Welcome to Under the Dome, returning to town meeting TV as part of our ongoing legislative coverage. We'll be checking in with legislators from around our coverage area in the next several months on Mondays at 12 p.m. You can watch online at youtube.com slash town meeting TV or on Comcast Channel 1087 or on Burlington Telecom Channel 17 and 217. If you have a question for our guests you can call in at<PHONE_NUMBER> and we'll get you on the air. So today we're joined by our delegates from South Burlington and let's go down the line and have everyone introduce themselves. John, let's start with you. Sure. John Kalaki, Chittenden 7-3. This is my second term representing South Burlington. And I'm Mita Townsend. I represent Chittenden 7-4. That's the part of South Burlington over toward the airport. And I'm completing my fifth term. Martin Lalone, Chittenden 7-1 which is, oh it's hard to describe, but it's known by the lake. I know that you're one of my constituents as well. And I'm finishing up my fourth term. This is my fourth term. Great. Well thank you for joining us. So let's just dive right in. We want to go over some committee stuff that you guys have been looking at. Let's start with John. Last week your committee was looking at a lot of bills related to housing. I hear housing is big on your list right now. So give us a little update. You know, housing, housing, housing, housing has been big. And you know, COVID has done a lot of damage in our state. But what's been amazing really is the amount of federal dollars that have come in. And we've really been able to use that to redress and really look at our affordable housing issues that are in the state. Last year in federal dollars, we had about 30 million dollars that went to affordable housing. We also had 57 million dollars to help people with their rent. And so they wouldn't be evicted. So that's been incredible. This year we're doing the same thing with federal dollars. And right now this week in play are really two big housing bills. One has about 20 million dollars put aside for it. And that's to really take derelict properties that aren't in the market right now and have landlords get a grant of up to $30,000 to rehab it. And the agreement then is they have to rent it to a low-income household family for five years. And we did that last year and we got 475 new units on the market. So this is a really good program. We really want to work on that. Also in that bill, we have capital renovation grants for mobile homes, which is really needed around the state. And we're looking at, as Burling did no cause evictions, having an amendment to that bill to let's have a moratorium for one year on that. And all that's still in play. The other bill that we have is a proposal from the administration to what they're calling address the missing middle, which is not the other things are really for low-income permanenters. This is for folks looking to get probably their first house and get into the market to really be able to get some assets together. And we are $15 million is the hope that that can happen. And that would help for if a house is going to cost $400,000 to build new, a developer would get money to subsidize that. So you can go on the market for $325,000. And then if people meet, again, an income threshold, and this one's about for a family about $100,000, you can also get mortgage assistance. So it's a way to let people step into housing because we are hearing so much about the housing crisis. So those are the things that are in play. They will go from our committee to the floor. They already came from the Senate, and then they go over to Mata's committee in appropriations. All right. Well, that's a great segue. Mata, you want to jump in on maybe let's talk about the budget first. I'd like to talk about the infrastructure bill, but let's talk about the budget. Well, the budget for fiscal year 23 as passed by the house is currently over in the Senate. And they're doing their work on the ways in which we targeted investments. It is an $8.1 billion budget, the largest budget we've ever seen in Vermont to date, and that's in large part because of the federal support that we've been receiving, as well as the fact that our general fund revenues and our transportation revenues to a point, and our education revenues, the education fund revenues have been very strong, actually surprisingly strong throughout this COVID time. John described quite accurately the fact that the bills he's working on will come to appropriations because they do have dollars attached to them. We in appropriations rely heavily on our policy committees for that component to help us understand what it is as fully as we can, what the dollars that they're asking us to appropriate would support. And then it's our job to figure out if there are any changes that perhaps tweaks that need to be made. Most often it's something as straightforward as, let's say there's a committee, a working group to do whatever if it has too many people in it, if they haven't taken into consideration per diem, stuff like that. But the big picture, we have to, if we support a bill recommended to us by a policy committee and it's rare for us not to want to support a bill, that's why we rely on them to tell us what we should and should not from a policy perspective support, we have to figure out where the money is going to come from. And as an example, John and a colleague had presented to us a bill while we were developing the FY23 budget, a bill to support the creative sector in Vermont. The arts and the cultural sector had not received as much financial support during the COVID time as other kinds of businesses had been receiving. And when we heard John's presentation from a policy perspective, why, of course, who would not want to make these investments, but then it was like, but the price tag was... 17.5 million. But we, as we often need to, got creative. We discovered that some economic development money to support businesses, which we had allocated for FY22, had not been moved. It was just sitting there. So we pulled it back and applied it to these businesses so that it could be redirected in a way that would help that money to actually do what it had been intended to do, which was to support business sector in Vermont. And in this instance, a business sector that had not gotten what many of us would think is its fair share previously. It's an important part of Vermont's culture and Vermont's economy. Absolutely. So that's great. Absolutely. So last week you had a big presentation on the federal infrastructure bill. Yes. Yes. While we're waiting for the Senate to send us back the budget, we often go deep or deeper into issues such as the infrastructure bill. It's the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, I-I-J-A, I-I-J-A. And none of the money for that has started to flow yet. But for Vermont, it touches on two major areas, in particular, transportation and water. And the money to be received is targeted for specific uses. And the impact will be to help us not only be more ready to deal with climate events, but also to deal with the pollution that we have been responsible for and continue to be responsible for injecting into our environment. And I do need to say we haven't been sitting on our hands not addressing these matters, waiting for I-I-J-A. For instance, in the FY23 budget, we've got $131 million from the American Rescue Plan Act, federal dollars, going for weatherization and electrification, EV chargers and incentives for purchasing electric vehicles, things of that nature. We have been making investments all along, but this will be a really big boost. And we need a big boost because in statute now, not as a goal, but as a mandate, just as we look at our greenhouse gas emissions, we need to, by the year 2030, have reduced our Vermont carbon dioxide emissions to 40% lower than they were in 1990. And our track record has been dismal. In 1990, we were at 8.64 million metric tons of carbon emission. And 2018 was our last year that there's hard data for. And we're still at 8.64 million metric tons after having gone up to about 10 back then. And the figure for 2030 is 5.18 metric tons, million metric tons that we're supposed to be aiming for. So we need to be aggressive. In the transportation area, we're going to be receiving from I-I-J-A a minimum of $2.2 billion, but it's targeted for different sectors within transportation. For instance, there's $21 million for electric charging stations. For $21 million, that's going to deliver for us 120 fast chargers. I'm thinking, my God, they're made of gold. But apparently, that's what it costs to produce these things, and we need them. So $21 million for the fast chargers. There's $83 million for public transit. There's $355 million for water infrastructure as it relates to transportation. The list is quite extensive, but it will all give us a boost in that transportation sector. I neglected to say transportation along with building heating are the two biggest challenges in terms of our carbon emission. A problem which we will need to handle and think about and plan for is that all of these dollars in the transportation sector from I-I-J-A, we have to provide up to 20% state match. And you cannot use federal money to match for state, for federal money. It must be state money. So we'll have to do that. In the water area, we won't be having the equivalent of $2.2 billion. But we will, for instance, have over five years, $8 million a year with no match required, $8 million a year to help with Lake Champlain. On top of the annual $6 million we have through the EPA Lake Champlain Basin program. We'll have approximately over five years, $45 million for what they call emerging contaminants in the Vermont situation. It'll be the PFA projects. That's the chemical among many chemicals that won't ever go away. They exist for it. And there's about $45 million targeted to ongoing quote-unquote regular water projects for which we will need to provide a state match, things like stormwater, sewage, that kind of thing. But that's the overall picture. A huge boost for us, again, to help us deal with climate events and our responsibilities to the plant in terms of the pollution that we have created and are today still creating. Yes. Great. Thank you. Martin, how about some of your committees? What are you looking at? Yeah, I'm on my fourth term on the Judiciary Committee and we've had quite a few bills that we've sent over to the Senate and bills that we are working on that we've received from the Senate. But I'd like to just highlight a couple of them. And also, in highlighting a couple of these bills, it shows that sometimes it takes more than a biennium to get an initiative passed. And you have to kind of have some stick-to-itiveness to get these initiatives passed. And one of them has to do with PFA's, or I'm going to try to even pronounce it. I think it's pure floral carbons, if I've got that right, and PFAS. And the bill that we passed has to do with medical monitoring. And that's something that we've passed a similar bill twice before the last few years, both times they were vetoed by the governor. This time, the bill should be arriving at his desk this week and we're pretty sure that he is going to sign it. The concept, though, is that if there's been a release of a toxic substance, and it's not just PFAS, it could be any toxic substance, but really it was what happened in Bennington that prompted this bill. But if PFAS or other toxic substance are released and Vermonters are exposed to that toxic chemical and that exposure increases the risk of getting a disease associated with that exposure, then the individual would have a cause of action, meaning they could go to court under this law and sue the company that has put that substance into the environment for the cost of medical monitoring. And that is having tests to catch any kind of disease that may have been caused as early as possible so that it's... I mean, oftentimes in these kind of situations somebody is suing because they have had an injury. And here they really haven't had an injury yet, but we know that the chances are that an individual or at least has a higher risk of contracting a disease. So this is one of the bills that we've worked on for a while, and this is the third time should be a charm, so that's one of them. Could you say what happened in Bennington for viewers? Yeah, so Bennington, I'm going to forget the name of the company. St. Gobain. Yes, the St. Gobain used this substance, I believe it was for clothing to keep the moisture out and whatever it does. And it was released in the air, is my understanding, but it would fall upon the land and it has contaminated water supplies. And individuals have had to get water from, you know, can't use their wells for water and such. And it has increased the possibility of these individuals having contracting a disease. They took this to court, and my understanding is there has been a settlement and so medical monitoring, I'm pretty sure is being paid. So this bill is really not going to be associated specifically with that situation. It's for other possible, hopefully we don't have to use this bill. That would be the best thing actually. But that's one that the second one I just will highlight, and this is something that has been a concern of mine since I started on the Judiciary Committee. And that is trying to make decisions and policy decisions without the data that we really need to understand really what we should be doing and what the effects of our policies are. We have some idea obviously, but oftentimes it's anecdotal. But it's also associated with the fact that it's become increasingly clear that there are racial disparities in our criminal justice system in Vermont, just like across the country. But after I think four years of really specifically trying, we passed a bill, and I'm pretty sure that my understanding, knock on wood, the Senate is going to pass it as well. But it creates a division of racial justice statistics. And the idea is to have the appropriate staff within the administration under the Director of Racial Equity to get data from law enforcement, to state's attorneys, to courts, to Department of Corrections, to community justice centers, to see how or where there may be disparities in what we might be able to do about that. And it's not even just racial disparities, although that's a huge part of it. It's geographic disparities as well that we see in our state, that individuals can be treated differently for a similar offense if they are caught in one county versus another. So that's really an important other. Equity bill, but really a bill to help us do better in our criminal justice reform. So those are two that I would highlight, as really... although there's quite a few others that we've been working on. And if I could add, the bill which Martin was just speaking of, that was a bill that had to come to appropriations before it could go out to the floor. Appropriations is the last stop for any bill that has any money associated with it. And we appreciate the Appropriations Committee for approving the FTEs that we asked for. And found the money to fund it. Well, in the housing bills, that not only goes to appropriations, but there's land use policy issues about how to make denser downtown development. So that's going to go to natural resources because that's about Act 250. And then there's tax incremental financing that's in there. So that's going to go to ways and means. So some of these bills, they ultimately land there, but they go to these other committees too, and then those committees talk on the floor about it, or some of those sections of the bill may actually be moved to their committee totally. So it's a very fluid moment in the last weeks of a session. All to happen hopefully in the next four weeks is what we're hoping. My chair told me that he wants the two housing bills out by Thursday this week. Because they have to go to these other committees. This will be a busy week in Montpelier for general housing and military affairs. So we've got a little under 10 minutes left. So let's jump into some of our later questions here. So in your view, I mean, these are more general. What issues are important to communities in South Burlington? And let's start with Martin. Yeah, I think we've already hit on some MEDA has, and that's certainly clean water and the environment. And I think the issues that are important in South Burlington are issues that we've phoned to be important statewide as well. And they are and have been priorities of the caucus and of the whole House and the General Assembly, the Senate as well. So there's housing we've talked about. There's the environment. There's workforce. Those are really probably the three top overall priorities that we've been working on. And there's all sorts of other really important stuff like pension reform, which has been huge. And we mentioned some of the climate issues having to do with the environment. There's the clean heat standard as well. So there's some really big important things that we've been working on, this particular biennium, and hopefully see them all across the finish line in the next few weeks. One smaller issue specifically related to South Burlington, smaller in some sense, just as large in other sense, there has been an effort underway in the Senate to add to the transportation bill, which has already been in the House, to add to the transportation bill, language which initially emanated from the House in a bill which the four of us, Representative Pew also, who wasn't able to be here today, the four of us sponsored along with colleagues from Williston and Winooski, pertains to the airport. And the language has been changed as it's gone, as they've worked on it in Senate transportation. But the upshot of it is that there should be a look-see at recommendations that have been made in the past several years as related to governance, governance of the airport, and the pros and the cons. And it's a work group that represents the various stakeholders, including the Regional Planning Commission, the communities immediately around the airport and all. And it's not a new issue. It goes back at least, at least to the administration of Governor Coonan, who asked for such a study through executive order. And there have been various efforts to have the issue looked at as to what is the most appropriate, efficient, productive structure, what kind of construct is the best, particularly as time goes on. Equitable. Yes, equitable. As things stand right now, it's Burlington, which for all intents and purposes unilaterally decides what's happening as it relates to governance of the airport. South Burlington, as an example, has a seat on the airport commission, but it's advisory only, and it's only in the last year that there's been serious attention given to the potential of, even in an advisory capacity, a seat for Williston and Winooski on the commission. It merits attention. And so in any case, as of last week, it looked as if this was going to be incorporated in the transportation bill, and we'll just see how it moves through the rest of the process before we adjourn. Just a shout-out to our Senator Tom Chittenden, who we're lucky to have on the transportation committee, and it's been great to have him there because he's helped push this particular issue for us. And he'll be here soon. He'll be on Under the Dome in the next couple of weeks. You should ask him about it because he's worked very hard. Make sure to stay in his bill. He has worked very hard on. He's done excellent work on this. And our city chair and vice chair, our city council chair and vice chair were in, as was Brian Searles, who had, well, he's had many roles over the years, but many related to the airport, giving testimony and support of this approach. Another thing that we've been working on is in 1931, Vermont signed into law a eugenics bill, which targeted Indigenous people in our state, French Canadians, poor people, people with disabilities, and families were separated, people were institutionalized, people were sterilized against their will, and it was a very dark part of our history. Last year, we had a formal apology from the legislature. So, but realizing we needed to do more than that. The House has passed a Truth and Reconciliation Commission that we're looking at that will deal with sort of the ongoing impact of generations of eugenics, but also look at systemic discrimination on other impacted communities too. So that's been a very moving experience to hear the lived experience from people, and it'll be like a three-year process and it'll be, I think, fascinating because a lot of communities in the United States are now looking at this, how do we redress this and how do we create remedies to change this? So I, you know, I'm hoping that gets, it's over at the Senate now. I hope the Senate supports it, and then if the Senate supports it, I hope the Governor supports it. All right, well thank you everyone for joining us today. We're running low on time, a lot to talk about, so it's good. Yeah, thank you for coming, and thank you for tuning in to Under the Dome. We'll return next week, Monday at 12, with Burlington representatives Tiff Bloomley, Gabrielle Stebbins, and Barbara Rachelson. You can watch this and other local political coverage on our website at cctv.org, our YouTube channel at youtube.com. Or you can watch our channels at Comcast 1087, Burlington Telecom 17, and 217. Thank you, see you next week. Thank you.


So, I'm not sure how many people remember Kim Davis, because this was a while ago, but if you don't remember her, allow me to quickly refresh your memory. Kim Davis is the Rowan County clerk from Kentucky who in 2015, after the Supreme Court held that states cannot deny marriage licenses to same-sex couples, she did just that. She broke the law, and as a result of her breaking the law, she went to jail because of it. And now she's being sued because she broke the law, and she's currently trying to get the case against her dismissed. However, lower courts said no, and they allowed the case against her to move forward, and now the Supreme Court has refused to grant her a writ of certiorary, which means that they are not going to hear her case. So basically, we're not sure where that's going to go with regard to Kim Davis, but that is not the most important detail. The reason why we're bringing up Kim Davis is because in the Supreme Court's denial of her writ, they said something really alarming about marriage equality, and the Burge fell the Hodges case, which is what led to her getting arrested and everything to begin with. So this is what CBS News reporter Melissa Quinn says. The Supreme Court on Monday turned away an appeal from Kim Davis, a former Kentucky county clerk who refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples under her name because of her religious beliefs, letting stand a lower court ruling allowing a lawsuit filed against her to proceed. The protracted legal battle involving Davis occurred against the backdrop of the Supreme Court's landmark 2015 decision in a Burge fell the Hodges, in which the court ruled same-sex couples have the right to marry. Although Justice Clarence Thomas agreed with the court's decision not to take up the dispute in a scathing statement joined by Justice Samuel Alito, he criticized the Supreme Court's 2015 decision and said it bypassed the democratic process and left people with religious objections to same-sex marriage in the lurch. Davis may have been one of the first victims of this court's cavalier treatment of religion in its Burge fell decision, but she will not be the last Thomas wrote. Due to Burge felled, those with sincerely held religious beliefs concerning marriage will find it increasingly difficult to participate in society without running afoul of Burge fell and its effect on other anti-discrimination laws. Thomas said the high court's 2015 decision quote enables courts and governments to brand religious adherents who believe that marriages between one man and one woman as bigots making their religious liberty concerns that much easier to dismiss. This petition provides a stark reminder of the consequences of a Burge fell. Thomas wrote by choosing to privilege a novel constitutional right over the religious liberty interests explicitly protected in the First Amendment and by doing so undemocratically the court has created a problem that only it can fix. Whoa. So I want to repeat that last part of that sentence there. The court has created a problem that only it can fix. So what Thomas is saying is, listen, at the time when we ruled on this case, we had Kennedy on the court and he was the swing vote. But now Kennedy is not here and we want to hear this case. And if Amy Coney Barrett is confirmed, we're not just going to have a five four majority against this decision. We're going to have a six three majority enough comfortably to overturn this decision with ease. Now, I know a lot of people are going to say, well, Mike, the Supreme Court very rarely likes to overturn their own precedent. But let me burst your bubble. The Supreme Court is not some sort of principled judicial body that cares about upholding the sanctity of our Constitution.  This is a political body. Stop fooling yourself into thinking that they actually care. This is a political body and they will make political actions if it is something that they have the power to do. They've proven time and again, it doesn't matter how far they take us back in history, they will do what they need to do to appease their base. And some of you may say, well, look, Justice Roberts oftentimes sides with the liberals, so he wouldn't let this happen. Except the problem with that thinking is Justice Roberts was in the minority in that case, which means he voted against the legal right to marry for same sex couples. So, yeah, they can overturn this decision. They don't even need Amy Coney Barrett. But if they get her, then they definitely can overturn this decision. And Clarence Thomas is saying that they want to overturn this decision. We want to revisit this case. Now, you can argue that, you know, maybe even though Justice Roberts, you know, back then he was against the same sex marriage, but as chief justice, you know, he has an interest in making sure that the court is legitimate, right? So why would he vote to overturn precedent that's just five years old? Doesn't that make the court look bad if they overturn a landmark case five years later? Doesn't he have an interest in making the court appear as if it's not a political entity? Well, I mean, sure, you can argue that, but it's not like we should be relying on Roberts to do the right thing when repeatedly he has done the wrong thing. And that's why they want to rush through the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett, because that gives them that cushion in the event Roberts does flip to where they can still overturn this precedent from five years ago. Now, as this person points out on Twitter, on the very first day of their new term, they're already saying they want to overturn Obergefell V. Hodges. And as incoming progressive lawmaker from New York, Mondaire Jones put it, due to Justice Kennedy's replacement in 2018, there is now a five three majority on today's Supreme Court that believes my ability to marry who I love is a novel constitutional right that should not exist. Amy Coney Barrett would increase the majority to six, expand the damn court. And I think he's right. We don't have time to be re-litigating these battles. We have same sex marriage in all 50 states. Why are we going to revisit that and undo it? There's no harm that's being caused. It is overwhelmingly popular. The individuals like Kim Davis, they are the fringe aspects of society. And it doesn't matter, even if they were the majority and, you know, they didn't want to see gay people have the right to marry. It doesn't matter. Somebody's religious predispositions doesn't override civil rights or civil liberties. And the fact that conservatives think that it does shows you that they're not serious like people like Clarence Thomas should not be on the Supreme Court because these are ideologues. They're not interpreting the Constitution objectively or impartially. These are ideologues trying to carry out the Republican Party's agenda. And the quicker that people on the left and liberals realize this, that the court is deeply political and stop folding themselves, the quicker we're going to realize that we have to fight fire with fire and do things like Mondair Jones suggested here, expand the court. Because again, we shouldn't be re-litigating these battles. We fought this battle. We won. Why are we going to wage this war again? It's ridiculous. Now, in the event, the Supreme Court did decide to rehear same sex marriage and the constitutionality of it. And they overturned the president that they set in 2015. Understand what that would mean for thousands, if not millions of gay people across the country. That means if they get their health care through their spouse, they lose it like that. If they're getting social security benefits from their spouse who recently passed away, they lose it like that. There are more than a thousand federal benefits that go to same sex couples. I mean, the devastation would be horrible. Thousands of lives would be rumored if the Supreme Court got their way, if Clarence Thomas got his way and actually overturned the president that they just set in 2015. So this is very serious and we don't have time to be considering the political ramifications about whether or not it's a good idea to back the Supreme Court. We don't have a choice. These are battles that have been fought for for decades and to just have them overturned like that because there is a Supreme Court majority, a conservative majority on the Supreme Court. It's unacceptable. It's not even a question.  See, the reason why Clarence Thomas is saying this is because he doesn't think that liberals are serious when they kind of flirt with the idea of expanding the court. He knows at the end of the day, they're going to back down, which is why he's saying this, because he doesn't really see any threat from liberals or the left. He doesn't think they'd actually expand the court and it doesn't matter what they do. So he thinks they could comfortably do whatever they want. Reverse precedent that they've wanted to reverse take the court in a very bad direction. We're looking at a Lochner era on steroids if they get their way because they don't care. These justices are not elected. So they don't have to worry about their election campaigns. They're there forever until they're ready to call it quits or they die.  And as a result, people are going to suffer. We're going to see Obergefell be overturned. We're going to see Roe v. Wade be overturned. And things are going to get worse and worse until they actually are reigned in because they know that the Democratic Party is serious about this. But I don't want to take the time to dog on the Democratic Party for not fighting because we don't necessarily know what they will or won't do.  I mean, what are they offering people? I know these are justices, but the party overall, they stand for nothing. They just want to go backwards, destroy what little progress we've made when it comes to climate change, rollback civil rights that communities have fought decades for. And that's all that they want to do. Just take us backwards. They are the definition of regressive. And if they get Amy Coney Barrett confirmed, they can do anything they want. Now, COVID-19 has postponed the hearing of Amy Coney Barrett. If you have multiple Republican senators, including two that sit on the Judiciary Committee, not able to do these hearings right away, then, you know, that is going to put a little bit of a damper on their plans. But the problem is they can still confirm Amy Coney Barrett after this election. Even if Donald Trump loses this election and Republicans lose the Senate, they can still rush through this confirmation before the new Senate comes to power, before Joe Biden is sworn in in January. So they can do a lot of damage. All they need to do is get Amy Coney Barrett confirmed. And even if she's not confirmed, I mean, they're still in a great position. They can do whatever they want. So if we're not talking about expanding the court, then we are not serious about protecting the most vulnerable people in this country, because as Mondare Jones said, you know, expand the damn court. That's it. You have to. We don't have a choice. Again, we don't have time to relitigate these battles. We have to move forward and fight the existential threats to humanity, climate change, get health care to America.  Over these battles that have already been fought and won. So, yeah, this is horrifying. And I hope that people understand how important the Supreme Court is.


When you go on YouTube, there are lots of videos about books that have changed your life, but my own experience has taught me one thing. The number one determinant of if a book changes your life is the timing that you read it and the timing that it hits you. So in this video, I thought I would share five books that have dramatically changed the direction of my life. Hey guys, it's Alex Hine over at Modern Health Monk. Before we jump in, I've put together a free goal setting worksheet that'll help you figure out how to have the best year ever of your life. It's the first link right below this video. Check it out and we'll jump back in. Now the first book is Martha Beck's Finding Your Own North Star. The reason this book dramatically changed my life was because especially in my early and mid-20s I complained often of feeling lost. I wasn't quite sure what my purpose was, I wasn't quite sure what work I loved, I wasn't quite sure really where to go or what to do or where to live even. And Martha Beck's book talks about these four phases of life and these are really what I think as four phases of reinventing yourself or they're four phases of rebuilding yourself. Now one phase in particular was very interesting which was the death and rebirth phase, the very first square zero, part one, the very beginning of rebuilding. There are phases in life where you are in a death phase of life. It's winter, you've just graduated college, you don't know where to go, you've just gone through a breakup or a divorce.  You've moved and you're entirely alone or you have no friends. And it's in those phases of life where you are rebuilding from zero in a certain way and you can feel very lost, you can feel very depressed, you could run back the last thing that was some measure of security, even if it wasn't right. But we've all felt that phase of being lost. Now Martha Beck, one thing I love about her book is that she talks about each thing is a phase and each phase has a specific mantra and a specific action step that will help you the most that is not true in the other phases of life. So, Martha Beck, finding your own North Star. Now the second book that changed my life is by Scott Adams. How to fail at almost everything and still win big. Now, if you are someone who's driven and you're reading lots of books on success, inevitably what that one person shares as to the secret of their success is maybe not really the secret of their success but is what they thought made them successful. And a lot of the time when we're successful we don't really wanna honestly look at why we were successful. When we fail we wanna look because we wanna be successful. But we all like to think if we succeeded that all of our actions, our hard work, our discipline was the big factor. And I just frankly don't agree that that's the truth. But one of the things Scott Adams says very humbly is that no individual business venture or creative venture you embark on will succeed no matter how much money, no matter how smart, no matter how driven you are, no matter the team, look at the failure rate of startups with trillions of funding overall through all of these startups. But what you can control is the number of skills that you acquire. And he says every skill you acquire doubles your odds of success. And it reminds me of a conversation Robert Kiyosaki, the rich dad, poor dad writer said that he had with a someone, woman that was interviewing him. He asked her what her dream was and she said, you know, I've always wanted to be a best selling author. And he said, you know, well I am once I can give you some advice if you want it. And he said, you need to acquire a secondary set of skills which are business and marketing skills for your book. And she kind of went off. She's like, I don't want to learn that. I'm a writer, I have no interest in the business side. That's why I'm writing. And he said, well, you know, it's funny. You may be a good writer, but you see on my book, Rich Dad Poor Dad, it's his best selling author. And isn't that what you wanted? And she sort of was disgruntled and unhappy about his comment, but his point was correct. That being a good writer, if you want to have a commercially successful book is only half or one third of being a successful author because you may have the best book in the world, but if no one knows it exists, no one's going to come and get it. So every skill you acquire increases your chances of having a successful venture. One of the reasons I love that book. Third book that changed my life was The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. The main reason I love The Alchemist and the main reason that it spoke to me, I was actually reading it when I was going on a vision quest. I was in a remote part of Algeria, Tamman Rasit, an Oasis town, before I was about to meet up with some of the Berber people, actually the Tuareg, a subgroup of the Berber nomads, really some of the last remaining nomads on earth. And we were traveling by camel caravan for three weeks in the desert. And I read this book, The Alchemist, before going into that vision quest. And it spoke to me so much because of the way that Paulo Coelho talks about people having to follow their personal legend. You have to follow your heart in the sense that there's a thing probably you've always wanted to do but you're too afraid to do it. And if you can get over that fear and follow your personal legend, it will lead you to such an incredible life that is fulfilling, that is big, that is life changing, that is the envy of other people because you were brave enough to fulfill that sort of destiny that most people were too afraid to fulfill. So if you can trust your personal legend, your life can become incredible. Fourth book that changed my life was Mastery by Robert Green. One of the things I love most about this book was that it talks about the histories of famous masters from Da Vinci to Hakuin, the Zen monk, to famous physicians, to athletes, to violinists, to Mozart. And he gives in all of these diverse biographies a similar story, which is interesting that these masters tended to have a very strong sense of vocation, that this was a kind of calling. And I think the word vocation originates in Christianity of people being called to God and called to really the priesthood. And the thing that blows me away about it is that he talks about there's a sequential pattern for mastery, the first part being listening to the calling. And I think this is where so many people go awry where of course doing work is hard, but where I see people go awry is that people do not trust the calling. They have that voice, they have that whisper, there's something they know that they could be doing, but the fear, the voice of their parents or of society or of their friends is louder than their own trust of this calling. And if you can trust that calling the same as the personal legend and then you can work towards mastery, his book is proof of concept that you put those two things together, those power couples, and you can become one of the greatest icons of history, but that these were not easy journeys, right? You have to trust that feeling. And finally, the fifth book that changed my life was called The Great Work of Your Life. Now this book is written by a guy who I think is a yoga teacher or works with one of the centers back in New England. And this book is all about building a life around your dharma. Your dharma is almost like your divine work, right? Again, vocation comes to mind. There's work that you feel born to do, drawn to do, something that's compelling and something that speaks to your soul. And he talks about one of the reasons why so many people are unhappy and unfulfilled and feeling spiritually bankrupt is that our work is not our dharma. And when work is dharma, it doesn't mean you're gonna become a billionaire. What it does mean is that your life is going to take on a whole nother level of richness and meaning that for so many people is just pain and misery, their work. So finding dharma, making your life revolve around dharma and amazing case histories from Robert Frost to priests to doctors to all kinds of people, how they found their dharma and how they lived it. So five books that have changed the course of my life that hit me right at the exact moment. I have the links to those books right below in this video. Check them out and I'll see you guys soon.