisfaction matter of fact every additional zoom call brings me a little less satisfaction As opposed to more satisfaction But doing the work outside brings me more. I like it. I think there's there's value and you can overreach here But there is value. I think in looking towards What an ideal circumstance is for our Mines and bodies, right? So essentially you could you could say what what we've been designing And for you could say what we've evolved to you can say whatever I'm not supposed to be Not trying to chain you to an ideology. I'm just saying one way or the other and I remember Reading a while ago like everybody got pretty excited about like paleo diet and then a few years later There were a bunch of articles that were like, yeah, a paleolithic man did not eat this diet All right, sure There's been variations on these things, but there is value in figuring out what things are just drastically Departed from the way that we should function as human beings and One other great thing about manual labor when you can get it and and this would be my recommendation to people who who do this Um, or have the ability to do it is to take your phone and set it in your house And be nowhere near it when you're doing it because if there's anything that we are that our minds are totally Unprepared for and I am convinced we will find a huge body of scientific evidence in the long run about this It is that smartphones Uh are are totally outside of what we are capable of dealing with sure the constant pains the constant You know, everybody's had the phantom buzz.  Yeah, like that it's such a wide phenomena that we all Can have a cell phone In our pocket and feel the buzz pull it out and there was no buzz right because there is a buzz so often So frequently any feeling basically that rubs slightly against your leg. You're like, that's a buzz. What's going on? And so, uh, you know, whenever you if you do get the opportunity to get out do some yard work or You know, uh work on the garage paint the house whatever you're doing I highly recommend taking your phone putting it somewhere that's nowhere near you. So what I do is, um For me right now, this is this is really my my manual labor manifests itself in every day I go out and do some work in the yard every day right now and and I've got I've got a nice lawn and I You know, I use the irrigation system and I'm trimming up the Trimming up the the hedges and and working out in the garden and pulling the weeds and stuff But I like I like listening to an audiobook or podcast out there So what I do is I just take my phone and put it out on the deck and do not stir face down So it's not in my pocket and I have my earbuds in so that your buds will still pick up the bluetooth from it But the phone's not going off and I've actually started doing it early in the morning So what I've been doing my my daily routine has changed a little bit. So first off I I've not trained four days a week Every week. This is my fifth week I pulled 555 a little while ago, by the way, not too bad, right? So Yeah, um, yeah pretty pretty pretty and pretty easy 555 deadlift Didn't feel like it came off the ground easy, but then I watched the video and I was like, oh, that was fast It was fine. Yeah, and so the video sometimes tells you that things were much easier than you thought they were in your head Yeah, that's also weird for me because I watched so many videos of people lifting So I know what hard looks like but it's been a long time since I've been strong and and you know Grinding through a 700 pound deadlift or something like I just don't have it in me right now to grind through something like that And it's not I'm just not used to it just that you know So I'm having those same talks with myself that I have to have with my clients right now about about Having to like learn the grind again like learn when it's okay And what felt really heavy and felt like a grind watch the video It really wasn't and so all those things are there So one of the things I've done is I get up early in the morning still and by the way I want to do I want to do a podcast at some point about kind of getting up early and and the value I get in that and and I don't want to Give stuff away. I just that that comes natural to me Like I don't get up early because like if I hated it I wouldn't do it I've got a point where I don't even set my alarm anymore and I never sleep past six I mean six is like I really slept in most of the time. It's like 4 15 but And I get up and I do my basic online coaching urgent stuff first very first thing It's dark outside typically like 4 30. It's still pitch black Do that and when the when the sun starts to come up I go outside and I work in the yard working the garden pull weeds You know little things like that trim a few things a lot of times listen to a podcast or an audiobook And I come in and I make some food and then I've been training every morning by 8 30 every morning So by the time I train I've already done all the urgent work at work And I've done the work around the yard which it's in the middle of the summer now And so it's really hot so a great time to do that's at 6 30 in the morning 7 in the morning and not at Not at 1 30 in the afternoon And I'll train and then I'll get to come back and do The big stuff the important stuff for my job and it's actually worked really really well And then we get to you know about this time during the day Get to kind of early to mid-afternoon and and after we get done recording the podcast I'll shut this thing down and I'll I'll can I'll switch over to To husband Matt daddy Matt and we'll we'll go out and we'll hang out at the pool for a while and maybe nap and You know dinner and netflix and and that's kind of life right now And so that that hard work really brings me some value and then we'll go out About once or twice a week right now Down to the rural land and work the rural land and that's That's real hard work. That's not for 45 minutes or an hour in the mornings that is Five hours six hours where you are like we're a Ice-cold bottle of water is never tasted so good Sort of stuff and it's also rough out there and there's ticks And so here's the middle of the summer, but you always have to wear jeans and boots Because if you wear shorts, you're gonna come up and you're gonna have all the ticks in your buoyhole Like that one time you and I had We got all the ticks What is it about all those weird crevices that the ticks love so much I don't know man. They like heat. I guess and the moist. Yeah, that's what makes the bottle a perfect place So, yeah, I get the same. I don't know if you get this. Do you get the same effect from a little bit of adventurous? um Hiking or or something. Oh for sure.  And uh, I went home at 11 30 that night. Yeah, because I was like, well, this is not I'm decided against this But yeah, it was fun for it was fun for and I got there at like two in the afternoon So I spent you know, I spent a good long pretty much, you know all day most of the day made a fire had dinner You know had made food had water or stuff like that but at some point I was like, uh But yeah, exactly like those kind of hikes are like when we go out to colorado and we hike out in the middle of nowhere Especially if you get a little lost. Yeah, where you like I think I think that's important We we drove we we took our bikes from the house out into the Needham forest, which is uh, just a few blocks away And there's a little bike path that gets you on an old railway So we took the old railway out as far as we could take it. It's a bike trail now On the way back jenny says, hey I think maybe the railway takes you all the way back to the street.  We start going through this thing man. It is high There are high You know rocks mountains little things in there or whatever and we're trying to haul bikes up of it At some point everyone is a little bit afraid that we're never getting out of the Needham forest Which by the way is very small and if you walk very long you're gonna hit something and you're fine Like the street Yeah, but that little bit of danger that's in there and like sort of getting through it We got done everybody was just super happy Like you're just like everybody's just loaded on endorphins. You've done the exercise And you've gone through the work and I get a lot of that same feeling and I did when I did long runs too We I know we talked about that Last week or the week four that my wife would drive me out to several towns away And then I'd have to come back that little feeling of danger. Yeah throughout the process of the physical exertion Uh, it really has always amplified that effect for me and I I still love it.  So it doesn't always have to be outside Uh, you'll find that there's value in the work itself And you'll know that because if you're doing it for yourself, you're not getting paid. So And by the way, I still think paint like I pay my kids to do that stuff because I want to motivate them in the beginning To want to do the work. So when we when we built the garden I paid the girls and they worked their butts off not just my daughters But our our nieces my our sister's kids they came out work their butts off like digging we we put a big giant six by six Uh timber lawn timbers Around the garden and they had to they had to clear out the the trench for the six by sixes And they were super heavy, you know, they weighed they waited a ton and they were treated wood and all that stuff And so they uh, so I was like look I'll pay you I'll pay you well And they got paid for it. But I I still think now they would have the same memory of that from Three four months ago when they did it Then the money they got paid the money they got paid they probably would I don't they don't know what they did They went and bought something at the mall or they bought some earphones or something But they'll remember the work they did and so you're start you're starting to try to instill that idea of There's value in the work itself. Not just what the work gets you Via the money So money is the one thing the completion of a task well done is another thing and is very valuable But I actually think that there's value even in not completing the task Right even in just doing the work right just Chopping wood just like you know bailing hay like the kind of stuff that really is never you're never done chopping wood You're never done bailing hay like there's work that sometimes There's still value in that and you'll still find a lot of satisfaction in doing it And so especially if you have a job like Chris and I have had like I have Where you're you're stuck in an office all day Staring at a screen get out and do something that makes you sweat and you'll find tremendous value from that Totally agree. Awesome. It's been another principles episode on the barba logic podcast You guys will notice a slight schedule change So we are moving the principles episodes to Thursdays and we'll continue that for a while And then I'll just tease out. We got some series coming which I'm pretty excited about We're gonna bring back some of the old series and kind of digitally remaster them and do some cool stuff with them and and narrate them a little bit and start to put out series kind of netflix style so Be on the lookout for those coming up soon And we'll punch out like a eight-part series all at the same day So people can get the entire series at once and pretty excited about where that's going So thank you for listening and we will see you since this is thursday We will not do our podcast on sunday. We'll see you on monday morning. See you then


Did the Ravens trade Orlando Brown Jr. to the Chargers for Mike Williams? If it was Lamar Jackson and the Ravens in the Super Bowl instead of the Chiefs and they got embarrassed the same way they did by the Bucks, how bad would that slander be? How big of an impact can T. Martin and Keith Williams have on this Ravens offense? These and many, many more questions on this episode of NFL Questions from subscribers. Don't get mad, it's just what it is. We talk it's foreshad, I think Raven being. Yeah, this feels like a dream. YouTube Team Keep It Clean, what's going on? It's Ingraven here with another video and another episode of NFL Questions from subscribers and this is a series where you can ask me any NFL question you want to based off of any NFL team and we answer in a video just like this. Now if you want to be part of NFL Questions from subscribers then just send me an email to teamkeepitclean at gmail.com. Don't send it anywhere else? Well, you can send it somewhere else but if you do send it somewhere else then it won't be part of Questions from subscribers. So anyway, Team Keep It Clean, I love y'all, I appreciate y'all. Before we start this episode, besides the Patrons, a shout out to all the Patrons which I really appreciate y'all. I got to give a very, very, very special shout out to my wife. My wife, she's great, she's just been holding it down. She has continued to hold it down. She is a big reason just for everything. For everything that you see on here, she's a big reason for it. From the jump, literally from the jump, I've told y'all this story so many times. I remember when we very first started out doing YouTube and we were going to get, we were looking at video recorders or had to record a game and whatnot and I was going to go with a cheaper one because y'all know me, I'm cheap but she was like, no, get the better one. You want it to be better quality, get the better one. I was like, oh, okay. And she has just been super supportive. I'm super proud of her. She, and I was like, oh, that's kind of crazy. Through a pandemic, she got a promotion at her job. So I'm just like, and just the way that she has been holding stuff down, the way that she, she's great, man. So I just had to give a huge shout out to my wife, man. Also Team Keep It Clean, let's get into these questions because y'all got some really, really good ones because y'all, y'all been in the house brainstorming and thinking to all these different, well, let's get into it. Here we go. First question came from everybody, from my guy C. He said, how would you feel if they traded Orlando Brown Jr. to the Chargers for Mike Williams in the 13th pick? Also, Hawk Young, he said, engraving, they said the Chargers will get Orlando Brown Jr. in our second round pick for Mike Williams in their first and fourth round pick. Would you do this trade? My guy Fonzie, he said the most common trade I've seen through this is the Chargers for another pick number 13 and Mike Williams. Next came from my guy Harry. He said, I saw that the Chargers are offering a second, a fourth and Mike Williams for Orlando Brown Jr. to protect Justin Herbert's blindside. And then from Declan, he said, what do you think about trading Orlando Brown Jr. to the Chargers in return for Mike Williams and maybe a second round pick? So you see where a lot of team keeping clean is with the Chargers and Mike Williams and Orlando Brown Jr. and the Baltimore Ravens. Me, love Mike Williams. That guy, he is the 50-50 receiver that could make this offense take it to another level. He got speed. He got route running ability. He got hands, but he also has an injury history that would scare me. That would scare me. And one thing that I think about, I know the game of football has changed. And it's not the same as it used to be. So there's a lot of physicality that has been removed from the game. But still the AFC North is still probably the most physical in all of football, especially when it comes to the defenses of the Ravens and the Steelers. So for somebody to go from the AFC West, where it's very pretty out there, I feel like it's just a bunch of pretty boys out there. You got the Chiefs, Kush, you got my home throwing the ball to each and everybody. You got the Raiders. You got the Broncos, Drew Lock, even coming along strong, but still they were fairly in the market for a quarterback. And then you got the Chargers. So they throw that ball a lot. But all that quarterback, they're these pretty boys with their long hair, except Derek Carr and Drew Lock. They got shorter hair with Drew Lock hair as long. But anyway, I just feel like it's so pretty over there. But for Mike Williams, if he got injury problems over there with the Chargers for him to come to the Ravens, a much more physical team, a much more smash mouth team, I feel like he could do damage, but I just would be scared that he might get damaged. I love him as a player. Absolutely love him. I feel like Justin Herbert, when he got drafted by the Chargers, he was probably like, yes, I know we're not probably not going to win much, but still I got some really nice receivers. Keenan Allen and Mike Williams, what? And a healthy Hunter Henry. But I just, so if they did do the trade, I wouldn't be mad. I would just be a little bit worried, but this would give us somebody if healthy, when healthy, that could really make Lamar a lot better. That could really make Hollywood a lot better. And that could make any receiver that we would have left. Of course, Devon DuVernay, Pro Shae, and there's also Boykin, but he could make them step up their game because you know he's somebody that has already brought it and he's going to continue to bring it, especially because he could have a little chip on his shoulder too. He could be like, man, Chargers, y'all just gave Keenan Allen the extension last season, but y'all ain't feel like I was good enough. Okay. All right. Bet. Next question came from my boy, Sean. I appreciate you, man. He said, what's up engraving her ball as well with you and your fam? Just must say that I'm extremely excited about the two new hires for wide receiver coaching on the team. I agree. He said, it's clearly obvious that the last guy was the worst in the business at the job numbers or Steve Smith senior don't lie about that. It appears to me that the powers to be have been listening and keeping their ears to the streets. Yes, you already know and understand that the nucleus of the problem is not lack of talent, but lack of development. Boom. Boom. Questions over. We ain't got to do nothing about it. That's it. That's it. But we still got to continue. He said the two guys at the Ravens have hired have an uncanny record of developing top wide receivers in the NFL and on an NFL level and I expect nothing less here. I also expect an additional two to the current situation for the sake of competition, but I truly believe we will see a huge leap in our passing attack in the upcoming season. I believe the front office is putting the best teachers possible in position to move the person game forward while holding Lamar and the wide receivers accountable if progression is not shown. And see, this is something else that I wanted. This is something else that I wanted. I wanted to be to wear Lamar Jackson, the receivers, the running, but mainly Lamar Jackson has no excuses, none. And what that would mean would be that the Ravens put him in the best possible situation for success. Let's keep going. He said it's up to the pupils to put in the work to get better while the front office covers themselves by saying, we got you the best teachers in the game. My question to you is, do you think they will hold Lamar's extension off a season to see how he progresses with the better taught wide receiver core while hopefully being upgraded? Or are they just really trying to attack the passing wolves at the nucleus of the problem, which has been coaching all along? Keep up the great work, fam. Love what you do and the Ravens community needs you. One, Sean from East Beemaw. Appreciate you, man. I don't even think the Ravens should hold off on Lamar. I think Lamar should hold off on the Ravens. I think he should hold off on signing with the Ravens. I really do. And again, I say that because I really want him to put that pressure on the organization to where he tells us, uh-uh, we're not doing this until you show me that you are truly invested in me. And obviously a contract extension with that would definitely be a big investment. But another investment that you can do in the meantime before a contract extension is reached, put people around them. Put the best coaching that you possibly can around them, the best personnel that you possibly can around them, build around him, like truly build around him. Protection, past catches, and the coaching. I couldn't think of a P word for coaching, but anyway, you get what I'm saying. So this, this is a start. Again, this is a start. Is this the end all be all? No, but this is a start. So hopefully it continues going in the right direction. Next question came from Sam Burke. He said, Hey team, keep it clean. I know you're Ravens fan. I love your videos. Appreciate it. But I had a question. And my question was, do you think Russell Wilson is going to leave my Seahawks? And do you think it's fine if you could play me in Madden on Friday? Well, I'm not sure what I'll be doing yet. But so it's up in the air. But anyway, about Russell Wilson, I really think it's possible. I know that normally I would be like Russell Wilson gone. No, but it's 2021, man. It's 2021. And crazier trades have happened already. Crazier trades have happened. So it would be surprising. But at the same time, it wouldn't be surprising if Russell Wilson got shipped off somewhere. Next question came from radically radical. He said, I ain't gravy. And I know it's a hypothetical, but I was wondering if Lamar and the Ravens made it to the Super Bowl and were to lose in the same fashion that the Chiefs did. Oh, that would be a big yikes. What kind of criticism do you think the team as a whole and especially Lamar Jackson would receive? Oh, man, been a fan for a long while now. Congrats on almost getting the 40k hashtag team keeping clean. Appreciate your support in the videos, man. Oh, that would be Ravens fans. Oh, they wouldn't even want to turn on the TVs. Because Patrick Patrick Mahomes ain't getting nothing. Like you've been seeing all these posts saying, Oh man, Patrick Mahomes, he's such an amazing guy. Oh, he's such an amazing quarterback. Wow. These were some of the greatest incompletions I've ever seen. You've been seeing so much of that on sports and ESPN and this and that. But there's a lot of people that just don't want to say what it was. And I've seen it so many times with the comparisons and whatnot between Lamar Jackson, that playoff game that he had against the Titans and this game that Patrick Mahomes had against the Buccaneers almost called them the Patriots always do that. But they pretty much all. But anyway, no, it would be bad. It would be bad because again, Lamar Jackson, when he receives criticism, he doesn't receive criticism like other people do because he's not a traditional quarterback. So it would have been all kinds of rough and as rough as it already has been. Oh, trust me, it would be a million times worse because this is the biggest NFL game of the season. It's on this nationally televised everybody watches that people who don't even watch football, they watch the Super Bowl. So all eyes would have been on him. All the spotlight would have been on him. Nobody would have gave him the pass like, oh, man, his offensive line didn't block. Oh, no, they wouldn't give him. No. No, you know, Lamar don't get that. Oh, it would have been ugly. Next question came from my boy Robin C. He said, do you think the Raven should sign Kenny Gallade? And also who do you think will be our running back one? Well, for the running back one, that's going to be J.K. Dobbins. It's going to be a mix of J.K. Dobbins and Gus Edwards. But I think it'll primarily be J.K. Dobbins. They showed that toward the end of the season who they're running back one was, even though Gus Edwards got his fair share of carries too. But it'll be J.K. But to your first question, do I think they should sign Kenny Gallade? That'd be a nice pickup. But do I think they will sign Kenny Gallade? Not at all. Not at all. I just think for Ravens, and this is based off of their history, I just don't think a receiver that's in his prime will be coming to the Ravens this season. It'd be nice if they did do that to somebody in their prime, but I just don't see it happening. Next question came from a sim. He said, hey, man, do you think it's time to move on from the pistol formation? And do they need to go make a trade in the draft to move up and get a look at one of those Alabama wide receivers? If they trying to get one of them, then they may have to move way up because they're 27 right now. But I don't see them moving up from the wide receiver. I don't see that happening at all. But as far as getting rid of or moving on from the pistol formation, not completely, but just getting some more snaps for Lamar Jackson, just under center. Because if you can do that, that can eliminate a lot of the bad snaps. That can do so much for your offense with so little. It's just a simple thing. Have them take some more snaps under center and boom, you ain't got to worry about the center snapping the ball over his head. You ain't got to worry about Lamar having to turn into a wide receiver from catching passes from the center. No, it's just a handoff. That's it. It's a handoff. And then that adds so many more plays to your offense. So you're expanding and you're evolving. So I don't think they should get rid of the pistol formation, but add a lot more plays under center. Next question came from Gullaboy. He said, I hope you and the family are doing well. Hey, we all we appreciate it, man. He said, I know what's talking about every coming in the coach. But what type of impact do you think that he would have on a Raven secondary, especially with the ballhawking ability? Let me know your thoughts and keep up the good work. Hey, I appreciate it. Gullaboy. Oh boy, I don't necessarily think that he would turn both.  That's the person who I think of the most. And I think Ed Reid could just give him more knowledge of the game. Of course, a lot's going to have to come with experience too. But I think Ed Reid could teach the Sean Elliott and Chuck Clark too. But mainly to Sean Elliott, since the Sean Elliott is our free safety right now, I think Ed Reid could really teach the Sean Elliott how to study better. Now I'm not saying that the Sean Elliott is not studious of the game, that he's a bad student of the game. I'm not saying that. But if you're learning from an Ed Reid, he can show you how to study even better, how to prepare even better. He can show him how to dissect quarterbacks, how to bait quarterbacks and just to hold not just how to read an offense so much better. If Ed Reid became a secondary coach, I don't envision it happening, but that's what I think would happen if that went down. Speaking of a secondary, real raw reckless. Next question came from him. He said, what's up in Graven? Hope all is well with you and the fam. Oh yeah, we doing real good. Hope you all doing even better. He said, Richard Sherman is set to become a free agent and said he would like to play two more years. Do you think the Ravens would be a good fifth Richard Sherman or do you think he would cost too much? Love the content. Look forward to watching the channel grow. Stay blessed. Appreciate you. Richard Sherman. I love Richard Sherman. Love his personality. Love that alpha. But I say no. Our biggest issue right now is a slot corner, slot corner, nickel corner, the inside corner. Richard Sherman, he can't do that right now. He's an outside guy. And I mean, you can never have too many corners, but I just know if he was somebody that could play nickel corner. I know there's been some talk about AJ Buye. But if we get somebody to play nickel, but Richard Sherman, no, no, no. Next question came from a boy, Jarvo. He said, got to be one of the most embarrassed in Super Bowls in history, but I doubt my homes will get slanted for his performance. But if that was Lamar, LOL, well, you know, my question is, watching the Bucks pass rushes and how they attack my homes, the whole game. How important is it for the Ravens to find fast and productive pass rushes this off season? Oh, as important as it's ever been. But with the Ravens, this is why I feel like Yanke and Gakwe, Matt, Jude on, I feel like both of them will be out of there. I don't think they'll be resigning either one of them. I think both of them are gone. With the Ravens, the pass rush is just, here's another one of those things. I think they'll want to get younger there. And like you said, faster. But one thing we got to remember too, the Chiefs didn't have their offensive line. So that allowed those pass rushes to feast even more. But still, in today's NFL, like Eric Dacosta said, the quarterback's getting the ball out faster than ever. So you not only need that exterior pass rush, but you need it internally as well. You need that pass rush that can go up the middle, that pass rush up front, that interior pressure. So you need more guys like Justin Madabike. You need more guys like a younger version of a Kaleas Campbell. And Kaleas Campbell still did his thing. But you need more versatile guys like a Purnell McPhee. So it's possible that the way that the Ravens do things now, that could change. Next question came from a boy Corey. He said, I've been wondering, have you checked the Raven schedule yet? Yeah, we checked the people who they're playing. And he said, if you have what record do you predict the Ravens to have? Love the Viz, man. Keep doing what you're doing. Whoa, Corey. Well, thank you for watching. But whoa, we ain't even hit free ages. We ain't even started yet. The draft, we didn't even get through the first round of the draft. It's way too early for record predictions on honor. It's way too early for that. Like we barely out of this past season. So yeah, we got to wait a little bit for that. Last question on this episode of questions from subscribers came from my boy Nick B. He said, oh, he told a lie for the first sense of his question. He said, engraving you're the man lies. So many lies detected. Anyway, so I went back and watched Sam Donald highlights from when T more and was the USC offensive coordinator. And so a lot of things I liked first one being read options, which we're very familiar with and we see Lamar do them all the time. But I really liked how often they ran run past options where the QB can choose to hand it off or read the linebacker and throw a slam or hot route. I know the Ravens do this, but not nearly as often as I think they should. And the last thing I like is mostly how often they move the pocket. The chiefs do this a lot, which the entire line rolls slightly away from the pass rush, expanding the pocket and buying more time. Opposed to the Ravens who often make Lamar do a straight drop back and play in a phone booth. Oh gosh, man. Common sense will say these things are the reasons they hired T more. And however, we never know what these Ravens my question is, how much do you think these new hires particularly T and Keith Williams will be able to make an impact on the offense regarding scheme and be able to have their ideas implemented into the offense? That is such a great question. Because it all just depends on how much respect they have in the builder. That's what it depends on. Because you could be, if you're a newbie, you're really going to have to earn some respect. You really are. You're going to have to earn some respect.  Who this person think they are? And it's just all going to depend on how much Greg Roman listens to them. Because Greg Roman again, you got your QB coach, wide receiver coach, you got your passing game coach, you got this that that that all these different position coaches on offense. But the head honcho is offensive coordinator. It's all him. He's the one that makes that final call. And of course, obviously you got John Hardball as well. But so much is up to Greg Roman and a little mix of John Hardball. So it just all depends on how much they listen to these guys and how much they truly value their input. Now my guy SG made such a great point about both of these hires. And he said these hires could actually be putting Giro on notice. They could be putting Giro on notice. And a lot of us have felt like Giro should have been put on notice already. But these new hires could put Giro on notice where it's like, Hey, Greg, okay, now, yeah, let's get this thing going. It's time. So I think to your question, all just depends on how much their opinion, how much their knowledge, how much their experience is valued in the building. But his question wasn't even done yet. He said, I think there's little things that can be done to help Lamar like getting him more space to work with giving him easier reads and building his confidence early in games with rhythm throws like RPOs and screens. Yes, especially the screens.  You want to do that early. It's just the frustrating part about this whole thing is that there's all this stuff seems so simple to us. But to the Ravens, we've been watched especially this year. And it's just like, it just doesn't seem like it's that simple to them. And I know that they're the professionals, we're not. Well, maybe some of y'all watching might be, but they're the professionals and a lot of us are not. But it just some of this stuff just seemed like it's so simple. But anyway, his question is still not done. He said, but will G roll genuinely allow them to have a voice? Or will we see the same old four words when no one is looking for the ball?  That was sad. But we just again, like I said, and like he just said at the end of his, it just all depends on who they because they're gonna have a voice. They definitely gonna have a voice. But it just all depends on who's listening.


Welcome to the ShareitBC how-to video series. ShareitBC has been recently enhanced to improve the search experience within the platform. This video will walk you through the previous search capabilities along with the enhanced search. Let's get started. You're going to start with the new Enhanced Search functionality, so if you are already familiar with the other search options, you can skip the second half of the video. You will now have the magnifying glass icon in the top navigation bar and the search ShareitBC section at the top of the homepage. One point of note that is new to the ShareitBC homepage is the Recommendations section. ShareitBC uses your profile to recommend resources or connections that match up to your profile information. If you haven't completed your profile, you may wish to do that to improve on the recommendations provided. You can go here to make the changes or in the top navigation dropdown menu here. If your profile has limited information, you will be presented with the top five current resources or connections. We are going to use the search bar on the homepage. I'm going to start by typing in the keyword Math. You will see as I start typing the word, you will be presented with options. I'm going to select the word Mathematics. The results you are presented with include resources as well as connections and organizations from the ShareitBC user base. The connections presented will be users that have put the word Mathematics in the about me portion of their profile or added it to the curriculum area. By adding information in the optional fields helps users of ShareitBC be able to connect with users of similar interests and teaching areas. The resources result will be all items that have the word Mathematics anywhere throughout the resource. Not just the title, but also in any of the attachments or the curriculum data, including big ideas, competencies or content. As you can see in the left menu, there are ways of filtering the results even further. The numbers in the brackets are the numbers of the results specific to those areas. You can select any one of these items or multiple items to narrow down your search. As you can see, there is a lot of content in ShareitBC for you to use. Let's try one more search. Let's look for a big idea. We're going to search for Newton's three laws of motion. This will present you with quite a few resources in the search results. However, I'm wanting to look for those specific to grade six. That narrows it down a bit more. By clicking on one of the resources and then expanding on the big ideas, you will see the curriculum data that we searched for. You can bookmark or save the resource or resources you want for future use. I have one more search option to show you. If you don't know what school districts or other organizations are part of ShareitBC, go to the organizations option in the top navigation bar. This will show you a list of organizations in ShareitBC. You can use the filter options to narrow down the types of organizations you want to see. You can also type the district number or you can use the name Comox for Comox Valley. And you can see if they are part of ShareitBC. By clicking on the name of the organization, this will show you all the resources that they have published. As well, by clicking on connections, it will also show you the number of users from that district that are on ShareitBC. If you find someone here you want to connect with, click on the connect button. This improved search functionality really helps users find the resources they need to teach the BC curriculum and find connections to collaborate with. Now it's your turn to go and search within ShareitBC to find resources or connections. If you're new to ShareitBC and want to see other ways of searching within the platform, keep watching and I'll show you how. Let's go back to the homepage. Let's start by searching resources. Click on the resources button in the top navigation bar. Here you'll be presented with all resources that have been published in ShareitBC. The first results are sorted by relevance. Relevance is a scoring calculation used for the sorting of search results. This is calculated automatically by the search services for each result item and is based on keyword queries, filters, and how recent the items are. You can click on the sort by drop-down menu to change the sort order. You can also enter keywords or phrases in the search bar and click on search. We'll use the keyword opportunities for this search. There are additional filtering options specific to resources that were not available within the other search option I first showed you. As well, it does not show you how many resources are in each of the filter areas specific to this search. So you will have to choose your filtering options to see what results you are presented with. Once you have found what you are looking for, click on the bookmark icon to save it for future use. These go into the My Saved Resources tab. Let's search for users within ShareitBC to make some professional connections. Click on Connections in the top navigation bar. It is great to see that we have over 10,000 users within ShareitBC. You can connect using the filters for role, teaching environment, organization, such as your own school district, or another district within BC, and UConn, curriculum area, or grade. Keep in mind, using these filters will only find users who have completed this information in their profile. Did you utilize these fields in your profile? You can always click on the arrow beside your name in the top navigation and click on Edit Profile to fill in these fields, or if you're teaching assignment changes, you can update it then. With the search bar, you can type in the name of the person if you know it and filter by their school district. Let's use SD71 as an example. Once you have found the person you are looking for, you can click on the Connect button. The connections you have made can be found under the Connections options under My Connections. I hope you are now able to use all these search options to find what and who you are looking for to make ShareitBC a valuable tool for you to use. Keep coming back frequently to search for new users that join ShareitBC and the resources that continue to be published for your use. Check out some of the other ShareitBC how-to videos to learn more. Thank you for watching and enjoy using ShareitBC.


What's up, everyone? It's your girl Kenzie here from Leighton Sports Cards, and I'm ripping a few personals here for you to see. We've got two 21-22 Panini Prism basketball first off the line boxes. All right, you the best of luck. Thanks for hopping in. Let's see some shimmy shimmies. Get your first off the line sticker right there. See some big rookie shimmies. Jonathan Kominga rookie. Silver rookie Jonathan Kominga. Prismatic Silver Steph Curry. AD Fearless. Jared Butler rookie. Ruby Wave of Alec Burks. Hyper Kawaii Lunar. Fireworks Yokoch. Isaiah Livers rookie. Banton. We've got a Silver, uh, Bridges. Blue Isaiah Roby for O.K.C. Blue Roby. That's out of $199.75 years. Walt Frazier. Yeah, that was a great box. Great box there, Luca. Robinson Earl rookie. We've got Red Wave of Blake Griffin. Nets. Red Tracy McGrady for the Magic. Out of $2.99. Mindset Yanis. Shimmies or Autos, yeah. Let's see. I think we've got an auto coming up. Jalen Greenbase rookie. Covington. Got Silver Reggie Jackson. Hyper of Michael Porter Jr. Nuggets. Maybe I didn't see an auto. I don't know what I was looking at. David Johnson rookie. Rita O'Bear. Little V.C. on the Red Wave. Raptors. Blue Ice. DeAndre Aitton for the Sons. The 125. Ayodo Sunmu. Balls. Jason Preston rookie. Silver Ray Allen. Got Shrey Young on the Firework Silver. And we've got Cavs. Carlos Boozer. Throwback auto there for you, Yuta. Carlos Boozer. Lebron base. Yolkage. Yeah. Sengoon. Jalen Johnson. We've got Pulsar. Dillon Verrux for the Grizzlies. Rookie Hyper. Kai Jones. Hornets. Fearless Jaw. All right. Where are these Shimmies at? Yeah, so. Trey Murphy III. Composos Silver. We've got Orange Wave to 60. Malachi Flynn Raptors. Kawhi Prismatic. Santiago Dama rookie. We've got to 10. Gold shimmer rookie from Full Card. Pretty well centered too. Maybe a little bit low. It's a little low left to right. Looks pretty good though. Wow. Five of 10. I was hoping that was an auto, but we'll take a gold shimmer any day. All day. Wow. We'll mag that for you. Congrats on that. Red Deni Avila. Mindset Lebron. Sick. Keon Johnson. Jaden Springer. Silver. Carousel Verts. Andre Drummond Hyper. Wide screen Steph Curry. Busavich. Bobby Portis. Blast pack. Should have a, hopefully, our auto in here. Yeah, looks like it. Charles Bassey rookie. We've got out of 30. I've got a little Bobon on the blue shimmer. That's a sweet color match, even though he's not with the Mavs anymore. Oh, blue Bobon. I said FDF. Nice. We've got the 75th anniversary to 75. Colin Sexton for the Cavs. And to 25. Wow. What a box. Mojo. Nicola Jokic. Boom. Defending. NBA MVP. What a box, Yuta. 23 to 25. Beautiful Joker. Mag that. Fantastic box. And we still have another one to go. Good luck. We called the sweats on that one. Let's do it again. Box two here. Makes me nervous though, because you never know sometimes with Kenini. Sorry, Williams rookie. We've got Silver Patrick Ewing. Mindset Silver Russell Westbrook. We've got a Harold Miner on the heat auto here. Miner. Donovich Yanis. Yeah, you can look on eBay or 130point.com. That's where you can see like sold comps or what cards went for. Transvangner rookie. We've got nice Pulsar here, Jokic. Look nice next to that Mojo. Hyper Sergibaca. Zach Levine fireworks. Man, that was a fantastic first box. Billy Silver Alexander Walker. Red. Jason pressed it on the color match for the Clippers. Thought of $2.99. When you use eBay, make sure you use the, you can use filters and click sold. Because there can be a $5 card that's listed for $1,000, but it doesn't mean it's worth, you know, $1,000, obviously. Got a Cade Cunningham rookie. Nice. There's a 130point.com website. Jeez. I was trying to read what Shane was saying and think at the same time that didn't work out. We've got to 30 on the Blue Shimmer. A little big Russ here. Russell Westbrook. Hopefully he has a better year next year. I don't know if the Lakers are really a best fit for him. One out of 30. $1,200 on the Wagner. That's it really. Orange. Charles Bassey out of 49 for the Sixers. Nice rookie there. Chrismatic Steph Curry. I mean, that's raw though. I'm sure that would get a nine. It's just a little low on the centering. So even at a nine, that'd probably be what? Close to maybe 2K then. $1,700, 2K. Josh Christopher. Herbert Jones. We've got nice. Silver. Josh Giddy. Okay, see. Yeah, of course. Fireworks. Silver of Bradley Beale. Chrismatic D. Mitch. Toscano Anderson. Kessler Edwards. Red Wave of Malik Monk. Lakers. Jared Allen on the hyper for the calves. Mindset. James Harden. Josh Giddy rookie. Shea Wallace. Silver Kawai Leonard. Clips. We've got Marcus Smart on this 75th anniversary. 75. 75 years in Zach Levine. Got Jalen Suggs rookie. Magic. Stoppin. Kai Jones rookie. Duane Bacon on the red wave. Purple. Ice. Derek White for the Spurs. That's out of 149. White Screed Zion. Davion Mitchell. Olajuwon. Silver. Evan Fornie. Diallo on the hyper. Fireworks. Trey Young. Sminovich. Isaiah Jackson. Jimmy Butler. We've got out of 30. A Marcus Smart. Blue Shimmer. Celtics on the second shimmer. Blue Russell Westbrook for the Lakers out of 199. Wow. Sensational signatures. Jason Tatum. Boom.  First off the line prism. Heck yeah. Little bit of dust on the bottom. I'll have Sean wipe that off with the fiber cloth. Before we mag that one for you. Very nice. Crazy. JT Thor rookie. Silver Jared Allen. Hyper Keon Johnson rookie clippers. Prismatic. James Harden. All right. Last pack here for you. That Wagner Gold shimmer is beautiful man. Miles McBride rookie. Red. Fred Van Bleets. Raptors. Blue rookie. David Johnson for the Raptors. Out of 199. Other Harden fireworks. And Carmelo. Anthony. All right. You to show you these magged cards real quick. Again you had your Jason Tatum sensational signatures. The Mojo to 25. Nicola Jokic. And the Gold Shimmer to 10. Rookie Franz Wagner. Congrats again. Thanks so much for hopping in and we'll get this ride out to you.