Okay so we're at 623/1025 Pokemon done right now that's 60.78%, and did you know that each 1 (one) new unique crochet brings us .09% (NOT EVEN A /TENTH/ OF A PERCENT) closer to 100%. That's 402 more Pokemon to go (currently) (not including ones that have different variants/forms). That's so many. Whoa. Wow.

Thanksgiving used to be Summer’s favorite holiday.

It meant spending two whole nights with Jerry’s parents and waking up early and going for a long walk in the snow, then peeling off wet clothes just in time to watch the dog show on TV while grandma baked pumpkin pie.

Things are different now, with Grandpa Rick and Morty gone. Dad, of course, had instantly accused Grandpa Rick of kidnapping Morty. Mom had screamed that her father would never do something like that to his family, to her (even know Summer knows that deep down, her mother was very afraid that Grandpa Rick had done exactly that).

The divorce was so ugly that Summer transferred to a school in Texas, losing a bunch of her class credits just to get away from them.

Texas is good. Well, it’s hot, and Summer’s skin hates that, but the people are nice and her classes are easy, and if she stays within a certain neighborhood, she can find whatever she wants without having to edge over to the east side of town.

She even has a finance. David plays football and his parents own a ranch in the Texas hill country. They have a little money and they like to flaunt it.

Years ago, before Grandpa Rick burst into Summer’s life and started taking her little brother on adventures, before portal guns and real guns and near death experiences became Summer’s adrenaline fix, she would have been thrilled to nail down a guy like David. David is kind, and sweet, and very attractive. He’s got a good future and he’s looking at being scouted as quarterback next year.

Summer’s ring is a gaudy thing, at least two carats, and it sits heavy on her finger. She only wears it when she knows she’ll be with David or the in-laws. It’s an heirloom ring, passed down through generations, and Summer hates it. She’s forever fiddling with it, or pulling her sleeve down to cover it, or hiding it in her back pocket when she’s out with girl friends.

She doesn’t go out as often anymore - they’re seniors now, and Summer has been told that the partying needs to slow down now that David’s future is getting serious. Summer is fine with this. There’s nothing on this earth that matches a party in space, anyway.

Sometimes, Summer looks up at the night sky and wonders how she could get her hands on some of Grandpa Rick’s K-Lax. That was good stuff.

It’s easy to justify spending Thanksgiving away from home because of travel expenses and final exams. Summer’s done it three years in a row now. She doesn't often think of Beth, or of Jerry, either. She’s deeply entrenched in a new family now, invested in a future mother-in -law who insists on being called “Mama June” or even just “Mama,” and an emotionally detached father-in-law who feels that talking to a woman who is not his wife is beneath him.

Summer is spending more and more time outside, looking at the stars, wishing, remembering.

But this week, the week before break, at 2:43 am, Summer’s phone screen lights up with a call from “Beth Smith.” And when Summer, groggy and maybe already a little hungover, answers with a hoarse, “Hello?” Beth is slobbering drunk.

“Honey, please,” Beth cries, slurring her words and hitching her breaths. “I need to see my baby, Summer. It’s Thanksgiving, next week. Summer, remember? Remember Thanksgiving? You... You’re all I have left.”

Yeesh.

Summer does not want to spend her break dealing with Beth and all of her sloppy-alcoholic coping mechanisms.That’s why she’d run away to Texas to begin with.  

Summer hasn’t been home since the night they lost Morty.

She doesn’t want to go back. So she shushes Beth over the phone, lets her cry it out and then they start it all again, the crying and the shushing, over and over until Beth is nearly asleep, slurring half-formed words into her pillow.

Summer disconnects the call and drops her face into her hands. “Fuck.”

“What, babe?”

Ugh, she’d forgotten that David had stayed over.

David wraps his greedy arms around Summer’s waist and pulls her in, his naked boner brushing hot against her thigh. It makes her sick. She pulls away from him, leaning against the headboard and fumbling for the lamp. Beside her, David blinks owlishly in the light.

“I’m going home for Thanksgiving,” she tells him. No sense dragging it out.

“Oh,” says David, reaching up to stroke Summer’s cheeks and twine his fingers in her hair. Summer tenses at this, but David is oblivious, still carding his big stupid paws though Summer’s shower-damp braids and looking at her with an intensity that is frankly... terrifying. “What about coming back to Pilot Point, babe?,” he reminds her and he leans forward in an effort to pepper Summer’s face with kisses. Summer dodges them, making a show of reaching for her phone, so David grabs her hand instead. “Remember talking about seeing my folks?”

Summer is suddenly disgusted with herself. She ran away from home straight into the arms of this Mama’s boy who can hardly keep it up for the four and a half minutes it takes him to blow his load in missionary position.

Summer is a Sanchez.

She’s wondered for a while, especially after that stunt Dad pulled during the divorce, if she should have her name legally changed. She shares a quarter of Grandpa Rick’s genes, and by her rights as a Sanchez, the universe owes her good sex.

At least.

“Sorry, David,” she says and she deftly rolls away from him to stand at the edge of their shared bed. “Plans have changed. Mom needs me.”

Now David is sitting up, looking for all the world like a kicked puppy, but there’s a hardness in his eyes that Summer doesn’t like. Oh well. In for a penny, she guesses.

“Listen, dude, this isn’t working anyway. I’m not the hot little wifey on your arm that your parents are hoping you’ll find here.” She snorts, pacing around the bedroom, ticking off points on her fingers. “I don’t even want kids. I’m Summer Sanchez. I’ve been to space. I’ve seen the stars and constellations and comets and asteroids.  I’ve met people you wouldn’t believe. I’ve met planets you wouldn’t believe - sentient planets, David! I’ve hit alien drugs that would blow your tiny mind.” She’s trembling now, all keyed up, but it feels good. There’s something cathartic about acknowledging the truth after so long.

She decides that Summer Sanchez has a nice ring to it.

She lifts her hands and twirls, landing in a heap at the foot of the bed. “The best sex I ever had was with a flying lamb on Oourivian Prime, for Chrissakes.”  Summer turns, flushed and grinning, and pokes David in the chest. “You better believe I’m not settling down on a silly horse farm in Pilot Point!”

David is looking at her wide-eyed and slack-jawed, like he’s seeing her for the first time. The thought makes Summer smile a real smile. In a fit of giddiness, she pecks him playfully on the lips, sliding his ridiculous ring from her finger and curling it into his palm. “Good luck with that, babe!”

Feeling freer than she has in years, she flutters around the room, grabbing a few outfits that she likes and stuffing them haphazardly into an old gym bag. The whole thing takes less than a minute.

“Oh, and don’t take it too hard,” she calls over her shoulder, “I don’t think we’re really all that sexually compatible, anyway.” She waves a hand toward the flagging erection that is peaking from David’s boxers. “I’m more of a tentacle kind of girl, if you know what I mean.”

And so, during the fall semester of her senior year, Summer Sanchez dropped out of Texas A&M’s pre-law program and flew home to see her mother for the first time in three years.

                                                            xxx

Morty enters through the front door because he’s not a stranger. He’s not exactly sure how long it’s been on Earth - time moves differently on Morty’s  waste planet - but somehow, he hadn’t expected it to be night. It makes him feel like a burglar, walking up the concrete steps to the front door with his big black cowl pulled low over his face, a deeply ingrained habit.

“You’ve only got one face, Mo-AAAUURRGG-rty. Don’t get caught with it.”

The key code to unlock the door is the same. Morty sighs, surprised at the stress that leaves his body with this revelation. He hadn’t wanted to break into his parents’ home. Now, he doesn’t have to.

He whirls around, taking one last look at the ship he’d parked on the garage pad. He’d avoided the streetlamps best he could, managed to land very quietly (thanks for that rad auto-landing feature, Rick)partially concealed behind some overgrown azaleas.

Morty sighs, tense again. Modifications aside, that is obviously Rick’s ship to anybody who knows it. Morty hopes he can get what he needs and get out. It would be wrong to disturb whatever peace his family had managed to regain in the years he’s been gone.

The front door is squeakier than Morty remembers. He slips into the kitchen as quickly, quiet as a ghost, and pulls the door slowly to behind him.

His first thought is that he’d forgotten that home has a smell. Carpet and lemon pledge and laundry detergent, and the lingering scent of last night’s dinner all converge on his senses like a physical blow to the gut.

How could Morty have forgotten that smell?

He glances around, eyes adjusting to the dim light of the street lamps. A few scattered dishes lie in the sink, an empty wine bottle sits abandoned on the counter. He’s standing on the same ugly linoleum floor with its worn green leaf patten, so subtle you’d miss it if you didn’t know where to look.

Time hasn’t touched the kitchen.

Morty stands in his childhood home and takes three deep breaths. He thought he’d been prepared for anything and everything - all the changes. He’d been ready.

But the house is exactly the same.

It’s Morty who has changed.

Morty’s breathing speeds, and he shakes off the shudder that tempts to run down his spine. If the kitchen affected him this deeply…. He swings his gaze to the garage door that beckons ominously to his left.

Don’t think about it, he reminds himself sharply. The plan is simple - break into the garage, grab the stuff, and get out. There will be time for memories later.

Don’t think about it. Don’t think about… him.

Morty shakes himself, setting his shoulders and pulling the heavy door handle toward him as he turns it to minimize noise. Unlike the kitchen, the swing of the garage door is silent.

The darkness deepens as Morty steps down the single step - there are no windows to let in the glow of the street lights here. The air is hotter and heavy, almost stale, and as Morty turns his back to the room to slowly pull the door to, he gets the strangest feeling. It’s almost the uneasiness he feels when he walks to the grave of the other Morty who is buried in the backyard.  It raises the hairs on his neck, and Morty wonders if anybody in the family have used this garage since...

Don’t think about it.

Door secured and locked, Morty lets his fingers drift along the walls, his opposite hand outstretched in search of obstacles. But it seems that the garage is exactly as Morty remembers, and he navigates the dark with increasing confidence. He snags the dangling string - right where it should be - and tugs. The bare bulb that hangs over Rick’s work table pops and hums as it slowly blinks on, and Morty bites back a smile at the irony of the inter-galactic space genius Rick Sanchez discovering his greatest scientific breakthroughs beneath this dirty fluorescent bulb.

A thousand memories assault him at once.

“A hair, Morty, I need one of your hairs!”

“Bring me the thing. The thing. The thing. The -- the -- it's got, like, buttons on it and lights on it. It -- it -- it beeps.”

“You little son of a bitch! Y-y- are you a simulation?! Huh?! Are you a simulation??”

“I’m the Rickest Rick there is. And you know, it would - UUUURRGGHH-  go without saying that the Rickest Rick… would have the Mortyest Morty.”

“Be better than I am.”

“Don’t… Don’t think about it.”

Morty sucks in a deep breath and grits his teeth hard. Time to get busy.

                                                           xxx

Three hours later, and Morty is almost done with the garage.

He glances at the digital clock that reads 3:33. By the time he gets this stuff loaded, it’ll be nearly daylight.

Damn, he’d really hoped to get everything in one trip. Fuel for a trip to Earth from his encampment is not cheap, and this was a long trip.

He picks up the first item, a strangely lightweight box labeled “Time Travel Stuff” and heads toward the kitchen. He dares not raise the garage door - that would make too much noise.

He opens the door and comes nose to nose with Summer.

“What. The fuck. Are you doing in my grandpa’s garage?” she says slowly, advancing on him with each word.

Morty’s first thought as he stumbles backward is, “Where did my sister get a pistol?”

He trips over the step in an effort to give her some space, sending the box flying. He finds himself sprawled on the floor, space bits everywhere, and his ass is killing him. “Ah, geez,” he breathes, repositioning slowly to take the pressure off of his coccyx. It’s probably broken.

Summer’s hands are trembling, and she lowers the gun. “Morty?”

Oh. His hood had fallen when he did. Morty looks up at her, a little sheepishly, suddenly very aware of the beard he’d decided to grow a while back. “Umm, yeah,” he says lamely, still wincing at the pain. “Hi!”

There’s a funny expression on Summer’s face, like she’s thinking a billion things at once, and her eyes are wider than Morty’s ever seen them. But then her gaze hardens. “And which one are you?” she demands, looking as if she’d like to bring the gun back to his head.

Morty raises his eyebrows. He wouldn’t have expected Summer to immediately question his dimension. Clever of her. He quirks a little smile. “C-137,” he answers her, trying and mostly failing to get back on his feet. “I’m your Morty. Well, your second Morty.”

Quick as a blink, Summer slings the gun away. It lands with a clatter and she launches herself at Morty, wrapping him in a rib-creaking hug. Morty’s body tenses - hugs are definitely not his typical physical interaction. But Summer is burying her face into the crook of his neck, and Morty is surprised to find how easily it fits there. When he’d left, they’d barely stood eye to eye.

Morty is stunned. Summer has never hugged him like this. Feebly, he reaches up and lays his hand across her back. She’s shuddering. So Morty pulls her closer, shifting his weight so that his knees are beneath him, and gathers her in. She allows this, never looking up at him, and slowly, Morty relaxes into it.

“Summer?” he asks softly after what feels like a long time. He’s never been good with his sister’s emotions.

Summer cranes her neck sideways to look at him, and she’s a mess of mascara and tears, red-faced and absolutely shaking with laughter. Morty huffs with her, still utterly bewildered by girls. “What’s funny?”

“Nothing’s funny, Morty,” she tells him, but she’s still laughing, so Morty laughs with her. “You’ve been gone for three years. You’ve been legally declared dead, you asshole!” She swats him on the shoulder, but he manages to doge the blow, which only makes her face fall. She comes closer, looking more tearful now than before, and settles beside him. “We had a fucking funeral for you, you complete sack of dicks!”

Morty doesn’t know what to say, so he grabs Summer’s hand and squeezes. “Sorry.”

And he is.

Summer rolls her eyes and snorts, but there’s something softer at the edge of her lips, and she lays her head on Morty’s shoulder and sighs. Morty assumes means he’s forgiven, at least on some level.

They only sit like that for a minute or so before Morty starts to fidget. His ass is absolutely killing him, and time’s a-ticking. He needs to get out of here soon. Summer seems to read the tension in his body, because she stands abruptly and offers her hand, pulling him to his feet with an exaggerated groan.

“Thanks,” he quirks her a little half-smile, the only thing he has to offer her.

But Summer isn’t looking at him. Her eyes are tracking around the garage, noting the boxes that have been drug out and packed up. Something tightens in her face, and when she speaks, it’s in that no-nonsense tone that always drove him up the wall when they were kids.

“What happened, Morty?” Summer finishes her sweep of the garage and pins her gaze on him.

Morty nearly stumbles back at the intensity of it.

“What happened to you? Where is Grandpa Rick?”

Authors Notes:

Based on Vapor Morty, who was originally developed in this hot mess of a text post. Rick’s been kidnapped and Morty has been scouring the universe trying to find him and doing a lot of learning and growing along the way.

Kidnapped Rick saw Morty “die” just before he was kidnapped and went crazy over it. Morty obviously wasn’t dead, was trying to get to Rick to say hey, I’m all good and these guys are after you so let’s get out of here.

Morty literally lives in an intergalactic dumpster and makes a living renovating and selling weapons and machinery. He found his way home to earth because he wants to find any of Rick’s stuff that he could possibly use to track him down, or maybe even build his own portal gun.

Basically, Morty is a little badass now.

I might write more of these little drabbles if people are interested in them. Also, just really hoping I got Summer’s voice right here. Feedback is always, always appreciated, friends! My messages and ask box are open!

unexpected, expected beginnings

Summary: Working at the ice rink has been one of your favorite jobs, although it tends to lead you to reminisce on recurring memories of your past best friend and lover, Timothee. But, when an unexpected visitor comes through the door, will it leave you to start unexpected beginnings? or form a relationship from burnt bridges?

word count: 2,407                                                                                     reading time aprox: 10 mins

Multi-colored strobe lights glided and beamed throughout the ice rink, shining on the faces of people that were either steadily skating or helplessly clinging onto the railing for life. I found comfort in the cold crisp air as I stood idle by the rental skate hut, waiting for my shift to finish, at 8:30, in 15 minutes. 

I laid comfortably on my propped elbow, a smile crossing my lips as I watched the hesitant and naive expressions of those inexperienced skaters. A brief giggle would occasionally be let out as they would slip and tremble when letting go of the sides, in which they then hastily glue themselves to the wall once again.

I shook my head while checking the time, reminiscing on the days I began skating lessons with, my ex best friend and boyfriend, Timothee and how we would find reassurance when we’d watch each other tumble, yet get back up again. I remember it as if it wasn’t nearly 9 years ago, an 8 and 10 year old walking on ice like a baby elephant learning how to walk on it’s hind legs. 

Sometimes I’d wonder where Timothee was, though I’d have to scold myself for letting him cloud my thoughts once again. We had broken up after he had graduated high school, specifically after I had confronted him on a situation involving a girl that crossed certain boundaries he failed to understand and coincidentally after I’d trusted him with the sacred and vulnerable parts of me in bed, for the first time. 

I pressed my fingernails on the pads of my thumb, alternating each finger with different points of pressure as I always found comfort in the slight pain that it would bring. I thought of it as a reminder of reality and it helped me take my mind off of things by focusing on the feeling of discomfort it brought. 

With an exhausted sigh, I checked the time on my phone and saw I still had about 10 minutes to endure. I tossed the device to the side and began bringing out the disinfectant spray to deal with the used skates scattered across the counter, seeing that there were no more customers coming through.  

Although I spoke too soon as the sound of the revolving doors to the rink came to an audible thud which followed 2 other thuds. I didn’t even bother to turn around to know that there were 3 people that just had entered the building, but it came to a surprise when I found only one guy standing patiently in front of the desk. As soon as he saw me, he stared at me in bewildered shock as if I had caught him off guard. Consciously, I reached up to touch my face bashfully, instantly thinking if there had been something bizarre on it. 

He noticed this immediately and waved in off apologetically. “Oh no, I’m so sorry, that was quite rude of me” He chuckled lightheartedly, placing his hand over mine instinctively on the desk. “I-I thought you looked...familiar, per say” He explained queerly, taking his hand away and placing it on his chest diplomatically, looking at me with regretful eyes. 

“Oh that’s okay, don’t worry about it. I had thought there was something wrong with my face” I laughed off, tucking a stray hair behind my ear, smiling at him. 

“Well I find nothing wrong with your face” He confessed smoothly, beaming at me with an infectious smile. “Jonathan” He stated, extending his hand out to shake mine. 

“Y/N” I replied, returning the gesture, fighting off the rosy color threatening to paint my cheeks as I absentmindedly checked the time again; my shift ending in 5 minutes. “Can I help you with anything, Jonathan?” I inquired, remembering I was still on the job. 

“Oh yeah, I’m here with 2 other friends-well I’m more so third wheeling- but can I get 2 size 10s in Mens and a size 7 in Womens?” He ordered. 

“Where are these 2 other friends? Are they coming in later?” I asked, but then felt a little intrusive as I inquired about his business. Turning around, I looked through the racks of skates and found the requested sizes. 

“Oh I came in with them, they’re just getting lockers for us”

Facing him again, I handed him the 3 pairs with a smile. “That’ll be $21 dollars in rentals” I calculated, taking his credit card from him through this little transaction. “Okay you’re all set, enjoy”.

He silently nodded at me with a comical salut and began walking towards the side of the rink where the lockers were. Maybe it was the nosy part of me, but I extended my head to the side, attempting to see who he was talking about. Although, I wish I hadn’t as my stomach sank and saliva had got caught in my esophagus to the point where I started to cough violently.

In all his fame and glory, there stood Timothee chatting about, with a girl entangled in his arms. His green meadow eyes twinkled while talking to Jonathan, the luminescent fractals of color only enhancing his facial features.  

Hastily, I pressed my nails dangerously to my thumb, wincing as I broke the skin’s surface and drops of blood seeped through. “Shit” I whispered in pain, not knowing how to feel as the intensity of shock and emotional turmoil overcame me. 

I grabbed a band aid from the first aid kit glued to the wall, meanwhile checking the time. My phone read 8:34 and the wave of relief I received never felt so satisfying.

‘God I will be forever grateful to you, I pledge my full loyalty. Oh thank you, thank you, merci, salamat, gracias, obrigado, just thank you’ 

Swiftly, I grabbed my coat and bag from under the desk in indisputable excitement. Hoping over the desk and jogging towards the doors with a skip in my step, not even bothering to put on my jacket as I just wanted to be out of this trying atmosphere. 

Until, the unfortunate sound of my name echoed through the stadium. 

“Hey Y/N! Come join us” 

Pinching the bridge of my nose, I gingerly spun around, cringing when 3 pairs of eyes where on me. Especially the green eyes full of perplexity and awe as the mention of my name resonated with him. 

‘For fucks sake. You had one job God, just one job’

While my ‘graceful and elegant’ complaints permeated my head space, I put on a fake smile and pretended to listen with enthusiasm. “Oh no, it’s quite okay. I wouldn’t want to intrude” I rejected, hoping he’d withdraw his offer. 

“No it’ll be fine Y/N” He reassured, beckoning me with the wave of his arm. “Please, give me the honor of showing you a good time” He proposed with an exaggerated posh accent, bowing down at me with a mischievous glint in his eyes. 

“Um...I mean” I locked eyes with Timothee, searching for any evidence of comfort or reassurance, but he was just as dumbfounded as I was. “Sure?” I replied, sounding more like a question than a straight answer. 

I rested my things down behind the desk, grabbing the pair of skates I kept by my desk and somehow got my legs to progress forward, feeling every fiber in my body ignite in anxiety as I got closer to the group. I maneuvered my way to the benches and began tying my laces agonizingly slow, hoping that Jonathan would change his mind, in which I would have a perfectly formulated response. 

Memories of ice skating with Timmy soon captured my thoughts and the nostalgia softened any resentful bone in my body. I bit off the loose skin on my lips, steadily reinforcing the knot I had made with the lace and with a sigh, I got up with heavy weights on my shoulders. 

A bubbling sensation of apprehension arose from my stomach as I stepped onto the ice, feeling the sudden change of surface area on the pads of my feet. The luxury of maneuvering through the ice smoothly gave me confidence at the encounter, especially when Jonathan complimented my abilities. I avoided any eye contact with Timmy and kept my head low while I approached Jonathan’s side, but also making sure that I seemed present and interested for his sake. 

We made a few rounds around the rink, Timothee somehow separating from the both of us to come to his girl’s aid whenever she failed to keep her balance while ‘skating’; well, more so pushing off the wall 90% of the time. Although she was quite pretty, she had brunette hair that ran long till her waist and radiating tan skin that looked like the sun puked her out. Timmy grabbed her hand, pulling her next to him as he held her up, laughing in the process as she still slipped and slided. 

Rolling my eyes in resentment, I crossed my arms diving deep into my thoughts.

‘Gosh, imagine not knowing how to skate properly’

 Wait, why was I judging her? I could possibly not be thinking about this now. I’m with an amazing guy with a charming personality. But the thing is, I barely even know Jonathan. But I’m supposed to be having a good time, right? I love skating. But you did love Timmy more, didn’t you?. But, Jonathan has pretty eyes. Well, where do you think your fascination of pretty eyes came from? 

An incoherent grumble slipped out as my mind malfunctioned, putting it into overdrive while also, cutting Jonathan off as he was speaking about something I had completely tuned out. “So that was my tri- Wow was my story that boring?” he asked unsurely, rubbing the back of his head while trying to remain a cool exterior. 

“Oh my god, I’m so- I’m so sorry, I just blacked out there” I covered my face with my palms in embarrassment, my sentence coming out mumbled. “I just...I guess I just have a lot to bear in mind” I justified pitifully, glancing at the young and happy couple frolicing around on ice a few meters away from me. 

Jonathan followed the direction I was looking at and nodded. “Penny for your thoughts? Reminiscing on before?” He inquired, biting his bottom lip. 

I spun around in a haste, titling my head to side. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand” I explained, confused at his ambiguous question. 

He pulled me off to the side, leading us to where the penalty box was. “I have to be honest with you, I knew who you were before we initially met” He confessed, looking at me with a conciliatory expression, like if he were a little kid confessing that he broke his mother’s expensive china and was ready to repent. 

“I’m still not understanding” I responded cooly, pushing myself away a few inches, increasing the distance between us as an uneasy feeling crept under my skin. 

He lifted himself onto the open side of railing, patting the seat next to him, in which I carefully reciprocated, still leaving that distance. He looked up at the high ceiling, swinging his feet in thought, before saying nonchalantly, “I know that you and Chalamet over there went out” He looked over at me with a calm expression, gazing at my dismayed reaction. 

As an attempt to keep my composure, I twiddled my thumbs, pressing onto the bandaid as I swallowed the improper slurs I would’ve used if I was on my own time. “I-um” I started, scratching the back of my head in order to process this new information or if my ears were deceiving me and this was all one big trick. “What do you mean- like how do you- like what?” Shaking my head, puzzled with confusion, I hopped off the side and stood on my skates, peering at him. 

“I know you and Timo-” he began again

“Yes I heard, but how?” I cut him off rudely, not wanting him to repeat the same phrase like he did, as my ears might threaten to fall off and die at the sound of his acknowledgement, ending up like pruned up male parts. 

Shrugging his shoulders, he soon hopped off the railing too, explaining, “Me and Tim go to university together and you were the first thing me and him ever talked about. I remember he would go on and on about you after your guys’ break up” He professed, fixating his attention to Timmy. 

I know I shouldn’t feel like this, but the devil on my shoulder claimed this to be a small petty victory. It’s very infantile of me to even consider so as this was almost a year ago and I should be moving on to become an independent woman, or as my horoscope on Monday said so. 

With all these recurring feelings and hesitations, all I could do was chuckle and dive into an uncontrollable fit of laughter. I bent over grabbing my knees as the hysterics came over me, tears brimming at the corners of my eyes. 

Jonathan soon joined the infectious bubble of laughter, adding onto the entire comical event. “Are you okay?” He asked, in the midst of giggles and stifled coughs. 

I placed my palm over my chest, inhaling and exhaling in order to slow my heartbeat to be able to respond. Jonathan then came in close proximity, wiping away the happy tears that shed down my cheek, taking in my tomato like appearance with eyes full of wonder and content. I stared back up at his in enjoyment, coming off the high we were just put in. 

“I’m sorry, I find this all to be hysterical” I admitted, stepping away from his caress and smoothing out the pleated folds that had appeared on my sweater from when I bent over. 

Although something did come into mind. “Why did you ask me to skate with you, if you knew me and Timmy had a thing back then?”

“Well I mean, I’m not the type of guy to pass up opportunities, and who would pass up a chance to spend time with a pretty girl like you?” He declared, showing off his pearly whites, just like when we had met. 

“But isn’t that like, breaking the bro code or something?”

“Well I mean, Timmy’s out on his- what 4th, maybe 5th date this month- I’m sure he won’t mind” He justified, chuckling light-heartedly. 

-

Narrator’s POV

With that the two skated away worry-free, completely oblivious to the pretty-eyed, brunette French boy that stole brisk glances at the interaction of his best friend and his ex-best friend.

part 2

---

A/N: That’s part one, I know there wasn’t a lot of Timmy’s presence here, but I promise in the next one there will :) it’s a new year and I guess it’s senior year of High school that’s getting to me lol

He had only seen the two together a few times.

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Suicide? No Way - Part 3

(Publisher’s Note: This is the third in a series of articles that will examine the passing of 19-year-old Colby Brown, a 2018 graduate of Cameron High School, who attended Marshall University in Huntington. Colby was pronounced dead on Aug. 26, 2019, after paramedics treated him in the middle of Interstate 64.) Darby Brown and her brother Colby had a thing, and it was the same thing he had with Shelby and his mom when it came to hitting the gym. The little brother babysat. “When are you going to gym? What machines are you using? How long are you there? How many reps? His questions were non-stop, but I know it was because he wanted me to do it the right way,” Darby said. “So, we would Snapchat each other when we were at the gym to be accountable. It really was one of our things.” But then there was August 26, 2019. Colby Brown was pronounced dead shortly after 7 p.m. after he worked out at his gym, attended both of his classes during the first day of his sophomore year, and played video games with five friends.

Colby was popular at Cameron High, a school he continued attending despite moving out of the district. “We were in contact on Snapchat at about 3:30 p.m. that day, but then at 6:35 p.m., I sent him a photo of me at the gym,” Darby said. “Usually, he would send something back that was supportive, but not that time. I didn’t hear back from him, and yes, I did think it was odd at the time because he always replied, especially when it came to the gym. “That day, though, the photo I sent him was opened, but there was no response, and I thought it was odd and rude that he wouldn’t answer me because he always did without fail,” she continued. “I mean, why would he open my message and not respond? Now, though, I’m not so sure it was him who opened that message. And then we found out that after that, his location was turned off on his phone right around the same time.” The end result is what is known. Colby Brown died that day on Interstate 64. A young lady who stopped when seeing him fall to the cement knelt over him during his final breaths. “It doesn’t add up, and that's why I still don’t know what really happened to Colby, and that is what is so infuriating,” Darby said. “I have all of these theories in my mind, but I don’t have enough information to make sense of a single one of them. I don’t know, and that’s why we’re so desperate for more information so we can know where he was and maybe why this happened. “It’s just not right. It’s been over five months, and we still don’t know anything new other than I don’t have my brother anymore,” she said. “And the state police still have not given back his phone because the investigation is said to be ongoing, but I wish they would just give it to us so we can go find the answers like we have been since this accident happened.”

Colby's family created this collage showing the young man at various ages. ‘Thank you, sir. May I have another?’ Pledging a fraternity was a discussed topic. His mother and his sisters were anti-frat for reasons of their own, but Colby was surrounded daily by members of the Alpha Sigma Phi fraternity. His roommates and the boys with whom he was playing video games on the day he died, were mostly Alpha Sig members. If Colby had, in fact, decided to pledge to join his friends, no one in his immediate family was informed. “He had told us that he wasn’t really interesting in joining a fraternity, but all of his friends were fraternity members of Alpha Sigma Phi,” Gwen explained. “One of his roommates was the president of the fraternity, so I guess it is possible that he finally gave in and decided to pledge. “But if that turns out to be the truth, I’ll be very surprised,” she said. “But he was growing up, living on his own, and was making his own decisions. I do not know if he made that decision on the day he died, though.”

Gwen captured this image from a news station reporting on her son's death. Alpha Sigma Phi is a national fraternity with more than 8,000 undergraduate members and 56,000 living alumni, according to the organization’s website. It was founded on Dec. 6, 1845, at Yale University, is the 10th oldest national fraternity in the nation, and is one of 12 fraternities at Marshall University. Investigations into behavior and hazing have taken place at Marshall concerning fraternities and sororities during the past five years. Jon Crow, once a family friend and a classmate of Colby’s, did not say anything when he visited for Colby’s funeral about the fraternity or whether or not he had decided to become a pledge. “All he told us was the same story over and over again,” Gwen recalled. “They all smoked a bowl of weed, and then Colby went downstairs because he didn’t feel good, and then he just left. That really doesn’t sound like something Colby would ever do. “I mean, he never just left without saying goodbye, so I don’t know. Obviously, we know he did leave, but like that?”

This card from his freshman year at Marshall University has Colby's name and Alpha Sigma Phi as the listed organization. Herd Life? The legal drinking age in West Virginia is the same as it is in the other 49 states – 21 – but that wasn’t an obstacle for Colby and his friends, Darby insisted. Why not? “Colby found out during his freshman year that there are bars in Huntington where you could get a special card and those bars will allow you to drink if you are pledging the right fraternity,” Darby claimed. “And yes, even if you are underaged. And Colby did get one of those cards from one of his friends, but he told us he used it only to go to that bar and that he was never really going to pledge the fraternity.

Colby's sister Darby insists that some establishments near Marshall University issue cards to fraternity members so patrons younger than 21 years old can consume alcohol. “I told him that it wasn’t his type of thing and I really didn’t want him to get involved with it because you hear so many stories from all over the country. But I also had a friend die at WVU because of hazing. Nolan Burch died because of that culture, and that made me worry about my little brother,” she said. “When it came to college, I was the person he went to because I graduated college just before he was a freshman at Marshall.” Once his personal belongings were collected from his apartment and his car, Gwen did find a new card for the Premiere Pub & Grill with no name or organization listed. The question Colby’s family has asked is whether the new card was another gift, or was it earned somehow this time? “I don’t know if he had to do something for it. Maybe,” Darbie said. “But I don’t know if he had to do something his freshman year to get that card. He just acted as if he just had to be interested in pledging to get it, but as for his sophomore year, that’s something we never talked about. “His freshman year, he had a card for Jake’s, but that bar closed down, but he had a couple of cards in his wallet from a place call the Premiere, and one of his roommates, Jon Crow, was a bouncer at that place,” she explained. “If he went down to Huntington with the intentions of pledging that fraternity, he hid it from us, and that wouldn’t have been like him. He wasn’t a secretive person with us.”

The initial report conducted by law enforcement indicated that Colby Brown had taken his own life. Heroin in Huntington The entire state of West Virginia has gravely suffered from the opioid crisis, but the Huntington area? It was stricken. The largest city in Cabell County is met with many of the same challenges law enforcement encounters here in Ohio County because of its proximity to state borders. One after another. One day in 2017, more than 20 people overdosed on opioids laced with fentanyl in Huntington, and the city since has been a focus during the epidemic. But opioids? Heroin? Colby? “The only way he would do anything like that is if he didn’t know it,” Darby insisted. “And that stuff didn’t come back on the first toxicology report that we finally received from the private investigator. All that was on it was marijuana and nothing else.

Colby had earned a Promise Scholarship and had plans to earn a business degree at Marshall University. “I know there was mention of him doing mushrooms, but that isn’t listed on that report either,” she continued. “He liked weed, and we all knew it so that is why we are anxious to get the second toxicology report that hopefully will be completed soon.” In 2017, 1,019 West Virginians died of an opioid overdose, and in 2018, 900 perished, according to the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention. Quick response teams are operational in 22 of the state’s 55 counties, and the first squad was formed in 2017 in Cabell County. A paramedic, a law enforcement officer, and a recovery coach are involved. “I know Huntington is ground zero for opioid deaths, but I also know my brother would have never gone there,” Darby said. “He was too concerned with his health and his body to ever do anything like that of his own accord. Now, was he slipped something without him knowing? We don’t know. “Colby has seen people in our family struggle with addiction, and it’s something he paid attention to and something he always said he would avoid at all costs,” she said. “I know he would not get on that path of opioid drugs even if he wanted to experiment with something. That was something he would never get involved with; that I know. He saw it destroy too many people.”

Colby was unable to take Penny to Marshall for his freshman year, but once he secured an apartment with friends, his canine went to college with him. A Shiny Penny No More Gwen’s voice changes when she begins to talk about her son. It lowers into persistent somberness and often is difficult to hear during conversations. She and Colby’s sisters are not alone in their sorrow. Penny, a canine Colby took to Huntington with him for his sophomore year, has changed, too. “At first, Penny would look for him any time she heard a car door or an engine rev up,” Gwen said. “But now, she acts depressed and just wants to sleep all of the time. She’s not the same dog she was, and she’s a 6-year-old Boxer. I just think she’s sad and that she’s lonely. She misses her best friend. “She doesn’t like to be left alone, either,” she continued. “Penny seemed angry during the first few weeks, but now she just seems so damn sad.”

Colby traveled with his family to Myrtle Beach in July 2019 and posed with his sister Darby for this fun photo. The family has been contacted since this series of stories began on January 11, and they are hoping and praying that more people step forward with any information they may know to be true. “That’s really what we want, so I’m glad that some of his friends are now reaching out to us to help us fill in the parts of his timeline that we don’t know yet,” Darby explained. “No piece of information is too small, either, because this is a big, giant puzzle we’re putting together ourselves because of the lack of help from the investigators. “If you talked to him the day before or the day of Colby’s death, that’s important to us, and if you talked to any of the people he was around during those days, that’s also important to us,” she insisted. “I would love to hear from more people; that’s for sure.” (Photos provided by the Brown family) Read the full article

Relocating jobs is only way to cut commute

The surging demand for Sydney trains simply reflects their massively subsidised low fares. With all NSW taxpayers footing an annual subsidy nearing $2 billion, fares only recoup a small proportion of operating costs. And this is before completion of new lines costing more than $30 billion. Retention of the current fare levels would then hike the annual subsidy to astronomical levels at which time our state government would likely privatise Sydney Trains and allow the new operator the monopoly to price gouge, as happens at Sydney Airport. Returning fares to break-even levels over time would pressure commuters to live closer to their work or schools, bring usage levels into line with competing options such as tollways, and provide Sydney Trains with the income required to properly maintain its impressive network.- Michael Britt, MacMasters Beach I'm guessing the people who are canvassing these price hikes haven't seen the inside of public transport for many years. Here's an idea to reduce passenger crowding at peak hours: provide more trains. Introducing a price hike in Australia's most expensive city will simply drive more people from our overcrowded trains to our overcrowded roads. - Penny Auburn, Newport There are at least two ways to reduce the peak-hour crush on trains. The first is for offices and businesses to change their working hours, either permanently or in rotation where some start work later than others. The second is to run trains more frequently. Statistics must exist that indicate the number of passengers exiting which trains from which lines at which time of the day. This would give an indication as to which businesses should be targeted for changing staff working times. - Anne Roberts, Leichhardt Folau has a right to air views I hope the Israel Folau saga does not herald the beginning of the end of democracy in this country ("I couldn't care less what Folau says, but the impact it can have is undeniable", May 3). Gay marriage is legal in this country with the protection of the law, but the right to disagree is absolutely necessary. A few years ago, gay marriage was legalised with 60 per cent of the population voting for it - meaning 40 per cent did not, for whatever reason. Should that 40 per cent be silenced? Personal liberty is the glue that holds a robust democracy together, not repression of points of view. - Roger Cedergreen, South Hurstville The LGBTQI community are not alone in feeling isolated, ridiculed, excluded and friendships curtailed because they are considered "different". Ask many committed Christians how they feel when they've worked in an office and witnessed the behaviour of their fellow colleagues towards them when they refused to condone extra-marital relationships, greed, fornication, dishonesty. Or what about the person converted to Christianity from another faith who has been disinherited and disowned? Christians are quite familiar with suffering for the sake of their beliefs. The treatment of Folau is just another example of what has been happening to Christians for 2000 years. - Nan Howard, Camden To see the Bible as historical evidence puts a different meaning onto "historical" and "evidence" than is customary (Letters, May 3). Your correspondent may be skilled in beliefs, faith, values and Biblical content, but his knowledge of contract law, which is the issue at hand, may be lacking. - Ian Muldoon, Coffs Harbour The reverend references my favourite oxymoron: biblical evidence. - Peter Moran, Oak Flats Electorate exile I first read Brian Pearn's article with smugness I am, after all, living east of the shire's great dividing line ("A dire Shire: seat of PM's power goes a bridge too far", May 3). But then I realised that Yowie Bay is right next to Gymea Bay, which makes me a western citizen of Cook: maybe we will be exiled in the next redistribution? But don't despair, Brian. Our PM travels west over that cruel border to the shire's real heart of Sutherland to participate in his church service every Sunday. You haven't been totally exiled from cultural wholeness. - Leanne Jarvis, Yowie Bay Brian Pearns is not the only one with reason to gripe over electoral boundaries. The seat of Warringah, heart of the insular peninsular, has spread its tentacles across the Spit Bridge and now has a stranglehold on Mosman. Not only does the area have to endure the hordes of Warringahite motorists clogging its roads, but it has to suffer the indignity of being identified as the same as its lead-footed invaders. - Graham Short, Cremorne I'm a voter in Scott Morrison's seat of Cook. He will more than likely be returned on May 18. My concern is how long will it be before we face a byelection, if the ALP wins government? I can't see Morrison enjoying the next few years on the opposition benches. What's his plan B? - Barry Ffrench, Cronulla Social media outs the bad apples How fascinating that election candidates are dropping like flies after evidence of their racist, sexist and homophobic views are found on social media ("Labor set to disendorse controversial candidate over offensive remarks", smh.com.au, May 3). This is a warning to people that what they post on social media will be there to haunt them for years to come. We always thought it may affect future job prospects and now we see it in action. - Pauline Paton, Centennial Park If any young person has aspirations to serve Australia as a parliamentary representative in future years they probably should have nothing to do with social media. - Patrick St George, Goulburn In the many years that I have been a voter, I have never seen a greater mess than that which has appeared in the current election. The main problem is the number of candidates who have been disendorsed or who are "under suspicion" by their party. The simplest solution is to permit polling booth officials to rule a line through the name of such candidates. This avoids creating wasted votes, that is votes for these people, and will also prevent the significant number of byelections that will almost certainly occur in the next 12 months. It may teach committees who pre-select these candidates to do their research more thoroughly. Many is the time when I have been a polling booth officer who wished that I had had something positive to do in the "quiet times" during voting. - Geoff Lewis, Raglan On another planet "A new nastiness", Tony Abbott (" 'A new nastiness': Police target offensive posters", May 3)? You cheerfully helped to lower the standards of campaigning when Julia Gillard was prime minister. Reap what you sow. - Sandra Willis, Beecroft And on the third week of the election campaign, Abbott uttered his 11th commandment: Thou shalt love thy neighbour more than thy planet ("Captain calls on powers of persuasion", May 3). That would be the very same planet that supplies the air we breathe and sustains all living things. - Renata Bali, Thurgoona Saving the planet or saving Warringah: it sounds like the arguments 200 years ago by those who opposed abolishing slavery. It would cost jobs on the docks and in the cotton mills economic madness. Morality eventually prevailed that time. - Susan Braham, Greenwich Abbott is quoted as saying "we subcontract too much out to experts already. Do we want experts to tell us what kind of cars to drive how big our cattle herds should be?". Clearly Abbott is not relying on any experts for his views on climate change. So what are his views based on? His gut feeling? - Anthony Drysdale, Bowral Win-win for childcare Quite apart from the fact that long-time-coming pay increases for childcare workers are well deserved they are also pivotal in obtaining the best for our children ("Childcare wages pledge would cost budget $1.6b", May 2). The best childcare workers use early educational practices and early intervention strategies which help reduce longer-term problems. A win on all counts. - Janice Creenaune, Austinmer Putting aid first Michael Fullilove points to stark differences in Labor and the Coalition's policy on aid ("A world of difference goes unnoticed", May 3) . Since coming to government, the Coalition's cumulative cuts to aid after inflation currently stand at 27 per cent with more cuts to come should they be returned to government. This is despite the "debt and deficit'' rationale for the cuts now being replaced by a promised budget surplus. It's worth noting that this year's budget also included cuts to some of the best performing DFAT programs in countries such as Indonesia, Bangladesh and Cambodia. Whilst a dollar increase has not been explicit, the 2018 ALP National Conference committed to increasing Australia's official development assistance as a percentage of Gross National Income every year that they are in office starting with their first budget, with stronger investment in their key priority areas of health, education, climate change, gender and infrastructure. Aid may not be a vote winner in this election, but given Australia is currently swimming against a tide of most donor countries increasing their generosity, the potential long-term reputational and practical impacts of continued cuts to aid should not be ignored. - Maree Nutt, Newport Reasoned thinking The statement "this is a free country" is frequently quoted by all and sundry, so why should voters not be free to prepoll vote when it suits them (Letters, May 3)? Standing in a long queue on polling day, especially if very hot or pouring with rain does not appeal to everyone. Votes cast prepoll may also be more reasoned and less influenced by the wild promises handed out in the final days of a campaign. - Stephanie Edwards, Roseville I imagine the Electoral Commission isn't much interested in being "more stringent" about verifying people's claims to be entitled to vote early. And rightly so. Provided people do it on or before polling day, does it really matter when and why? - Adrian Connelly, Springwood Unsung heroes of healthcare We're always hearing that cuts in hospital funding undermine patient care, as in the battle between public hospitals and private health insurers over who should pay for their treatment. But I was fortunate enough to experience the finest of care at Royal North Shore public hospital in Sydney recently when no mention was made of hospital funding issues. The 40 medical staff's job prescription could have read "need to be superheroes and be on alert to save lives every second". These unsung heroes, including the nurse practitioners, pharmacists, specialists and transplant coordinator, looked after me unbelievably well and I will be grateful to them forever more. - Louise Darmody, Waverton Send Archibald packing David Wenham, a supporter of the Wayside Chapel and all-round decent bloke, is shown in a thoughtful pose in Tessa Mackay's portrait ("More wrinkles please: actor's feedback packs winning punch", May 3). Is he perhaps wondering if the upcoming election will deliver a kinder, gentler society? Probably as slim a chance as a Packing Room Prize winner winning the Archibald. - Joan Brown, Orange No Packing Room Prize winner has gone on to win the Archibald Prize. Is the reason snobbery? The panel of judges would baulk at voting for an entry that has won the Packing Room Prize. - Kim Woo, Mascot Sanger slang Snags? Sangers? I went to the butchers the other day and asked for half-a-dozen snarlers (Letters, May 3). To no avail: I had to translate. That's what we called sausages in New Zealand - well, back in the day at least. - Paul Hewson, Clontarf Initial misgivings For a change, I felt I had a chance of completing Friday's cryptic crossword when the letters DP appeared in the top right hand corner. Usually, the only clue I can solve is DA - Don't Attempt (Puzzles, May 3). - William Galton, Hurstville Grove Postscript There's sticking your head in a bear's jaw, and then there's accusing the ABC of bias. Peter Smith's complaint of a "relentless anti-Coalition campaign" by the national broadcaster attracted much furious disagreement, some like-minded assertions, and questions for us here holding the ring. "Why would you publish a letter with such a totally unsubstantiated assertion?" challenged Jeff Siegel, of Armidale. To which we say: since we are canvassing a topic so firmly in the eye of the beholder, we require no more examples from Peter than we would seek from, say, someone attributing bias to an arm of the press owned by a certain US citizen. Not until we get more column space, anyway. Some balance is available to Malcolm Freak's "Coalition bingo" from Rosemary O'Brien: "In four minutes flat, Labor luminaries will mention: climate change, Turnbull's sacking, the big end of town, non-taxpaying multinationals, penalty rates, indulged retirees, Dutton and Abbott, water neglect, hospitals and health, and a huge grant to something worthwhile. They'll religiously steer clear of Adani and Bill's lack of popularity." Stopwatches have now been put away. A loss in the Letters family: "My father James Prior of Sylvania Waters passed away on Tuesday," advised Michael Prior. "He had over 100 articles published in the Herald and The Australian beginning in the 1950s. His articles were generally about forgotten Australian women. He achieved the trifecta with a letter in Good Weekend, the Herald and The Sun-Herald in one weekend. He earned a PhD at 85 and was given the added bonus of an Honorary Column 8 PhD. Many readers will remember his letters as witty and often controversial. I'm sure he will be missed by many." Our condolences, with gratitude. Mark Sawyer, Letters co-editor To submit a letter to The Sydney Morning Herald, email [email protected]. Click here for tips on how to submit letters. Most Viewed in National Loading https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/relocating-jobs-is-only-way-to-cut-commute-20190503-p51jvc.html?ref=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_source=rss_feed

Mark

Eventually that fall, I hooked up with Mark. He and I attended art class together. As a senior, I wanted an easy course. The department had a great reputation so I signed up. I was one of a few upperclassmen in with a bunch of sophomores and juniors.

 Mark has incredible drawing talent. He doesn’t use it much anymore, but he retains a wonderful artistic eye. It takes him forever to complete a project. As we were in the art classroom finishing up our projects to make our deadlines, we chatted. I flirted shamelessly, and got him hooked. He was mine.

 Mark was still growing into himself when we dated. He may have grown an inch or two during our time together – he stopped growing when he reached 5’10”. He has a slender build, topped with dirty blonde hair and at age sixteen, was already showing signs of premature balding. He suffers that Northern European receding hairline that so many men have. Put that high forehead with a long straight aquiline nose, full lips, and a receding chin, and that’s Mark.

 He is an only child. As a young woman, his mother married a man twice her age. And consequently Mark’s father died when he was quite young. When I knew Mark, he was very protective of his mother. She tried to date, but he was having none of it. “Putz” was his word. Reminded me of David a bit. (Will some psychologist please explain about teenage boys and their mothers? What is it that prevents them from letting their mothers have social and personal lives? Is it hormonal, Oedipal, what?)  A loner, Mark does his own thing, and yet has a quiet fascination with the social interaction of his peers. Standing quietly in a hallway, he acutely observes and absorbs everything going on around him. He works hard to maintain his independent identity, and yet nurses a private insecurity, a longing to be part of the “in” crowd.

 He didn’t have his driver’s license, or a car to drive even if he did, so I drove everywhere. Mark remembers riding in the Pinto. Stopped at the red light at the corner of my street and the main street through town (The one red light in the eight hundred yards between the high school parking lot and my house.)  Wish you were here was in the tape player. He thought it was so cool that a girl knew (and liked!) Pink Floyd. That’s it. That’s the memory. A nice one don’t you think? And provides a great transition as well. No longer with David, I took up with Mark. No longer driving the Buick, I traded a ragtop for a tape player. I still liked to drive, even a Pinto. And I took something of my own away from David and Christopher. I actually enjoyed a little Floyd.

 Mark was a year behind me in school, and best friends with Scott (Ross’ younger brother). So, through Mark, I got to know Scott a little better. Ross had mentioned Scott in one of his previous letters, but it took six months from the time Ross first mentioned him before I actually spent any time with Scott. But even then, it wasn’t Scott I spent time with, it was Mark.

 We didn’t have any money to spend (babysitting money only went so far – filling up gas tanks, and buying fast food) so we made our own fun. Mark and I played board games together, Scrabble mostly. We sat on the floor of my parent’s living room with the board between us, and battled. We picked letters and created words. I don’t remember who won or even if we ever finished a game. We may have gotten tired of playing and just poured the tiles back in the box.

 I was a Scrabble fiend that winter. I was in a mood for battles of letters and words. I lobbied hard to convince the Corral Board to put on a Saturday night game night: Scrabble, Monopoly, penny poker, but no one else rallied with me. I was bored with the live bands and DJ’s at Corral, I had been there, done that, and was tired of jumping around the dance floor. Even so, my friends were all dancing, so I packed up the Scrabble box and drove to the Civic Center to play. Mark and I got a game going, friends surrounded us, kibitzing and soon the room was split between the dancers and the band in the front of the hall near the stage, and the Scrabble game going on in the back of the hall. Exclaims of “Good Word” were shouted over the drum set. Mark and I reveled in the attention.

 Mark and I talked. He didn’t own a computer and we practiced the fine but fading art of personal conversation. While he was a loner, that didn’t mean he lacked opinions, or interesting things to say. His observations provided a perspective I hadn’t considered in my young life. Of course we listened to music – Mark likes stuff with a harder edge. For whatever reasons he’s angrier than other people I have known. Dead Kennedy’s, Adam and the Ants, The Kinks, The Clash, Sex Pistols. Some I like, some I don’t. It’s fun to listen and learn. After school, while his mom was at work, we sat on the floor of his room and listened.

 One evening Mark was over at our house for dinner – or stopped by shortly after – and while I sat at the dining room table, Mom cleared some dishes and got coffee for Dad. We asked about dessert, and somehow the conversation turned to chocolate chips. The next thing I know, we’re sitting around the table – all of us, Mom, Dad, Mark and myself – balancing chocolate chips on the end of our noses trying to then catch them in our mouth. We got the giggles – I think Dad was the only one who could master the task. My nose is too pug to be able to get the necessary angle.

 Another afternoon we decided not to play Scrabble, but to try Trivial Pursuit instead. We started the game and were playing when Dad arrived home from work. After changing clothes, he walked into the living room to visit and watch what was going on. Dad started feeding me answers…I picked the most obscure category – Entertainment most likely (Despite the fact that I love movies, I cannot retain names. So knowing who starred in what movie, or which song made the top ten in 1958 was well beyond my ken.) I impressed the hell out of Mark. We kept playing, and he kept giving me these looks like, “How in hell did you know that?” Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore and burst out laughing. Poor guy.

 Mark was not David. While David and I were occasionally public with our displays of affection, Mark and I were quite private. Most never knew we dated. Quietly, discreetly with music playing in the background, some afternoons teen passion got the better of us and we explored each others’ bodies. Shy and nervous with each other, our unfamiliarity desperately wanted to become familiar. We reached for each other, kissing tenderly.

 He was brave and trusting enough one afternoon to let me cut his hair. Sitting on a chair in his mother’s yellow kitchen, he wrapped a towel around his shoulders and let me dampen his head and run a comb through his hair. Then slowly and more than a little anxious, I snipped away at his locks, trimming them to the best of my untrained ability. We laughed and talked through our nervousness, and the experience turned sensual. I was his first girlfriend, his first kiss, and I didn’t realize until much later what a responsibility that is.

 *          *          *

 My brothers were home for Christmas that year – a now rare event to have all of us in one place for a holiday. Jack had been away for eight years. Tom and his wife lived in Oregon - he’d been gone for six years. My grandmother (we called her Mommer) was over for dinner with the whole family and the phone rang. Mother answered it, “Hello? Oh, just a moment. It’s for you Susan.”

 “Hello?”

 “Hi! I was wondering if you’d want to go see a movie tonight. Dune.”

 “Well, I’ve got family here, visiting. Let me check with my Mom and Dad. Hold on.”

 “Mom, Dad, is it all right if I go to a movie tonight? Dune.”

 “Sure, if you want to.”

 “Okay. What time? Who’s driving? You’ll pick me up? Great. See you then.” Click. Pause.

 Uh oh. Panic. Now what do I do?

 Confess.

 To my parents:  “I just did a silly thing. I have no idea who I’m going with. I have no idea who I was speaking to on the phone. I think it’s Victor, but I’m not sure. What do I do?”

 We discussed the predicament (added an interesting twist to the conversation anyway) and decided that should he call back, Mother would ask, “Who is calling?” before turning the phone over. Second choice was to investigate who would be coming to the door before I was ready.

 Turns out I was right. It was Victor, and his brothers Igor and Alex and their neighbor Matt. We all piled in the “Grenade” to see Dune. Fun movie. But why was I the only girl? Could it be those letters I wrote to Victor while he was at boot camp?

 I was still firmly entrenched in “the group” despite the falling out with David and others. Victor’s overture of friendship brought me back into the fold. It helped that Mark and Scott had friendships with Igor.

 Victor and Igor hosted a New Year’s Eve party. Upstairs in the living room, dining room and kitchen, the adults had their revelry with wine and cheese, and fancy hors d’ouevres. While the adults were tipsy upstairs, the teens were in the basement with our own loud music. Igor liked David Bowie, Victor played ELP, and of course the other 80s pop standards. Competing with the party upstairs, we had our own fun. Somebody mixed “reveler’s rot” a punch of Everclear mixed with whatever fruit juice was around – most often Welch’s with fruit slices thrown in for effect. A ghastly grape flavor that night, it was our illicit means of intoxication.

 Julie and I decided to get drunk. In all of our seventeen years we’d never had the experience, and decided it was about time. Teen Counseling pledge be damned. She and I gingerly stepped into the storage room where the punch was hidden and filled our Dixie cups. We tasted the concoction, grimaced, and tossed it back our throats. We drank 2-3 cupsful – who remembers exactly?

 I drank until the room started spinning and stopped. I got silly, and started dancing, then my bladder kicked in and I had to pee. (That’s how I remember that the lone john in the basement had nothing but a curtain in front of it. I had to pee a lot, and felt like I was on display every time I did.) As my curfew time approached, Victor took me up to his dad’s office so I could call home. Sitting on Victor’s lap, it took me several tries to punch in the numbers. Dad answered the phone. I told him I was having a lot of fun and asked to stay later. The guys sobered me up and I was able to drive the half-mile home by 2 a.m. or so. Overall, it was a most pleasant evening – my first drunk in the midst of friends who loved and respected me for who I was, lumps and all.

 Poor Julie got too much for her system and started vomiting. Her parents came and picked her up early. I don’t even remember her leaving the party. I learned about that later.

. The P���

A Mousy Priest and the Broken Window

A mousy American priest one day renovated a run-down, long-abandoned, bland-looking elementary school.

“Flood planes and depressions do wonders for property costs,” he’d later explain to friends. “And I swear I’d never seen another building quite like it—so very decent, I mean.”

So, against the diocese’s wishes, this fellow went ahead and purchased the lot, throwing up a homemade sign on its front lawn: “Future home of St. Anthony Church.”

This friar was penniless, friendless, but unconcerned. While awaiting pennies and friends, he lived in the neighborhood—avoiding additional vows of poverty by teaching history at the high school.

From the first, students agreed that Mouse (as the neighborhood quickly rechristened the priest) was quite stupid but also perfectly nice.

“He’s alright, I guess,” one kid told his mom. “He gets off topic all the time and should probably be the art teacher, but he’s alright.”

Teenage and twenty-something-year-old men agreed that the priest was quite stupid but debated the meaning of his niceness.

“I dunno. Guy’s gettin’ under my skin. Too much good idn’t always a good thing,” one of them said.

“Well maybe you oughta shape up, ‘n he’d been outta here in no time,” his mom responded. “‘Bout time we had a good, ‘onest man ’round here. That’s how I reckon’.”

And that’s precisely how the priest annoyed the living hell out of his neighbors, especially the younger guys whose moms still read the King James. These sons would have found Mouse more bearable had he driven a Cadillac or touched children. Sadly, though, after months of careful observation, the men concluded that the priest wasn’t a villain—

“Nah, jus’ a dipshit,” Theo remarked. “Y’know,” he confessed to a friend, “Nowadays I’m kinda startin’ to miss that holier-than-thou crook who stole momma’s retirement savin’s.”

Though held at alms’ length by the younger townsmen, the priest eventually won the affections of older folks—especially from those who still remembered the old baptist hymns, which had been swallowed up alongside the church in the ’89 flood. New churches had sprouted up since then, of course, but their only attendants were little girls, mothers, grandmothers, and whichever men were hitched to or romancing them at the time.

“Hell nah. I haven’ benna church in ten years, jus’ about,” Mr. Franklin, a retired contractor, told the priest. “Least, not since the old lady croaked. They got no soul no more. Don’t need anybody tellin’ me how to be good no how.”

“Well what could we do to change that?” Mouse asked.

“Change what?”

“You said there’s no soul.”

“Ah, well that’s not gunna change overnight.”

“You know that’s not an obstacle.”

Mr. Franklin became quiet. He slowly chewed on his gums as he mulled on the question, a slight and solemn frown on his face.After a pause, he let out a long groan: “Tell you what… Promise me we’ll be singing ‘Swing Low,’ and I’ll build that damn church for you myself. Won’t fix nothin’, but I ain’t busy either.”

“You know I haven’t got the cash for it,” Mouse laughed.

“Then you better thank God you got me as a friend, ’cause I got friends. I’m your answered prayer, son.”

So it was the memory of singing and a modest pledge that recruited the neighborhood’s most talented glass-smiths, carpenters, and landscapers. It also helped that these folks wanted to see something else built besides a gentlemen’s club, liquor store, or crack house.

Later that afternoon, Mr. Franklin justified his commitment to Harvey, a friend of his: “Sure, sure, goddam the Catholics, but goddam the pimps too, I say.”

“Still not seein’ why you give a care,” his friend replied. “Not like pimps are goin’ anywhere, and not like youse gettin’ any wine anyhow, you ole drunk.”

“Shut your mouth, boy. I’ll whoop your ass an’  have it saddled in time for J.C. to ride it inna church come Palm Sunday.”

Amused crow’s feet wrinkled around Harvey’s eyes: “And what’s he gunna do with that tongue ah yours? Guarantee you’ll shit those brave trousers ah yours at the sight ah Him. Besides, don’t you got better things to do?”

“You know full well there’s jack shit to do in this town. Decent things, anyways.”

Whenever he wasn’t scrambling around with chores or visits with friends or the church’s construction or teaching or naps or city permits, the priest would sit in a sofa two sizes too cozy and read books seventy-times-seven sizes too big. Usually he’d just fall asleep while muttering things.

A few months after moving to town, students began visiting his little house to talk about books and music. He knew they didn’t understand his favorite books, which he said were about poverty; and they knew he didn’t understand their favorite music, which they said were about poverty. But they all loved to shoot the breeze.

“Will they ever put ‘Me Against the World’ in the Bible? Maybe then I’d read it,” one of the girls said.

“Well Isaiah’s in there, so maybe God figured there wasn’t any need for a sequel,” Mouse replied.

“Well maybe black people have something to add to the pot?”

One of the boys joked, “You’re going straight to hell, Maggie.”

“Straight to hell?” Maggie hopped to her feet and belted out with musical flare: “Lord, help me chaaaaange my ways!” Perking up to Maggie’s jubilee, the other kids chimed in for the chorus: “Show a little mercy on judgment day! It aaaaiiiin’t me, I was raised this way! I never let em play me for a busta, make it hell for a hustler!” They all collapsed in laughter, rolling around on the floor and shouting at each other.

“Guess we’re all goin’ to hell!” the boy cried.

Mouse sat in his big chair with a big, embarrassed smile.

Eventually the day came when the building was restored to perfection: stained-glass windows to shame the New Jerusalem, towering wooden beams upon which God Himself could sit, raised flower beds brimming with foul-smelling compost. For years to come, whenever they accidentally wound up in “the wrong side of town,” rich people from up north would be stunned to see the church in the middle of a ghetto.

“How hasn’t that thing been burnt to the ground?” a man wearing Ray Bans asked his wife, who was frantically scanning her map for escape routes.

“Focus honey: where in God’s name are we?”

But on the eve before the church’s first mass, the friar stood in the church’s courtyard. In solitude, right at the foot of the steeple, he saw how good everything was.

And after a year of constant letdowns—arrested fathers, pregnant little girls, denied construction permits, offhand insults—a quiet and easy joy welled back up in him.

For enough seconds, he could remember why he was there.

So this content little man grabbed a brick and wordlessly threw it through the facade’s largest, most marvelous stained-glass window.

To Mouse, the sound of it was immense. Like a waterfall of crystals, he thought.

However many minutes passed, Mouse eventually smiled and thought again, Or like the rumble of a coming stampede.

EOFire’s May 2017 Income Report

May 2017 Income At-A-Glance

Gross Income for May: $196,304

Total Expenses for May: $81,185

Total Net Profit for May: $115,119

Difference b/t May & April: -$15,126

Why We Publish An Income Report

This monthly income report is created for you, Fire Nation!

By documenting the struggles we encounter and the successes we celebrate as entrepreneurs every single month, we’re able to provide you with support – and a single resource – where we share what’s working, what’s not, and what’s possible.

There’s a lot of hard work that goes into learning and growing as an entrepreneur, especially when you’re just starting out. The most important part of the equation is that you’re able to pass on what you learn to others through teaching, which is what we aim to do here at EOFire.

Let’s IGNITE!

CPA On Fire’s Monthly Tax Tip

What’s up Fire Nation, my name is Josh Bauerle. I’m a CPA and the Founder of CPA On Fire, where we specialize in working with entrepreneurs to minimize their tax liability while keeping them in line with the ever-changing tax laws.

I’ve been working with EOFire for years now, and John and Kate have included me in these monthly income reports with unlimited access to all their accounts so I can verify that what they report here is complete and accurate.

And because they believe in delivering an insane amount of value to you, my job doesn’t stop at the verification level; I’ll also be providing tax and accounting tips to you along the way!

Josh’s May Tax Tip: Charitable Donations

Charitable donations are an item I get a ton of questions on, and it’s top of mind for me right now, as this past weekend I was in Texas representing a client in an audit that mainly centered around a large amount of charitable donations claimed on their 2015 tax return.

Luckily, the client had done everything by the book, and we came out of the audit without a scratch.

So this month, I’m going to tell you how you can do the same.

First, let’s talk about what a charitable donation is…

To qualify as a tax deductible donation, the money and/or property must have been donated to an IRS-approved nonprofit organization. That would include most churches, schools and places like Goodwill and Salvation Army.

What it does not include is donations to friends in need, donations at fundraisers that go directly to individuals, and even most of the Go Fund Me campaigns for people in need. If it’s not an IRS-approved nonprofit, it’s off the table for a tax deduction.

Next, let’s talk about what records you need to keep to protect yourself.

In the event you are like my client and the IRS comes calling, they classify donations in two categories: cash and non-cash.

Here’s a run down on both.

Cash Donations

This is the easiest one to show proof of.

First, make sure you record exact dates, amounts and who they went to for each donation. If you can make the donation via check, even better.

Second, make sure the organization you donate to issues you a tax receipt. Do these things and you’re fire-proof against the IRS.

Non-Cash Donations

This is where things can get tricky; non-cash donations consist of any type of property donated to a nonprofit.

For most people, it will be clothing, furniture, toys and other household items given to places like Goodwill and Salvation Army.

If your total non-cash donations are under $500, there’s not much you need to do. Simply ask the organization to give you a receipt and you’re clear.

But if it’s more than $500, the level of proof you’ll need to provide is higher.

First, you’ll want to record exactly what you donated, the estimated date you purchased it, the estimated price you paid for it and the current value of it.

So if you donate a couch to Goodwill, you’ll record you bought it on April 3, 2012 for $2,000 and the current value is $600.

Second, you’ll want to be even more sure the organization gives you a receipt with the donation value on it. This will be huge.

Finally, if your non-cash donations are unusually high that year – say over $10,000 – I would even go so far as taking a picture of each item you donate. Example: for your couch, take a quick pic of it and store with your records.

And one more note here: if you have a non-cash item you donated worth more than $5,000 that you’ve owned for more than one year, the IRS requires you get a third party appraisal to determine the exact value. This typically comes into play for people who donate vehicles.

Charitable donations are an awesome way to lower your tax liability and help those less fortunate – a true win/win.

But it’s also an area that is frequently abused on tax returns, and the IRS watches carefully. Follow the rules above and you’ll be in the clear in the unlikely event they do decide to take a closer look.

As always, please feel free to contact me if you’d like to discuss what would be best for YOUR business. I LOVE chatting with Fire Nation!

*Bonus* If you haven’t checked out Josh’s FREE course on business entities yet, you can get it here!

David’s May Legal Tip: Copyright & Trademark

What Can I Do When Someone Takes My Logo or Image?

This question came from EOFire listener Lori Eisenstadt: What can you do when someone takes your logo or image and uses it online?

First let’s separate logos and images.

Images

If you create an image, you own the copyright. This doesn’t apply to online memes where you just add some words – I’m talking about an image you created yourself or that an employee created for your company.

If you find that someone has taken your image and used it online, there are a few things you can do.

1. Of course, you can contact the person who’s using your content and nicely ask them to take it down.

They may or may not comply. If not, you can hire a lawyer and sue them, but that’s a bit of an extreme – and very costly – step.

2. Fortunately, there’s a simpler option: if the website, app, or service is located in the U.S. or does business in the U.S., they’re required to comply with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”).

The DMCA has what’s called a “safe harbor” provision for online service providers.

Websites that host user-created content – for example, every social media site – can’t be sued when infringing material appears on the site, as long as they comply with “takedown notices.”

These are notices provided by copyright holders that a piece of infringing content has appeared on the site.

If you go to any website or app that has user-generated content and search around a bit, you’ll find a section called “Copyright” or “DMCA” or “legal” – something like that.

They will have either a form you can fill out or an email address to which you can send the notice. In most cases, the content will be taken down quickly at that point.

Often the site will then initiate a process to ensure that the notice was valid.

Be sure to keep good records of images and other content that you create, so if you ever have to prove that you actually created it, you’ll be able to show that you’re the rightful owner.

Use caution, because some people abuse the DMCA takedown process – see this blog post for some examples.

Logos

The same info that applies to images also applies to logos (since a logo is a type of image), but logos are also trademarks.

A trademark is anything that identifies your company as the source of goods or services.

If someone is using your logo without permission – and they’re using it to market competing goods or services – they may be liable for trademark infringement and unfair competition. This is the type of situation where you’re definitely going to want to bring a trademark lawyer in to advise you.

Trademark law is complex, and there may be valid reasons for someone else to use your logo – for example, if they’re doing a “taste test” to see if consumers prefer your goods or theirs, or if they’re reporting factual information about your product or service.

If you’re not ready to hire a lawyer, and your trademark is being used online in a manner that you think is violating your rights, you may be able to take advantage of a takedown procedure similar to the one described above in the “Images” section.

Again, search the website or app for instructions on how to do so.

Wrapping It Up

It’s important to make sure that your valuable intellectual property is not being used against your wishes. Be sure to search for your brand name regularly on Google and your preferred social media networks. And, of course, always contact a legal professional if you run into a potentially serious issue.

Thanks, Lori, for submitting this question!

If you have a legal question that you’d like me to cover on a future EOFire Income Report, click here to email me and I’ll be sure to give you a shout-out when I join John and Kate to talk about your legal questions!

Want to stay on top of how intellectual property issues like trademarks and copyrights affect your business? Download my free Intellectual Property for Entrepreneurs Checklist!

What Went Down In May

The Mastery Journal 1-day

Following suit with The Freedom Journal Kickstarter campaign, The Mastery Journal Kickstarter campaign offered a pretty special pledge level: a full day with JLD in Puerto Rico.

The investment was not insignificant: $10,000, not including travel.

Because we know pricing is a tough thing to wrap your head around, we want to breakdown how we came up with this number, and why it’s worth every penny.

How’d we come up with 10k?

Charging what you’re worth is a known struggle for most entrepreneurs, especially when you’re first starting out.

Has John always charged $10k for his time?

Not even close. There was a definite progression up to this number, which developed in line with the following factors:

John’s desire to do one-on-one coaching;

Other revenue streams; and

Our bigger vision.

When you’re first starting out, you likely don’t have multiple income streams. While this should be your goal, you have to build up to it one step at a time.

So when coaching was the only income stream we had, and EOFire and JLD were still proving themselves as a great brand and a credible leader, the investment matched that.

As the brand and JLD became more widely known and trusted, so did our diversification. With other income streams coming into play like Fire Nation Elite and Podcasters’ Paradise, we were able to start weighing our time investments in different areas.

The scales started to tip, and one-on-one coaching was no longer the only way we were generating revenue.

Because of this, John was able to increase the investment for one-on-one time with him.

And when we talk about the bigger vision, this is for the business as a whole. If John were to spend all of his time doing one-on-one coaching, we never would have been able to do things like create Podcasters’ Paradise, or launch The Freedom and Mastery Journals.

If your goal is to grow a coaching business, then that’s one thing; however, if your goal is to create products and other types of services, then there has to be a point where you start doing less coaching and more implementation.

How do we know it’s worth it?

Investing $10k is a big deal, and with it comes pressure and expectations. But as we’ve grown EOFire and JLD has proven his expertise and knowledge time and time again, we have proof that the one-on-one investment is worth it.

Plus, John now has the confidence of nearly 1,700 conversations with today’s most inspiring entrepreneurs, and real relationships with master minds like David Siteman Garland, Pat Flynn, Amy Porterfield, Russell Brunson, and Tim Ferriss – just to name a few.

YOU believing that you’re worth every penny and that you will deliver on the expectations you’ve set is key to not only knowing that you’ve priced your product or service correctly, but also knowing that whoever makes that investment will also walk away knowing it was worth every penny.

Saul, welcome to Puerto Rico!

Now that we’ve given some background, let’s have a peek at John’s first 10k Day for 2017!

From JLD:

In 2016, I hosted two $10k days, and in 2017 I’ll be doing the same :-)

The first person to rock the $10k day this year was Saul Marquez.

It started out with Saul and I jumping on a 30-minute strategy call the week before he came down to Puerto Rico so I could get a solid sense of where he was at with his business, where he wanted to go, and what he wanted most out of his ‘Day with JLD‘.

After our chat, I was FIRED up because I knew Saul was in the perfect place in his life and business to spend a day under The JLD Microscope.

Saul rolled into Puerto Rico Friday evening and I took him out on the town to meet a few friends and have a fun first night. We limited ourselves to one drink each, as we wanted to be 100% for Saturday’s 12-hour strategy session.

Early Saturday morning, we both awoke bright eyed and bushy tailed, prepared to IGNITE the day.

Without going into too much detail of what Saul and I accomplished, I’ll share that by the end of the first hour I had identified a MAJOR hole in Saul’s business model:

He had no FUNNEL.

In my words, a FUNNEL is the journey you take your Avatar on from the moment they are introduced to your brand to the moment you make a high-level offer.

There needs to be a LOT of value and know/like/trust at each level in your funnel, which in my opinion needs to be a minimum of six levels. I call this The JLD Method.

We built Saul’s ENTIRE funnel, and now Saul has EXACTLY what he needs to pour IGNITER fluid on the top of his funnel, and watch revenue drip (and eventually pour) out the bottom.

Saul (like my other 1 day peeps) has become a friend, and I know our paths will cross many times and that I will take pride in the success that awaits him.

And thanks to Saul, I now drink Matcha Tea!

Puerto Palooza

Saul’s 1-day in PR wasn’t the only deep-dive we did during the month of May…

Right before we launched The Mastery Journal on Kickstarter we had an idea: what if one of the pledge levels for the campaign included a 3-day mastermind here in Puerto Rico?

We’ve certainly gotten the request for an in-person mastermind or an event more than a few times from Fire Nation, so we figured this would be the perfect opportunity to give it a go.

Not knowing what to expect, we added a $6,500 pledge level to our campaign, which included a 3-day mastermind here in Puerto Rico, a signed Mastery Journal, and a spot on EOFire.

Five weeks later we had five attendees locked in and the planning was in full swing.

Even though we’d never hosted an intimate mastermind like this before we knew our experience with participating in masterminds and leading what we like to call a “hot seat” would play a huge role.

With a lot of logistical planning around travel and accommodations and a few strategy sessions between the two of us, we came up with a solid plan for the weekend.

We decided to host the mastermind at our home here in Palmas Del Mar; we knew this would add a personal and intimate touch that we’d never be able to create at a hotel or event center.

The first two days (Friday and Saturday) were the business-focused days.

Throughout these two days we crushed all five hot seats, which ran two hours each; we made sure all questions were answered with a shorter, wrap up hot seat; and we even had time to spare for some roundtable discussions.

All-in-all, the business-focused days were a perfect 10!

Then, the third day was reserved as our “Palooza Day”: a day to kick back and enjoy Puerto Rico, which we took full advantage of aboard a 40 person catamaran!

Island hopping, snorkeling and relaxing were all on the agenda, and we finished the day back at our home in Palmas with a BBQ pool party.

Image credit: Travis Chappell

While we don’t have Puerto Palooza II planned just yet, there’s a good chance it’ll be coming up soon, so stay tuned!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

May 2017 Income Breakdown*

Product/Service Income: $131,158

TOTAL Journal sales: 963 Journals for a total of $37,750

The Freedom Journal: Accomplish your #1 goal in 100 days!

TheFreedomJournal.com: $5,646 (103 Hardcovers & 32 Digital Packs sold!)

Amazon: $14,070 (402 Freedom Journals sold!)

Total: $19,716

The Mastery Journal: Master Productivity, Discipline and Focus in 100 days!

TheMasteryJournal.com: $5,889 (111 Hardcovers & 36 Digital Packs sold!)

Amazon: $12,145 (347 Mastery Journals sold!)

Total: $18,034

Podcasters’ Paradise: The #1 Podcasting community in the world!

Recurring: $20,327 (4 annual, 203 monthly)

New members: $5,325 (26 new members)

Total: $25,652

Podcast Sponsorship Income: $62,500

Podcast Websites: $5,000 Your all-in-one podcast website peace of mind

Free Podcast Course: A free 15-day course on Podcasting

Free Webinar Course: A free 10-day course on Webinars

Free Goals Course: A free 8-day course on Setting & Accomplishing Goals

Funnel On Fire: A free 8-day course on Creating a Funnel that Converts!

Podcast Launch: Audiobook: $164 | eBook: $92

Affiliate Income: $65,146

*Affiliate links below

Resources for Entrepreneurs: $56,039

Audible: $660

BlueHost: $900 (Step-by-step guide and 23 WordPress tutorials)

Click Funnels: $49,863

Coaching referrals: $2,560 (email me for an introduction to a mentor for overall online business or a Podcast focused mentor!)

ConvertKit: $93

Disclaimer Template: $50 (legal disclaimers for your website)

Fizzle: $453

Infusionsoft: $500

LeadPages: $960

Courses for Entrepreneurs: $7,359

DSG’s Create Awesome Online Courses: $4,233

Eben Pagan: $158

Ramit Sethi: $2,396

Self-publishing School: $250

Bryan Harris’ 10k Subscribers: $322

Resources for Podcasters: $914

Pat Flynn’s Smart Podcast Player: $30

Podcasting Press: $354

Libsyn: $467 (Use promo code FIRE for the rest of this month & next free!)

UDemy Podcasting Course: $63

Other Resources: $834

Amazon Associates: $741

Other: $93

Total Gross Income in May: $196,304

Business Expenses: $78,613

Advertising: $7,727

Affiliate Commissions (Paradise): $1,970

Accounting: $350

Cost of goods sold: $6,607

Design & Branding: $1,980

Education: $144

Legal & Professional: $740

Meals & Entertainment: $1,517

Merchant / bank fees: $1,061

Amazon fees: $12,676

Shopify fees: $208

Stripe fees: $5

PayPal fees: $336

Office expenses: $1,284

Payroll Tax Expenses / Fees: $1,422

Promotional / events: $1,323

Property Tax: $807

Paradise Refunds: $2,000

Sponsorships: $13,750

Show notes: $215

Travel: $2,296

The Freedom & Mastery Journal: $15,079

Virtual Assistant Fees: $3,295

Website Fees: $1,821

Recurring, Subscription-based Expenses: $2,572

Adobe Creative Cloud: $100

Boomerang: $70 (team package)

Brandisty: $24

Authorize.net: $91

Cell Phone: $216

Internet: $300

eVoice: $9.95

Infusionsoft CRM: $396

Insurance: $551

Libsyn: $203

Manychat: $10

Chatroll: $49

PureChat: $20

ScheduleOnce: $9

Skype: $2.99

Shopify: $147

TaxJar: $19

Workflowy: $4.99

MeetEdgar: $49

Taxes & Licenses: $300

Total Expenses in May: $81,185

Payroll to John & Kate: $15,900

In our May 2014 Income Report and our June 2016 Income Report, Josh focuses on how to pay yourself as an entrepreneur. Check them out!

Wondering what we do with all of our net revenue? We share all in our April 2017 Income Report :)

Total Net Profit for May 2017: $115,119

Biggest Lesson Learned

Engaging with your audience

May was the start of Season 6 on my podcast Kate’s Take, and throughout this season I focused on a single topic: project management.

I learned a lot through creating the posts and episodes for this season, especially when it came to hearing straight from my listeners about the specific struggles they’re currently facing in their business.

Which got me thinking…

I wonder if others are leveraging tools like Google Forms and SpeakPipe to engage with their audience?

These are probably two of the simplest tools when it comes to collecting information, which is why I love them so much.  Plus, this engagement one-on-one with your audience is GOLD when it comes to understanding their biggest pain points and coming up with new ideas for what you can create for them that will be of value (i.e. what they’ll actually pay for!)

So I thought I’d go through a specific example of exactly how I’ve used these tools to gain feedback from my listeners.

Step 1: Set up the page

Once I have my goal in mind (in this case, to collect input for my next season on the podcast directly from my listeners) I’m going to set up the page I’ll be directing listeners to.

For this, I simply login to our site and add a new page.

Once I give the page a title and write a line or two about the purpose of the page, I’m ready to move on to step 2.

Step 2: Create the Google Form & SpeakPipe box

Because I’ll be asking my listeners to visit the page I created and either fill out a Google Form or leave me a SpeakPipe message, my next step is to create those two things.

The Google Form will simply ask which topic they’d like to hear about most (with an option for ‘other’ so they can write anything in that space), plus some other general info about how long they’ve been listening, how they found out about the podcast, etc.

You can check out my Google Form for Season 7 here.

Then, creating my SpeakPipe message box is just a matter of logging in to create the widget, and then pasting the code on the page like I’ve done here: EOFire.com/season7

Step 3: Create the call to action

Now that I have my page set up and my form and message box ready for input, I need to figure out what I’m going to say to actually get people to the page.

My call to action is typically in the intro and outro of at least 3 – 4 episodes: 1 of those episodes being the final episode of the previous season, and then 2-3 of them in the episodes I publish in between seasons.

Step 4: Encourage engagement

Don’t think that just asking for input one time is enough; you have to really encourage engagement, especially if your call to action is reaching people via a podcast.

If you think about it, podcast listeners are typically doing some other type of activity when they’re listening to your podcast, so the chances of them remembering something you only say 1 time is very unlikely.

There you have it. Now that you know how simple it is to request engagement and feedback from your audience, it’s time to put it to action!

Bonus step: if you want to take your engagement to a whole new level, also add a scheduler link on the page where people can sign up for a one-on-one chat with you via Skype or Zoom. Any time you can spend with your ideal audience one-on-one will equal massive results, because when you listen to the questions, struggles and pain points revealed, each one is a potential product, service or resource you can offer your audience.

Alright Fire Nation, that’s a wrap!

Until next month, keep your FIRE burning!

~ Kate & John

Note: we report our income figures as accurately as possible, but in using reports from a combo of Infusionsoft & Xero to track our product and total income / expenses, they suggest the possibility of a 3 – 5% margin of error. 

Click here for all of EOFire’s Income Reports

This post was written by Kate Erickson, Content Creator and Implementer at EOFire. Follow Kate on Social:

The post EOFire’s May 2017 Income Report appeared first on EOFire Business Podcasts.

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EOFire’s May 2017 Income Report

May 2017 Income At-A-Glance

Gross Income for May: $196,304

Total Expenses for May: $81,185

Total Net Profit for May: $115,119

Difference b/t May & April: -$15,126

Why We Publish An Income Report

This monthly income report is created for you, Fire Nation!

By documenting the struggles we encounter and the successes we celebrate as entrepreneurs every single month, we’re able to provide you with support – and a single resource – where we share what’s working, what’s not, and what’s possible.

There’s a lot of hard work that goes into learning and growing as an entrepreneur, especially when you’re just starting out. The most important part of the equation is that you’re able to pass on what you learn to others through teaching, which is what we aim to do here at EOFire.

Let’s IGNITE!

CPA On Fire’s Monthly Tax Tip

What’s up Fire Nation, my name is Josh Bauerle. I’m a CPA and the Founder of CPA On Fire, where we specialize in working with entrepreneurs to minimize their tax liability while keeping them in line with the ever-changing tax laws.

I’ve been working with EOFire for years now, and John and Kate have included me in these monthly income reports with unlimited access to all their accounts so I can verify that what they report here is complete and accurate.

And because they believe in delivering an insane amount of value to you, my job doesn’t stop at the verification level; I’ll also be providing tax and accounting tips to you along the way!

Josh’s May Tax Tip: Charitable Donations

Charitable donations are an item I get a ton of questions on, and it’s top of mind for me right now, as this past weekend I was in Texas representing a client in an audit that mainly centered around a large amount of charitable donations claimed on their 2015 tax return.

Luckily, the client had done everything by the book, and we came out of the audit without a scratch.

So this month, I’m going to tell you how you can do the same.

First, let’s talk about what a charitable donation is…

To qualify as a tax deductible donation, the money and/or property must have been donated to an IRS-approved nonprofit organization. That would include most churches, schools and places like Goodwill and Salvation Army.

What it does not include is donations to friends in need, donations at fundraisers that go directly to individuals, and even most of the Go Fund Me campaigns for people in need. If it’s not an IRS-approved nonprofit, it’s off the table for a tax deduction.

Next, let’s talk about what records you need to keep to protect yourself.

In the event you are like my client and the IRS comes calling, they classify donations in two categories: cash and non-cash.

Here’s a run down on both.

Cash Donations

This is the easiest one to show proof of.

First, make sure you record exact dates, amounts and who they went to for each donation. If you can make the donation via check, even better.

Second, make sure the organization you donate to issues you a tax receipt. Do these things and you’re fire-proof against the IRS.

Non-Cash Donations

This is where things can get tricky; non-cash donations consist of any type of property donated to a nonprofit.

For most people, it will be clothing, furniture, toys and other household items given to places like Goodwill and Salvation Army.

If your total non-cash donations are under $500, there’s not much you need to do. Simply ask the organization to give you a receipt and you’re clear.

But if it’s more than $500, the level of proof you’ll need to provide is higher.

First, you’ll want to record exactly what you donated, the estimated date you purchased it, the estimated price you paid for it and the current value of it.

So if you donate a couch to Goodwill, you’ll record you bought it on April 3, 2012 for $2,000 and the current value is $600.

Second, you’ll want to be even more sure the organization gives you a receipt with the donation value on it. This will be huge.

Finally, if your non-cash donations are unusually high that year – say over $10,000 – I would even go so far as taking a picture of each item you donate. Example: for your couch, take a quick pic of it and store with your records.

And one more note here: if you have a non-cash item you donated worth more than $5,000 that you’ve owned for more than one year, the IRS requires you get a third party appraisal to determine the exact value. This typically comes into play for people who donate vehicles.

Charitable donations are an awesome way to lower your tax liability and help those less fortunate – a true win/win.

But it’s also an area that is frequently abused on tax returns, and the IRS watches carefully. Follow the rules above and you’ll be in the clear in the unlikely event they do decide to take a closer look.

As always, please feel free to contact me if you’d like to discuss what would be best for YOUR business. I LOVE chatting with Fire Nation!

*Bonus* If you haven’t checked out Josh’s FREE course on business entities yet, you can get it here!

David’s May Legal Tip: Copyright & Trademark

What Can I Do When Someone Takes My Logo or Image?

This question came from EOFire listener Lori Eisenstadt: What can you do when someone takes your logo or image and uses it online?

First let’s separate logos and images.

Images

If you create an image, you own the copyright. This doesn’t apply to online memes where you just add some words – I’m talking about an image you created yourself or that an employee created for your company.

If you find that someone has taken your image and used it online, there are a few things you can do.

1. Of course, you can contact the person who’s using your content and nicely ask them to take it down.

They may or may not comply. If not, you can hire a lawyer and sue them, but that’s a bit of an extreme – and very costly – step.

2. Fortunately, there’s a simpler option: if the website, app, or service is located in the U.S. or does business in the U.S., they’re required to comply with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”).

The DMCA has what’s called a “safe harbor” provision for online service providers.

Websites that host user-created content – for example, every social media site – can’t be sued when infringing material appears on the site, as long as they comply with “takedown notices.”

These are notices provided by copyright holders that a piece of infringing content has appeared on the site.

If you go to any website or app that has user-generated content and search around a bit, you’ll find a section called “Copyright” or “DMCA” or “legal” – something like that.

They will have either a form you can fill out or an email address to which you can send the notice. In most cases, the content will be taken down quickly at that point.

Often the site will then initiate a process to ensure that the notice was valid.

Be sure to keep good records of images and other content that you create, so if you ever have to prove that you actually created it, you’ll be able to show that you’re the rightful owner.

Use caution, because some people abuse the DMCA takedown process – see this blog post for some examples.

Logos

The same info that applies to images also applies to logos (since a logo is a type of image), but logos are also trademarks.

A trademark is anything that identifies your company as the source of goods or services.

If someone is using your logo without permission – and they’re using it to market competing goods or services – they may be liable for trademark infringement and unfair competition. This is the type of situation where you’re definitely going to want to bring a trademark lawyer in to advise you.

Trademark law is complex, and there may be valid reasons for someone else to use your logo – for example, if they’re doing a “taste test” to see if consumers prefer your goods or theirs, or if they’re reporting factual information about your product or service.

If you’re not ready to hire a lawyer, and your trademark is being used online in a manner that you think is violating your rights, you may be able to take advantage of a takedown procedure similar to the one described above in the “Images” section.

Again, search the website or app for instructions on how to do so.

Wrapping It Up

It’s important to make sure that your valuable intellectual property is not being used against your wishes. Be sure to search for your brand name regularly on Google and your preferred social media networks. And, of course, always contact a legal professional if you run into a potentially serious issue.

Thanks, Lori, for submitting this question!

If you have a legal question that you’d like me to cover on a future EOFire Income Report, click here to email me and I’ll be sure to give you a shout-out when I join John and Kate to talk about your legal questions!

Want to stay on top of how intellectual property issues like trademarks and copyrights affect your business? Download my free Intellectual Property for Entrepreneurs Checklist!

What Went Down In May

The Mastery Journal 1-day

Following suit with The Freedom Journal Kickstarter campaign, The Mastery Journal Kickstarter campaign offered a pretty special pledge level: a full day with JLD in Puerto Rico.

The investment was not insignificant: $10,000, not including travel.

Because we know pricing is a tough thing to wrap your head around, we want to breakdown how we came up with this number, and why it’s worth every penny.

How’d we come up with 10k?

Charging what you’re worth is a known struggle for most entrepreneurs, especially when you’re first starting out.

Has John always charged $10k for his time?

Not even close. There was a definite progression up to this number, which developed in line with the following factors:

John’s desire to do one-on-one coaching;

Other revenue streams; and

Our bigger vision.

When you’re first starting out, you likely don’t have multiple income streams. While this should be your goal, you have to build up to it one step at a time.

So when coaching was the only income stream we had, and EOFire and JLD were still proving themselves as a great brand and a credible leader, the investment matched that.

As the brand and JLD became more widely known and trusted, so did our diversification. With other income streams coming into play like Fire Nation Elite and Podcasters’ Paradise, we were able to start weighing our time investments in different areas.

The scales started to tip, and one-on-one coaching was no longer the only way we were generating revenue.

Because of this, John was able to increase the investment for one-on-one time with him.

And when we talk about the bigger vision, this is for the business as a whole. If John were to spend all of his time doing one-on-one coaching, we never would have been able to do things like create Podcasters’ Paradise, or launch The Freedom and Mastery Journals.

If your goal is to grow a coaching business, then that’s one thing; however, if your goal is to create products and other types of services, then there has to be a point where you start doing less coaching and more implementation.

How do we know it’s worth it?

Investing $10k is a big deal, and with it comes pressure and expectations. But as we’ve grown EOFire and JLD has proven his expertise and knowledge time and time again, we have proof that the one-on-one investment is worth it.

Plus, John now has the confidence of nearly 1,700 conversations with today’s most inspiring entrepreneurs, and real relationships with master minds like David Siteman Garland, Pat Flynn, Amy Porterfield, Russell Brunson, and Tim Ferriss – just to name a few.

YOU believing that you’re worth every penny and that you will deliver on the expectations you’ve set is key to not only knowing that you’ve priced your product or service correctly, but also knowing that whoever makes that investment will also walk away knowing it was worth every penny.

Saul, welcome to Puerto Rico!

Now that we’ve given some background, let’s have a peek at John’s first 10k Day for 2017!

From JLD:

In 2016, I hosted two $10k days, and in 2017 I’ll be doing the same :-)

The first person to rock the $10k day this year was Saul Marquez.

It started out with Saul and I jumping on a 30-minute strategy call the week before he came down to Puerto Rico so I could get a solid sense of where he was at with his business, where he wanted to go, and what he wanted most out of his ‘Day with JLD‘.

After our chat, I was FIRED up because I knew Saul was in the perfect place in his life and business to spend a day under The JLD Microscope.

Saul rolled into Puerto Rico Friday evening and I took him out on the town to meet a few friends and have a fun first night. We limited ourselves to one drink each, as we wanted to be 100% for Saturday’s 12-hour strategy session.

Early Saturday morning, we both awoke bright eyed and bushy tailed, prepared to IGNITE the day.

Without going into too much detail of what Saul and I accomplished, I’ll share that by the end of the first hour I had identified a MAJOR hole in Saul’s business model:

He had no FUNNEL.

In my words, a FUNNEL is the journey you take your Avatar on from the moment they are introduced to your brand to the moment you make a high-level offer.

There needs to be a LOT of value and know/like/trust at each level in your funnel, which in my opinion needs to be a minimum of six levels. I call this The JLD Method.

We built Saul’s ENTIRE funnel, and now Saul has EXACTLY what he needs to pour IGNITER fluid on the top of his funnel, and watch revenue drip (and eventually pour) out the bottom.

Saul (like my other 1 day peeps) has become a friend, and I know our paths will cross many times and that I will take pride in the success that awaits him.

And thanks to Saul, I now drink Matcha Tea!

Puerto Palooza

Saul’s 1-day in PR wasn’t the only deep-dive we did during the month of May…

Right before we launched The Mastery Journal on Kickstarter we had an idea: what if one of the pledge levels for the campaign included a 3-day mastermind here in Puerto Rico?

We’ve certainly gotten the request for an in-person mastermind or an event more than a few times from Fire Nation, so we figured this would be the perfect opportunity to give it a go.

Not knowing what to expect, we added a $6,500 pledge level to our campaign, which included a 3-day mastermind here in Puerto Rico, a signed Mastery Journal, and a spot on EOFire.

Five weeks later we had five attendees locked in and the planning was in full swing.

Even though we’d never hosted an intimate mastermind like this before we knew our experience with participating in masterminds and leading what we like to call a “hot seat” would play a huge role.

With a lot of logistical planning around travel and accommodations and a few strategy sessions between the two of us, we came up with a solid plan for the weekend.

We decided to host the mastermind at our home here in Palmas Del Mar; we knew this would add a personal and intimate touch that we’d never be able to create at a hotel or event center.

The first two days (Friday and Saturday) were the business-focused days.

Throughout these two days we crushed all five hot seats, which ran two hours each; we made sure all questions were answered with a shorter, wrap up hot seat; and we even had time to spare for some roundtable discussions.

All-in-all, the business-focused days were a perfect 10!

Then, the third day was reserved as our “Palooza Day”: a day to kick back and enjoy Puerto Rico, which we took full advantage of aboard a 40 person catamaran!

Island hopping, snorkeling and relaxing were all on the agenda, and we finished the day back at our home in Palmas with a BBQ pool party.

Image credit: Travis Chappell

While we don’t have Puerto Palooza II planned just yet, there’s a good chance it’ll be coming up soon, so stay tuned!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

May 2017 Income Breakdown*

Product/Service Income: $131,158

TOTAL Journal sales: 963 Journals for a total of $37,750

The Freedom Journal: Accomplish your #1 goal in 100 days!

TheFreedomJournal.com: $5,646 (103 Hardcovers & 32 Digital Packs sold!)

Amazon: $14,070 (402 Freedom Journals sold!)

Total: $19,716

The Mastery Journal: Master Productivity, Discipline and Focus in 100 days!

TheMasteryJournal.com: $5,889 (111 Hardcovers & 36 Digital Packs sold!)

Amazon: $12,145 (347 Mastery Journals sold!)

Total: $18,034

Podcasters’ Paradise: The #1 Podcasting community in the world!

Recurring: $20,327 (4 annual, 203 monthly)

New members: $5,325 (26 new members)

Total: $25,652

Podcast Sponsorship Income: $62,500

Podcast Websites: $5,000 Your all-in-one podcast website peace of mind

Free Podcast Course: A free 15-day course on Podcasting

Free Webinar Course: A free 10-day course on Webinars

Free Goals Course: A free 8-day course on Setting & Accomplishing Goals

Funnel On Fire: A free 8-day course on Creating a Funnel that Converts!

Podcast Launch: Audiobook: $164 | eBook: $92

Affiliate Income: $65,146

*Affiliate links below

Resources for Entrepreneurs: $56,039

Audible: $660

BlueHost: $900 (Step-by-step guide and 23 WordPress tutorials)

Click Funnels: $49,863

Coaching referrals: $2,560 (email me for an introduction to a mentor for overall online business or a Podcast focused mentor!)

ConvertKit: $93

Disclaimer Template: $50 (legal disclaimers for your website)

Fizzle: $453

Infusionsoft: $500

LeadPages: $960

Courses for Entrepreneurs: $7,359

DSG’s Create Awesome Online Courses: $4,233

Eben Pagan: $158

Ramit Sethi: $2,396

Self-publishing School: $250

Bryan Harris’ 10k Subscribers: $322

Resources for Podcasters: $914

Pat Flynn’s Smart Podcast Player: $30

Podcasting Press: $354

Libsyn: $467 (Use promo code FIRE for the rest of this month & next free!)

UDemy Podcasting Course: $63

Other Resources: $834

Amazon Associates: $741

Other: $93

Total Gross Income in May: $196,304

Business Expenses: $78,613

Advertising: $7,727

Affiliate Commissions (Paradise): $1,970

Accounting: $350

Cost of goods sold: $6,607

Design & Branding: $1,980

Education: $144

Legal & Professional: $740

Meals & Entertainment: $1,517

Merchant / bank fees: $1,061

Amazon fees: $12,676

Shopify fees: $208

Stripe fees: $5

PayPal fees: $336

Office expenses: $1,284

Payroll Tax Expenses / Fees: $1,422

Promotional / events: $1,323

Property Tax: $807

Paradise Refunds: $2,000

Sponsorships: $13,750

Show notes: $215

Travel: $2,296

The Freedom & Mastery Journal: $15,079

Virtual Assistant Fees: $3,295

Website Fees: $1,821

Recurring, Subscription-based Expenses: $2,572

Adobe Creative Cloud: $100

Boomerang: $70 (team package)

Brandisty: $24

Authorize.net: $91

Cell Phone: $216

Internet: $300

eVoice: $9.95

Infusionsoft CRM: $396

Insurance: $551

Libsyn: $203

Manychat: $10

Chatroll: $49

PureChat: $20

ScheduleOnce: $9

Skype: $2.99

Shopify: $147

TaxJar: $19

Workflowy: $4.99

MeetEdgar: $49

Taxes & Licenses: $300

Total Expenses in May: $81,185

Payroll to John & Kate: $15,900

In our May 2014 Income Report and our June 2016 Income Report, Josh focuses on how to pay yourself as an entrepreneur. Check them out!

Wondering what we do with all of our net revenue? We share all in our April 2017 Income Report :)

Total Net Profit for May 2017: $115,119

Biggest Lesson Learned

Engaging with your audience

May was the start of Season 6 on my podcast Kate’s Take, and throughout this season I focused on a single topic: project management.

I learned a lot through creating the posts and episodes for this season, especially when it came to hearing straight from my listeners about the specific struggles they’re currently facing in their business.

Which got me thinking…

I wonder if others are leveraging tools like Google Forms and SpeakPipe to engage with their audience?

These are probably two of the simplest tools when it comes to collecting information, which is why I love them so much.  Plus, this engagement one-on-one with your audience is GOLD when it comes to understanding their biggest pain points and coming up with new ideas for what you can create for them that will be of value (i.e. what they’ll actually pay for!)

So I thought I’d go through a specific example of exactly how I’ve used these tools to gain feedback from my listeners.

Step 1: Set up the page

Once I have my goal in mind (in this case, to collect input for my next season on the podcast directly from my listeners) I’m going to set up the page I’ll be directing listeners to.

For this, I simply login to our site and add a new page.

Once I give the page a title and write a line or two about the purpose of the page, I’m ready to move on to step 2.

Step 2: Create the Google Form & SpeakPipe box

Because I’ll be asking my listeners to visit the page I created and either fill out a Google Form or leave me a SpeakPipe message, my next step is to create those two things.

The Google Form will simply ask which topic they’d like to hear about most (with an option for ‘other’ so they can write anything in that space), plus some other general info about how long they’ve been listening, how they found out about the podcast, etc.

You can check out my Google Form for Season 7 here.

Then, creating my SpeakPipe message box is just a matter of logging in to create the widget, and then pasting the code on the page like I’ve done here: EOFire.com/season7

Step 3: Create the call to action

Now that I have my page set up and my form and message box ready for input, I need to figure out what I’m going to say to actually get people to the page.

My call to action is typically in the intro and outro of at least 3 – 4 episodes: 1 of those episodes being the final episode of the previous season, and then 2-3 of them in the episodes I publish in between seasons.

Step 4: Encourage engagement

Don’t think that just asking for input one time is enough; you have to really encourage engagement, especially if your call to action is reaching people via a podcast.

If you think about it, podcast listeners are typically doing some other type of activity when they’re listening to your podcast, so the chances of them remembering something you only say 1 time is very unlikely.

There you have it. Now that you know how simple it is to request engagement and feedback from your audience, it’s time to put it to action!

Bonus step: if you want to take your engagement to a whole new level, also add a scheduler link on the page where people can sign up for a one-on-one chat with you via Skype or Zoom. Any time you can spend with your ideal audience one-on-one will equal massive results, because when you listen to the questions, struggles and pain points revealed, each one is a potential product, service or resource you can offer your audience.

Alright Fire Nation, that’s a wrap!

Until next month, keep your FIRE burning!

~ Kate & John

Note: we report our income figures as accurately as possible, but in using reports from a combo of Infusionsoft & Xero to track our product and total income / expenses, they suggest the possibility of a 3 – 5% margin of error. 

Click here for all of EOFire’s Income Reports

This post was written by Kate Erickson, Content Creator and Implementer at EOFire. Follow Kate on Social:

The post EOFire’s May 2017 Income Report appeared first on EOFire Business Podcasts.

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Suicide? No Way - Part 3

(Editor’s Note: This is the third in a series of articles that will examine the passing of 19-year-old Colby Brown, a 2018 graduate of Cameron High School, who attended Marshall University in Huntington. Colby was pronounced dead on Aug. 26, 2019, after paramedics treated him in the middle of Interstate 64.) Darby Brown and her brother Colby had a thing, and it was the same thing he had with Shelby and his mom when it came to hitting the gym. The little brother babysat. “When are you going to gym? What machines are you using? How long are you there? How many reps? His questions were non-stop, but I know it was because he wanted me to do it the right way,” Darby said. “So, we would Snapchat each other when we were at the gym to be accountable. It really was one of our things.” But then there was August 26, 2019. Colby Brown was pronounced dead shortly after 7 p.m. after he worked out at his gym, attended both of his classes during the first day of his sophomore year, and played video games with five friends.

Colby was popular at Cameron High, a school he continued attending despite moving out of the district. “We were in contact on Snapchat at about 3:30 p.m. that day, but then at 6:35 p.m., I sent him a photo of me at the gym,” Darby said. “Usually, he would send something back that was supportive, but not that time. I didn’t hear back from him, and yes, I did think it was odd at the time because he always replied, especially when it came to the gym. “That day, though, the photo I sent him was opened, but there was no response, and I thought it was odd and rude that he wouldn’t answer me because he always did without fail,” she continued. “I mean, why would he open my message and not respond? Now, though, I’m not so sure it was him who opened that message. And then we found out that after that, his location was turned off on his phone right around the same time.” The end result is what is known. Colby Brown died that day on Interstate 64. A young lady who stopped when seeing him fall to the cement knelt over him during his final breaths. “It doesn’t add up, and that's why I still don’t know what really happened to Colby, and that is what is so infuriating,” Darby said. “I have all of these theories in my mind, but I don’t have enough information to make sense of a single one of them. I don’t know, and that’s why we’re so desperate for more information so we can know where he was and maybe why this happened. “It’s just not right. It’s been over five months, and we still don’t know anything new other than I don’t have my brother anymore,” she said. “And the state police still have not given back his phone because the investigation is said to be ongoing, but I wish they would just give it to us so we can go find the answers like we have been since this accident happened.”

Colby's family created this collage showing the young man at various ages. ‘Thank you, sir. May I have another?’ Pledging a fraternity was a discussed topic. His mother and his sisters were anti-frat for reasons of their own, but Colby was surrounded daily by members of the Alpha Sigma Phi fraternity. His roommates and the boys with whom he was playing video games on the day he died, were mostly Alpha Sig members. If Colby had, in fact, decided to pledge to join his friends, no one in his immediate family was informed. “He had told us that he wasn’t really interesting in joining a fraternity, but all of his friends were fraternity members of Alpha Sigma Phi,” Gwen explained. “One of his roommates was the president of the fraternity, so I guess it is possible that he finally gave in and decided to pledge. “But if that turns out to be the truth, I’ll be very surprised,” she said. “But he was growing up, living on his own, and was making his own decisions. I do not know if he made that decision on the day he died, though.”

Gwen captured this image from a news station reporting on her son's death. Alpha Sigma Phi is a national fraternity with more than 8,000 undergraduate members and 56,000 living alumni, according to the organization’s website. It was founded on Dec. 6, 1845, at Yale University, is the 10th oldest national fraternity in the nation, and is one of 12 fraternities at Marshall University. Investigations into behavior and hazing have taken place at Marshall concerning fraternities and sororities during the past five years. Jon Crow, once a family friend and a classmate of Colby’s, did not say anything when he visited for Colby’s funeral about the fraternity or whether or not he had decided to become a pledge. “All he told us was the same story over and over again,” Gwen recalled. “They all smoked a bowl of weed, and then Colby went downstairs because he didn’t feel good, and then he just left. That really doesn’t sound like something Colby would ever do. “I mean, he never just left without saying goodbye, so I don’t know. Obviously, we know he did leave, but like that?”

This card from his freshman year at Marshall University has Colby's name and Alpha Sigma Phi as the listed organization. Herd Life? The legal drinking age in West Virginia is the same as it is in the other 49 states – 21 – but that wasn’t an obstacle for Colby and his friends, Darby insisted. Why not? “Colby found out during his freshman year that there are bars in Huntington where you could get a special card and those bars will allow you to drink if you are pledging the right fraternity,” Darby claimed. “And yes, even if you are underaged. And Colby did get one of those cards from one of his friends, but he told us he used it only to go to that bar and that he was never really going to pledge the fraternity.

Colby's sister Darby insists that some establishments near Marshall University issue cards to fraternity members so patrons younger than 21 years old can consume alcohol. “I told him that it wasn’t his type of thing and I really didn’t want him to get involved with it because you hear so many stories from all over the country. But I also had a friend die at WVU because of hazing. Nolan Burch died because of that culture, and that made me worry about my little brother,” she said. “When it came to college, I was the person he went to because I graduated college just before he was a freshman at Marshall.” Once his personal belongings were collected from his apartment and his car, Gwen did find a new card for the Premiere Pub & Grill with no name or organization listed. The question Colby’s family has asked is whether the new card was another gift, or was it earned somehow this time? “I don’t know if he had to do something for it. Maybe,” Darbie said. “But I don’t know if he had to do something his freshman year to get that card. He just acted as if he just had to be interested in pledging to get it, but as for his sophomore year, that’s something we never talked about. “His freshman year, he had a card for Jake’s, but that bar closed down, but he had a couple of cards in his wallet from a place call the Premiere, and one of his roommates, Jon Crow, was a bouncer at that place,” she explained. “If he went down to Huntington with the intentions of pledging that fraternity, he hid it from us, and that wouldn’t have been like him. He wasn’t a secretive person with us.”

The initial report conducted by law enforcement indicated that Colby Brown had taken his own life. Heroin in Huntington The entire state of West Virginia has gravely suffered from the opioid crisis, but the Huntington area? It was stricken. The largest city in Cabell County is met with many of the same challenges law enforcement encounters here in Ohio County because of its proximity to state borders. One after another. One day in 2017, more than 20 people overdosed on opioids laced with fentanyl in Huntington, and the city since has been a focus during the epidemic. But opioids? Heroin? Colby? “The only way he would do anything like that is if he didn’t know it,” Darby insisted. “And that stuff didn’t come back on the first toxicology report that we finally received from the private investigator. All that was on it was marijuana and nothing else.

Colby had earned a Promise Scholarship and had plans to earn a business degree at Marshall University. “I know there was mention of him doing mushrooms, but that isn’t listed on that report either,” she continued. “He liked weed, and we all knew it so that is why we are anxious to get the second toxicology report that hopefully will be completed soon.” In 2017, 1,019 West Virginians died of an opioid overdose, and in 2018, 900 perished, according to the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention. Quick response teams are operational in 22 of the state’s 55 counties, and the first squad was formed in 2017 in Cabell County. A paramedic, a law enforcement officer, and a recovery coach are involved. “I know Huntington is ground zero for opioid deaths, but I also know my brother would have never gone there,” Darby said. “He was too concerned with his health and his body to ever do anything like that of his own accord. Now, was he slipped something without him knowing? We don’t know. “Colby has seen people in our family struggle with addiction, and it’s something he paid attention to and something he always said he would avoid at all costs,” she said. “I know he would not get on that path of opioid drugs even if he wanted to experiment with something. That was something he would never get involved with; that I know. He saw it destroy too many people.”

Colby was unable to take Penny to Marshall for his freshman year, but once he secured an apartment with friends, his canine went to college with him. A Shiny Penny No More Gwen’s voice changes when she begins to talk about her son. It lowers into persistent somberness and often is difficult to hear during conversations. She and Colby’s sisters are not alone in their sorrow. Penny, a canine Colby took to Huntington with him for his sophomore year, has changed, too. “At first, Penny would look for him any time she heard a car door or an engine rev up,” Gwen said. “But now, she acts depressed and just wants to sleep all of the time. She’s not the same dog she was, and she’s a 6-year-old Boxer. I just think she’s sad and that she’s lonely. She misses her best friend. “She doesn’t like to be left alone, either,” she continued. “Penny seemed angry during the first few weeks, but now she just seems so damn sad.”

Colby traveled with his family to Myrtle Beach in July 2019 and posed with his sister Darby for this fun photo. The family has been contacted since this series of stories began on January 11, and they are hoping and praying that more people step forward with any information they may know to be true. “That’s really what we want, so I’m glad that some of his friends are now reaching out to us to help us fill in the parts of his timeline that we don’t know yet,” Darby explained. “No piece of information is too small, either, because this is a big, giant puzzle we’re putting together ourselves because of the lack of help from the investigators. “If you talked to him the day before or the day of Colby’s death, that’s important to us, and if you talked to any of the people he was around during those days, that’s also important to us,” she insisted. “I would love to hear from more people; that’s for sure.” (Photos provided by the Brown family) Read the full article