Shows
The Liam McCollum ShowEp. 71 Your Brain on Propaganda, Localism, and Montana Politics w/ Adam Thuen, PhDNotes:
• www.intellectualpatriots.org
• operationphoenix.international
• www.montanarobes.com
Adam's Academic Career: Ph.D. in Neuroscience (specializing in the intersection of attention, value, and vision), M.S. Management, PMP (project management professional), B.S. In molecular biology and biochemistry.
Military Career: Retired Field Grade Officer (Major), former Company Commander, two Combat tours to Afghanistan supporting both conventional and special operations.
Entrepreneurship: Project Management Consulting (Intellectual Patriots, LLC), humanitarian disaster response (Operation Phoenix), and Local Supply Chain (Montana Robe Company) with Wife (Jenny).
2021-12-171h 17
Save The Parents PodcastThe Mortality Problem Fewer topics solicit more fear, dread and influence than death. Most people prefer to avoid talking about death - forcing you to come to terms with the mortality reality of you, your spouse, your kids, your animals, your parents, etc. It's scary, hard and emotionally painful. Imaging the world without your key people in them is painful... and often so easy to not think about, or come to terms with. But mortality, death and survivor ship is a real thing that's likely not going away and can often be more painful emotionally if you're not prepared and aware of these...
2018-11-291h 01
Save The Parents PodcastSex Talk Sex seems to be THE taboo topic of taboo topics. Complicated, challenging and ever central to human psychology, "sex" as a topic has so many different implications for parents. From coming to terms with your own sex education and experience, to teaching your own kids (in a more effective way?), to even managing sex in your married life with kids - sex is central to parents... whether we talk about it publicly or not.
Why is sex so taboo? What kind of influence does it have on our lives & perspectives? What kind of historical environmental influences have made it this...
2018-11-151h 10
Save The Parents PodcastThe 'Burbs Livin' in the 'burbs is interesting. Built largely out of necessity for people looking to live within proximity to a city & community but unable to afford and manage kids in a more urban center the great suburbia landscape has really expanded in the past 50 years.
But suburbia life has unique challenges. With close proximity and decreased privacy, suburbia life seems to offer close geographical proximity to neighbors without necessarily mandating that neighbors build a personally-connected community. When people live 20 feet away from each other and fail to "meet" their neighbors, a unique phenomenon happens. Throw in an HOA organization to...
2018-11-0850 min
Save The Parents PodcastShould we HATE hate? Election season has ads, fliers, volunteers, teams, friends, spouses, polling stations and propaganda (of whatever flavor you choose) spun up to the max. Yet much of this messaging is coming to us in a way of HATE - discounting competing candidates and voter shaming. With sides throwing punches left and right, pipe bombs, shootings, social media hate speech, and vocal polarization there's a large group of us left in the middle asking "what the fuck is going on".
For many of us as parents, we engage our kids to help them better cope with emotions. Do you really HATE your...
2018-11-0152 min
Save The Parents PodcastGet your facts straight... if you can find them Bullshit is a wonderfully flexible word - spanning the realm of something jovial you do with friends, to frustrating misinformation. Regardless of the context used though, this "engagement" touches on the greater topic of influential information and what seems to trigger us to respond to other people's actions. Better yet, it's an opportunity for us to dive into what bullshit is, why we perceive it this way, why we often prefer it this way, and what it means to us as small businesses, marketers and people trying to get information out in a noisy world.
So what does this mean...
2018-10-2559 min
Save The Parents PodcastGuilt, Shame and Conditional Morality Guilt and shame can be powerful motivators, de-motivators and depressors in both raising kids, and governing your own life. Founded deep within our desire to assimilate with our "tribe", these emotions might drive more than we know.
As parents, guilt and shame are emotions we likely feel a lot - no matter how confident you may be in your approach, decisions or network. Turns out, we're only human... and as such we're privy to these emotions and their cascading effects on our lives and decision making. With no ONE way to do things, and often no clear immediate "correct!" response...
2018-10-1844 min
Save The Parents PodcastThe Paradox of Efficiency With the continual integration of AI into our lives and work, we're often faced with efficiency breaks that will help us complete our current scope better, faster and more effectively. As pattern recognition software can help expedite mundane tasks, our attention is freed up. But for most parents, these breaks in efficiency aren't necessarily a "go home early" ticket, or path towards a reduced workweek. In fact, what we more frequently recognize is the opposite.
Although we can get more efficient in our work, we can't rush innovation. And innovation - big, world changing, market changing innovation - has never...
2018-10-1151 min
Save The Parents PodcastWhat's Your Gig? Specialists used to work for businesses. Now businesses work for specialists.
There. We said it. Hello Gig Economy.
We're not here to sugar coat the changes coming to the business world - whether you find it scary, daunting or unfathomable. The gig economy is flourishing, and from our experience & insights we think this isn't just going to be a big facet of business here over the next 20 years, but the crux of it.
That's why we, as parents, need to consider this. Part of our job as parents is to ensure our family's basic needs are met. In this context...
2018-10-0448 min
Save The Parents PodcastThe Lies We Tell If you've been a kid anywhere in the past 50 years, chances are you've encountered your fair share of tooth fairies, Santa stories and countless other fictional characters. Bringing enhanced excitement, joy and suspense, we all likely have good (and perhaps disappointing) memories growing up with these fictional friends.
As parents though, you've probably come to the realization (if not far before) that these characters are all glorious lies. Glorious in the sense of we WANT to believe them and get joy from their integration in our perception and reality... but lies in that our WANT for them to be true...
2018-09-3053 min
Save The Parents PodcastHello Mr. Robot The continuing integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into our lives can often solicit fear and uncertainty. Changing the job, workforce, home and education landscape - likely a LOT - is tremendously important. For parents though - we're interested in this revolution in a variety of ways - not just for our own careers and financial planning but for our kids' future. How can we prepare ourselves to stay flexible and marketable throughout these industry and environmental changes? How can we develop our kids to be a part of this movement - equipped with the skillet to make a meaningful impact...
2018-09-3050 min
Save The Parents PodcastPainting the Future of Parenting While integrating our listeners' feedback, we've decided to put a bit of a twist on our kitchen table podcast. Why? Because the world is filled with so much noise... and we don't want to be part of it. We want to take less of your time, and pack it with more meaningful information on stuff that has the highest relevancy to your role as a parent. Sound intense? Kinda feels like it.
Here's the crux of it. Our global society, economy, technological rate of change and political uncertainty leaves us as parents scratching our heads. What worked for our generation...
2018-09-1351 min
Save The Parents PodcastSave the Dog Parents Dogs have been "man's best friend" for centuries, but as of recent dog-parents have come under fire from judgemental outsiders. Crazy, right? But it "begs" a bunch of deeper questions: do patrons in our society really think dogs are a replacement for kids? Why do dog parents go the route they do? Why do people care so much about this decision? And do dogs really provide good training for following kids?
Ultimately, this podcast is just discussion as we reflect on all angles of the issue. We're dog parents (and kid parents), and empathize with both sides of this issue...
2018-08-3058 min
Save The Parents PodcastSo We're Not Supposed To Talk About Politics & Religion Discussion of religion and politics is often seen as a taboo topic - something that you generally avoid in under-developed social engagements, and one that tends to escalate quickly when prodded. For parents, this is often escalated by pressuring family feeling a vested interest in the moral guidance of their grandkids. Don't want to baptize your child when your family wants you desperately to do so? Not a fun game to play.
But instilling moral guidance in your child is important... in my perspective, imperative. Helping them to understand, interpret and navigate the frequently "grey" world around them with a...
2018-08-241h 03
Save The Parents PodcastAre You Scared, Bro? Fear is a powerful emotion that governs much more attention, action and motivation than we think. Buried deep in our desire for tribal belonging and species survival, the human response to fear often impacts us subliminally and over time can cause all kinds of more severe impacts.
Within our developed society, fear manifests in many ways - from sales pitches inspiring product consumption to news media sources vying for your attention - and this same fear has a way of cascading generations.
As parents, we feel this constantly - both in our own fear for our kids' welfare, and in...
2018-08-2055 min
Save The Parents PodcastWhat's The Deal With The Dad-Bod? For some, dad bod's are the ultimate compliment to a family priority, but are they really a thing? Is this something that women, and men really like, or a product of situation? Is it a cultural excuse to not care about your body, or an actual avenue out? Is a dad-bod valued any differently than a mom-bod? Why the cultural and societal differences?
Drawing upon our own experience, reflections and thoughts we'll discuss why the dad bod is a thing, and what it actually means. Additionally, we'll share some of our best practices for what we've found to help kick...
2018-08-1859 min
Save The Parents PodcastWhy Do We Need Healthy Parents? Having healthy kids is culturally important, but what about healthy parents? With copious distractions, excuses and requirements on our time & attention it's easy to put your own health as a back-burner priority. But from our experience and research, this creates a whole bunch of latent issues.
This week on our Save the Parents podcast, we ask the grand question, Why do we need healthy parents? Sharing our own experiences, opinions, techniques and best-practices coupled with all kinds of things that haven't worked, hopefully this will provide fresh insight and motivation to learn from us.
For early access to these and...
2018-08-0648 min
Save The Parents PodcastWhat is it about Kids and Guns? The topic of kids and guns is complex, multi-faceted and ever dense. Striking emotions from all listeners, parents, peers, and caregivers fewer topics seem to be broached with such particular hostility. With both kids and firearms well dispersed within our American culture, having the conversation about how to talk with kids about guns (and how to organize your thoughts beforehand) is critical.
In this podcast, Adam & I will discuss kids and guns as we reference our own gun-loving son and share our own concerns and quandaries. Coming from different backgrounds and levels of exposure & utilization of firearms, we start to...
2018-07-301h 03
Save The Parents PodcastAre You Living the American Dream? Building upon our discussion in the prior episode, we discuss why the American Dream that worked for previous generations doesn't seem to quite fit our generation. Between escalating costs, reduced flexibility and compressed schedules with dual-working families...the American Dream has changed. What is the new American Dream? How can we revisit our expectations so that we actually achieved it along the way? Join Katie & Parker as we discuss what's wrong with the traditional thinking of the american dream, and what we (as parents) can do to help adjust this dream to realize the benefits and achieve this dream for...
2018-05-241h 14
Save The Parents PodcastWhat is your Time Worth? Financial calculations of what your time is worth (based on salary, earnings and hourly rates) are helpful in assessing where your time goes... but quickly falter when you factor in the value of your time. Additionally - with all the demands on parents' attention on what they "should" and "need" to do, it's no wonder we're all chasing our tails. Join Parker and Katie as we dive into what your time (as parents) is worth, and how we can better manage demands that conflict with this as to put our time, attention and love into what matters most to you...
2018-05-181h 01
Save The Parents PodcastWhat is Work Life Balance? For many parents, finding a work life balance is a fluid, never ending challenge. You're trying to focus on lots of things simultaneously as best you can - but you're inherently juggling too much. So how can we manage? Is a work-life-balance even a thing? If so - how could we actually achieve it?
Like our stuff, and interested in learning more? Visit our website & blog: http://www.patreon.com/savetheparents to join our tribe.
2018-05-181h 13
Save The Parents PodcastWhy Save The Parents? Hello world! We're out to create a parenting podcast meant to discuss candid questions and discussion on key topics that concern parents. It's going to be a wild ride - join our patreon page for exclusive content and early access!
Like our stuff, and interested in learning more? Visit our website & blog: http://www.save-the-parents.org to join our tribe.
2018-04-1802 min