This week on The Anxious Truth, we have a guest on the podcast. It's a story about benzodiazepine withdrawal, but more important, it's a story about knowing the difference between pain and suffering and how not to fall into a perpetual victim mindset. So my new friend, Jennifer Swantowski is here. It's a great interview. I know you're going to dig it. So let's get going. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to The Anxious Truth. This is podcast episode number 223, recorded in July of 2022. Probably going to be seeing this somewhere around the end of August. I'm not sure. Anyway, I am Drulence, a lot of creator and host of The Anxious Truth. I am happy that you are here. This is the podcast that focuses on all things, anxiety, anxiety, disorders, and recovery. Now, before we get started on this week's podcast episode, I just want to remind you that The Anxious Truth is more than just this podcast episode. There are hundreds of other free podcast episodes. There's a ton of free social media content. There's a free morning newsletter called The Anxious Morning. As of this recording, I have written three self-help books. On anxiety and anxiety recovery that are helping tens of thousands of people around the world. All of those things can be found on my website at theanxiastruth.com. And if you are finding my work helpful and you would like to help me keep it free of sponsorships and advertising, all the ways to do that can be found on my website at theanxiastruth.com slash support. It's always appreciated, but never required. So thank you to all of you guys for your support. Appreciate it. So today we're going to talk to Jen Swantowski. Jen is a clinical social worker, a therapist, if you will, practicing in Houston, Texas. She's written a book called The Waiting Room, which is a book about her continuing journey through medication injury and benzodiazepine withdrawal. And this could have been a book about symptoms and managing doses and tapering methods and herbs and ways to manage your symptoms, but it is not. This is really an inspiring and I think encouraging and educational story that Jen has written. As soon as I read the book, she sent it to me. She was kind of to send me a copy to read. As soon as I started reading, I immediately reached out to her because I knew that you guys would want to hear what she has to say. So today we're going to talk about all of those things. We're going to talk about the difference between pain and suffering. We're going to talk about staying out of the victim mindset. We're going to talk about having to make that shift and at least consider that there might be a better way to do it than you're doing it right now. So I think it's going to be really encouraging, whether you're going through withdrawal right now from a Benzo and SSRI, or you're just dealing with recovery, anxiety recovery. I think the things that Jen has to say are going to be really important and really impactful and I'm super thankful that she was here. So let's get on to the interview. It was really good. And then I'll come and wrap up at the end and I'll tell you all the ways to find Jen in her book and we'll just kind of have some final thoughts. So seeing a few. Alrighty. Hey, Jen. Hi, Drew. How's it going? I'm doing great. Thanks for having me. You're welcome. Thanks for coming on early in the morning. You're an hour behind me and I appreciate you getting up early. Yeah. So so as I was saying in the intro, Jen is a, I'll let you give yourself, give the reader's digest version, but as a practicing clinical psychologist in Texas has written this book, which I'll put up on the screen. And this will be all in the show notes, the waiting room. I love this book. I just read it. Jen was nice to send us a nice copy. I'm digging it. And I reached out right away because we need to have this conversation. So tell us a little bit about, tell us what you do. Yeah. So first, let me just say that I'm a, I'm a licensed clinical social worker, but I have a PhD in clinical social work.  People sometimes call me psychologist, social worker. And, you know, unfortunately, after 26 years of an amazing practice, found myself in a situation where I had to deal with some medication injury and a fallout from an antibiotic that kind of went awry after a couple of doses. And that landed me in the land of benzodiazepines and specifically Xanax. And I found myself unable to come off of it. Yeah. And, and so it's been a couple of years now of working through that. And the waiting room, the book that you're talking about was really just, you know, kind of my way of, of both staying sane while I was going through the process and also trying to, you know, it was really birthed out of my attempt to figure out what to do to help myself in this rather than just kind of lay back and, and wait for it to ride itself out. I began to kind of look into what, what tools, what philosophies, what ideas, what psychological constructs could, could be helpful to myself. And to maybe other people going through something similar. Yeah. Yeah. And the book comes, that comes shining through in this book. I mean, it is really, to me, uh, we were talking before we went live, like Jen could have wrote a book about how to, how to tie trade and how to, you know, what drops to do and how long to wait and what supplements and herbs and how to mitigate your symptoms and withdrawal, but you didn't write that book. And I, I was saying, I so appreciate that because I think what you wrote is much more valuable. Well, thank you. Yeah. Thank you. You did not have anxiety problems before this, this sort of, I did not, not, not in the clinical sense, you know, in, in, you know, in, in going through 40 plus years, right? I had certainly my stressors. I had my ups and downs. I was a, you know, a clinician. I have a big family. So yeah, there's definitely been times in my life where I felt, you know, kind of stress induced aches and pains, ailments, uh, maybe a little burnout here and there, that type of thing. But no drew nothing, nothing like what I've experienced and what I think a lot of people that tune into your show experience, cause you talk about these things. So nothing like, um, you know, the various manifestations that I've experienced now, um, which are kind of part of this withdrawal process that you're going, you're still going through now. Yes, you're still, I am. Yeah. I'm still actively tapering, you know, and I probably have quite a long way to go and that, and that's been an interesting point. Cause people have said, well, why didn't you just wait to write your success story? And I've had to explain, well, you know, my point in writing the book wasn't about, um, you know, getting to this reflective place on it and looking back. It was really about like in the moment and for, you know, that's what you're doing with folks too, right?  A new mindset that we probably would have never learned to truly employ had we not been faced with this. And so that's why I kind of chose to do it while I was in the middle of it. If you ask me, I would 100% call this a success story just because you're not at the end of the taper doesn't make it not a success to me. Like, yeah, yeah, and I actually, I think so too, Drew. You know, I think I can see light at the end of the tunnel. I can see hope. And I think that's a big part of that mindset too, right? Whether you're going through a chemically induced anxiety like I am, or you're going through, you know, what, again, so many of your listeners probably experience where, you know, one day they had an anxiety and all of a sudden they have a panic attack and they're faced with something or they're in a chronic stress situation or whatever it is. And we have to have that hope while we're in it. That's part of the mindset. You know, is that realization that it's not a lifelong condition. It's not a terminal chronic doesn't have to be a chronic condition. Yeah. And I think that to me, the big success story here in this book, even though again, you're not finished with your taper and you're still, and I love how you you're so honest about like, Hey, it's a struggle sometimes still, like this is not all sunshine and rainbows. And I appreciate that honestly, because that's life. But yeah, what I love about this, and this is such a cliche thing. And I'm sure even when you wrote some of this, you understand that, oh, God, I hear this so many times. I can't believe I'm writing this. I don't know if you've ever had those moments, but. Oh, yeah. Coming to the realization in the middle of this, that there is a difference between pain and suffering is such a huge pivot point. Now, I lived a withdrawal experience through from an SSRI, so I can relate to that. And what you're going through with Benzo withdrawal is the same as people are going through right now and dealing with their anxiety disorders. The difference between pain and suffering to me is a huge part of this book that you wrote. And that's to me, the success. That pivot right there. Well, I really appreciate that. I think that's very true. And that was a hard, that was a hard concept to grasp, even though, you know, in my life before all of this, being a therapist and I had worked in grief and loss and trauma and things like that. So I was very much aware of kind of the intellectual difference that I saw between pain and suffering. But when it's your pain, right, there's nothing worse than your pain, right? It gets fuzzy quick, that pain or suffering. And so I think you're right that part of what I was hoping to convey in the book and also continue on a daily basis to try to, you know, just employ in my own life is I think that that pivot point between pain and suffering is that attitude. And I think that's why I talk about Victor Frankel and talk about stoicism and bring in various ideas because it's not that it's like that saying goes, it's not that you have no symptoms. It's when the symptoms don't have you and they don't have you when you have kind of shifted into, OK, this is what I've got, you know, and it's like that Stockdale paradox I talk about in there, which is, you know, the idea that, you know, I believe I will be OK one day and there's certain things I can do to help myself and there's certainly things I can do to make things not worse. But today may not be that day and I still have to do what I have to do to work towards that. So I totally agree with you that that difference between pain and suffering, although it feels very slight when you're in it, it makes a world of difference. It is there's such a nuance there. And I think one of the hard things about trying to convey that and I've run into that, too, is it can really quickly sound like you're invalidating somebody's pain. So that's and like you said, there's nothing worse than your pain. I get that. And when trying to teach the lesson of the difference between pain and suffering, it is difficult. So I understand that some people might be listening right now and think, well, clearly, then she doesn't understand how I feel. He doesn't understand how I feel like we probably do. And I do understand that it's validating. It can. It can be. And that's the last thing I want to do would be to further gaslight people, right? Because I think that's part of what I also write about in the book is how easy that is to have happened to be gaslit, right? And so I think you're exactly right. It's a fine line. And it's certainly not saying, hey, if you're still in pain, you're not doing something right. That's not it. When I heard your story about your own anxiety experience, right, you had three really, if I remember correctly, three really distinct, very, very, very long, painful episodes with this. Was that because you were a bad person? You weren't working hard enough?  And it's not a statement against that. But I agree with that. And the idea that the worst kind of pain is your own, for sure. And that constant working towards how can I not get just sucked down into the weeds over and over and over again? And I think that's just that thing we have to keep practicing, hopefully. And it's a good point that you make. Yeah, and that was a tough one, I think. For me, it was, it becomes a gradual, like I have to at least consider the possibility that maybe there's a difference in pain and suffering and maybe there's something I can do about this. It's not a thing that you wake up one morning and discover like, oh, I just had a huge mindset shift and suddenly I'm not suffering anymore. For me, it wasn't that. It was a gradual, oh, I'm gonna have to at least consider that there should be a different way to do this than I'm doing it. Absolutely. And I also think, just to be transparent, on a regular basis, I'm in the weeds. So it's not a state that I've achieved, right? It's an ongoing, it's kind of like mindfulness, right? Like you don't achieve a state of mindfulness. So I can have a really bad week or really bad month or really bad day and I can find myself back in that place and I can feel myself falling back into that hopeless, oh God, we're never gonna get out of this. Here we go again, I can't believe it. All the stuff that happens and I give myself some grace or try to at least in those moments to know those times are gonna happen. I'm not gonna get it. There's no perfection in this and there's no, there's no metal, there's no metal for this. This is such a, I think your podcast and my book and all these attempts that we make so people don't have to go out alone. And at the end of the day, you do to a certain extent. It is a hero's journey and it's not a trajectory out of hell that's just linear. It has lots and lots of turns and dips and it can be scary if you don't understand that. Well, some of it is so much, I spend a lot of time and effort trying to get people to remain focused on process as opposed to outcome. But it's really difficult as human beings, we do not want to feel pain, we want to feel better. So I do understand that. Like I really am focused on an outcome which is feeling better, but it's so hard and especially in your situation and anybody who's going through a Benza withdrawal, SSRI withdrawal, you can't make it feel better. We were talking about that earlier. Like no one that's only accepting Claire Weeks'ing through this makes it go away, only time will. So it's a different animal in a way. It's not, there's no doubt about it. And so you're basically asking yourself the question while I'm waiting for time to pass, is there anything I can do that, and the way I look at it is, okay, if this is gonna be another couple of years of my life, when this, when enough time has passed, right? I would love to come out of this with better skills than when I went in. And so even though it might not be helping me today in this moment, this hour, this week, my belief is kind of the process might yield a stronger, more resilient me. And Drew, maybe this replies to kind of, all of your listeners, but I know it certainly applies to me and a lot of people I talk to, but there's a quote, I think it was by John Grayson. He was talking mostly about OCD, but I think it applies to so many of us. And he said, it's the feeling of going insane while you're sane enough to witness the event. And I think that was a perfect way to describe anxiety, extreme anxiety, and also medication withdrawal. And so you're right, there's not a whole lot in that moment you can do to necessarily make it better. So the question is, can I do some things here to not make it worse and maybe in the long run, there's gonna be an additive effect that's gonna benefit me. Yeah, which is such a great outlook, even though not necessarily comforting in the moment or impactful in the moment. So I do understand. You know, that's first of all, it's a great quote from John Grayson as a legend in the OCD community for those of you can look them up. I would recommend anything that John Grayson says. So go ahead. But I think that's a great quote because the awareness, I'm still sane enough to witness the event, but awareness has also benefits too. So when you say, hey, look, many times I wind up in the weeds and I do fall back into that. But having cultivated this approach that you've cultivated and that you're trying your best to use, there's an awareness at some point that, oh, I'm doing it again. Oh, I'm doing it. I'm back into my old victim habits. That's gotta be so valuable. Yeah, it is. I mean, just yesterday, this is kind of perfect timing because just yesterday I was having kind of a rough day and I found myself spending hours, in essence kind of reassurance seeking, looking at things online, trying to find other people's experiences, right? And I caught myself. It took me a couple hours, but I caught myself and I was like, okay, Jen, you could do this. You could keep doing this, but it's not helping you. You're not feeling better. You're not getting any relief in this. And it pulled me a little bit back out of those behaviors and got me kind of, you know, kind of pointed back in the right direction. But again, I think it's important to know, like, you know, there's no state of enlightenment, necessarily while you're in it that you achieve and from that point forward, you know, all of your attention is focused in a very particular direction. It's very up and down. Yeah, yeah, that's great. I love that. There's no state of enlightenment that suddenly occurs and you're good to go. Doesn't happen that way. Yeah, so so much of, it's interesting is when I got the book, Jen sent me the book, I opened it up and I just thumbing through it and I texted you within like 10 minutes because there was so much stuff that jumped out at me immediately. So I'm seeing quotes from the great Stoics and I'm seeing references to Lao Tzu and things that I hold dear and that helped me through my process. So I think it's great that you've kind of latched on, not latched on, but you've adopted some of these philosophies that I can relate to in a big way and I think are so helpful. But in the end, to me, it always was, this person is not a clinician, not a therapist, that I think I will never forget Lisa who was involved during my protracted SSRI withdrawal on a website that I was on. And she said, you just have to act as if and all those philosophies that you and I can go on and on about, I'm sure for hours, to me, ultimately boiled down to, well now I'm just gonna have to act as if, I'm gonna have to do the best I can in the moment with what I have right now. So I know it's not optimal, but I can still do the best I can, acting as if I'm still capable, even when I don't believe that I am. Does that ever enter into it for you? Yeah, no, it's kind of a critical point to it. And I'd spent months, I'll just be honest, I spent months kind of bed surfing, waiting for something to shift, and I soon realized it wasn't gonna happen that way. And I became, as I'm sure many of your listeners probably can relate to, my world became really small, really fast. And so there was this kind of fake it till you make it, I hate that saying actually, but it's true. And so I began to, I had been a therapist for 26 years, so I gave a lot of primacy to, if I think it or feel it, I must try to understand it and unpack it, and sit with it, and it must mean something. And so it was really kind of strangely foreign to me, to, with my own self, to suddenly say, so what?  And you could sit here on the bed and will it away, which doesn't work. Or you could get up and you could try to engage in your life. And every once in a while, I don't know if this happened to you while you were in your situation, but if I'll get engaged with my family or whatever, something will click in for just even, I'll get glimpses of myself. And it's like Claire Weeks talks about, you build on those glimpses, because if I can have a glimpse for five minutes, well then it's possible that I could have a glimpse for a lot longer than five minutes. And so that was key for me to begin to try to put myself in situations that were uncomfortable. I couldn't wait around to feel comfortable to enter them because it wasn't happening. I did wait, it never came. And then I would get these glimpses and I might still overall be wildly uncomfortable, but I was getting little view, little views of myself and that began to kind of build back my confidence a little bit that this could be, there could be another side to this. Yeah, those small windows, right? In the withdrawal world, windows. Yeah, yeah, I know those terms. Let's go, we're gonna go a little off script if you don't mind, because this isn't necessarily withdrawal related, but what you just said as a therapist for 26 years, it's ingrained in me to latch on to every thought and feeling I have an unpack it and honor it and analyze it and figure out and I can get meaning. And I think sometimes what makes the shift that you have made in the way you're approaching your situation even more admirable is your willingness to say, well, that's not working for me in this context, in this context. And I know you listen to my podcast, they know you're involved in other information that sounds like what I'm putting out, which is great. We are often people like us, I will tell you a very quick, I think you relate to this, in a room full of 150 therapists in training and last week when I was on site in my grad program and 30 seasoned clinicians who are professors, you get that blank look when I say things like that, well, not every thought matters because are you kidding me? And so we get a reputation as mechanics and engineers and cold, heartless manipulators of behavior and we don't understand the human spirit. But sometimes I just love that you were able to embrace that like, well, I'm gonna have to drop this for now here in this. Because I think many people just have a hard time with that but my thoughts are the most important thing I have. Yeah, my thoughts and my feelings are myself. And I think, yeah, this has been a huge professional identity crisis a little bit for me as well, because I kind of valued myself as an empathic, compassionate, open-minded clinician. I think I am, I think I was. So you still are by the way. But, well, thank you, I hope so. But the reality is that my training was not really one that I think is helpful for a lot of people with anxiety and med discontinuation, right? Because the reality is, is I didn't learn about junk mail. I didn't learn about the junk channels of the brain. I didn't learn about, it was literally like if I'm thinking or feeling this, then I must need to sit back and really see what it means about me, what the deeper meaning is, what it's symbolic of. And so yeah, I can really now think about, wow, one day when I go back to being a clinician, I will be a very different clinician. I do think there are people that obviously specialized in things like OCD or got these kind of second waves of CBT that have come out and things that have had better training and maybe more exact training on these. But it's been a little scary for me, honestly, as a clinician to realize like, wow, my approach or my philosophy wasn't gonna help a lot of people and it certainly wasn't gonna help me. Yeah, but it's not that it's not helpful at all. I'm not trying to call out the therapy establishment anyway. I mean, there's a lot of different ways to approach a lot of different problems. So this is not the solution to every mental health problem either. Absolutely, no, no, it's not. But I do think that when you're dealing with extreme anxiety and this is obviously what I'm dealing with in my discontinuation, giving a lot of power to every thought-filling or sensation that comes across my body or my mind screen, I think it is important to shift that. Again, it's a different mindset. And I think it can be a little scary, right? Because we wanna find therapists and I think they're out there. I've met many, I've actually met hundreds of them over the last couple of years. So I know that there's therapists out there that take this approach. I happen to think just personally that this approach makes the best sense or at least it has for me. And I think you're right, there's all different types of therapists and all different types of therapy and they all have their place and they can be very useful at different times. But it was a paradigm shift for me to say, I had intrusive thoughts in this, right? And to be able to think like that intrusive thought is not reflective of something that I want. It doesn't mean anything about me. In fact, if it means anything about me, it means the opposite. Right. Of who I am and what I want, right? So again, it was a real learning curve for me even after all those years working in the field. And so yeah, I feel very humbled by that. Well, I think again, huge amount of respect for I know the process that you probably had to go through to reach this conclusion. And I think the takeaway for anybody listening is, Jen has immersed herself professionally and dedicated her life to this and was confronted with maybe a bit of dissonance there between what I believe in and what I think is best for me now. So if you're struggling to adopt this sort of mindset or this approach, it's okay. Like you will start, yeah. And many, many people who are listening whether they're just dealing with their anxiety disorders or they're in a, I love how you use the term discontinuation. This is how you know somebody is actually living it because they know discontinuation is the official term. It's not withdrawal. But if you are in the process right now, it is not intuitive to drop thoughts and sensations on the floor in any way. It's gonna be a struggle to get that. That's that process of starting to move in that direction. It is. And then I think also just having listened to your story and so many other people's stories, whether they're in a discontinuation syndrome or not, when you're getting those rapid fire thoughts, feelings and sensations and you're not kind of finding the space between them, right? It can even be that much more challenging, right? How do I even carve out that space between, I feel like I'm swimming in a soup of thoughts and feelings and sensations rather than these discrete things that are coming at me, one hour this, one hour this. A lot of times people will describe feeling like they're just like kind of swimming in it. And it can be so hard to find that entry point to begin to carve out a little bit of space. Let's talk for a second before we start to wrap it up. And if you'd like to come back, I'd love to have you back as we go. Absolutely, I'd love it. Great, because I love these conversations and I think they're really valuable to people and I appreciate you sharing in this way. So one of the things that you wrote about in the book is how you had to really be careful about the information you were consuming and where you went for support at any given time. That was, I was kind of fist bumping when I read those parts of the book, coming to the conclusion that like, hey, sometimes the withdrawal forms are useful to me, but sometimes they're not. Right. Yeah. Yeah, that's a really important piece for me, even in an ongoing way. I think the forums saved my life. You know, it's all peer support driven, right? And so I learned a lot. It's how I learned what was wrong with me. It's how I learned how to taper. There wasn't, I didn't have unfortunately, somebody that understood that I might need a much longer process. That said, once I kind of got some of those basic questions answered, I felt the need to find other sources to go to. And that's where I found you and some other places where there was hope and there was strategy. There was a dialogue and a discourse that was happening around moving out of and moving through and accepting and allowing the state we're in. And I found if I went back to the forums, I could get sucked down these rabbit holes. Of people's stories where I'd be comparing their symptoms and sensations to my own and then I'd find hours would pass and I would feel worse. And so I think it became really important. We have to protect ourselves in this because I think one of the things I love about Claire Weeks is that trajectory that she discusses where suggestibility is the second piece of that trajectory. And we're so suggestible because we're so scared. And so we have to be incredibly careful about where we put our eyes and our ears during that process. Yeah, yeah. Let's touch on for a second as a final point. You talked about who you were able, who you would go to for support. Who can listen to how I feel again? How that had to change. At one point, you seem to come to the conclusion like I can't keep telling my best friend about how I feel today. Yeah. Yeah, well, I mean, when somebody hears your, and again, I think this is true probably for most people going through something similar. You know, when our culture is not one that allows for long-term suffering or pain, right? Stay with pain. We're not a culture that accepts that. We want a pill, we want to fix, you know, it's not okay that you are suffering or struggling or in pain for hours or days, let alone potentially months or years, right? So, you know, it was no failing on anyone's part. I think it's ingrained in us to say what can you take? What can you do? Can you get to this clinic? Can you go to this doctor? Can you do this? And so I had to basically kind of stop doing that because it wasn't helping me, it wasn't helping them. And they were just doing what I think people that love us do, which is they want to see us out of our pain. We want out of our pain, but we are learning that there's a real process to that and it's not necessarily a quick fix.  You know, there's just not a lot of room for that. Yeah, yeah, that's a good point. Very good, very good. So for those of you who are interested in Jen's story, her book is called The Waiting Room. And I will come back at the end of the interview, I'll wrap it up. And on my website at the anxioustruth.com slash 223 will be the show notes for this episode. We'll have some highlights of what Jen has talked about. I'll have a link to the book, I'll have a link to all Jen's places online, website and everything else. But is there anything that you would like to leave people with one gem, no pressure, just sum it all up in one sentence, no big deal. One gem. One gem. One gem. Yeah. You're telling them gem. I think they're ENNS. I think I want to go back to that quote that I said earlier, which is it's not when you stop having symptoms, it's when the symptoms stop having you. Yeah, that's great. And that is what we can control, right? That's that piece that wisdom in the serenity prayer that exists, right? The wisdom to know the difference of what we can control and what we can't. And that mindset, that practicing of that shift in our mindset, I think is very critical and key. And so I think there's a lot of hope in that. Yeah, excellent. That was a great quote. Where did that come from? You know, I don't know. And I want to give the person the right credit. I want to say I heard Sally Winston say it. You know, she's a talk about a lot of intrusive thoughts. I think I heard her say it. So I'm going to quote, I'm going to give Sally Winston the credit. That's fine. She deserves credit for a whole lot of things, so. She does. You never say it. Let's say she said it. It's totally fine. And thank you so much. I appreciate it. We'll do it again if you're up for it. I'm sure people want to hear more from you, but I'll be back in a minute. We'll wrap it up. I'll give you all the links so you can go get the book if you wanted. I highly recommend it. It's super inspiring. And I'm glad we ran into each other. Me too, Drew. It's been a pleasure. Yeah, yeah. Okay, I'll be back in a minute. Thanks guys. Okay, we are back. I so enjoyed that half hour or so that I got to talk to Jen about her experiences and the lessons that she is learning and the way she's putting them into practice. And I do hope that you find it helpful, inspiring, encouraging, hopeful in some way. I will definitely have Jen back on the podcast at some point soon. We'll sort of follow her progress. She'll share her experiences with us. We were talking a little bit after the interview. There's a bunch of different topics we could talk about that involve medication. The thing that I wanna really point out in a big way is that I appreciate that Jen is not making this a referendum on medication. The fact that she stays pretty neutral on the topic, understands the value of it. I've said this many, many times. It's an individual choice. There are benefits. It can help you in certain situations 100%. So I appreciate that Jen takes such a respectful approach to this and does not want to engage in pharma bashing and med bashing and med shaming. It's great. So I just wanted to point that out. This is not a referendum on medication in any way, shape, or form. This is just one person's experiences and the way that she is learning to navigate a difficult situation. So that's it. That's it for episode 223. If you want to find Jen online, I have it up on the screen if you're watching on YouTube right now. Her website is jenniferswanphd.com. But if you go to my website and the show notes for this episode, theanxiestruth.com slash 223, I will link all of Jen's stuff. I will give you a link over to Amazon if you would like to buy a copy of The Waiting Room. It's a really great book. It really is. I'm never going to tell you to buy a book, but I enjoyed this one. So I'll give you all the ways to get it. And that's it. We are done for episode 223. You know it's over because music. After Globe by Ben Drake. You guys know this by now. So you can find Ben and his music at bendrakemusic.com. There's a surprise. So go check him out. Great human being, great musician. Tell him that I said hello if you do. And I will leave you asking you a favor if you're watching this, if you're listening to this podcast on Apple or Spotify, someplace where you can leave a rating or review. Leave us a five star rating if you dig the podcast. And if you really did the podcast, take a second and write a short review because it helps other people find the podcast and hopefully get some of the help that they're looking for. I appreciate that. And if you're watching on YouTube, subscribe to my channel, like the video, leave a comment. I'm digging, interacting with you guys on YouTube. I enjoy getting in there every couple of days and answering comments and hearing what you have to say. So that's great. And then of course, I have to tell you also to hit the notification bell so you know when I upload a new video. And that is it. Thanks for coming by. I appreciate your time and attention. We will be back next week with another podcast. I don't know what I'm gonna talk about, but I will be here. And remember, as always, this is the way. This is where your story begins. You got the feeling that you're gonna win. Yeah, you're doing fine.


Why? On the ground from Galvanize, San Francisco. It's theCUBE covering Amplify Women's Pitch Night. Now, here's John Furrier. Okay, hello everyone. We are on the ground here in San Francisco at the Galvanize Incubator. I'm John Furrier, the founder of SiliconANGLE Media. It's theCUBE on the ground and we're here with Michelle Zatlin, who's the co-founder of Cloudflare and also head of user experience, giving a fireside chat here at the Girls in Tech Amplify event about women in entrepreneurship. Co-founder, entrepreneur yourself. Welcome to our on the ground. Thanks for joining me. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here, John. So, honestly, we love the women in tech. We just spent an amazing time at Grace Hopper, which 16,000 people, I was one of 1,000 men. So, I felt, I loved it actually. So, I love any women in tech. But here, more importantly, in the Bay Area, we're in San Francisco, Silicon Valley. Entrepreneurship is in the blood. Yes, yeah, no, we're so lucky where we live. I feel like so many people, when you spend time in the valley, you realize everyone's talking about the next great idea. You go to a party, everyone's talking about what they're working on or an idea they have. So, we're like that everywhere. And so, we're really lucky where we get to live and have the resources to be able to execute on these different, sometimes crazy ideas. So, you're giving a fireside chat.  So, it's all about getting the pitch out there. Talking about your experience. Obviously, Cloudflare, your company, you co-founded and head of user experience. You're doing a great job, great success. You guys are great customer base, great growth. What did you talk about? Well, what did I talk about? So, we launched at an event like that six years ago. And so, what I talked about with the audience was, I was in your seat six years ago. And now, six years later, we have a great business. We have real customers that are using Cloudflare.  You can use Cloudflare to be fast and safe. And what I shared was, I was in your seat six years ago, and here are some lessons or ah-has I've had along the way that I wish I had known. How did you guys get started? Take a minute to explain the story. You guys rubbin' nickels together. Did you have the master idea? Was it heavily funded in the front end? Take us through the journey at the beginning. So, we started to work on this idea of if you are a small business or somebody with content online, how can you be as fast and safe as somebody like at Google.com? Google.com is the fastest and most secure internet property on the internet. How can you make that available to anybody with an internet property? And there are over 350 million. And we said, feels like there's an opportunity. And that's how we started. And so we started with, could we execute on this? And we started to make progress. We were students when we started. And- So that helps in the overhead. It did help us in the overhead.  There's lots of different ways that people do, but we were students. It's a great time to start working on a business idea because you write your overheads very low. And when we graduated, we felt so much passion around the idea. We moved out to California to give it a go full time. And when I think back now, I think, what was I thinking? I mean, it was just- Was it blind faith? Just let's go out there. It wasn't blind faith. We had done some initial validation, but we didn't have a working product. And so it was early and we came out here to build it. But we believed so strongly in it that we wanted to give it a go. We kind of said, feels like we're onto something. You felt it. And I felt like that. And so I moved. We packed our things in a U-Haul. We were living in Boston, my co-founder and I. We packed our things in a U-Haul. Him and his mother drove the U-Haul from Boston to San Francisco. That's a good mom. A very good mom.   And we showed up and for the next year and a half, working really hard. Did mom become a user? Because the mom test is always key for products, validation. Especially ahead of user experience. Right, exactly. She is not, but we have a lot of small businesses, bloggers, large businesses, a lot of different types of customers, nonprofits that now use Cloudflare to be fast, safe and available around the world. But it was really this conviction around, we felt like we could democratize the web. We felt like if you were a business with something to say, we wanted to give you the same resources as Google's technical operations team. You know, one of the things I'm observing, I've been out here now 18 years. I moved from Boston as well in 1999. And when I sold my company out here, it's like, okay, I have to be here. It's so much different, different culture and picked up and moved, right? So what's your advice now? Because now the world's different. There's so much more entrepreneurship because the democratization of, obviously mobile and cloud, have really created a low bar to get into the game. And so you're seeing a lot more diversity, certainly. Not enough, but a lot more. What's your advice to folks? Even my youngest daughter who's a sophomore in college, they're talking, Dad, I got an app. I'm going to do this app. I'm like, okay, hold down, settle down. What's your advice? Because this is now kind of breathing and people are trying to find out when do they know the gut is the gut feeling? Do you trust your gut? What is that feeling? It's like falling in love for the first time. You don't, you really know it, so you do it. What's your stance, one of those things? Well, one thing I've learned is don't keep relationship advice. So, you know, I, you know the, so I guess the same kind of goes up to the entrepreneurs. But there are a couple of things that I've learned. You know, again, we started CloudFlash six years ago and things are going very well. We're really proud. I get up every day and I think, wow, I'm so proud of the work we're doing. And so, you know, I think it's, I love the idea that people are dabbling and that it is much easier to pursue these ideas. And I think that's amazing. And we should, we should, you know, hold on to that dearly. But doing things as a side project versus full time are two different things, right? And so the questions that entrepreneurs or some founding teams, good questions, litman tests that they can ask themselves are, do I believe so passionately about this idea that I want to commit the next eight to 10 years to it? Cause that's how long it is. It's eight to 10 years. This is not, it doesn't take a one, it doesn't take two years. It is average time to exit. If you take all the startups, it's eight to 10 years. And so it's like, do I want to work on this for the next eight to 10 years? And when we started Cloudflare six years ago, you know, we would go around and say, hey, we want to help make there's another better place. And people would laugh at us. They said, that's an undacious goal. Why you never. But we just felt- I love that. That means you're out of something. Exactly. Your contrarians are the ones who do it. I mean, I remember Newtonix, D-Rosh, I remember he just went public. He was laughed at, Lightspeed funded him. And look at it. No one got that until four years in. Like, whoa, he thought differently. So trust your gut and you got to have a belief. Well, it's just this idea of like, do I want to do this? Like, is there something big here that I want to work? Is this like a media enough problem and idea that I want to work on it for the next eight to 10 years? And if the answer is yes, then it's a great, then yes, you should keep doing it. And then the second thing is, can I attract all the right people to make it happen? Talk about the team dynamic.  I do give relationship advisors, but that's me. I always say, be careful in the team. You can't dial a team. You can't like, just dial up and say, I need a co-founder or I need this person. It really is a unique selection process. Your thoughts on that, because it also depends in the dynamic funding cycle, if you're self-funding, or you're bootstrapping to revenue, certainly if you're a contrarian, no one's going to get funding. Maybe some seed will come your way, but that won't last long. So the team really is going to be the maker break. Your thoughts on team selection, team process. The most important thing I do every day is the team we work with. Can you attract the right people to come work at Cloudflare? Can you set them up for success so they can do their best work? And I spend 99% of my time thinking about that and it's never enough. In the early days, when you guys were moving out here, did you have funding? When we moved out here, we didn't. We didn't. So we didn't have funding when we moved out here. There's three co-founders working on it, making progress, and then it became fair. Did you make revenue first or get funding seed funding? So we worked on it. We kind of felt like we had a lot of conviction. There's a small team, the three of us.  So we definitely had funding before revenue, but the founders worked on it before anyone else because we just couldn't. And who were the investors? Venroc, Peleon, NEA, Union Square Ventures out of New York, and then some stuff was to be done. They had a good sizeable and tier one VC to NEA. Certainly great VC. Yeah, we have great investors. Great history. Yes, we have excellent. I'm very biased, but yes, we have great investors. Fred's contrarian, which is good. The contrarians usually get the big heads. Well, the Union Square Ventures out of New York, they really understand how the internet works. I mean, that's our whole thesis. And I mean, they're a very technical venture capitalist one.  And when you're building a company like Clawfler where we're helping make the internet a better place, that's very useful that they understand how the internet works. So I got to ask you, we've got a minute left. I want to get the women perspective because I was just talking at World of Watson, certainly in a cube con with some of the red hat folks and talking about diversity. And I said, look at 50% of the population is women. Those are the users now. So like, why are male going to be developing the product? We need to have a perspective. So we're on this whole mansplaining thing. And I'm like, well, mansplaining is also software too. If men are developing the software. So there is an aspect of user experience that has to take into account the target audience. I mean, the easy answer is get more women to design product. But how do you think about that? And what's your thoughts on the current state of the... So there are more men than women in technology. Absolutely. There are a lot of women and it's not like I know every single one of them. There are a lot of us and they're working on so many interesting, there are so many amazing women working on interesting problems in tech and I think that's great. And so showing more of those stories to inspire the next generation of women is awesome. I think that there are a lot of women who are trying to figure out what they want to do with their career or might making a career switch. If you're at all interest in technology, it's a great industry. You get to work on very hard problems at scale. People are very smart and talented. It's a growing industry, which means financially, there's often like a good outcome. And so I hope that more women will get into the industry. And the surface area of opportunities are expanding too. Big data has attracted a whole other realm of visualization, where are the geeky data geek artists? Where are, not just software anymore, it's an increased surface area. Health tech, how do you do, I mean, there's so many different, I mean, technology touches so many different facets of our lives. So for folks who are like, well, I don't know anything about it, but I'm kind of interested and encourage, again, women and men to say, this is a great industry that you should really take seriously and we need more and more smart, passionate people who are really willing to roll up their sleeves and work hard to come and execute because there's so much opportunity ahead that there's more opportunity ahead of us than behind us. And so it's a great industry to pursue. Michelle, final question. What's the coolest thing you're working on right now? The coolest thing I'm working on right now. Well, they're part of my job as people, so I get to hire lots of great folks all the time. So that's what I love the most. And so it's hiring, recruiting, building out the different teams, both here in San Francisco as well as around the world. We have a London office, a Singapore office. That's what I love the best. So that's the coolest thing, always people, people, people. The second coolest is we're thinking about our 2017 plan. We're at the end of 2016. It's what's the product roadmap look like for next year? What is that? How does the budget stack up against that? And I think that's pretty opportunity because I think we've done a very good job as a business executing to date. But as you go through that exercise of saying, hey, what does 2017 look like? And having to write it down, you realize we have so many things left to do ahead of us. And I think that's a good place to be in. Final, final question, since I always get these questions, after my final question, which is becoming part of the course with great guests like yourself.  We are going to be cloud-native. We're implementing more DevOps. Our developers now on the front lines of the business value, how should they be thinking about how to craft their apps, their experiences and their teams? So we work with a lot of large organizations who are saying, hey, how do we make sure we have all our security aligned? Or how do we make sure we have a global audience? How do we make sure it's fast around the world? And these are hard problems that they have to deal with. And I would say that large organizations respond in two ways. And I think some of them that are very, very good. This is a lesson that I think other large organizations don't necessarily, no one's telling them is, we have the days of setting up RFPs or kind of, don't do that. Don't set up an RFP, what is it? We're not agile. Right, well, in RFPs they serve a purpose, it's fine, but what's better? We have a lot of large organizations that say, here are the problems we need to solve. We think that your team is smarter, technical or we'd like to get to know your team. Could you help us solve these problems and how? And it becomes a much more collaborative process. And you basically, large organizations get the power of our engineering team to help solve their problems, to help educate their engineering team of a ways to approach it. And the really smart, large organizations are doing that. And so it's not an RFP, it's saying, hey, these are the problems. They come to companies like Clawfler or others saying, hey, you guys seem like you're gonna be around for a while. How, could you help us solve these problems? And the good companies will say, well, we can help you with these, we can't help you with those. Go talk to these people for those. The lock in one year licenses are like, eh, you need to be budgeting differently. Right, and it might not even be, you know, necessarily Caleb's on the contrary, it's more like, have a conversation and you start to develop a relationship. Okay, now we're ready to buy and you know each other. And again, it's a partnership. It's a partnership. And some large organizations approach kind of the digital transformation that way. And I feel like that's a very smart way, versus oh, this is our problem, here's the list of companies we're gonna ask solutions to and get you to bid on it, which is fine once you know what the problem is. But there's a whole step before during these digital transformations if you're a large business of, I don't even know how to characterize the exact problems I'm solving. And the great organizations are saying, let's go get some of this tech talent from these small organizations to help us think through how to solve it. And do work a lot and you work together. Hold hands across the bridge to the future. And so that's something where I think that that can be a great leverage point. Michelle Zadlin, co-founder of Cloudflare, congratulations on your success. Go get Cloudflare, great product. We're going to do that, I've been convinced to do. We should be using it at siliconagle.com and theCUBE. Thanks so much for joining me. Thank you John. I'm John Furrier, here on the ground at Galvanize in San Francisco for the girls in tech startup pitch competition. We'll be right back with more. Thanks for watching.


What's up everyone? Today we're doing real sounds versus beatbox sounds.  So that's the end of this video. Hope you all enjoyed it. If you liked this video, give it a thumbs up, comment, share. Let me know what your favorite beatbox sound was or real sound. Yeah, it's not as good as the beatbox sounds though. I'm really happy I got to do this because sound effects are my favorite part about beatboxing. Let me know if there's any other beatbox sounds you want me to do in the future. Ooh, and be sure to subscribe. Also, huge shoutouts to B&H for sponsoring this video. They're an audio, film, and photo store located in New York City. If you want any gear, go check them out.  Anyways, I hope you all have a great day.  Be your best self, and I'll catch you next time.


This is Chichu, welcome to my channel. Now, what I want to do is do a little intro for the next two or three videos coming up and This is sort of related to the previous video that I put out, one of the previous videos that I put out related to politics I had some people ask me what my take was regarding the most recent election and I put out a video sort of giving my take on it and I talked a fair bit about politics and mentioned that politics cannot be thought of independently as economics, from economics, right? So politics and economics have to be thought of as one system, one entity together, right? And after putting out the video, I had a certain amount of messages and some comments saying that people would like to have further discussion on the topic of politics, right? That I should make more videos like this and I mentioned in that video that this was, you know, that was going to be the last politics, strictly politics, video I was going to put out because politics is really governed by economics and you can watch that video of you know, the terminology I used and where basically if we were thinking about politics and economics, one system it's really economics that rules or society right now governs or governs our world right now, right? So, you know, I've been mentioning to people that I'm going to approach politics through economics especially making a series for the language of mathematics, math, and real life, right? Talking about politics and economics and taking a look at some of the indicators, some of the variables, some of the ratios and economics is really and politics is really just understanding units and systems and your ratios, right? So, because I had a fair bit of messages and comments asking me to do more videos like that as I mentioned, I'm not going to do any more strictly politics because sort of it's sort of it's not going to work because I'm sort of adding a small drop to the bucket, right? Because there's a lot of people talking about politics sort of blowing into the wind, I guess, or yelling into the wind, what's that saying? I think it's something else into the wind and I have written a fair bit about politics so if you want to take a look at my political take on things, you can take a look at that video and there's some articles that I linked up in the description, I'll probably supply in this description video as well but what I want to do is I want to start our discussion on economics, okay? And that's directly related to politics so I'm going to hit out politics through economics and I've sort of put out two or three videos, I haven't edited it yet so I'm most likely going to split this up into three videos talking about economics and I'm going to sort of jump around when we start talking about the mathematics of economics and this is what we're really going to do, we're going to look at the mathematics of economics and at some point later on we're going to create a math and real life series for that but because this is sort of being filed under ASMR math, I've given myself more and lean way to go on a lot more tangents for math and real life and the language of mathematics I really want to sort of just focus on one concept and zoom in on that and build content in segments instead of going on extended rants, right? But with ASMR math I'm giving myself that lean way so what we're going to do is jump around the concept of economics a fair bit, okay? And the first three concepts that I decided to start off with the first one is going to be how we calculate revenue, maximizing revenue which is a concept that is introduced in my part of world in grade 11 when we start dealing with quadratic functions and stuff like this so there's one video coming out that's related basically we're taking a quadratic function and we're going to complete the square we're going to graph it and we're going to take a look at you know what the numbers mean and what they're telling us about the economic system, right? The business model that we looked at, right? And I think you'll like the business model it takes me back to grade 8, right? So that's one video coming out another video coming out is going to be sort of the concept of how we should take a look at our economic system right now in terms of established companies taking a certain amount of market share and innovation new companies popping up and challenging established companies and this concept is sort of referred to as disruptive innovation and disruptive innovation has been around throughout history, right? Many disruptive technologies or innovations or even it comes into the political realm where new laws are passed where there's more competition at it or laws are passed to prevent competition, right? Monopoly keep monopoly practices so we're going to take a look at we're not really going to quantify it we're going to create a visualization to take a look at what disruptive innovation means and how it plays out in our society when it comes to politics and economics and the next concept we're going to take a look at is called differential accumulation and differential accumulation is a concept more recent that's come up where basically it says that accumulation of wealth accumulation of capital accumulation of power right is really relative right is relative to the averages and is relative to the industry the people you're competing with right because our system is really based on economic political system or education system unfortunately is based on competition not cooperation so differential accumulation really talks about accumulation of capital and how capital can really be looked at as power and how that power is accumulated over time specifically related to the law of averages okay at that the rate that me an individual a company a country a state accumulates power is really relative to how other individuals companies states countries are accumulating power right so if you don't accumulate power right capital at a higher rate than the averages then in the long run in the limit which is what the power of mathematics is right mathematics one of the most powerful thing that allows us to do is model a system and after modeling the system take this model extend this model to the limit and see what happens in the limit right and based on differential accumulation in the limit if you're not acquiring capital acquiring power right if you're not being the averages then in the limit you lose all power and those who accumulate power accumulate capital right a relative more relative to the averages then in the limit in the long run they obtain everything and in the long run really it if you extend this to the limit it turns out to a place where it takes us to a place where one thing one organization one entity controls everything right because through differential accumulation what happens is if you want to constantly beat the averages if you're not constantly coming up with new innovation new techniques to do that what you need to do is do mergers and acquisitions is buy out smaller smaller companies that are coming up with differential disruptive innovation right so the you know the last two videos or the second and third video the second and third concepts they're sort of related right they sort of overlap so that's what we're going to do in the next I guess three videos and that's sort of an extension of the politics video that we put out that we talked about and that's the direction we're going to go when we're talking about politics we're going to specifically look at economics because economics governs everything right now in our society anyway unfortunately right that's it for now and I'll be doing a lot more economics videos and we definitely take a look at some of the indicators and when it comes to the markets and how our economic system is set up may it be PE and it be row may it be whatever else right I'm more slowly you know in random at random anyway just take on a concept and put it together and at some point we'll come back for the language of mathematics and put it all together and make one coherent series when we talk about the mathematics economics right where how it all plays out and kick that into politics and look at some of the indicators of politics because politics is really mathematics as well right it's just ratios I'll see you guys in the next video bye for now


to my channel. Today's video, as you can see from the title, it is yet again another sheet in haul. Thank you so much for she in. Thank you so much she in for sponsoring this video. If you see the same setting, attire, whatever the case may be, I'm recording the two of these in one night. They are separate, so I did have to record them separately. But hope you guys enjoyed the last one and I hope you guys enjoyed this one as well. Let's just get right into it because I've been talking about already 30 seconds. Prince is laying on my clothes right now. So the first outfit, I don't even know what I tried on first to kind of show y'all what I tried on. But we're going to go ahead and talk about this one. So I just put these together in the clip. So I'm going to talk about them together. But I may not wear these together, but I just got this cute little crop top long sleeve white shirt. It is in a size medium, probably should decide stuff and got a large because my boobs are on the larger side. And it kind of makes a hole inside where the buttons are like in the like right here. It'll be open. So I probably use a safety pin to kind of tie that down or hold it down. But yeah, super cute. It's really light, really flowing. It is it's not see through. I don't think I wasn't able to see anything through it. But it's cute. I like it. And I also paired it with this cool looking skirt zebra skirt. I got this one in a size medium. So it's a US US size six. It is very, very stretchy. Really, really good material. This is one of their better items I would say from she in. I got my regular size. I feel like I could have fit in a small if I wanted the size down, but it would have been like a little bit too tight, maybe like around the band part. So I say get your normal size. It'll be cute. I do think I may wear a different shirt with this. But I mean, it goes. I am thinking maybe a pop of colors. So like red, like red shoes, red bag, and like a red lip. I haven't wore a red lipstick in girl. I don't know how long like years on years on years. But I'm thinking red will pop this off. And especially because I ain't worn no red lip in a minute. Nobody's gonna see it coming. So 10 out of 10 for the skirt. I give the shirt a 8 out of 10 simply because it is a little bit small for me. And I feel like I'll have to keep pulling it down. But other than that, super cute, super cute. The next item that I have to show, I didn't try this on, but I will pop in pictures. I actually wore this dress on Valentine's Day. Super cute, stretchy. This is one of the roost dresses that they have. The material is wonderful. Girl, I feel like it is a little see-through. But I think this one had lining. Did it have lining? No, it didn't have lining. But I wore something undermined unintentionally. So I guess that's why I didn't see anything. But cute. Some people in the comments were saying they didn't like how this strap was like to go over your neck or whatever. But it didn't bother me. I actually really liked it. This one, I feel like you can pull it all the way down to kind of hit your ankles or you can kind of raise it up. So this one, 10 out of 10. I got so many compliments. Everybody loved this dress. Bay love the dress. It looked really nice on me. And it complimented our little like Valentine's Day look really, really nice. So the next dress that I have to show us this kind of army green dress, it is roost on the side. So you can make it really short by pulling it or you can make it a little bit longer than how it came by pulling this down and tying it as is. This one does have lining in it. So I feel like it isn't too see through. You can still see a little bit, but it does have lining unlike the other dress. And material is good. I think I got this one in a size small. Yeah, I got it in a size small because you know, you can just kind of tell on she and what materials is going to be stretchy and what's not going to be stretchy. So I absolutely love this one. Fits nice, looks nice. 10 out of 10. The next outfit that I got is this cute. It's giving me like bridesmaid dress. It's giving me like baby shower dress with a little twist. It's giving me cute formal dressy for I think this is maybe like under $20. So one thing I can complain about is obviously it is low cut and like I said, my boobs are big. So I feel like if I would have had maybe like an inch more coverage, like to be able to be pulled up, I would love it. So I give it a 9.5 out of 10. But maybe this is sexy. The split is sexy. It looks good in all the right places. It shapes you well. I got it in a size small. Maybe for what I got a medium, it kind of probably would have like pulled up more, but I just feel like it fits like a glove. It is long sleeve, but the material is that like spandexy material, really stretchy, a little bit see through. But since it's black, I don't feel like it'll make too big of a difference. So 10 out of 10. Well, I said 9.5 out of 10, but it looks like a 10 out of 10. But like me wearing it and like the feel of it is a 9.5 out of 10. So I definitely recommend this one. Like you need that in your closet. The next item that I have to show is these pairs of pants. I want to say I got these in medium. Yes, I got them in a medium. It says it's the US side six, but they are a little on the tighter side. These ones, they came already rolled up. I haven't had any pants like this in a minute. And I don't really like to roll up my pants. Like I like to just buy them like that so it can like stay creased and stuff. So they're showing up on camera like really, really like blue, blue jeans, but in person, they don't look that blue around the waistband. It is a little tight. Like it got some stretch, but it is a little tight. So I feel like I might have probably should have got a dang large, which is crazy because they say this is a size six. I don't really know what size pants I am anymore. I guess like I got a size three in pants in this other brand like from the beauty supply store and I can't fit them anymore. So I guess I'm not a size three. I don't know. I'll probably go to the store like this week and just try on some pants and really see my size because I honestly don't know what size pants. If they just say small, medium, large, I just always go with medium.  The next thing I got, I didn't try on, but I will put in maybe like a boomerang or something because I wore this in Memphis also a couple weeks ago. Got it in a size medium so it could be a little bit more oversized for me. A small definitely would have fit me perfectly fine. But like I said, some people do like to layer with the flannel. So I did want to go ahead and get a medium. Super cute. Y'all know I love brown. It's my hair brand colors. This here is from my beauty brand AJB Beauty Collection. Here you go. Shot. But anyways, yes. So I just, I'm in love with brown. I'm in love with brown. This fits perfectly 10 out of 10. The next item that I have to show you guys is this beautiful dress which is crazy. I was actually going to wear this one on Valentine's Day. It's a size small. I probably could have gotten away with the medium just so my boobs would be able to feel a little bit better. I would definitely have to wear this without the bra. But in the video, I am wearing it with the bra just for video purposes. But like in real life, I wouldn't wear it with a bra. I didn't wear this because I couldn't decide on if I like this or not. Like this was, I was kind of going back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. But I am glad that I did go inside. I be trying to talk so fast like baby, like my words are annoying for me. I am glad I wore the pink dress because it just fit the vibe of where we went that night. And I feel like if I would have wore this, I would have been uncomfortable for like the environment and the setting. So yeah, but it's super cute. It just had roses on it. That's why I was going to wear for Valentine's Day. But I mean, this would be a perfect day night dress like really cute. Or if you go somewhere that the aesthetics matches this dress, definitely this will pop out. It got the flared out arms. Super cute. My phone is blowing up. And yeah, it does have some stretch to it. But like I said in the boob area, it is really limited because of the way it is cut. So I'll probably give this one about a eight out of 10. It does look really good on the body though. I will say that. And the last item that I have to show you girlies is this beautiful jumpsuit. I am mad though because I got it in a size small US size of four. Super cute. It's definitely giving me fall vibes. I don't know if I'm going to be able to fit this when fall comes again, because I am like 150 now. And this is in a size small and right now it is snug, especially around the boobs. Maybe it's snug. So I feel like since we still got some cold days here in Arkansas, literally it's pouring down raining right now. And like obviously after the rain, it's like a really, really cold front. So on days like that, I feel like I can get away with it. It is March right now. But like I said, it's been really like tornado season. It's been raining and just windy. So I feel like right now I could still get away with wearing this if I wanted to. It's just the colors is giving me fall. You know, like I see this and like I want to wear this in the fall. But it's cute. I'll give it I'll probably give it an eight out of 10 because like I said, it is a little tight. It's a little tight. So yeah, that's that.  And you won't like the soul train. What is it? Not the soul train awards, but like the soul train. And you get up there dancing with your friend. This is what it's giving me. Like it's definitely giving me that. I think I was dancing in one of the clips. But yeah, I absolutely load everything in this haul. Don't forget to like this video, comment, subscribe. The links, coupon codes, etc. will be down in the description box below. The links to this hair from my beauty collection will be down in the description box below. The lashes are actually mine also. I don't have the lashes on my website yet, but they are soon to come. And as always, thank you so much for watching. I'll see you in my next video. Bye guys.


السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته والبركاته والبركات to the A-S-O-S show that discusses Islamic duties and practices by his evidence the grant I told the Sadaq, شراوكة بحظوط الله. I am your host Mosin Shah and joining me is Sheik Ali Ma'as. السلام عليكم شخرة. السلام عليكم ورحمة الله. هواي. الحمد لله. ماشى حلات لكم. شخرة. Let's move our conversation forward now and let's talk about a topic which is quite dare to everybody quite important. و هذا هو الموضوع من خمس ، وهي بعض الموضوع من تاكس أو تاكس ، could you please explain more on what is خمس إن شاء الله أعوذ بالله السميع العليم من الشيطان الرجيم بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم الحمد لله رب العالمين وصل الله على أم محمد وآله الطيبين الطاهرين خمس يعني في العربية خمس ويشهد أنه يتلق with the surplus of the annual expenses of the one in which remains at the end of the year لذا عندما يتلق with that individual a tradesman, a salesman, a teacher, an employee in a company even a student for example عندما يتلق with a surplus of let's say whatever amount is left by the end of the year then they have to pay one-fifth of the remaining of the income which is left by the end of that specific date of the year ومن الممكن أن تفهم خمس في العربية ومثل الأحاديث of the holy prophet and the people of the house with this regard وبدأنا with the book of Allah the Holy Quran في شرطة 8 برس 41 الله تعالى بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم وعلموا أنما غنمت من شيء فأن لله خمسه والرسول والذي القربة واليتامة والمساكين وابن السبيل أعرف أن مما تدعوه وصحبه this eye is not only for the war the غنائم and the acquire of the war left overs as you know if there is a war between muslims and non-muslims and the muslims take over and win the war and they can take the left overs of the enemy لن نقول سورد شيلد ، هوروسي و so forth ما يتركون ، لديهم right to take them لذلك خانمتهم ، أو ما يجب أن يجب أن يقوم بشيء لا يجب أن يقوم بشيء فقط يجب أن يقوم بشيء ما يجب أن يقوم بشيء كما يجب أن يقوم بشيء فقط فالهورو قرن يقوم بشيء ما يجب أن يقوم بشيء او خمس of that او خمس of that which is 20% يجب أن يذهب إلى لله سبحانه وتعالى إلى the cause of Allah و إلى the Prophet صلى الله عليه و عليه و إلى the relatives and the orphans and the ones who are in need and the ones who have difficulty in gaining money through income for example and those who are stranded in their trouble they lose their wealth and they can't go back to their country and city so the khumus is specified for those groups I'll mention in detail about each category and of course when it comes to the khumus it is a wajib act it is a wajib and obligatory act in the furoa ad-deen as we read that we have ten of furoa ad-deen the branches of religion now one of them is khumus so you have Salah fasting you have Hajj you have zakat and you have khumus as well so this is one of the very important wajibat within and beside the other wajibat in the Islam religion so it's important that we consider these احكام that we try to perform it as we perform our Salah when we submit to Islam as a divine religion we have to make sure that we apply all the procedures and the commands of Allah one of them is khumus so there's no excuse for somebody to come up and say well I'm paying charities different payments monthly payments I've been taking care of the orphans but I don't pay khumus khumus is something separate than these charity payments this is a wajib payment you must and you're obliged to pay this amount of khumus it's only every year so you set a date and then you have to calculate your left overs from the incomes you gained the surplus whatever you spent during the year whatever is left then you paid only 20% of it that's it basically once a year so it is a wajib we must perform this act we must set a date during the year choose a date so we can pay the khumus at the end of that year is it fair to say it's sort of an Islamic tax is that the right word to use Islamic tax yes you can use the word but it's actually as it says khums so one-fifth of the khumus you can say it's a tax but in overall the procedure is similar to the tax system that you have to pay as we have in the UK 20% of your income more sometimes sometimes more exactly or 17.5% for the items VAT for example but this is a religious and divinely let's say tax payments and it's only once a year compared to the other payments we have to pay the income tax every month VAT on everything we buy every service we purchase for example there's a certain amount of VAT or tax to be paid so this is more simpler and straightforward that's only when you have surplus an extra income left at the end of the year and you just pay it that's it 20% only and we'll inshallah discuss that where does this 20% goes exactly as the Holy Quran mentions where this money will go but in overall there's another categories to find out where exactly the money goes أحسنت شيخنا excellent you mentioned the Quranic ayah do you know of any hadith to discuss Khoms I have three hadith narrations with regard to the Khoms the first hadith is narrated by Ibn Abi Umair عن سماعة قال سأتو أبل حسن أي الإمام الكاغم عليه السلام عن الخمس فقال now سماعة he asked the Imam الكاغم عليه السلام the seventh Imam of Ahl al Bayt عليهم السلامة جميعا what do you got to the khoms in other words defining the khoms what khoms is the Imam سلام الله عليه responded في كل ما أفاد الناس من قليل أو كثير khoms is to be paid for whatever the one and the individual acquires and gains be it a small amount or a large amount من قليل أو كثير even if it's one pound one dollar you still have to pay that 20% of that one dollar which is 20 cents or 20 pens in pounds you still have to pay even if it's a very small amount this is an obligatory act you must fulfill the requirement of Allah this 20% in which we have to pay towards the right of Allah this is a must and doesn't belong to us this money this 20% excess of the amount must be paid towards Allah and the cause of Allah the almighty the second hadith a man from Iran he writes to the Imam أرض عليه السلام with regard to the khoms he wants to take some kind of exemption and try to get away from not paying the khoms the Imam he responds in his letter to this person to this trade man in Iran بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم إن الله واصع on kareem I'll just mention briefly the hadith Allah is generous وإن الخمسة عوننا على ديننا the khoms payment is a support on our religion on the faith of Allah this religion requires people to spend you know you have to build mosques Islamic centers prepare the for example programs occasions the sad and happy occasions all these requires that those who are in charge of spreading the religion to be able to spend you have the jihad for example the war when the enemy attacks then you have to have the right tools the right weapon to defend yourself where does that money come from for example so you have to have some kind of means of income is it like social welfare you know everyone kind of puts you know money aside to help pay for what the government wants to pay for for example widows, orphans policing, firemen military yes exactly that's what we really need to consider because at the end of the day let's say as we have today مراجع and the system of the followers and the merger and then you have the haوزات and you have the مجالس you have to have some kind of savings to be able to fund these institutions otherwise how could you have for example new lecturers new jurists and مراجع you have to fund these organizations to be able to continue with the دعوة and propagating Islam religion to the world so this is kind of support towards the needs of religion in terms of propagating Islam in terms of even helping all orphans for example building hospitals schools and so forth then the Imam says ما قدرتم عليه the Imam says do not prevent the payment of خمس to us because this will cause that you don't get the دعوة of the Imam you get the دعوة of the Imam when you pay the خمس and try to find from the narrations and other sources that is there a place where the Imam would say if you pray will read دعوة for you will pray for you if you go to Hajj if you let's say you do something wajib read the Quran will pray for you will read the دعوة for you the exception is here the Imam says that if you pay the خمس will read the دعوة for you will pray for you and who prays for you the Imam المعصوم عليه السلام and today we have the Imam Al-Hujja Adjallah for Adjah Al-Sharif who would pray for us if we pay the خمس and fulfill the duty of Allah SWT then the Imam says فإن اخراجه now the Imam gives the good results and the benefits of paying خمس فإن اخراجه مفتاح رزقكم number one when you pay خمس you will get more income and rewards so the more you pay خمس the more you will get benefit the more you will get as a result of رزق and sustenance so in other words when you give خمس your sustenance will increase your رزق will increase مفتاح رزقكم then the Imam says also the خمس will purify your sins and remove your sins that's another benefit spiritual benefit we have sins how do you purify them by paying خمس one of the means and ways and methods then the Imam says وليس المسلم من أجاب باللسان وخارف بالقلب والسلام the Imam says مسلم is not the one who only responds by his tongue and rejects by his heart in other words مسلم is not only in theory you have to be practical you have to be able to participate in the society in the community by yourself أموالكم وأنفسكم as the Holy Quran states that you sacrifice yourself by your wealth and yourself as well you put some time that you spread the knowledge of Islam to others for example practically that you pay money you donate or you pay خمس which is a wajib so these are all acts in which we must fulfill it the wajib ones of course must be and the mustahab we try to increase the mustahab but and these are the acts the next and last hadith علي ابن أبراهيم عن أبي those two important narrators of أهلبيت علي من السلام قال كنت عند أبي جعفر الثاني أي إمام الجوات علي السلام so the father of علي ابن أبراهيم was in the process of the Imam of جوات علي السلام إذ دخل علي صالح بن محمد بن سهل إمان with the name of صالح صنف محمد صنف سهل he came to visit the Imam فقال يا سيدي اجعلني من عشرتي آلافن في حل في حل all my master exempt me from paying خمس which is 10,000 I have to pay ايه that's دينار أو درهم he's got 10,000 to pay for the خمس but it seems to be that he wants to get exemption from the Imam not to pay them and it's wajib for him on him he seems to be a merchant a trademan فأني and فقتوها I spend them all so he spent them the money with the خمس which is supposed to be paid to the Imam عليه السلام which is wajib he came and he wants exemption while he spent them before he asked the Imam he spent them first and then he came to ask the Imam for permission فقال له عليه السلام Imam responded أنت في حل you're exempted you can go فلما خرج صالح when this man with the name of صالح he left قال أبو جعفر عليه السلام إمام الجوات عليه السلام he turned to the father of علي بن مراهيم one of his companions and he told him أتراه ظن أنني أقول لا أفعل do you think that he was waiting for me to say that no you're not exempted والله ليس ألنهم الله يوم القيامة عن ذلك سؤالا حثيثا the Imam swear to God and he says I swear to God that Allah will ask them about not paying the خمس with emphasis emphasizing on the question stressing on the question why didn't you pay you know it was wajib you know that you were able to pay it with no excuses you're a merchant you're a trade man you have no financial hardships but you didn't pay it الله will ask them so خمس payment briefly is to purify our wealth our life to cleanse ourselves and souls from the sins we committed and also to increase the sustenance and the rizq more and more brings more blessings and barakah to the ones household and of course it will protect us from any near or future losses ما شاء الله شكرا الله it's funny how we don't really talk much about خمس mainly because maybe we feel that we're not obliged to pay for it living in such an expensive place in Europe however the hadith that you mentioned shows the emphasis and the importance we're actually calculating your خمس and make sure that you are paying it and that there's so much تواب and there's so much reward in actually paying this and it's used for an Islamic purpose it's not that or it was just to give the خمس and I said no it's actually used to benefit other people and other centres ما شاء الله so that's all we've got time for so thank you very much شكرا and thank you to all the viewers for joining us on the Heklam SOS Insha'Allah we'll have a new discussion in the next episode السلام عليكم رحمة الله وبركاته


Not only must we outright reject violence, we must also reject and condemn incitement. The objectors to the reform are not traitors, and the supporters of the reform are not fascists. An overwhelming majority of Israeli citizens from throughout the political spectrum love our country, and they want to safeguard and protect our democracy. But since some people appropriate democracy to themselves, I would like to say a few words about democracy this evening. It is true that we have some disagreements. The supporters of the reform think that what we have here in Israel is not a real democracy, and that what risks democracy is an omnipotent Supreme Court that can talk about any subject and adjudicate on every topic. And those who object to their reform, they think that what is going to risk democracy is a Knesset, a parliament, and a government that will operate without any breaks and that could infringe on civil rights. A proper democratic regime must address both these topics. It must guarantee the majority rule, but at the same time it must advocate civil rights and guarantee civil rights. And in order to guarantee that, in order to prevent a rift in Israel, the judicial reform, the judicial reform for democracy, has to address both these basic needs in order to prevent a rift in Israel. Every side must take seriously the fears and arguments of the other side. And that is what I wish to do right now. The supporters of the reform are vexed by the fact that the balance between authorities in Israel has been violated over the past few decades. The court has intervened unjustifiably in its security considerations in combating terrorism. And time and again, it presented obstacles and difficulties to the execution of the government's policy. It prevented sending out infiltrators from Israel. And you know how this had impacted the people of Southern Tel Aviv and other areas. It also intervened with the gas project, taking out gas from water. And we paid a heavy economic price for that, tens of billions of shekels. And this is something which impacted each and every Israeli citizen. Without authority it rejected. Laws of the Supreme Court prevented appointments. And it discussed and ruled on various topics it shouldn't have ruled on. And there's another argument, perhaps the most painful one. Many people complain about the fact that the Supreme Court behaves like a closed club for the appointment of judges in the system of one friend can bring another. According to the existing system, judges can veto the appointment of new judges. So in practice they appoint themselves. And this is something that we do not see in any other democracy in the world. Now quite a few people who do not define themselves as supporters of the reform actually agree that certain amendments must be made, including on this issue. And we must conduct substantial reform in the judiciary. But there are others who are afraid that the suggested democratic reform will take things too far and that it will enable the government and the Knesset to take over the judiciary and the courts to pass any law to override any ruling. And they are afraid of a non-liberal country, a halachic country, legislation against women, minorities. And people from the LGBTQ community and in view of these fears, I would like to say this evening, I believe that we can pass a reform that will address the fears of both sides, a reform that will reinstate the proper equilibrium between the authorities and, on the other hand, will maintain, not only maintain, it will safeguard the civil rights of each and every Israeli, because we are not here to trample on people. We are here to balance and to amend. And this is why we are determined to fix and to responsibly promote the democratic reform that will reinstate the proper equilibrium between the authorities. And let me remind you, so far we only discussed one topic out of many that have not been discussed yet. The best possible way to achieve this balancing reform and to prevent such a rift from occurring between Israelis is through dialogue and through obtaining as broad a consensus as possible. Regretfully, the representatives of the opposition have refused so far to enter into such a dialogue. I think three months have been wasted because of this. And hopefully this is going to change. Hopefully this is going to change over the next few days. I am seeking to find a solution. I am attentive to the fears of the other side. And if you could please note, we've already introduced certain changes to the law that has to do with the committee for the appointment of judges in order to assuage these fears and the law that will be presented to the Knesset for approval. And next week is one that does not take control over the court, but rather balances and diversifies it. It opens the gates of the courts to different world views and sectors and communities and sectors that so far have been excluded from it over decades. We do not want a controlled judiciary. We want a balanced judiciary. And the balanced judiciary is a judiciary of the people. And such a judiciary will also benefit from public trust. It is not the end of democracy. It is the strengthening of democracy in all democracies, including the U.S. Public elected officials are those who appoint judges. There's hardly any exception to that, only some rare exceptions. So the U.S. is not a democracy in New Zealand. Isn't a democracy in Canada? Isn't a democracy the famous legal expert Alan Dershowitz, the professor Dershowitz from Harvard University, who by the way objects to certain sections of the reform, has said that if the reform will be passed in its previous format before the changes, before it was, quote unquote, softened, then the U.S. won't be a dictatorship, but it will be similar to New Zealand. Then Israel won't be dictatorship, but rather similar to Canada and New Zealand and also to the U.S. It is not the end of democracy. It is the strengthening of democracy. And now I would like to answer a central fear that is being brought up by the other side. And I know that there is this fear of an overwhelming overriding, unlimited overriding clause that as a result, any small Knesset majority will be able to overturn every ruling, every decision of the court. And let me tell you explicitly, this will not happen. On the contrary, our intention, my intention, is to make sure that civil rights are anchored as a law. We will guarantee the basic rights of all Israeli citizens, Jews and non-Jews, religious, secular, women, men, LGBTQ, members of the LGBTQ community. And we are committed to these principles. And I'm not speaking up in the air. We intend to pass some explicit legislation. I will personally make sure that that is the case. Now, regretfully, so far my hands had been chained. We've reached this absurd situation that if I were to be able to intervene in this event, and that is my role, they threatened to tell me that I cannot judge and be the prime minister. And this would have canceled the will of the people. And this is an absurdity that is inconceivable in a proper democracy. So I am informing you, my dear friends, citizens of the state of Israel, the buck stops here. I am going to get involved. I'm going to set aside any other consideration. And for the sake of our people and our country, I will do everything I can in order to reach a solution. I met this evening with various ministers, including the Minister of Defense. I've heard his fears about the implications of this situation on our national security. And I'm taking all of it into account. And yet I must also say again, reiterate that there is no place for refusing military service, because it is risking our national security and the personal safety of each and every one of us. And there is no justification for refusing to serve.