Hi, I'm George Cowell and I'm super excited to be with Pam Slim today. We're gonna be talking to you about how you can turn your body of work, your knowledge into IP that you can package and use as an asset in your business. She's such a pro at it. She's worked with some major authors to do this and she's gonna bring some wisdom to us. But first, Pam, let me say hi to you. Hi, Pam. Hi, George. I'm so happy to be here. Thank you for doing this. So I want to be sure people know the background of your work and then y'all just read your bio a short short version of it and then we'll get into the conversation. So Pam was slim is an author community builder, which I'm going to talk to ask you about as well consultant and then she has a successful corporate career in her past work and now of course she works with entrepreneurs small business owners as well as some companies and she's been doing this her own work since at least 2005 and she partnered with Susan Cain to build and launch the Quiet Revolution and Quiet Leadership Institute. That's something I didn't know. So that's that's amazing. You may have those of you watching this may know of Pam's books. Her first book is called Escape from Cubicle Nation and which was named the best small business entrepreneur book of 2009 from 800 CEO Reed. So that's amazing and her follow-up book was called the body of work or body of work and both books were published by Penguin Portfolio. So that's impressive the traditional publisher. A couple years ago, 2016, Pam launched the Main Street Learning Lab in Mesa, Arizona, which is a grassroots community based think tank for small business economic acceleration. So that's amazing and I will put the links to Pam's website and the Main Street Learning Lab and her books in the notes of this video. So Pam, again, welcome and thank you for doing this interview. Thanks so much for having me and it's funny that you're right. 2005 is when I started Escape from Cubicle Nation, but I also actually went in business in 1996. So it's been 23 years.  That's why I was going to say at least 2005, which is amazing. It's so great to get your kind of your tidbits of wisdom from from helping small businesses to larger businesses. So I want to ask you about, well, let's, you know, I want to ask you first about the Main Street Learning Lab because that's where you are situated right now and it's such a creative space. So community building and small business, tell us a bit about the intersection of that. Yeah, well, I feel like I've come home literally and figuratively in opening up with my husband, the Main Street Learning Lab. I believe it or not was a community development major in college. So my degree in college, like who actually does what their degree in college was? My degree in college was nonformal adult education in Latin America. I lived in Mexico and Colombia in Brazil and in college. And the focus was really in looking at economic development from a grassroots community driven perspective. Definitely not the top down large agency model, but really looking at the power and wisdom that exists within communities for making social change. And especially for communities that have been really impacted by inequity, by unjust systems, etc. And so the journey for me has been a really interesting one of at first spending about the first 10 years of my business doing work for large companies. So I was a consultant to large companies, always on the human side of business, which I really loved. It was so fascinating to get to be inside a lot of bigger companies. And that was the stage of my business where I did building, create a lot of programs for companies like Charles Schwab or Hewlett Packard. So it's really great experience of just getting in there and understanding how to sell into corporate and what people needed.  And then in starting my entrepreneurial journey of really starting Escape from Cubicle Nation, which began as a blog and turned into a book of working with a lot of people. I really built a very large virtual community, which is pretty wonderful and amazing. Just through the magic of the internet, through blogs, through Facebook, a lot of the social media that didn't even exist when I first started my blog. That was a really beautiful process of engaging people. And what really brought us to the place of then opening up a space in our own community was in 2015, I did a 23 city tour in the US, places I had visited before in prior book tours. And we went to Vancouver in Canada. And I was teaching community building skills for entrepreneurs. I called it the Unbook Tour with sort of a wink to my friend Scott Stratton from Unmarketing, where I was doing the tour and really shopping the model that I was thinking about building my next book on, which I'm still finishing the proposal for. But it was really the idea to see what were the ideas that people resonated with when it came to the model that I had learned all the way back in college and practiced in person and practiced in a virtual environment. And the very first class that we kicked off in Berkeley, California, I asked the question, how many people there had ever seen a Native American business presenter as a business expert at a conference, not as somebody who's doing a blessing, which is wonderful and my husband's a traditional medicine person. And that's a very beautiful thing or as entertainment, which is also very wonderful. A lot of folks might have a where you go to a place where there's cultural entertainment. So they're beautiful things to do in and of themselves. But very often that is the extent of the representation of Native people within a business context. So I had asked people specifically, how many of you seen an expert that happened to be Native American presenting? And I asked that same question in every single city. And after 23 cities, there was a sum total of seven people and four of those were in Vancouver, Canada. So three people in 23 cities in the United States had ever seen that. And as parents of Native American children, it really was concerning because I think it's so important for all of our kids or nieces and nephews and everybody in our community that comes from their own identity in their own background, where they can see themselves represented in positions of leadership and authority. And what we realize is it's not because there's a shortage of amazing expert business professionals that are Native American. It's that there is just no connection. There's all kinds of deep historical context for that of just a policy of invisibility within this country as part of a way to kind of erase that history. And so that's where my husband and I realized we wanted to do something specifically in our community that's not historically been known as a very friendly place for folks of color to specifically highlight the leadership of leaders in our community that are already doing great work. And with that intention and with a very open mind to see what needed to take shape, that's what we opened three years ago. That is so amazing. Wow. It's interesting about Vancouver. I mean, I guess Canada has more connection and respect to the First Nations, right? Like, it seems to me, anyway, whenever I'm talking to First Nations folks, some folks would agree. Some folks may not agree, but I think you're right that generally there might be more information on a consistent basis, more acknowledgement from government and so forth and more awareness. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. So now to this topic of body of work, a lot of people watching this, you know, people who follow my content know I always preach the idea of the importance of creating content and how that fuels our creativity and our business and our leadership sort of among our audience and our network. And so a lot of people have created content now, bringing it together into an asset. What's that overall process? So what is very common, and we were laughing before we started interviewing, because I very often have a case of the cobbler's children have no shoes. Because as a profession, I have always helped people to take their great ideas and information and package them in ways that can be sold. And very common for a lot of entrepreneurs to do something like write an ebook or create a class that you could be teaching in a live workshop or teach a virtual class, and then not really take that next step of putting it in a form in which it can be a workable asset for you so that you might have it for sale on your website or it might be something, let's say you're a speaker where you could sell a class that accompanies your keynote. So it's common that a lot of people aren't aware of the opportunities that come from really packaging your IP or intellectual property in a way that you could sell it, but also really thinking about it as a way to be very thoughtful and creative of how you help people make the change that you want them to make through your IP. So for example, in all the years that I wrote my blog Escape from Cubicle Nation and worked with people who were leaving corporate to start a business, really my intention was to reduce any kind of risk and anxiety and misinformation that people would have in making that choice because it's such a serious choice. I take it very seriously as do my clients. I never suggest anybody just willy-nilly up and quits their job because you can put a lot at risk. So through everything that I did throughout the mainly 10 years or so in which I worked in that particular market, all of the podcasts that I created and blog posts and all of that workshops, classes I did a class for Creative Live that was a three-day workshop on Escape from Cubicle Nation, all of that is intellectual property that can be used in different ways. And in fact, the early days of the blog are I ended up being utilized in my book because my publisher actually found me through my podcast initially and then my blog. And it was through that process when I was writing the book that I was able to leverage a lot of things I had already written about on the blog before. So the first step I think is just realizing that when you have knowledge for some people, it's just a whole bunch of information they might have in their head. There could be a really wise consultant where you give advice to people every day. So some people have that in their head and the first step is getting it out on paper. For other people, you do have a lot of intellectual property that's contained in some different formats. And in that case, it becomes a way of thinking about how do you want that IP to be working for your business and how do you want it to be working for the people who you want to impact with that information? Yeah, this is great. So maybe the concerns some people might have as well, if I turn this into, you know, package it together, what if I'm one concern I can imagine is like what if I change it because what if, you know, it's still in process. So kind of this fear of putting it out there as a body of work. How do you, how might you assuage that concern? I think it depends on what it is. In the case of books, absolutely, when I go back and I read certain chapters of books that I've written, I think, oh, boy, I sure would approach it differently because now I've worked with people and I might have a little different perspective or give different advice. Some parts of our IP are going to be final snapshots in time where that is the way that there has been a vetted process to make sure there's a there's a coherent way in which your work fits together. And sometimes there's something like an updated edition of a book. So what color is your parachute, which I know was the career book I used. I don't know, 30 years ago every year, every single year is updated. Other times, a guy Kawasaki just came out recently, maybe a year or so ago with an updated version of The Art of the Star, which was a classic entrepreneurial book, which then he updated. So there can be things like that, even with what feel like finite assets like books. In other cases, when you are the person managing it in your business, you always have the ability to be refreshing. So let's say that somebody purchases a program that you have that's an online program where you learn new things or want to edit or update. You can update that information and then the people who have purchased, if you so choose within the agreement, could also receive the updated versions. It's also something that people do a lot in something like a membership type of a model where part of what people might be paying for continually are new and additional insights and updates. That makes a lot of sense. Yes. And so when people, so let's run through a couple of, so we got the books as a possibility. We've got sort of an online course as a possibility. We've got that membership model as a possibility. Do you recommend people start with one or another? Is there a pathway? I think it really depends on who your audience is and what is the best way in which they want to get access to the information, paired with your budget. And then sometimes your own expertise and resources and getting certain things done. For example, I know a lot of people who are really super smart and they hate to write like writing is just not their jam. So where you have the resources to hire somebody to do the writing for you, that's fantastic. Otherwise, those same people might be really great on video. And so maybe they, I know you use video a lot because you love it. It's a medium that works for you. It's highly flexible and your audience relates to it. So that can make a lot of sense to create something like a video course. And we've seen that a lot within the world of internet marketing where a lot of materials are put together in videos. When I put on my snobby instructional designer hat, that's where I love to make a discernment between a choice that's made about the instructional means or the format that you do your course materials. That's just because it's the way that you like to do it versus who is your audience? What's the best way for them to learn? What's the best way to teach this material? There could be certain things. Let's say you're trying to teach me how to use a create an Excel pivot table or something like that. If you're just on video explaining it to me with words like this, that probably would be would be really hard for me to conceptualize. And in that case, I might need to see a different type of a format of you doing a screen flow of actually walking through the steps or who knows exactly what the components would be. So I always like to think about this intersection between what it is that you really feel is the best format for folks to learn it from. And then what are the things that you're resourced and you're comfortable doing? And that can be something that iterates through time because we do see format a lot now in IP in the form of apps. A lot of people who have more resources can be building apps, especially I think for things that might be a little bit more behaviorally based. So where you're trying to get somebody to do something in their business to be more mindful or more essential or whatever it could be, sometimes having an app for such thing is really a supportive thing. But it's a little bit more expensive to create. That's really good to know that it's not just information, but it's really about behavior change. And I like that a lot. And so how do you work with people on doing this? What's your process? So I love to figure out, asking some of those fundamental questions, where somebody is, where their IP is. So there's somebody like Susan Cain, who you mentioned that I work with, who's such a joy, just brilliant, amazing person who wrote an incredible book and one of the top 10 talks of all time, which I think is incredible. For those who don't remember, she's very well known for her TED talk on introversion basically. The power of introverts. The power of introverts, yes. And she wrote the book Quiet, which you helped. So yes. Yeah. So it's like something like that. Obviously, Susan put so many years of time and energy and resource into creating an exceptional body of part of her body of work and IP that that became leverage for not just me, but an entire team of people where we begin to really grow that in a number of different ways. And in that case, it was who are the different audiences. So there was a corporate audience where we created the Quiet Leadership Institute, which were materials about how it is that you lead introverts and extroverts effectively in a work environment, knowing we have a lot of extrovert bias in the way that people generally are raised in corporations. You know, not having an understanding of how introverts may need some more time to reflect and think before responding, etc. So that was one format is actually creating materials. We actually, our pilot test was at NASA. So no pressure for that. We literally were testing our first materials with rocket scientists at NASA. So that was, yes, that was a bit of a professional heat flash right there, no pun intended. And then so, you know, that can be a case where there's a particular use for a market. There was also another project that came out of that, the Quiet Leader, the Quiet Revolution project, which was actually office furniture. So there was a partnership with Steelcase where they created what are called Quiet Spaces, which were spaces specifically designed to really be effective for introverts. So in working with somebody, that was a case of amazing IP, a resource project in which a lot of creative things could happen. More frequently, it could be something like a project I'm working on right now with my friend Jonathan Fields, if any of you are aware of his Good Life podcast, it's amazing. And he has this really cool tool called the Sparketype, which is a free assessment you can take to understand your particular approach to work, what would be work that would really light you up. And so we approach that with creating a certification for that tool. Again, looking at the audience, looking at how to set learning objectives, what do they need to know, how would they be using that assessment? What's the best way to teach it? What's information that they need to have in order to be well-versed in the tool so they can support their clients and understanding it? And then it becomes once you do that initial audience definition and you define what needs to what need to be the concrete outputs, then you go through the actual instructional design process, which is tried and true. And it's really fun where in this case, it'll be a live certification training. So we're designing the days of certification and then the assets that go along to support that, including things like sales page and all that, which thankfully Jonathan is a masterful copywriter. Which is not my area of expertise. Very often people will use resources like marketing folks to be doing the sales assets related to those things. That's amazing. It's so great to kind of hear about all the possible ways to use the body of work. So thank you for kind of giving these examples. So somebody watching this and saying, wow, this is interesting. What's the next step to take? Or how do we learn more? I think the first thing is just for you, if you're pondering first asking the question that what is my, what is my IP? What are there specific things that are methods or workshops or classes that I teach on a regular basis that may have some legs beyond the way that I'm currently using them? Maybe you are an advisor, let's say you do strategic planning or something as a service. You can really look and say, is there something here that I feel is really unique to my method and what I put together? And so from that, the first step is always just codifying it, really getting it down clearly so that you understand it, which generally helps your practice as a service provider and a consultant. But from there, then you can start to look at what would be ways that I want to leverage it. And for people who are at that stage with me, it's generally sitting down, having a conversation, reviewing, doing an audit of what are the different assets that they have, and then figuring out what makes the most sense in terms of putting a plan together and actually building things. Awesome. That sounds great. So I will have links, of course, to your website so people can follow up with you there. And thank you so much for sharing your wisdom with us. Thanks for having me, George. It's been a pleasure. Yeah, it's been fun.


Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem. Alhamdulillahi Rabbil Alameen. Wa Salatu wa Salam ala as-sharafi al-anbiyaa wal mursaleen. Sayyidina Muhammad wa ala alihi wa sahbihi ajma'in. Allahumma al-lamna ma yinfa'una wa infa'na bima al-lamtana wa zidna al-man. We've been talking about the nafs. Today we go back to talking about the nafs. So we discussed in previous sessions that the nafs goes through stages. So al-nafs al-ammara, then al-nafs al-lawama, then al-nafs al-muthma inna. We've been talking about al-nafs al-ammara. So the nafs that drives us to unhealthy behaviors. Now we move on to talking about the next stage, which is al-nafs al-lawama. So first there is a stage where we recognize that our nafs is driving us to behaviors that are unhealthy. Then there's a stage where we become more and more aware of that and we start to censure that nafs. We start to push back. The nafs al-ammara is pushing us one way, the nafs al-lawama pushes back and then eventually we achieve balance and the nafs al-muthma inna. So al-nafs al-lawama, the first point I wanna make is that there's a sense of intensity, mubalagha in al-nafs al-lawama and al-nafs al-ammara. This isn't just that the nafs al-ammara drives us to unhealthy choices once and the nafs al-lawama drives back once. It's that the word al-nafs al-ammara has in it this idea of intensity, that there's this repeated drive. So in order to match that intensity, the nafs al-lawama has to have the same amount of intensity and more perhaps to push back. So when we think about these tools that we set out to learn, it's important to recognize the nafs al-ammara, its tricks, its intensity, become aware of them and then meet it with the same intensity. So if we try some of these tools and they help but not enough, that's a great sign. It's a signal that we need to add more tools or we need to master those tools in order to hit back. The general rule with behaviors, strong habits and addictive behaviors is that the strength of your treatment and intervention and pushback needs to meet the intensity of your addictive behavior. And once you reach that threshold, it's a number, it's a graph, once you meet that threshold, then that's when you start to get traction. And the sooner you can get to that, the better. So two things that can really help with that is number one, being convinced that the tools that you use work. So being convinced that the tools that you use work. And when you are able to understand the tools, perhaps see other people use those tools and be successful with them and then maybe understand the science behind the tools. Like see that they've been studied in large populations and shown to be effective. That can really give us the confidence to then go ahead and implement those tools effectively as opposed to sitting in this great area of, does this really work? Is this gonna work so on and so forth? So number one, having that belief in the tool and then number two, having the belief in ourselves that we can change. So studies repeatedly show in laboratory animals and humans that when people have a belief in themselves as they can change, that's one of the number one predictors of success. So your belief in your ability to change is one of the number one predictors of success. So again, matching the nafs al-amara that drive within us to unhealthy behaviors with the similar strength of intensity of treatment and then just getting to work with it. If it's not here, then we move it up here. It's not here, we move it up here. Through trial and error process until we get there and then not falling for the pitfall of does this really work or not? By the way, what we're learning here, it's not a way, it's a set of tools. And what you wanna do is use those tools that work for you and stay open to tools that perhaps don't work for you. Maybe it's just a matter of mastering them. And then also there'll be tools outside of here that we learn in other places as well that we can go ahead and implement. And so putting all of these things together are important to increase our chances of success. So we talked about in the past, how do we push back the nafs al-amara? So we talked about Imam al-Ghazali. He talked about the nafs that's arrogant and wild with arrogance and out of control with arrogance. So we won't rehash that, but a point I wanna make with that is when we talked about that Imam al-Ghazali, when he talks about how to push back on the nafs, he talks about it with several different strategies. So he takes this nafs al-amara and he has a intensity of strategies that he uses in order for us to then push back on that. And you can divide and he uses the akal. So the nafs al-amara is a drive within us and then we use our akal to push back and censure that drive and push back. So we talked about how Imam al-Ghazali says that the person that is nafs is out of control with arrogance. It's because they see themselves as better than others and it's because of this belief that they're better than others because of certain things about themselves. So now you can break up this behavior into three things. There's a trigger, there's a thought that arises and then you put that thought on trial. So number one, Imam al-Ghazali talks about how a person they can go into certain environments where they see other people that they generally believe to be themselves to be better than. So they see somebody younger than them and they see that, by the way, this is in Bida'at al-Hidayah. They see that person as younger than them and they find a way to feel better than them. Then they see somebody older than them and they're triggered and they find a way to see themselves as better than that person, so on and so forth.  And then there's the trial, there's putting those thoughts on trial. So then what Imam al-Ghazali says is, I'm paraphrasing it, but he's essentially saying, put those thoughts on trial. When you see that younger person, are you better than them because they're younger than you or has this person, or is it the opposite? Has this person had enough time to sin as you have or as we have? When you see somebody older than you, are you better than that person? Hasn't this person been able to worship a lot longer than you?  There's other thoughts that you can come up to put that thought on trial. Somebody less knowledgeable than you, that person sins and they're not aware of it, whereas we sin and we're aware of it, and then so on and so forth. So much content on how to push back on this one thought of I'm better than others. One thought of I'm better than others and so many different, so much ammunition given to how we can put that thought on trial. So point number one is this idea exists within our tradition of recognizing certain situations, number two, recognizing certain thoughts, and then number three, putting those thoughts on trial and pushing back. Point number two is that the intensity of pushing back on that enough needs to be as strong as the intensity of that enough pushing back on us. And with that, we'll go into the text on chapter six. It talks about how we've come to a point where we've looked at our triggers. We've looked at different thoughts or red flag thoughts that these triggers come up with a result in. And then we've taken a look at some errors in thinking that make us prone to want to engage in our addictive behavior. So triggers, thoughts, and those thinking lead to our addictive behavior. Now that we thoroughly understand this concept, again, because we don't wanna think about this in a superficial way, like it's some sort of intellectual, stimulating thing, we wanna look at this like we need to master this in order to really overcome these problems that sort of aren't going away despite our best efforts. So now that we've thoroughly understand how this works, how triggers convert to cravings or urges, now it's time to develop a toolbox of skills that will enable us to get through the cravings and the urges to engage in this addictive behavior or any behavior that we're dealing with. This is the time, like we are in a dopamine rich environment. It's not, do you have an addiction? It's what addiction do you have? This is the time where there's digital addictions, there's chemical addictions, and it's less about like, is this pertinent to us? It's more about have we reached a stage where we're aware that this is pertinent to us. As we practice these new skills, you wanna pay attention to which ones are most useful to you. So you don't wanna focus on one that just seems really foreign or odd or bizarre or just kind of not in line with something we're used to. And then miss a bunch of skills that you may be open to. So, and you wanna practice and see which ones kind of like fit with me or which ones are the low hanging fruit that I can start implementing. Implement those and start implementing them now and really building up your skills with it. And try to stay curious about the other ones. From this chapter forward based on our observations and reflections about our experiences trying out these different techniques, from this chapter forward, we'll start creating our own customized plan for our own addictive behaviors. So we've talked about our addictive brain, our nafs al-amara, and how in strategies we can use to defeat it, specifically by making our rational brain stronger, specifically by training our akhal. The red flag thoughts that we've identified in previous sessions are byproducts of that nafs al-amara, that addicted brain that drive within us. This is the part of us that finds ways to justify going back to our addictive behavior, to feed those uncomfortable urges. With practice though, we can censure these thoughts. We can challenge these thoughts and we can outsmart our lower addicted brain. We can outsmart our nafs al-amara. When you do that, when we repeatedly outsmart it, our rational minds start to become the new normal. Like basketball, you can dribble with your right hand. If you're right-handed, it comes easy. Dribbling with your left hand, a little bit harder. Soccer kicking, if you're right-handed, maybe kicking with your right foot, your dominant foot is easier. Kicking with your left foot is harder. Same thing with any sport or writing. Writing with your right hand, if your right hand dominant is easier than writing with your left hand. Now, let's say you are in a situation where you now are a professional soccer player or a professional basketball player. You no longer have the luxury of just using what you're comfortable with naturally.  Same thing with addiction. We have ways of thinking that are comfortable for us, but now it's important to develop new ways of thinking. And as we develop those new ways of thinking, it's gonna feel abnormal, bizarre at first. Just like writing with your non-dominant hand or dribbling or kicking with your non-dominant limb. But after a while, after you go through that process of struggling, then it becomes normal because now you've wired your brain and it operates in the same way you check out and can dribble with your dominant hand, now you can check out and dribble with your left hand. And that's where we go from nafs al-amara to nafs al-awama to nafs al-muthma inna, where now we have this tranquil, balanced self, which is able to regulate itself automatically. So there's this period where we have to train, challenge, do things, step out of our comfort zone and just do it essentially until it becomes normal. And that's what fake it till you make it comes in. You'll hear in the rooms of recovery. Not that you're being inauthentic, what you're doing is you're going through the motions. And although it doesn't feel real, you keep going through those motions until it becomes real. So if it's abnormal for you to think about your emotions or talk about your emotions or talk about your thoughts or do the psychological stuff, it's a lot of times we come to this simply because we're sick and tired of our old ways and sick and tired of being sick and tired and we're just ready to try something, not necessarily because we're eager to rush into these new ways of doing things. So once we're able to just go through the motions, then they start to become a normal part of us. Same thing with re-engaging in the Dean. A lot of times we start coming around the circles of knowledge, the circles of remembrance, coming to the mustard. And part of us feels like, do I even belong here? Am I an imposter? If people figure me out, then they'll run me out of here. And a lot of that is simply just doing things that we haven't perhaps been accustomed to for a while. And if we can just get over that and fake it till we make it or just put ourselves in those places, amazing things can happen, amazing things can happen. So now we're on the subsection of thought challenging. As you learn to outsmart your addicted brain, the most powerful cognitive technique you will use is the skill of thought challenging. Like you have this red flag thought that's pushing you to do something that you don't wanna do, then you challenge that with another thought that's thought challenging. This doesn't just apply to overcoming addiction or cravings. It applies to coping with other problems that stem from irrational thoughts like depression, anxiety, emotional difficulties. You learn to understand and change your behavior by being scientific, being logical, being real and sticking to the facts. What does that mean exactly? It means a few things. Number one, to become scientific, you need to practice observing yourself. Any scientist makes observations and they'll even note these observations down. Every scientist has a method to observe the phenomena that they're studying and note it down. This is what changed on this day. This is what changed on that day. This is what changed on another day. So to become scientific, you need to practice observing yourself, monitoring your thoughts and cravings because this is the phenomena that's interesting to us. What is this bizarre thing where I wanna stop but I can't? So we get curious about it and the first step is to observe it, track it, monitor it and learn about it. So number one, observing yourself. Number two, to become scientific, you need to practice questioning whether your thoughts are rational, especially those that are related to our addictive behavior. Thought challenging is the process of questioning your thoughts about your addictive behavior. By asking yourself, do I have evidence that they're true? Finally, the third point, after you've questioned the evidence for your thoughts, if you find that you don't have evidence to support what you're thinking, then you will identify more rational, evidence-based ideas you can tell yourself instead. These new healthy and balanced thoughts will help you make the behavior changes you set out to accomplish in your plan to change. Okay, so let's just, all this theoretical stuff, let's put it to an example and then we'll wrap up in cello. So imagine a person, they have a strong urge to engage in their addictive behavior. The first skill that the employee is on a scale from zero to 10, they rate their craving and they rate it as a seven. They think about it and they realize that it's related to the environment that they're in. So now they're in an environment that usually triggers their addictive behavior and now they've made that connection that this environment leads to a seven on the craving scale. Now that person can try thought challenging by following three steps. Number one, you can think of this as the three T's. Number one, the triggering situation, identifying the triggering situation. Number two, the thoughts. Identify those thoughts that are being produced about the drinking or the using or the pornography or the food addiction or the digital addiction. Identify the thoughts that are pushing you back to the addictive behavior. What is the nafs al amara? How is that driving us? Number three, put those thoughts on trial. Put those thoughts on trial. So number one, this person was in a triggering situation. So the first T triggering situation. Number two, what are the thoughts that are coming that are driving that person? Let's say this person says, if I just engage in my addictive behavior once, it's no big deal. I can control it. Then number three, they put this thought on trial. They examine the evidence for them. So here's some questions to figure out whether the nafs al amara that's driving this, if they're rational. So to figure out if it's the nafs al amara that's driving these thoughts or if they're rational thoughts. And then the honest answers that you come up with. So for example, putting the thought on trial and examining the evidence. Number one, is one time okay? The facts. Yes, one time engaging in your addictive behavior is not gonna be completely destructive. Number two, can I control my addictive behavior enough to stop after one time engaging in that behavior? The facts. It's been too long to even remember the last time I stopped after engaging once in my addictive behavior. So the likelihood of that is extremely low. And what they find out, what this person finds out is the idea that they could have just one time with their addictive behavior is exactly the kind of thought that the addicted brain produces to feed that urge to engage in their addictive behavior. Okay, so now they put it on trial that this thought is coming from a nafs al amara that the addicted irrational brain. So now we know this is an irrational thought. We all experienced these irrational thoughts whether they're about the addictive behavior or something else. The important question that follows is how can you respond to the thought? When you respond, your goal is to get your mind back on track to get that nafs back on track, to line it back up with your values and your goals. And of course, with reality, reality short-term, reality long-term. And the way you do that is by challenging those thoughts. So you can use an arsenal of thought challenges like for example, number one, for me in the past, this way of thinking has led me straight to a full-blown relapse into my addictive behavior. So one time engaging my addictive behavior is a big deal. Another thought is there is plenty of evidence that I practically never stop after one time engaging in my addictive behavior. And I'm not able to control myself once I start engaging in that behavior. And there's more, and inshallah, we'll go into more. But the important point is that you have to meet it with that same intensity. And just like Imam al-Ghazali gives us a whole slew of tools and thoughts that we can use to counteract the nafs al-amara. We have to build up a toolbox of thoughts and skills in order to counteract our nafs al-amara. So inshallah, with that we can start with questions. Then after questions, we'll go ahead and break up and do the check-ins, inshallah.


This week, I'm talking about Enceladus! I love Enceladus! Enceladus is awesome! Enceladus, if you didn't know, is a tiny moon of Saturn. In fact, it's so tiny, it's only around 500 kilometers in diameter, so. But what makes Enceladus really cool is that it hosts a subsurface ocean, sandwiched between ice and its rocky core. No offense to all the other celestial bodies that I love in our solar system, but to me, Enceladus is the most beautiful object in our solar system. Its icy surface makes it the most reflective surface in the entire solar system. If that wasn't enough, it has these beautiful plumes of icy vapors and icy materials that are erupting from its south pole. These plumes were captured by the Cassini spacecraft in 2005, so we've actually only known of them for about 10 years or so, which in spacetime terms is actually really short. But these erupting icy plumes are not just beautiful, they're actually also quite utilitarian. They contain organic carbon and nitrogen, which could be really useful for life. What also makes Enceladus so incredibly beautiful is it has these amazing tiger stripes across its surface. And these tiger stripes actually correspond with the 101 geysers that have been discovered coming out from Enceladus. These tiger stripes also correspond with increased heat readings. So the increased heat readings in the geysers actually lead people to believe right now that there actually might be hydrothermal vents on Enceladus, which is incredibly cool. And again, incredibly useful for life because life actually wouldn't be able to get much sunlight being buried underneath all those layers of ice. And so it would need to get energy from somewhere, and it could actually get energy from those hydrothermal vents, quite useful. While detecting life anywhere in the solar system is going to be an amazing life-altering event if and when it happens anywhere in the solar system, detecting life on Enceladus actually comes with a few added perks. One of these perks is if we were able to actually discover life on Enceladus, it has a higher probability of being completely separately created from Earth. Earth and other planets exchange materials throughout time. And actually because Saturn is so far away from Earth, Earth actually exchanges less materials with Saturn. In fact, there's a six-time less probability of Earth exchanging materials with Saturn than it is with exchanging with Jupiter. Because of this, if we were able to detect life on Enceladus, there is that much higher probability that the life was created completely separate of Earth.  Just thinking about that as a possibility is amazing. Discovering a second genesis of life would have a profound effect on understanding life as we know it. Some people, though, are critical of the ability for us to find life on Enceladus. Some people think that because the oceans haven't been around long enough that we might not be able to find life in those oceans. But other researchers have rightfully pointed out that we don't really understand enough about what it takes for life to evolve anywhere, no less even on Earth, to really be able to make assumptions about how much time is critically needed for life to emerge. Other people are critical of the pH balance of the oceans on Enceladus. The pH is estimated to be between 11 or 12. This is very similar, actually, to subglacial lakes in Antarctica or to Mono Lake in California. But despite Mono Lake having the same pH balance as approximately on Enceladus, actually, we're able to discover briny shrimp and microbes and all these other little tiny forms of life in it. So it's awesome to see forms of life here on Earth existing in similar extreme environments that exist on Enceladus. What's even more exciting is that we know more about Enceladus now than we do about a lot of other moons. And because of this, we have a better idea of how life could actually exist on Enceladus. So I would love to see spacecrafts being developed in the future or hopefully even right now that really try and tackle how we could detect life on Enceladus or perhaps do a sample return of the plumes that it's spitting out in order to be able to better understand how we could detect life on Enceladus. That's all from me this week. I hope you enjoyed. Remember to subscribe on YouTube, leave a comment, and remember to donate to the Patreon campaign to support space pods like this one.


What is going on guys welcome back to the channel critical overload here since I'm a screen 5 again So we got two new clips today from the film also in one of the clips David Arquette's character Dewey was going over the rules with the new group of characters the two that we saw during this clip was Sam and Richie, I'm assuming that West was also in this scenes at some point in time I might be wrong, but the rules that he went over I'd have seen some people going back and forth over one specific rule But the rules essentially that he went over about surviving whatever is going to transpire in this upcoming film was Routed in the trends that have happened over the past for movies Which I kind of liked because there's not really I would say a set specific group of rules You could talk talk about at this stage because of how much more Horror as a genre is just thriving and growing and it's not just dominated by your your Michaels And your your Jason's and Freddy's it's it's so much more than that at this point. You have many different Methods of how horror is being explored other than the typical slasher route that we all know We're kind of just the basis for most of the rules that we saw in the original film And at least from how I would perceive perceive it based on how horror was at the time when scream came out in the 90s So he's going over these rules and the rules that he went over started with the first one He said don't ever trust your love interests again That's a callback to the original film and then maybe slightly scream to even though Derek wasn't the killer there Also slightly scream three I guess because the little romance that was kind of starting to blossom between Sydney and Mark and Kate even though he wasn't the killer either and Then the second rule that he went over was that the killer's motive is always someone tied Is always about something tied to the past The third one that got people or some people I saw kind of saying that's not entirely true Which it's not was that you know the first victim is always a part of a group of friends that the killer's a part of or that the killer's always a part of a group of friends related to the Origin of the first victim now. That's not always true in the sense of I guess if you're going through the films and Casey and Steve They were indeed part of that group in the sense that the Casey dated stew So that's where that's where that connection came in because who knows who knows what the dynamic was like when she was dating stew she could have been interacting with Sydney and Randy and maybe Tatum I guess to While they were dating and then of course when they broke up she just stopped interacting with them and then For screen to I mean we really didn't find out anything about Marine and Phil at that start of that movie as far as like who they were tied to we know They went to Windsor College bound I don't recall us ever finding out they had this group of friends They were part of but it's I guess you could say it was assumed and just implied by all of us And then for screen three cotton He had a cast that he was connected to the cast of staff three I don't know what we will call that a group of a group of friends But you know if you're getting technical about it all and going down the list Of course, you'll start to pick apart that last rule that do we listed? But it has as I was perceiving it was he was just generalizing Again the trend of what has been happening previously in the last movies while it's not entirely true There is some truth to be found in it still screen for Jenny and Marnie I Felt like they were kind of just outcast They did not have anything to do with the main group of teens that we were dealing with in screen for so I would say that's probably the one movie where I would say That just seemed like a big no-no Two three and one or one two and three. I think the rule that do we went over at the end of the clip? Would just be more fitting For those movies in a way because again, it's still not entirely true But the fourth movie absolutely not they did not they did not come across attached to anyone They seem like they were just kind of just Not important when when people find out about them. It's kind of like okay. Do you did you guys? Know these two girls other than just of course going to school with them They just seem unimportant compared to everyone else They didn't seem like they had any connections to anyone outside of just being students in the hallways and I guess classmates in the hallways I meant to say I guess I'll give Jenny some credit since she indeed was the one that broke up Trevor and Jill which is what ultimately got her killed at the opening of screen for her So I guess that is her relevance to everyone but outside of that they seem like they didn't have any ties That was just a girl that Trevor decided to get on Jill with and then that's that's their history as far as like everyone else involved is screen for so Jumping into this image with Dewey and Gale So we see that they are it looks like it's gonna have an interaction of course at some point in the film This was broken this morning or released this morning Along with the other two clips that came out and we see that this looks like they're at a crime scene They're probably bickering about the marriage that they had and how that came crumbling down and going over what didn't work What what did work and do we probably bickering it Gale about how she's back on her BS and Thriving and profiting off of the demise and misfortunes of others and how she has this talk show that's so Successful and he's probably jealous. I'm pretty sure that's just something that's going on Bickering about that in the background of that image you could see like someone getting stretch it out I have seen people speculate on who that is you guys can continue to do that down in the comment section if you would like to but as far as just like their relationship and How I think that's gonna be in this film It seems like it's just gonna be very much more on par with the first second and third entry and not this Of course, I'm by your side till the end that we got with screen for since at that point time They were married. They're very much so gonna be on that back and forth off and on type of vibe energy that we got in the original trilogy Which I guess will be nice to see again Not for some of us, but but not for all of us I meant to say but some of us who enjoyed that energy the way they played off of each other Just because David and Courtney also they just have great chemistry when they were on when they were sharing the screen And their respective roles and I'm sure they're gonna knock it out of the park again in this new entry But as far as like those rules again, I know people were honing in on the rules and how you know, it's not exactly true I hear where you're coming from But there are some truths to it in some degree if you decide to break it down some other way how I looked at I just chalk it up to them writing it in a matter of do we just generalizing his memories over the course of so many years because again The rules he's going over that last third rule about The friend group, you know those weren't his friends or anything and that so many years ago He's getting up in age. I'm just gonna chalk it up to that and he's just giving a generalization of the Memories that are slowly leaving his mind or slowly becoming jumbled with with age and time and just as things are passing You know, you're living with the more current thing going on You're not gonna break down all the things of the previous killings exactly But I know where you're coming from when you're saying that that last rule that he disclosed doesn't make complete sense And why it might not be true. There's some truth in it But let me know what you guys think about this down in the comment section below if you haven't already, of course Make sure you go ahead and subscribe turn on post notification I never miss a video in the description I have links to my social media accounts. I'm on Facebook Twitter and Instagram You can message me there of course to let me know if there's any movies news or views you'd like me to cover in the feature And with all that in mind guys, I will see you in the next video


Nulius in Verba is the motto of the British Royal Society. It means, roughly, take no one's word for it. Always check for yourself. This is still the motto of the British Royal Society, and it has been for centuries. It expresses a certain kind of receiver virtue. A receiver virtue that's related to skepticism against authority, against the testimony of others. It's a receiver virtue that involves being curious for oneself, being intellectually autonomous and courageous, not being willing to take someone else's word for something, but always insisting on checking oneself. And this is a very important part of what it means to be a good scientist. Not to just receive the authority of others, but to always engage in empirical inquiry and observation. However, in recent years and decades, there's become a problem with this sort of attitude about scientific inquiry. You see here a headline from the journal Nature, which says that a physics paper recently set a record with more than 5,000 authors credited, some of them deceased. This paper was published by researchers at the CERN Large Hadron Collider, and the Large Hadron Collider is such a huge operation that no single person could possibly operate it either in practical terms or in terms of expertise. There's just far too much going on for a single person to be able to take no one's word for how the thing works. And this relates to what in philosophy of science is known as the problem of underdetermination. We might have this idea, in fact we do have this idea, that what science does is it articulates theories that make empirical predictions and then we check those predictions. If the predictions are true, we hold on to the theory at least for now, but if the predictions are false, we have to reject the theory. The thing is that that's not exactly how it works. You might think that whenever your prediction doesn't come true, as a scientist you have to be responsible and reject the theory, but actually a theory on its own never makes predictions. Only a theory combined with a methodology and some background assumptions makes empirical predictions. And that means that when an empirical prediction turns out to be false, you don't have to reject the theory. You might instead say that there was something wrong with the methodology or with the background assumptions. Here's another headline about the Large Hadron Collider. It reports that a weasel caused it to shut down when the weasel tunneled into some of the electrical equipment that was involved with running the Large Hadron Collider, which is located near Geneva in the Swiss Alps. So if an observation were being made when this weasel came through and the empirical prediction that the theory combined with the methodological and background assumptions made turned out not to be true, we might say that the scientists were quite reasonable in saying, well, we're going to hold on to our theory for now because we have a good reason to say that there was something wrong with the methodology, namely the Large Hadron Collider wasn't working as it was expected to because there was a weasel that got involved. Instead, scientists can always say that there's something wrong with the background assumptions. They might say that there was an earthquake going on or they might say that there was a lunar eclipse or a solar eclipse and that this somehow had an effect on the observation that was being made. What this indicates though is that one can always say that the theory is true even in the face of literally any empirical observation as long as one comes up with a way of modifying the methodology and the background assumptions that makes the conjunction of the theory methodology and background assumptions consistent with the empirical observation. And that suggests that there must be some kind of epistemic virtues probably to do with communication and collaboration that help us decide what to do in which case. Otherwise, science becomes indistinguishable from faith. So this means that in addition to the virtues of intellectual autonomy and curiosity that I mentioned before, collaborations in science need the virtues of trust, intellectual humility, intellectual courage but of a different sort that allows oneself to be dependent on others and to trust them and intellectual perseverance to keep working even when one's empirical predictions turn out to be false.


Hey thanks to A.S. Mueller for the request on my Patreon page. Rock and Roll Racing is known primarily for two things. Number one is that it's one of the all-time great multiplayer combat racing games, rivaling stuff like Biker Mice from Mars and the Road Rash series on Sega Genesis. Hell, some people prefer this one to Super Mario Kart and I can't say I blame them. The second thing Rock and Roll Racing is known for is the soundtrack. Sure it might seem gimmicky at first glance to have a game featuring 16-bit versions of old rock songs like Black Sabbath's Paranoid, Steppenwolf's Born to Be Wild, Deep Purple's Highway Star, Bad to the Bone by George Thurrowgood, Radar Love by Green Earring and the Peter Gunn theme, otherwise known as the theme from Spy Hunter. But the thing is, they sound awesome here. Sure they're not exactly CD quality, but it is seriously such a kick to hear this stuff in this kind of setting, and it really makes the game stand out as something unique. Anyway, as far as gameplay goes, if you've played RC Pro Am for NES, then you'll get the idea behind Rock and Roll Racing, it controls basically the same, giving the player the same isometric viewpoint, and you race against three computer-controlled opponents or two if you're playing against another player.  I should mention though real quick, if you do get yourself blown up, you're not out of the race, you just get left behind with a considerable distance to make up. You earn money throughout each race by collecting it on the track, blowing up other cars, or, you know, winning a race. You use this money to upgrade your car, whether it be the engine tires, shocks, or shielding, and you can upgrade weapons or your turbo boosts. It's a bit like how Top Gear 2 is laid out, really. You can also, you know, buy a new car entirely if you want to upgrade everything. There's a point system here too, accumulate enough points by placing in enough races, and you can move on to the next circuit, and you have eight races to come up with the necessary number of points to move on, at least with the first circuit, and man, this game gets pretty tough the further you progress. There's not a battery save here, but there are passwords, so you don't have to beat the whole game in one sitting. I already mentioned how great the music is, but in addition to that, there's also an announcer that hopefully informs you how the race is progressing for your opponents. This guy is fantastic, and adds a lot of personality to the game. He reminds me of the NBA Jam guy, I love the summary he gives at the end of each race. Also, if you have enough points to get to the next circuit, but the second player doesn't, the announcer guy will ask, you want to leave your loser friend behind? Now that's funny. Rock and Roll Racing also got a release on the Sega Genesis, but I mean, the big appeal of this game is the music, and it just doesn't sound as good there. So while the game may play very similarly, the music doesn't sound nearly as good. Listen for yourself. The same could be said for the Game Boy Advance port. The gameplay is just about the same, the visuals are great, but the sound just isn't as good. There's also a quote-unquote sequel on the PlayStation, released in PAL regions as Rock and Roll Racing 2, Red asphalt, and just as Red asphalt here in North America. But I'm not even sure you can call this a sequel. It looks and plays like just another racing game, and it doesn't feature anything that made Rock and Roll Racing stand out. Anyway, yeah, Rock and Roll Racing absolutely lives up to the hype, and of course it's worth playing today. And remember a few weeks ago when I reviewed a game titled Operation Logic Bomb?  Well, Rock and Roll Racing is the complete opposite of that. Everything you need to know is right there in the title. There's Rock and Roll, there's Racing. And the result of the two is one of the very best multiplayer games on the Super Nintendo.


Hi friends, welcome back to my channel and a very special welcome. If you're new here, my name is Jen. I'm a certified weight loss and nutrition coach and it's Friday, so it's wing and day. I am officially just over two weeks post-op from plastic surgery. We know I had quite a big gain upon returning from plastic surgery, which of course is to be expected. But what has happened since then? So this is going to be an interesting way in.  Subscribe if you're not because I do a way in every Friday and I do upload five videos every single week. Don't forget to check out the description box down below where you will find nutrition coaching. I highly, highly recommend personalized macros and calories. This is how I've lost 140 pounds as well as one-on-one coaching. If you would like to chat with me directly, links, discounts to my favorite healthy things are also down in that description box. So let's talk about my week, my way in, and the WW workshop topic. Like I mentioned, I am just over two weeks post-op and let me just tell you, it feels like it's been two years. My friend Amy who had plastic surgery with me and I were just having this conversation today on how we feel like it has been a really, really long two weeks. I just have a feeling this is going to be a really, really long recovery overall because I have several more weeks, if not months before I am fully recovered. My back feels great. There's not a lot of pain with my back. There's a little bit of sensitivity on the incision line, but overall my back is the least of my worries. Where I have not pain but the most uncomfortable feeling is in my chest. There's still a lot of pressure in my chest. My implants are still sitting really, really high. So they feel like they're under my armpits a lot of the time right up at my collarbone and it feels like someone's on the inside just pushing as hard as they can on my skin which is absolutely normal. In fact, it can take months for your implants to drop into place. So this is just going to be my life for a while. So I've been definitely taking it easy. I find if I do too much or I carry too much weight, I'm not supposed to lift really more than a pound or two for a few weeks. I definitely get that really heavy sensation in my chest. Kind of the swelling and the the sign that I've overdone it. So I've been spending a lot of time just relaxing and just enjoying being at home. I actually hadn't left my house for over a week since I returned home. I wasn't able to drive for the first couple weeks post-op. So I spent a lot of time on the couch at home which was fine. I don't relax a lot as you guys know. I'm very busy. I'm very active. So this is definitely a change of pace for me, but it is something that is absolutely necessary for me to recover quickly and to get the best results from my plastic surgery. So it's definitely been a week. It's definitely been a really long week. I've been able to get back on track. I did do a grocery haul this last week and I have another one coming for you tomorrow where I just purchased food that was easy and convenient yet helped me get in my protein. I've been eating lots of fruits and vegetables, drinking lots of water, just trying to get back to normal so to speak when it comes to eating. And now that I have control over the food that I'm eating, it definitely makes that much, much easier. So basically just getting back to as normal as possible post-op. But before I share with you my weigh-in, let's chat a little bit about this week's WW workshop topic. It's another good one. And this is how to flip the script on self-doubt. We are 100% absolutely our worst critics. The things that we say to ourselves we probably would never say to a friend, family member, or loved one. So we need to learn how to flip that script and turn those negative thoughts, negative self-talk into positive self-talk which leads to positive results in our weight loss journey. Try this. Next time the worst case scenario enters the chat, call it out. There I go again thinking I can't do this. I'm going to fail. Pull a 180 with your thoughts and play out the alternative. If you don't fail, what's the best that could happen? What does success look like? Where does it take you? How do you feel and what are you doing? Zero in on the actions that made you successful. Meal prepping on the weekends, connecting with others at a workshop, going for a walk, most days before work. Then connect to here and now and the future. Of those actions, what's the one thing you're already doing and how can you keep it up? And what's something you can start doing and what will be your first step? You really just have to believe in yourself and you have to believe that you can succeed. And remember, it's not going to be sunshine and roses and unicorns all the time. There's a lot of ups and downs in a weight loss journey. Sometimes we're killing it. Sometimes we're not. And we have to give ourselves grace and know that we're not going to be perfect. As I always say, consistency over perfection is what actually leads to long-term sustainable weight loss. Start practicing what you're doing right. Start focusing on the things that you're doing right and the areas where you can make some improvements, talk to yourself and figure out what small steps you can take to improve. Really think more about the best case scenario versus the worst case scenario. If I do this, what happens here? That's best case versus if I do this, this is the worst case scenario. Spin that around, flip that script and make it a positive weight loss journey rather than a self-doubt negative self-criticizing weight loss journey. And as always, I want to share three fast facts from Weight Watchers with you.  This can make you jump to the worst possible conclusion without much evidence to back it up. Number two, as a result, you may doubt your ability to succeed, decreasing the chance that you'll even try. And number three, shifting your focus to the best case scenario can increase your confidence, allowing you to identify behaviors that help reach your goals. Again, focus on the things you do right and keep doing them. Don't focus on the little mistakes that you make, the fact that you went off track this last weekend, maybe the scale is not moving at the pace you want it to move. How about focusing on all the positive things that are changing? Maybe there's changes in your body, NSVs, non-scale victories, or maybe your relationship with food is getting better and better as the weeks go by. The more we focus on the positive, the more successful we're going to be. So I really like this whole series about how we talk to ourselves during our weight loss journey because mindset plays a big part in our success. Sure, food matters, exercise matters, water matters, all of that matters, but how we feel and how we talk to ourselves and our mindset maybe even matters a little bit more. So I'm really excited to see what weight, what Weight Watchers has in store for us for the next few weeks worth of this, how to take care of yourself, how to talk to yourself, better series. Now let's go ahead and jump into my weigh-in. Like I shared when I returned home from plastic surgery, I was up about five pounds and at the end of a week after returning home or just shy of a week, I was still up about 4.6 pounds. I also mentioned that I was on my cycle, so I'm sure that played a part in it. As I passed the two-week post-op mark, I still have a lot of swelling. I have swelling in my back, I have swelling everywhere. I'm not as SpongeBob-esque, but I still have quite a bit of swelling in my abdomen and I kept telling my husband, I have love handles and I don't have love handles. I just have some swelling in the love handle area and I typically don't have that, which is to be expected. I mean I'm only two weeks post-op and I have to keep reminding myself of that. But with that being said, the scale has steadily decreased all week, which I kind of expected as the swelling went down, as my cycle finished, as my body kind of starts getting back to normal. So when I stepped on the scale this morning, I am actually right back to where I was prior to going to plastic surgery, literally to the ounce. I'll go ahead and put up here on the screen how much I lost this week, my current weight, and how much I have lost total. So I'm basically right back to where I was prior to plastic surgery and that's really good news for me. Considering I do still have some swelling, I'm completely inactive.  I mean, I'm not wearing my Apple Watch, so I don't know how many steps I'm getting, but I bet you it's maybe two to three thousand per day. I'm not getting a lot of steps, which I can't be getting a lot of steps at this part of my recovery, but considering everything, I feel really good that the weight has come off. I'm right back to normal and I anticipate as the recovery process comes along, as I de-swell a little bit, I probably will continue to maybe lose a little bit of weight. My big concern is losing all of my lean muscle. I've talked about this a lot and I know that it's just not going to go away in a day, but weeks and weeks of not being active, there is bound to be a little bit of lean muscle loss, which is going to show up as weight loss on the scale, which is not the kind of weight loss that I'm interested in. So I'm really going to focus on doing my best to maybe maintain my weight rather than having it drop and as soon as I am clear to walk, which is pretty much the only exercise I'll be able to do for several weeks. It is summer here. It's beautiful here, so I plan on getting out and taking advantage of all of these walking trails in my community, but I'm just waiting for release from my surgeon, which I'm betting is probably going to be several weeks out. So considering everything, I'm really happy that I'm right back to where I was prior to going to surgery. And on a side note, they only removed about a pound, pound and a half of skin from my back and then I had implants put in. So the weight loss from surgery is probably null and it probably ends up balancing out between the skin on my back and the implant. So I wasn't expecting weight loss from surgery necessarily. So like I said, I feel pretty good about where I am and how things are progressing. I want to hear from you guys. How was your week? How was your weigh-in? What do you think about this flipping the script and turning negative thoughts into positive thoughts? And do you think that'll help you on your journey? Let me know everything down in the comments.  Subscribe if you're not because I do a weigh-in every Friday and I do upload five videos every single week. Don't forget to check out the description box for nutrition coaching, links and discounts to my favorite things, and of course come and join our Facebook group. We'd love to have you. Happy Friday, friends. Happy weekend and I'll see you in tomorrow's grocery haul. Bye.


Why I have chosen this topic for my research and for presentation, first of all thank you for the acceptance of my topic. Just a horse in Poland has a very long tradition and in present day it's a very important species. And we have really good knowledge about history of horse in Poland, more or less from late medieval time, of course, in the next ages to the present day. But we have a big gap in a very crucial historical stage of Poland, which is the beginning of this state. Just foundation of this state in early medieval time and we start more or less in 10th century. And when we look at for, when we explore just our common knowledge about horse, with combination of different kinds of records and data, we can construct own picture like this example with some main branches about significance of horse in the past and present day as well, just as a source of food, secondary use, and in the past magic and ritual animal. And some very important questions which are a matter of my interest, of course, emphasize with this red line and I will try to explore this in a special project. And this sentence is just taken from abstract book and in this way I would like to emphasize that we have some intuition about significance of horse in so early stage. However, the base for really knowledge is very, very shortage and is limited to some historical records which are described more or less between 10th and 13th century. And what we can know from this sentence is that horse was in everyday social space in nature and we can indicate commercial goods, we can indicate source of milk and of course some positive feature of country because horse are durable and it was a special emphasize to by Gal Anonymous which was chronicle of Piast dynasty, this which found the foundation of Poland. And another that sign of power because horse was not available for every society, every member of society. Of course, prince like Mieczko the first has 3000 amp and he gave them clothes, horses, weapons and everything they need. And of course we have very important and very difficult to solve with support of archeology sentence that white horse was available in those time in at least two regions of present day Poland, that is Pomerania region and Russia and there is no chance on the base of just archeological criteria to indicate in our sub-fossile collections this white horse. And we have some others sentences which strongly indicated horse significance in magic and rituals. There are doctors among them who ordered them to sacrifice the creator what they will them to woman, men or horses. And another that it was very important and extraordinary horse just we can say that we have some information about features of horse. There were extraordinary special choice for magic and rituals and we have information about color of coat here is black but we know that is sometimes mentioned white as well. And horse at the animal who forecast future in this sentence is expressed and this is all from historical records and what we can improve knowledge on the base of archeological records. This is not so easy because we collected during history of archeological research in Poland many many horse collections and this map is presenting sites. I can say that it's not all sites just main sites and what is important horse remains in these sites are mainly more than 90% found in post-consumption remains. There is almost no skeletons at present I can say that we have five sites when we have skeletons and one I will present later on. And this is just common picture with percentage of horse remains in the most important and of course chosen by me for this presentation centers and percentage is always the same position among this species the last position. And we can draw in some sites thanks to long time investigation age of horse and we can notice that it was different in early medieval late medieval and from late medieval to post medieval time. This is some kind indication that horse was not treated the same way in different historical periods and again this is construction on the base of food remains not from skeletons. When we look at for size of horse in different centers again we can notice that there is no the same we have differences again why we have differences. I would like to add that when we look at for cattle it will be very boring picture because cattle will be the same characteristic in every site in every center in every region of Poland but with horse not. It is some indicator that horse was quite different species evaluated by human. The same feature expressed by box plots we can notice very clear that every region has different population of horse. And I presented data which were result of settlements and centers research but we have just some years ago discovered island with exception that among that beside food remains. Of course we have skeletons as well. And sometimes we call island of horse because this island is surrounded with horse skeletons and sometimes are really articulated and sometimes are disarticulated. On the other hand these skeletons are found under water which is sometimes very difficult to explore or but this is really clear signal that horse was really significant significance in ideology in magic thinking. And we have not only horses, not only skeletons, we have as well cranial only together with other species in very close to this island. In almost all skeletons we can detect sometimes very gentle and sometimes very clear very strong pathological alternations and we can say that this horse during life had been very strong explored and used for what purposes. We don't know. And when we look at for pathology just in one side with comparison that horse position and domestic mammals is the last but when we look at for pathologies this position is a little bit higher. That is again some signal that horse was used for more active activity of human. And I have to admit that I read very carefully thesis of our session. And finally I would like to express some essential things about horse in Poland in so early stage. Of course I am treating this impression at the some kind of preliminary. And first the horse in Polish Slavs was only an animal profitable for food military and social state status. That is the reason that we have so small skeletons recorded during archaeological excavation. But second sentence is quite opposite. Horse was not at all animal. It was a significant member of Slavonic society. He did mediation with gods and he forecasted the future. It was a special and priest look after for horses in Slavonic pagan temples. And third he created an Austrian ordinary evaluation in human mind thanks to features which was morphology of body, color of coat and ability to fast movement just opposite to cattle pig and other domesticate. And finally the fourth what kind of cultural context was the selective and responsible for factor to decide about horse. The animal or the human society member in what time in what extent and this will be matter of special project which just started in this year. And goals of this project would like to explore and just construct history, more detailed history to better know a horse and significance in the past. And we can try to use different methods, different methodology and try to combine them put together to make to collect different data and next compare this data. And I think that they should collaborate and support and finally to make some synthesis of horse in early medieval time. And this is my team. You can notice that there are some archaeologists or archaeologists and of course some colleagues who are specialists for analyzing DNA isotopes and so on. And then finally I would like to emphasize that pathology DNA and isotopes will be really very crucial to for interpretation about white horse about mobility of owners of horse. And maybe we can establish some roads of trade of horse when we know according to classical morphological osteometrical data that it was so different population of horses in different regions. When I am looking for line from northeast of Poland to southwest of Poland, I can say that the smallest horses are in northeast, the biggest are in south. And who knows, maybe this is influence and influence of west countries and some heritage of Roman Empire and in north, east, maybe this influence of white horses still presented in Russia region. This is only chance to use some modern methods and considerations. Thank you very much for your attention.