“Believe in yourself and all that you are. Know that there is something inside you that is greater than any obstacle.” —Christian D. Larson

All of us have made mistakes in one form or another, each one of those mistakes comes with a different consequence, some good, some bad, and some that don’t show up until years later. 

1. Student loans suck!      
   1. https://moneylifewax.com/student-loan-debt-facts/
   2. https://www.sofi.com/learn/content/7-facts-didnt-know-student-loan-debt
2. Networking is everything
3. Withdraw if necessary
4. Intern, intern, intern
   1. Do this even if you’re not pushed to 
   2. 8 Reasons Why You Should Do Internships (And 3 Reasons They May Not Be for You) | Indeed.com
   3. 10 Reasons Why An Internship is Important to All Students | Big Ideas Blog (suny.edu)
5. Never be afraid to try
6. It’s all about discipline

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Don’t let the noise of others opinions drown out your own inner voice - steve jobs

How do I know what to believe?

It’s hard to say. We live in a day and age where we have access to multiple resources especially when it comes to online. Our information is just a click away. We are able to search for any type of information we want good or bad regardless of how factual or good the source is. 

• Do your own research
  • Pick a topic
  • Ask questions
  • Analyze what you find
• Have healthy conversations
  • Our society is awful at this, we don’t do this anymore
  • We believe that people who have different opinions, beliefs or views than us are evil, uninformed bigots who hate us
  • Sit down and have meaningful conversations with someone that has different views
    • Be willing to listen
    • Be willing to speak
    • Ask questions
    • Be honest 
    • Be polite
• Don’t believe everything you read or hear
  • Most of us depend on specific social media sites and influencers, news sources, and radio shows to get our information
  • First of all, social media is not a good source to get your information, most of the time.
  • Take a step back if you question something
  • We can’t believe everything, we are becoming too gullible
  • It’s ok to question things
• Check out more than one source
  • Use multiple sources, don’t just depend on one place
  • Believe it or not, people do lie
  • There’s a local news station in my state that I’ve noticed is very one-sided, so I’ve started going elsewhere to confirm their stories they lost credibility for me

Use these things to draw your own conclusions.

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Society is ruining our children.

No one knows your children better than you do. 
 
We need to be the PLANTER of the lives of our children:

Protect and Prepare - I couldn’t choose just one. We need to protect our children to the best of our ability and prepare them for the future.  

Love -  Love our children unconditionally even when we don’t agree with their life choices or actions. Our children need to know that they are loved and will always be loved.

Assure - Positively dispel any doubts our children may have. Most of the time things work out in the end, even if it’s not the ending we are looking for. Even as adults we need a little reassurance here and there

Nurture - we need to always care for and encourage the growth of our children. We also need to make sure our children are taken care of by having food, shelter, and protection.

Teach - We need to teach our kids the best we can and give them the freedom to make their own choices as well. By doing so our kids will learn with every choice made there is a consequence whether it’s good or bad. 

Encourage - We need to support our children and show that we have confidence in them. I believe this can really help bring out their strengths.

Recognize - always acknowledge our children and make sure they are appreciated.

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Thanks for listening. Please like, subscribe, and leave a review if you like what you hear. 

Remember life is what you make it, stay happy.

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This week we are talking about dog bites. More on the lines if your dog has bit your kid. 

This episode hits close to home because it just happened to me. A week and a half ago my daughter was roaming around the room at 5 am. Our dog was sleeping in the same room. It was pitch black the dog had got up from his bed and went to the other side of the room where the baby was at. At that moment my wife told me to turn on the lights. I was fumbling to turn on the lights and from what we gathered the baby scared the dog and the dog reacted out of fear and bit the baby. By the time I had turned the light on the baby had a gash in her face down her cheek and was bleeding pretty bad. We called 911 to make sure she didn’t have to be taken to the hospital by ambulance. Lucky for us while the wound was big it didn’t hit anything that would cause permanent damage to her mouth, saliva glands, or anything else. We figure it will just leave a scar. We were able to take our toddler to the hospital ourselves. She was stitched up by a plastic surgeon in the ER and it was by far the hardest thing I have ever had to watch.

We had to quarantine our dog for 10 days at a vet boarding facility. It’s law in our state if a dog bites they have to be quarantined even if they are vaccinated for rabies. The whole purpose of the quarantining is to see if the animal is infected with rabies. In most places, you can quarantine the dog at home but in the city in which we live, we could not do so. We had to choose between letting the rental cop animal patrol officer transport our dog in the back of his truck in the freezing cold or we could transport him to a boarding facility run by a vet. We chose the latter.

If your dog bites someone here are 3 things to do immediately:

1- Separate your dog from the situation

2- Make sure the bite is taken care of

3- Learn and know your rights as a dog owner

Now that your dog has been quarantined and you’ve probably made a couple of hospital visits what do you do with your dog. A lot of people decide to not keep the dog. We’ll unlike most we decided to keep the dog for a few reasons. One he is part of our family and two he didn’t bite out of aggression. He bit out of fear. Now if this was in the middle of the day, and the baby touched him and the dog got mad and bit her it would be a different story. 

This is also the time in which you will have opinions flying at you left and right. I had someone pretty much tell me that we are bad parents for keeping the dog. While you are entitled to your own opinion the least you can do is word it in a way that is actually polite. 

Now the question is what are we going to do to make sure nothing like this ever happens again. Here are 5 things we will do to make our house more secure with a toddler and a dog.

1- Change the routine of the dog add more structure

2- Keep dog/toddler separated 

3- Dog is only allowed in certain areas of the house

4- Remove dog immediately if signs of stress

5- Pay to have dog professionally trained

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We are only as strong as we are united, as weak as we are divided. – J.K. Rowling

What is unity? 

There seems to be some confusion on this definition. 

Unity - the state of being one; oneness

There has been talk of Unity. But are things actually being done to unify. 

I can tell you a few things that doesn’t bring people together as one. 

• shutting up those who disagree with you as if only your opinion matters 
• Hypocrisy accusing others of doing the same thing you’re doing while denying it
• Lying saying one thing thing and doing something completely different 

Those are only some of the things that come to mind. There are plenty of other things if I took the time to think more about it. 

My question is how can we look past our differences and begin to create unity? Is it possible? Or we in for a rude awakening and just going to continue to divide? 

The way society is at this point, I believe it’s possible but people must be willing to change. 

Here are 5 ideas to help us unify. 

1. Stop censorship - we have a constitutional right to freedom of speech. You don’t just shut people up because they have different views. One persons opinion is no better than another. 
2. Work together - most great ideas or solutions come from a group of people. We need to work together in a bipartisan environment. Not one person or one party should dominate that’s not the way our democracy was set up. 
3. Be respectful - if you don’t agree with someone you don’t need to put them down. There are a lot of people in life that have a different point of view than me but I still respect them.
4. Communicate - be willing to listen to others as well as speak your thoughts. Do this with an open mind. 
5. Find common ground. 

Can we still unify? Is it possible?

I think it’s possible but it will take a lot of changes to take place. People need to let go of their pride. We can’t speak unity and do the opposite. We will never achieve unity by censorship or by burning cities down. It will take effort from everyone. 

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Have you ever been bullied, been the bully, or witnessed someone being bullied? Throughout my life, I have taken part in all three, unfortunately. In this episode, I talk about the effect bullying has on victims, types of bullies, and why people bully.
 
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All of us have to face difficult and hard things in life. Some of us may have it more difficult than others. We are given the ability to overcome these life challenges. In this episode, I list off 5 things that I do to help me overcome hard things.

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Welcome to the HeadSpace Podcast. This week's episode focuses on dogs and mental health. I talk about rescuing my dog and how he has helped me overcome my anxiety.

Thanks for listening!

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