ISIS Ambush Tests America’s Syria Strategy

Foreign. Today, a deadly ISIS attack in Syria raises urgent questions about America's role in a volatile region. Then a mass shooting at Brown University forces a deeper reckoning with America's uniquely lethal gun culture. We'll also look at the nra, how it's selling off assets after years of insider excess and elite self dealing. And in Alabama, Doug Jones, a Democrat, launches a long shot bid for governor, reminding people of scandals in the past in that deep red state. And we end with a powerful question of the day from a student asking how big goals actually get achieved. All that and more today on filtered ISIS ambush in Syria kills three Americans. Three Americans were killed Saturday in an attack the US Assesses was carried out by ISIS near Palmyra in central Syria. This is according to the New York Times and Reuters. Two U.S. army soldiers and one American civil interpreter were providing security during a joint engagement when a lone gunman opened fire. The Pentagon said the mission was supporting ongoing counterterror operations and US Officials say the attacker was killed by partner forces. The three additional US Personnel were wounded along with Syrian security members. As Syria's new government tries to stabilize a fractured country after years of war, President Trump called it an ISIS attack and said there would be very serious retaliation. The incident lands amid a US Force drawdown in Syria and renewed questions about how long American troops should remain deployed there. Okay, and it starts again. A part of Trump's big appeal was he wasn't going to be fighting wars all over the world. Now we have an unfortunate situation. Someone, we don't know who, but someone attacked and killed US Soldiers and personnel. And now Washington is screaming about retaliation. Is this the beginning of another 10, 15, 20 year war? Now, let's dig in a little deeper here. Let's go over some more of the facts. Again, it's we do know that two U.S. army soldiers were killed. It's a tragedy. Condolences to the family. One civilian interpreter was killed. Right now, no one has claimed responsibility for the incident. Now it certainly seems like it would be isis. Trump says it was definitely an ISIS attack, but we all know how he occasionally jumps to conclusions. Maybe he's right this time. Maybe he isn't. The US Footprint has been shrinking in Syria, but anytime you're in foreign lands, there is a chance of fatalities. There's no doubt about it Right now. Nobody really knows much about the background of the shooter. A couple of other comments that have come in. This from President Trump posting on Truth Social this was an ISIS attack against the US In Syria and a very dangerous part of Syria, there will be very serious retaliation. The Syrian interior minister spokesman said the following. The international coalition forces did not take the Syria warnings about the possibility of an ISIS breach into account. And the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee said, this is Rick Crawford. This is a glaring example, a glaring reminder that the radical Islamic threat against the US and our service members abroad is still very real. Okay, so here's the quote that did get my attention, and forgive me, I'm going back to my media training roots here. This is a classic example of a good quote, not from the intellectual content standpoint, but just structurally it's guaranteed to get quoted this from the Secretary of Defense or Secretary of War, whichever you prefer. Although legally at the moment it is still the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth said, let it be known, if you target Americans anywhere in the world, you will spend the rest of your brief, anxious life knowing the United States will hunt you, find you and ruthlessly kill you. Okay, for the moment, I'm not passing judgment on whether that is smart politics, whether that's smart defense, whether it's smart anything. I just want to draw attention to the clarity of the statement from Pete Hegseth because let's not forget, he might not be the most experienced soldier in the world to have gotten the position of Secretary of Defense. He certainly isn't the most experienced manager. He's not someone known for managing large organizations, large budgets, things like that. He's not someone known for his own personal rectitude, given all of the numerous times he's been found drunk and alleged to have beaten women. So that's not his main skill. That's not his forte. His forte is he looks and sounds good on tv. Let's not kid ourselves. That's why President Trump selected him. It's exactly for moments like this. This is almost a perfect sound bite because there's no way any reporter in the world, there's no way any TV network, any editor at the New York Times isn't going to use this quote. Let me read it for you again. Let it be known. So it's absolute. It's a bit of a cliche. If you target Americans, action oriented, emotional, anywhere in the world, makes it an absolute. You will spend the rest of your brief, anxious life. It's attacking, it's emotional, arguably there's a little bit of humor in there, depending on your perspective, saying it's an anxious life knowing the United States will hunt you. So action oriented, attack, very attacking. Find you more action. And not just kill you, ruthlessly kill you he didn't say kind of what you would think of as a bland police officer or bureaucrat, saying, you will be apprehended now we will ruthlessly kill you. So it's putting in that emotional component, the action, the attack, the bold, vivid language of killing. So when you see someone quoted in the news media, it's always important to understand what's really going on here, what's the message? But it's also important to understand why they were quoted structurally, what made them quoted. So part of what we do on this show is a little bit different. We do look at the top news stories of the day, report on the top news stories of the day, give you the essential facts, but also we filter that through the lens of communication skills and personal development skills. So what you just saw from Pete Hegseth was a masterclass on how to get quoted. Because every quote you see in the News Media has one of 10 elements. It's either got an analogy, a bold action word, an emotion, an example, a cliche, humor, rhetorical questions, pop culture references. There are about 10 of them. And Pete Hegseth just strung together about one or two dozen different sound bite elements. Talking tough. Now, he's been ridiculed, mocked, even satirized on Saturday, Saturday Night Live for his tough talk. But he knows how to get his message out in the media. He knows how to get the attention of his patron. I guarantee you that when Donald Trump saw that quote, he kind of chuckled and said, pete, that's my guy. Stick it to him. So make no mistake about it, that is how you can essentially manipulate the media to get quoted. What you want, this quote you see everywhere, it's not necessarily because reporters like Pete Hagseth respect him, agree with the message. That's a common, common misunderstanding about how people get quoted. No, that's not how people get quoted. They get quoted by giving these speech elements, these analogies, these bold action words, these cliches, attacks. Anytime you use attacking words, action oriented words, emotional words, which we just heard a lot of in the Pete Hegseth quote, it's going to get quoted. Okay? So I'll be continuing to analyze this issue and the messages because we've got a clear cut case of kind of mixed messages going on here. And look, life is complicated. Every president at some point says something that contradicts something they said on the campaign trail. But President Trump, one of his great appeals to libertarians, to others in his party was the US Was not going to be the policeman of the world. He was not going to get us involved with wars. He was going to bring soldiers home, not subject soldiers to things like this. Now he's talking about retaliation. Let's be very careful about how we retaliate, because that is how skirmishes start, conflicts start, wars start, and even world wars. A shooting at Brown University on Saturday left two people dead and eight others critically injured. According to university and local officials. The gunman opened fire inside the Barrison Holly Engineering building as students were studying and taking final exams. Police said the suspect, described only as a man dressed in black, fled the scene and was not in custody. Hours later, students and faculty were ordered to lock down, sheltering in dorms, classrooms and nearby businesses. While a large manhunt unfolded across parts of Providence, officials acknowledged a chaotic response, including incorrect emergency alerts that briefly claimed a suspect had been arrested. Authorities said the injured victims were hospitalized in critical but stable condition. Federal, state and local law enforcement remain involved as the investigation continues. Of course, condolences to those who lost their lives, their families and friends. But what's the real message here? America's made a decision that this is okay. We continue to give out guns to every nut, every mentally cuckoo person in the world just because in America a gun is given out like party favors and tens of thousands of people dying a year is just considered the price to pay. It's sad. Okay, let's dig a little deeper here. Again, the facts. Eight victims were shot at the time of this recording. Two people have passed away. Some are listed in critical but stable condition. It is unknown at the time of recording this show who actually committed these atrocities. But there are some broader messages here that I think need to be analyzed and discussed here if we're going to be serious with each other. I'm serious with you. I play it straight with you. And I'm here to really look deeply in the news, figure out what can we learn together. How can we filter the news to figure out what's truly important affecting our society and the messages that come to us now. In America, we endlessly argue about causes, what causes social breakdowns. We blame the left for things like homelessness in San Francisco. Okay, fair point. There are not a lot of Republican conservatives running things in San Francisco, but we blame the left for drug addiction in places like Portland, Oregon. Okay, fair game. Not a lot of conservative MAGA Republicans running things in Portland, Oregon. So we often as a society point to the permissiveness of failed government. This criticism, I would say, is fair. I play it straight. I'm willing to give fair criticism where criticism is Due. But for some reason we don't do that when it comes to shootings. When it comes to mass shootings, the responsibility lies overwhelmingly with a right wing gun culture that treats firearms not as tools but as identity, as fantasy and entitlement. Thousands of Americans are shot and killed every year. Not because we lack sympathy or prayers, but because we have chosen a culture where nearly anybody can own. A modern killing machine now doesn't have to be that way. Countries like Japan and Australia have made different choices. They didn't balance gun rights against public safety. They prioritized life. We could do it. That's what so called the left wants to do. But they're not listened to. They don't really have any impact, certainly in our current political structure. As a result, mass shootings in these other countries like Japan and Australia are essentially non existent. Now in the US the left is constantly blamed for wanting to take away your guns. I've seen it in thousands of campaign commercials. I'm sure you have to. Don't vote for Democrat Smithers. He'll take your gun away. He doesn't believe in gun rights. You've heard that. Okay, maybe some of that's true. But that also means that the left does not get the blame, does not deserve the blame when unstable individuals legally obtain weapons and slaughter people in schools and campuses, churches and grocery stores. The blame belongs to a political culture that fetishizes guns and treats regulation as tyranny even as the death toll grows. TJ what about the Constitution? What about our founder? Okay, our founders didn't say. Well, let's. No matter what happens, anything that could kill someone by shooting something at them is going to be fine. If that's your standard, there's no reason why we couldn't have nuclear weapons free for everybody or hand it out like candy at Halloween. So don't give me this phony baloney argument about what our founders wanted. If you want a musket, if you want an 18th century musket that takes you 10 minutes to load and you put the fire power there in there and you explode it and you miss. If you're not 20ft away, be my guest. That's not what's going to cause mass shootings, these mass murders. That is something new. It's about new technology that did not exist when our country was founded. And it requires new solutions. Solutions that people in Australia have figured out. You've been to Australia lately? I have. Pretty nice place. I don't see people walking around like they're in some gulag. Pretty Nice place. Have you been to Japan? I'm gonna go there in the next year. I hear it's a pretty nice place. You don't see people walking around, oh, this is just tyranny. I can't get a gun and shoot everyone, all my neighbors, because I'm in a bad mood. You don't see that Japan records single digit goth gun deaths per year. For those of you not quite sure, that means less than 10. Okay. There are more gun deaths in small towns in America, sometimes in a day than exist in Japan, a pretty big country, in an entire year. And it doesn't have to be this way. So what I'm asking for is can we at least have some honest debate in America? If you want to say, isn't it awful the way liberals and progressives have made homeownership unaffordable to all but the wealthy in places like California and New York, I'm with you. It's fair criticism. It's fair and honest to look at societal problems and then look at the underlying intellectual assumptions that got us there. That's what people do in honest debates in democracy. Because that's how you think. Maybe it's time to change that assumption. Maybe it's time to try something new. I'm all in favor of that. And there are numerous examples of where Democrats and liberals who controlled things have made problems and they deserve criticism. But what frustrates me is I don't see anyone willing to give an honest, centrist, independent analysis of what's really going on when it comes to our culture of just killing thousands of people a year, sometimes one on one, sometimes groups, these, these public assassinations which happened in Brown University. It's always like, oh my gosh, imagine how that happened. Didn't see that coming. You don't see conservatives who take a trip to San Francisco and see homeless people and people shooting up drugs, walking around saying, wow, wonder how that happened. Didn't see that coming. No, they're quick to place blame, and that's fair. But if it's fair to look at the ideological underpinnings of one mass societal problem that sometimes creates death, it's fair to do it. Other places there shouldn't be any sacred cows. And for too long we lived in a society where every Republican, every conservative, every MAGA member feels like, oh, can't talk about guns. That's going to offend certain people nothing. It's off the table. And you have a lot of Democrats and moderates, people who run for office, member of Congress, they're afraid to talk about. Oh, we can't talk about really banning handguns in America and machine guns. Our opponents will run, say we're anti American, and we don't. We're not in favor of the Constitution, so they don't talk about it either. Well, this is one place where we're going to talk about things honestly. That is my pledge to you. Because I think if we're going to solve problems in our society, there has to be an openness. There has to be one place where you and I can have an honest conversation about real problems, the causes of those problems and real potential solutions. Now, if some other country in the world figured out how to end homelessness or how to make sure that no one had drug addiction, I think most of us would want to say, well, let's, let's figure, what are they doing? Maybe we should try that. Well, when it comes to thousands of people dying a year from being shot up by crazed mad men, it's usually men we don't have to look very far around the world to see. Yes, people have come up with solutions for it. We can do what they do in Japan. We can do what they do in Australia. We can do what they do in a lot of European countries. It's absolute madness to continue seeing more and more death, more and more bloodshed, and to just act like, wow, didn't see that coming. Oh, we see it coming. We know what it's coming for. The National Rifle association cashes out. While insiders cashed in, the NRI is selling off its investments to pay the bills. And independent audit review by notice says the gun rights group liquidated nearly $40 million in 2024, and its investment portfolio fell to under $33 million, down from more than $72 million a year earlier. Auditors noted two straight years of net losses, shrinking membership, revenues are down, and more than $121 million in liabilities. The money squeeze lands after years of legal and governance turmoil that spotlighted extravagant spending by top leaders. A New York jury later found former CEO Wayne lapierre liable for misusing NRA funds and ordered him to repay more than $4 million. Okay, what's the real message here? A lot of Americans left and right say they're insiders in places like Washington, D.C. conspiring to take advantage of the average Americans. And you know what? They're right. Look no further than the National Rifle Association. They have squandered half of their endowment in the last year, and they continue to do nothing but seemingly buy themselves More fancy vacations, fancy suits and featherbed. So, yeah, there is a problem with elites. And if you want a prime example, look at the leadership of the National Rifle Association. Let's dig a little bit deeper here. Now, this relates to, unfortunately, the preceding topic of more killings at Brown University. Gunman shot and killed two people at the time of this recording. Dead, others severely injured. NRA didn't seem to really care about that. They care about their top leaders paying themselves lots of money. And let's not forget the NRA is one of these organizations that appeals to a lot of rural folks, people who live in small towns, people who maybe have a fish and bait tackle shop, people who maybe are making less than $50,000 a year, quite often paying their members, sending their dues in year after year because they love guns. Okay? It's certainly a well established fact that Americans have all sorts of hobbies and they like to support those hobbies with trade associations in Washington, D.C. because, hey, that's where the power is. Those are the people who write the laws. But this NRA thing is just particularly egregious. Some of the things that they wasted their money on, absolutely amazing. So this did get some coverage a few years back, but I think it bears repeating again. Wayne Lapierre, head of a non profit organization, was paid $5,000,000. $5,110,985. Was that lifetime payment you asked? That'd be a pretty good lifetime salary. No, he was paid that just in one year. In 2015, he got an additional $3.75 million retirement plan payout. He got bonuses of $455,000. Some years he had a budget paying him hundreds of thousands of dollars for suits. Now folks, I'm usually wearing a tailored suit. I'm not one to look down upon people for having nice clothes. I have a bunch of hand tailored suits by Savile Road, Taylors and London, but I never paid $274,000 for all of them, even combined. But if you're Wayne lapierre and you're a fixture on the talk show circuit and you're off giving speeches and flying around in jets, I guess you got to look pretty. That was the philosophy. Now he was able to expense Items such as $1,000 for a handbag. I don't know if that was for his wife or if he's got some J. Edgar Hoover issues, I'm not quite sure. But folks, when you're cynical about Washington and insiders in the elites, and this has certainly been a part of what his feeding this years long concern, some would say hysteria about Jeffrey Epstein is that there's elites in the country who play by one set of rules and then there's normal people who have to play by other rules. And it's very different. And the elites have absolute contempt and look down upon their noses of the average person. That's a theme that does cut across the left and the right in American political discussion. My frustration is here's a clear cut example of absolute corruption, absolute thumbing the nose of the so called little people. And it was done in public. We don't have to wait for photos to come out, we don't have to look at, we don't have to wait for a client list. It's all documented right there in IRS filings and in filings by this so called nonprofit. And yet it doesn't get outrage, I guess because there's no naked children involved. As far as I know, nothing's come out in that regard. But we live in a country where the average family makes about $80,000 a year and this guy Wayne Lapierre paying himself $5 million a year. Now true, it wasn't tax money, but it was dues from a lot of conservative red blooded Americans, mostly Republicans and MAGA supporters. Although to be fair, there are plenty of Democrats and centrists who also are fans of the NRA and have given them money, although it is seen as a very Republican skewed organization. But to see all of this money frittered away and that doesn't seem to bother anyone. God forbid an immigrant who had to swim through shark infested waters to come here because they dream of starting a software company. God forbid they get a free meal from someone in America somehow associated with the government. That's the end of the world. But $5 million from tax deductible contributions to become wealthy, let's not kid ourselves. That's not affluent, that's not upper middle class. You're rich when you're making $5 million a year. And yeah, you're going to look rich too if you have $274,000 worth of tailored suits, which is what some of the top executives at the NRA were paid. Well now again to recap why they're in the news, it just came out, a new audit came out that they are basically frittering away their entire endowment. They had to sell off various assets of their $40 million. Last year they were worth $72 million, which to be fair, there are other nonprofit trade associations in Washington that have bigger endowments, but those typically don't pay their top person $5 million a year either, unless it's something that is explicitly about helping a particular business. Now, if you are the head of the screen actors Union, the Motion Picture association of America, that person doesn't even make $5 million a year, but they do generally get seven figure salaries. But that's to help a big business, a whole industry. This is supposed to be to help mom and pop gun owners and they're frittering it all away. So yes, folks, if you have contempt for the elite, if you think there are elites in places like Washington, D.C. laughing at you, looking down their noses at you, well, lining their pockets in the process with money from you, you're absolutely right. And if you want to find one in particular, look no further than the National Rifle Association. In political news, Doug Jones tries again in Alabama. Former Democratic Senator Doug Jones has launched a campaign for governor of Alabama arguing the state needs competition, accountability and leadership focused on health care, education and economic pressure on families. According to the Associated Press, Jones kicked off his campaign in Birmingham on the eighth anniversary of his 2017 Senate victory. That win made Jones the last Democrat to hold statewide office in Alabama after voters rejected Republican Roy Moore amid multiple allegations involving teenage girls. Jones told supporters that Alabama had shown before it can do better and that voters deserve a real choice rather than one party rule. Jones enters the race as a clear underdog. Well, that's an understatement. Republicans have dominated statewide election for decades. And Senator Tommy Tuberville, who defeated Jones by a wide margin in 2020, is also running for governor. Still, Jones says the race is about forcing accountability and reminding voters what happens when standards collapse. Okay, what's the real message here? Doug Jones, the former Democratic senator from Alabama, is running for governor of Alabama as a Democrat. Now that usually doesn't end too well. Doug Jones best hope is whoever gets the Republican nomination gets caught with little girls again like happened last time. Doug Moore won election in Alabama. Let's dig a little deeper here. Now, you may think I'm being gratuitous or I'm somehow exaggerating or I'm somehow passing along rumors. Will know there was numerous, numerous on the record documentation that Judge Roy Moore, who was the Senate nominee, the Republican nominee, was routinely going after young girls and sexually harassing them, going on dates with teenage girls, some as young as 14. And this became the big issue eight years ago. Now, many people have forgotten it. It's been a long time, but this was, you know, before the days of Epstein. And this seemed really common. But this was the guy who was the big holier than thou, the, the judge who demanded that everyone post the ten Commandments on courthouses and schools. He was running for the Senate based on his belief in traditional moral values. And Doug Jones beat him in part because of all the revelations about this guy, Roy Moore with little girls. Creepy, disgusting, well documented. Numerous, numerous girls came out of the woodwork to say, yeah, he like followed me home from school and really weird stuff like that. Interestingly, the vast, vast majority of white Republicans in Alabama still voted for said, you know what? Yeah, maybe you are a guy, middle aged, mid-30s trying to date 14 year old girls. I'm still going to vote for you. Still better than any Democrat. So now folks, I've lived in Alabama and I've worked politically in Alabama. That was a long time ago. It was a 40, 40 years ago. But it's a tough place for any Democrat to win office. Here's the real significance here. It's not that I am predicting Doug Jones, the former Democratic senator, is going to win the governorship in Alabama. I'm not predicting that. I do think it's a sign though that more and more Democrats are thinking maybe, just maybe, the earth is shifting. Maybe enough people are thinking we've gone too deep into this MAGA reality. Maybe it's time to question a number of assumptions we've held sacrosanct. You're seeing it with the Marjorie Taylor Greene's of the world. You're seeing it with other House members filing these, these petitions, forcing votes on a variety of issues. You're seeing more people willing to stand up to Trump from his own party. You're seeing it in the Indiana state legislature where Republicans said, no, we're not going to do the bidding of this president and trash our congressional districts. In the middle of the decade, more and more people are sensing that maybe behind the curtain the almighty Oz isn't so almighty. Now you can ask, how does that really relate to Alabama? It's not that Donald Trump is there in Alabama getting involved in every campaign and every decision every day. No, that's not it. But he does create a general cultural vibe that filters down to a place like Alabama. And I think if this were even three months ago, six months ago, someone like Doug Jones would say, I got better things to do. I can go off and make money as a lawyer. He was a very successful lawyer. In fact, part of his background is he prosecuted Klansmen who blew up a church and killed Little girls. And. But in Alabama, that's the kind of thing to get you labeled a liberal. Oh, you're against the Klan. Well, you're maybe too liberal for us. So that doesn't necessarily help in a place like Alabama. Okay. And if you think I'm wrong, let me know. Give your argument. I look at all comments to this video and every other video. Now, the the presumed frontrunner for the Republican nomination for governor of Alabama is the current US Senator, Tommy Tuberville. He is someone by every stretch of the imagination, whether you are a liberal, a Democrat, a conservative, a centrist, a mainstream Republican, has done nothing but essentially embarrass himself. I do not have the time today to go through all the statements he's made that are just completely idiotic. Regardless of your ideology as a US Senator, by all accounts, that's not going to hurt him one iota when he runs for governor of Alabama because he was an extraordinarily popular football coach. And I can tell you, even though it's been 40 years since I lived in that state, people, they love their football coaches in Alabama. Oh, boy, do they love their football coaches in Alabama. I lived there back when Bear Bryant was still in charge of things and he could do no wrong. He could drive home drunk and fall asleep at the wheel and just pull into a ditch and take a nap. He didn't have to worry about getting a DUI or a ticket. He would get a nice police escort home because he was seen as a saint, someone beyond reproach. Now, Tommy Tuberville isn't necessarily seen in the same level of esteem of Bear Bryant, but he's still a popular football coach. That got him elected to the US Senate without a single shred of evidence that he knew or cared anything about public policy. But hey, he had high name ID and people that loves them some football in Alabama. So I would still, if I were a betting man, and I don't bet on things like this or in general, I would still have to bet on Tommy Tuberville. But the other significance of this is politically, it's at least showing the Democrats are not rolling over and playing dead. It is showing we're going to have serious candidates. They're going to be funded. Doug Jones, as a former U.S. senator, will receive serious funding. It means the Republicans are going to have to spend money on this. They can't just roll right in. It won't be a simple cakewalk. And when you look at an item like this, plus the fact that the recent Senate congressional race that was open where Donald Trump carried that district by 22%, or the Republican who won last time won it by 22% and now won it only by 9%. With the most recent Democrat running in the special election, It's a sign of the earth changing. The political landscape is changing now. It's normal for anytime someone is controlling the White House for their party to lose the next election. It doesn't typically cycle down to governorships, But I am sensing a changed political environment. Am I predicting the Democrats will take control of the US Senate in 2026? No, I'm not. So if you're looking for someone who just gives partisan spin, who only says things that make a party they like look, you're going to have to look elsewhere. As a reminder, here on Filtered with TJ Walker, I'm giving you sane, sensible, centrist analysis of what's going on in the news, the messages and the messengers. That's what we're about. Question of the Day Today's question comes from Tundi, a student in the complete personal development personal transformation course of mine. Tundi asked, how does breaking big goals into smaller milestones make them easier to accomplish? Well, Thandi, the biggest problem most people have is not a lack of vision or dream. Everyone's got dreams. Oh, I want to be rich. I want to be famous. I want to buy my parents a house. I want to be respected. I want a nice car. Everyone wants stuff. Either physical things or money or respect or prestige or love accomplishment. Everybody wants stuff. That's the easy part. The hard part, especially in our modern culture, is it's so easy to get distracted. Yes, I'm going to write my business plan today. Right after I check LinkedIn, right after I check my Facebook updates, right after I respond to this tweet. Oh, let me check out this graphic because that might look good for the logo for my business plan. Before you know it, the day's over and all you've done is spin, spin around. And your big goal for the day was write your business plan. Well, it's too much. Why not focus on just one thing? Why not focus today on an executive summary? One page. What is your business going to do if you're trying to raise money? Can you summarize in one page what it's about? What problem do you solve? Why is there a need for this business? What's unique about you? Why are you interested in that? If you could do that in one day, you'd be much better off than just spinning your wheels. You can accomplish almost anything if you Break it down to small little milestones, small little steps. Nobody writes a best selling book. They just don't. They decide, okay, I'm gonna write a great paragraph today or I'm gonna write 500 words, or if you're Stephen King, I'm gonna write 2000 words before lunchtime. You've got to break it down and into small little increments. I can say to myself, I'm going to have the most popular, most successful, most profitable podcast ever. I'm going to put Joe Rogan in the dust, I can say that. But unless I focus right now, today, making this one podcast, I'll have accomplished nothing. You got to figure out of all the things you could do, what is in alignment with your number one goal and what's the one thing you can do right now, today. And even today can be too big. Maybe it's a four hour block. Maybe it's a one hour block. I'm a big fan of Cal Newport's theory of deep work, where he stresses that, that if you could just carve out four hours of deep work a day, no distractions, turn your cell phone off, don't check social media, and just do something where you're in your zone of competence and interest, whether it's writing a book, writing software, creating an online course, creating a podcast, do that one thing for four hours. Now, you may have a full time job that you're doing in a factory that's not that rewarding to you, but it pays the bills and makes sure you eat. You got to keep doing that. You may have to figure out, okay, in 20 minutes on the bus ride to my job, what am I going to do when everyone else is just looking at silly TikTok videos? What am I going to do? Is it going to be writing my nonfiction book on some aspect of community development? Whatever it is, use that 20 minutes. James clear, the author of Atomic Habits, didn't just sit down one day and said, I'm going to write a best selling book that sells 25 million copies and make myself fabulously wealthy. It's not what he did. He focused on habits. He studied it, he read about it, he read modern books, he read stoic philosophers, he, he thought about it. And then he started writing a column, a newsletter, and he would spend days writing it and it would be a thousand, sometimes fourteen hundred words. And he would post it on his website every 10 days or so. And he did this for years. He did this for years. He honed his craft, he got better at doing one thing at A time. Let me write one newsletter at a time, giving people deep insights on how to have good habits. And then after a number of years, he built a newsletter list of half a million people. And then he got a book deal. And then he wrote a great book, and it's been on the bestseller list ever since. Now, you might not aspire to be an author. It could be anything. Focus on one thing at a time. And that's one of the beauties of sports, is if you're playing basketball, you don't see someone at high levels of basketball play, dribbling and looking at their cell phone and multitasking. No, when you're playing a sport, that's all you're doing. You're totally in the flow. Regardless of how good you are, you're focused on one thing. You're focused on getting the ball into the hoop. If you're golfing, you're focused on getting that little ball into the hole. That's the beauty of sport. But you can do it in your career as well. You can do it with your studies as well. So if you're a student, for example, and you've got a summer break, don't just tell yourself, oh, I'm going to read all 10 books that all of my teachers recommended I read over the summer. No, give yourself a task today. I'm going to read one chapter in one book today before I go out and play or before I play a video game. Break it down to something specific that you can accomplish. You can give yourself a pat on the back, feel good about it. That will motivate you to either do more tomorrow or later today, and will give you that sense of accomplishment. That's why it's crucial that you really break things down one step at a time. Good luck.