Selects: How the Flu Works

26:26Oh yeah, that's right, because that's from the coronavirus. This is the influenza virus we're talking about that creates this inflammation, which is your immune response, right? In your lungs? That's correct. And the symptoms, like a cold or coughing, sneezing, the fever, which is different, like we said, with the flu. Right. Achy body, which usually comes with that fever. And then Josh's runny nose and congestion that you can hear in your overall lethargy. Yeah, I am a little under the weather, I guess, is a good way to put it. I can tell. So those are just standard flu symptoms. You can have secondary symptoms from complications of the flu, right?

27:06One thing that has long gone hand in hand with the flu, as far as like death from flu complications goes, is bacterial pneumonia. Yeah, that's no good. And for a very long time, science wasn't quite sure why that, why you were just so susceptible to bacterial infections when you were battling the flu and they figured it out. It's actually your body's immune response that is responsible for it. Right. Right. So when you have the flu and your body starts to battle it off and you get a fever, um, and, and your, uh, lungs become inflamed, that's, that's your immune system's response to the flu virus.

27:47But when your body says, okay, calm down, everybody, let's bring the temperature back down, and your body represses its own immune response, it opens the door for bacteria that normally it would be able to fight off to take advantage of this kind of naturally weakened state that your immune system's in. And you're much more susceptible to infections from bacteria. And that's where pneumonia comes from. You can get viral pneumonia, but you usually get bacterial pneumonia. And that's the stuff that people can die from because that bacteria infects your air sacs in your lungs, which fill with fluid and pus and blood, and you die from choking on bloody froth that fills up your airway.

28:30Oh, my God. Yeah, it's a bad jam, man. Severe dehydration is another secondary symptom of the flu. That's why, of course, you always want to drink plenty of water when you have a cold or flu. I looked that one up too, Chuck, because if you think about it, why? Why would you be dehydrated from the flu? It's from sweating. Yeah, sure. Your nose running. Yeah. You're just leaking fluids. Yeah, you are. And, like, they start to add up, and all of a sudden you're dehydrated before you even know it. That's right. Ear infections, especially if you're a kid, sinus issues. Emily always gets bad sinus problems along with this stuff.

29:08I know. She was starting to get a little sniffly. Is she sick? She did get sick. Oh, that poor lady. Yeah, New York, man. Yeah. It killed everyone I love. And then if you, like in Emily's case, she's slightly asthmatic. But if you are asthmatic, you have like diabetes, it can make that stuff worse. Yeah. She doesn't have diabetes, right? No. Well, the reason diabetes is comorbid with the flu or is problematic when you have the flu is because type 1 diabetes especially is an autoimmune disease. So your immune system is already repressed, I guess. Yeah. And then heart conditions can be exacerbated by it because you're getting less oxygen from your lungs into your bloodstream, which strains the heart.

29:57And if it's already weak, people have heart attacks from the flu if they already have a heart condition. Isn't that crazy? Yeah. Again, it's a bad jam. Well, actually, in the episode coming up about the silly one about the 10 cursed movies, remember the little girl from Poltergeist died at 12 from a heart attack brought on by the flu. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Or she had like a stomach blockage. They initially diagnosed it as the flu. Oh, okay. But I thought it was never like a virus like that? I don't think so. I think they mistook it. All right. Well, then forget all that. But people do, so your point still remains correct.

30:39Okay. So how you get the flu is this. Like you said, it's generally about November through March. January and February tend to be the worst of it here in the United States. and as we mentioned offices and schools especially because children are filthy monsters who just don't wash hands and they breathe on each other and touch each other and they don't cover their mouths when they cough or sneeze but it's pretty cute when they hug each other it's very cute actually it's worth it's worth all the sickness in the world it's pretty great but um that's the reason that kids tend to spread it more because as much as you try and teach them to cover their mouth when they cough and sneeze and wash their hands a lot.

31:23It's just not really on their radar like it is for adults. No, not at all. Because they are dirty, dirty, dirty creatures. And then, you know, the kid then in turn brings it home and the family gets infected pretty quickly because try as you might, there's just a lot of close contact with kids that you can't avoid. And even if you're washing your hands, they will find a way to infect you. Right. And if you go even further back, there's an even earlier origin before kids picking it up at daycare or preschool for the flu. Usually it comes from other animals we're finding, right? Yes. Very frequently birds, like we were saying, right?

32:06And they used to think that for a human to catch a flu from a bird especially, that flu had to show up in a mixing vessel, usually a pig, which was capable of taking it. It could be infected by a bird flu and a human flu. and flu viruses have this amazing talent called reassortment where a flu strain and another flu strain can get together and be like, oh, hey, you have eight proteins that make up your RNA? I do too. Let's mix and match and see what happens. And they thought for a long time that this really only took place in pigs and then out would come a new super virus that no one had ever seen before that humans could catch.

32:51But from Southeast Asia, people being in close contact with infected birds, especially like in the poultry industry or something, there have been cases that started in the 90s of avian flu coming directly from birds to humans. So that theory went out the window. Yeah. And that's what set off those fears of a bird flu pandemic that we lived with for many years. Yeah, that's right. Right. As far as, and you know, a lot of that was just spread from bird poop. Yeah. And it scared people because those bird flus are no joke. Like they have like a 60 % mortality rate. 60%, 6 out of 10 people who come down with H5N1 bird flu die.

33:38Right? Yeah. Luckily, it's really, really difficult to catch it even when you are around sick birds. It doesn't very frequently make the jump to humans, but it can is what they found. Yeah. As far as the regular flu, the garden variety flu that we're talking about mainly here, it spreads from, well, like we said, from touching stuff, from coughing and sneezing. When you cough and sneeze, even if you think you're covering your mouth pretty well, there may be little fluids squirting out between your fingers. up to a few feet. Like a fire hose. It's in the air around you. That stuff can travel, you know.

34:23So if that lands on a doorknob or if someone covers their mouth like a normal and then opens a door or borrows a stapler or whatever, it's going to be on that doorknob. And then you touch it. And that's why, like, handwashing by the sick and by the non-sick is so crucial. Yeah. And if you're like having an anxious day at work and you're doing your normal thing of chewing on your stapler to relieve anxiety and the guy who borrowed it was sick, you're toast. You are toast. And as you mentioned earlier, it bears repeating. You can be sick a day before symptoms and you can, or you can be contagious a day before symptoms and still remain contagious up to seven days after the symptoms start.

35:08Right. Right. So even if you feel better after day four, you could still be spreading that junk around for a few more days. Right. And they say that even after you feel better, you should stay in bed an extra day because, again, your immune system is compromised and you are like you can catch other stuff. So you want to be careful. That extra day really pays off. And that's when you just lay in bed and watch Stranger Things 2. Right. I haven't seen it yet. Is it good? Yeah, we just finished it last night. Cool. Did you see the first season? Oh, yeah. That was great. Season two is just as great, if not better.

35:44I'm happy to say. I'm glad to say that, too. I was a little nervous, you know, because it was something I loved. And it's like, oh, man, season two, a lot of pressure. Well, yeah, that's how it happens. The sophomore season is very frequently like everyone's aware of the success of the show and what people are saying about it. And they try to adapt to the expectations rather than continuing on doing what they were doing before. But good for you guys, Stranger Things. Yeah, so great. I want to get those Duffer brothers on Movie Crush. Oh, yeah, that'd be cool. Those guys would be great. Should we take a break?

36:16Yeah, I think so. All right, we'll come back and talk a little bit about pandemics.

36:32new year new goals and in this economy a better money plan is more necessary than ever i am matt and i'm joel uh we are from the how to money podcast and every week we help you to spend smarter save more and make sense of what's going on out there if you want 2026 to be the year you finally feel in control of your money, we're here to give you the tools and advice to help you make it happen. Listen to How to Money on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Dr. Priyanka Wally. And I'm Hari Kondabolu. It's a new year, and on the podcast Health Stuff, we're resetting the way we talk about our health.

37:07Which means being honest about what we know, what we don't know, and how messy it can all be. I like to sleep in late and sleep early. Is there a chronotype for that or am I just depressed? We talk to experts who share real experiences and insight. You just really need to find where it is that you can have an impact in your own life and just start doing that. We break down the topics you want to know more about. Sleep, stress, mental health, and how the world around us affects our overall health. We talk about all the ways to keep your body and mind inside and out healthy. We human beings, all we want is connection.

37:46We just want to connect with each other. Health stuff is about learning, laughing, and feeling a little less alone. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey there, this is Dr. Jesse Mills, director of the men's clinic at UCLA Health and host of the Mailroom Podcast. Each January, guys everywhere make the same resolutions. Get stronger, work harder, fixed, what's broken? But what if the real work isn't physical at all? To kick off the new year, I sat down with Dr. Steve Poulter, a psychologist with over 30 years experience helping men unpack shame, anxiety, and emotional pain they were never taught to name.

38:24In a powerful two-part conversation, we discuss why men aren't emotionally bulletproof, why shame hides in plain sight, and how real strength comes from listening to yourself and to others. Guys who are toxic, They're immature or they've got something they just haven't resolved. Once that gets resolved, then there comes empathy and some compassion. If you want this to be the year you stop powering through pain and start understanding what's underneath, listen to The Mailroom on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite shows. What if mind control is real? If you could control the behavior of anybody around you, what kind of life would you have?

39:04Can you hypnotically persuade someone to buy a car? When you look at your car, you're going to become overwhelmed with such good feelings. Can you hypnotize someone into sleeping with you? I gave her some suggestions to be sexually aroused. Can you get someone to join your cult? NLP was used on me to access my subconscious. NLP, aka Neuro Linguistic Programming, is a blend of hypnosis, linguistics, and psychology. Fans say it's like finally getting a user manual for your brain. It's about engineering consciousness. Mind Games is the story of NLP, its crazy cast of disciples, and the fake doctor who invented it at a New Age commune and sold it to guys in suits.

39:46He stood trial for murder and got acquitted. The biggest mind game of all? NLP might actually work. This is wild. Listen to Mind Games on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Starting January 20th.

40:15All right, Chuck. So we were talking about how seasonal flu has seasons. That's why it's called seasonal flu, right? Uh-huh. Um, that's, that's, I guess, one classification of flus. There's also a pandemic flu and the same kind of flu virus can be a pandemic flu or a seasonal flu. And I think usually the way it happens is a new virus will emerge from say like livestock or poultry or something like that and infect humans. And if it's totally novel where no human has ever encountered a flu of this type before. It can just lay waste to people. It can kill a lot of people. It can infect a lot of people.

40:55It can spread the world. And when that happens, it becomes classified as a pandemic flu. After a couple of rounds around the world, people will have started to develop an immunity to it, but it'll still be passed around. And so for the decade or so, it can be the predominant strain of the flu, but it'll be, it'll have changed over to a seasonal type of flu. So it's almost like the pandemic versus seasonal type flu describes how contagious it is and the, how virulent it is. I think that's the big distinction. Yeah. And I think also in a pandemic, doesn't that mean it has left the country? Yeah.

41:36I think that is kind of one of the indicators of it too. Yeah. 1918, there was this, these numbers are staggering. This is the worst flu pandemic in world history in 1918. For, I don't know what months exactly, but 1918 and 19. And it killed more than 20 million people around the world. And it killed most of those people actually in four months from September to December. Isn't that crazy? More lives were lost than all 20th century wars combined to the flu. Yeah. You said 20 million? 20 million worldwide, about half a million in the United States. I saw in many reputable places 50 million people died around the world.

42:20Man, that is just staggering. Yeah, and it was like right at the end of World War I and just came out of nowhere. And one of the other really noteworthy things about it that just baffled people was it was killing like healthy people under the age of like 22, 23, 24. Like just healthy young people killed by the flu. A lot of them died from pneumonia. And they finally figured out that it was because it had been about 20-something years since a flu resembling that type of strain had made the rounds. So people under, say, like age 25 had never been exposed to it. So it was a novel flu, which just leveled the people it was exposed to who had never encountered something like it before.

43:05Yeah. I mean, it's scary to think about. I mean, surely that couldn't happen today, could it? Or could it? Oh, yeah. Yeah? Sure. Man, you'd think that we could head something like that off these days. Do you know like a third of the population of the world was infected with that flu that year? Wow. Isn't that crazy? I know. That's hard to believe. Yeah, that can totally happen. It's a real concern. All right. So as far as your risk of getting the flu, if you're a kid, like there's different risk groups, like high risk, low risk, whatever. medium or average risk. But if you're under two years old, your little immune system isn't quite smart enough yet to know how to fight things off.

43:50So you're definitely more at risk. And as always, what affects the children also affect the elderly. So if you're over 65, seniors, is elderly wrong to say? I think elderly, it's technically 81. Oh, really? Yeah. All right. So we'll go with seniors. Seniors. Active senior adults who have decades left ahead of them. That's right. Who else? Anyone who has any kind of chronic, like I mentioned, asthma or diabetes, any kind of chronic condition? If you're pregnant, if you work in a hospital or a doctor's office? Yeah. Or a nursing home? Nursing home, not just people who work there, but the residents, too, are in a really vulnerable position.

44:32Yeah. Because they are in the elderly age range. their immune systems are pretty compromised. If they're in a nursing home, they're probably ill already, and then they're living in close quarters with other people who are ill. That's a recipe for a disaster. Yeah, it sure is. It's also a recipe for tapioca pudding. It is. The best around. Remedy-wise, and we'll talk about vaccinations here in a minute because I thought that was kind of one of the most interesting parts of this. But as far as remedies, if you get the flu, it's a virus. So you can't take antibiotics. No. You can't take a pill that's going to cure you.

45:11There are some antiviral drugs, which I've never tried any of these. Have you? No. No? No. I tried Zycam last year once. I think that's for colds. Yeah, I thought that was like discredited. Well, I mean, I had a few people say, oh, you know, you should try Zycam. It helps knock out your cold faster. it killed my sense of taste and smell. Oh, no. For several days to the point where I was scared. I don't remember that. I'll bet you were scared. Yeah, and I looked it up, and it's a thing. Oh, I do remember that, actually. Yeah. Yeah, that's just really unnerving, the idea of maybe it's permanent.

45:47Yeah, it was pretty freaky. Yeah, I'll bet. And super noticeable. It wasn't like a subtle thing. You'd be like, chili, I miss you. So that was my experience. I'm not making some sweeping statement about that medication. Way to COA, man. But there are antiviral drugs called, there's one called Tamiflu, Relenza, Flumidine. A little on the nose if you ask me. Flu stop. Well, antiviral drugs, they seem like a good idea, but they seem like a good idea under the premise that seasonal flu strains were used to think, They used to think that they died out at the end of a season, right? Right. Well, they started tracking them.

46:32Like our global monitoring system is really top-notch. And they can track flu around the world. And they found that seasonal flu at the end of the season in North America, it just goes to South America. Yeah. So since that's the case, when you use antivirals and you're exposing these flus that go on to survive, you're also training them evolutionarily speaking to adapt so that those those antiviral drugs are useless against them for people who like really need them yeah so just like with antibiotics using antivirals just to cure a common flu or to shorten a common flu is probably a bad idea when you're talking about the whole population yeah and that's what they do they they what they try to do is just keep the spread, cellular spread, from happening as much as it can.

47:24Right. Isn't that sort of the easiest way to say it? Yeah. Yeah, there's one keeps them, well, a pair of them keep them from replicating, and then another one traps them inside a cell once they enter. Right. It's like, oh, God, I can't get out. The door is locked, and then death. And they're all prescription drugs. Right. If I'm not mistaken. So vaccines are like pretty hot. They're like the hot thing to do on a Friday night is to go get a flu vaccine, right? Yeah, I didn't get flu shots for many, many, many, many years until I had a kid. Yeah, and they say like if you, especially if you have a baby under six months of age, they can't be vaccinated.

48:09and so everyone around them should be vaccinated is the recommendation from the CDC. Yeah, like our close family, the grand-grands and the Abbas and the Pop-Pops and the Papas and the Pupas and the Memangs and the Momos. Hey, all right, yeah. Yeah, Momo got a flu shot. That was nice of her. She's very kind. So, yeah, we all got flu shots and I just wasn't, you know, I never got the flu much. I didn't have a disbelief in the flu vaccine. I was just like, nah, I don't really need to bother with that. Yeah. That's kind of— I was fine. Do you get them now, though? Yeah. Is it a habit of yours now?

48:50Well, yeah. Now they just sort of recommend it when you have kids. Up until they're a certain age, you should get vaccinated as a family. Right. And when you have kids, if you get them vaccinated, once they're able to be vaccinated, again, under six months, they say, no, no, no, don't do that. When they're young, though, and you're getting them vaccinated, they need to be vaccinated twice, like a month apart. Yes. And so with flu vaccines in general, they recommend that you get it as early in the season as possible because it takes about two weeks for that to take effect. So with a kid, then I guess you would want to get them so that six weeks before the flu season.

49:30I don't know. Or is that second one pretty much like, OK, now it's taking effect. I'm not sure. Four weeks plus two weeks or just four weeks? I don't remember the schedule. Yeah, I don't remember the schedule. Well, ask your doctor, okay? We're not doctors. Stop pressuring us. Well, they'll tell you. Like when you go to get your little kitty checkups, they say, you know, come back in this month and get your flu shot. Right. Number one, and then flu shot number two. And so for a while there, there were two kinds of flu shots that the CDC recommended. One was an actual shot, the flu vaccine that was in a shot form.

50:06And then there was another one that's called live attenuated influenza virus, which came in the form of a nasal spray. And that was usually recommended for kids. I don't know if it's because kids don't like needles or what. But the CDC has officially stopped recommending nasal flu vaccines. Yeah. Don't do those anymore. Well, and when they were doing it, when we say kids, you had to be over five because it was a, like you said, a live virus. Right. It was a live weakened virus. Yeah, and that's different. Like if you think, all right, I'm going to get a flu shot, so that means I'm going to get the flu virus shot into me.

50:49And so I might feel like I have the flu. That's not really the case. It's really kind of neat how they do it. But these scientists and doctors, like you said, track what's going on in the world of flu all over the world. And they sort of make a – well, they don't sort of. They very definitely make a prediction and say here's the flu strain specific to the United States, let's say, that I think we're going to be faced with this year. And they make their best scientific guess possible. and that is the, you get a not live version of that virus injected into your body. Your body sees, hey, foreign invaders here, let me produce antibodies.

51:32Then if that virus or if the real flu knocks on your door later that winter, your body says, wait, I've met you before. I know how to fight you. Yeah. But it's pretty cool. And it literally, the effectiveness, I looked up this year, and it's a year-to-year thing. It's 40 % to 60 % on this year's strain. And it varies because it really just depends on how well those scientists have predicted, how much they get it right. Right. Because if they get all three wrong, well, then you're toast when you encounter the flu that's going around that season. Yeah, it's really interesting. But even when they do get it right, it's kind of baffling that sometimes the flu vaccine just doesn't bestow any kind of immunity.

52:16Yeah. Apparently, Australia just came out of a really bad epidemic flu season down there. And it didn't cause a lot of deaths, but everybody was sick with the flu. It was an H3 type flu that went around. And even though that strain showed up in the vaccine that was given out, only like 15 % of people who got vaccinated and were exposed to the flu were immune to it. Like 85 % of people who got flu vaccines and then encountered the flu still got sick. That's a pretty bad track record for a flu vaccine. And they're just not sure why. One of the theories is so when they make flu vaccines, they grow them in egg protein typically, like hen's eggs.

53:01That's the medium they use to actually grow the viruses that they then kill. One researcher pointed out that at least one kind of flu virus mutates in the presence of egg protein. so that the virus that you put in to grow in there is different from the one that comes out. It's a mutated version, and so maybe that would prevent your body from recognizing the original one that you were trying to introduce it to in the vaccine. So interesting. It is pretty interesting. Well, and they say there's a list of people who should not receive the flu shot, and one of those qualifications is if you are allergic to chicken eggs, then you shouldn't get a flu shot.

53:43Yeah. There's like a couple of other ways that they make flu shots, flu vaccines, but that chicken egg is the most predominant way to do it. Yeah. If you currently have a fever, wait on your flu shot. Under six months, of course, we said you cannot. If you have had flu shots in the past and you had a bad reaction, because like I said, it's not going to make you sick, but you might feel a little achy or have sore muscles or something. But you can have a bad reaction. And if that's the case, then maybe flu shots aren't for you. Right. And if you're an anti-vaxxer, then you probably already decided that flu shots aren't for you.

54:21Correct. Which we will never do an episode on that. On vaccinations? Right. Oh, you don't think so? I don't know, man. So the idea that a flu vaccine can, you know, check all the boxes, but still just be wrong, wrong, wrong or not confer immunity has some people looking for a universal vaccine or one that lasts way longer than just a year. What they're targeting is, so when you get a normal vaccine, that vaccine is based on that HA protein, the hemagglutin. Yeah. And that's the most quickly evolving part of any flu virus, right? Yeah. So they're saying, well, let's look at other parts of the flu virus that don't evolve nearly as quickly and target that.

55:12And some of those parts are even basically universal among all flu viruses. So if you can create a vaccine based on a stable part of a flu virus that's a part of every flu virus, one vaccine could confer ideally lifelong immunity from all influenza for anybody who takes the vaccine. One vaccine to cure them all? Exactly. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. So you got anything else? No. I mean, I guess we're not going to cover the boogie woogie flu. I thought that was boogie woogie fever. No, it's the rockin' pneumonia and the boogie woogie flu. Oh, that's nice. What's that from? Is that an Atlanta rhythm section song?

55:53No, they're better than that. Oh, okay. Well, since I said Atlanta rhythm section, everybody, that means it's time for listener mail. Uh, yeah, this is a Simpsons overlooked, uh, overlooked Simpsons bit from us. And this is not one of those, we get plenty of things where people are like, how could you not have mentioned this quote or this episode? But the response was good. Then people weren't necessarily, uh, poo-pooing it. No. And also I want to say thank you to everybody who wrote in to just say congratulations or to thank us. that was all every single one of those emails or tweets or posts were all well received so thanks for those guys totally uh but this is something we we failed to mention which definitely deserves its own email and this is from rich our man on cape cod as he says hey guys was listening to the simpsons two-parter enjoyed it very much you explained how an episode came to be from conception to animation etc and you paid respect to each portion but then you slided off one of the most important men in the franchise.

57:03You just said, and then they slapped Danny Elfman's score on it and it's done. Well, as any true Simpsons aficionado would know, Danny Elfman has never once written a score to the Simpsons. He wrote, as we know, just the title or the theme song. So he says that job fell to the immensely talented and recently terminated via email Alf Clausen. Wow. For 27 years, every score, every cue, every song was composed, orchestrated and conducted by Clausen and his live orchestra. He's won two Emmys and seven Annie Awards for his work. The reason this is such a painful sight was because this omission has been happening for years.

57:44Clausen has worked insane hours writing music for a live orchestra to accompany an animated show. He's always played second fiddle. Nailed it, he said. To all those who think Elfman is any part of the show after he penned the main title. In fact, the main title theme song we all know and love is actually Clausen's reorchestration of Elfman's theme that took place mid-season three with a lush or more crisp orchestration. Wow. I bet you anything Rich plays the oboe. Alf Clausen, I'm so sorry. I know. He said, I admire your podcast for bringing light to information that has been stuck lurking in the shadows.

58:21You always make sure credit is given to those who sometimes went their entire lives without getting the nod they deserve. Well, this guy's really turning the knife in our backs, doesn't he? And I feel you, O 'Claussen. That respect. So Alf Clausen, for real. And then he, it was a bit of a longer email. He told the story of how he was recently fired by email, which is not cool. No, it's definitely not. After 27 years of dedicated work. I know, man. Not cool, guys. So that is Rich, our man on Cape Cod. Well, thanks a lot, Rich. Appreciate that. That was one of the better emails I've heard in a while.

58:57Agreed. if you want to try and top rich let's see what you got send us an email stuffpodcasts at howstuffworks.com and join us at our home on the web stuffyoushouldknow.com Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio for more podcasts from iHeartRadio visit the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows

59:27Hey, it's Joel and Matt from HowToMoney. If your New Year's resolution is to finally get your finances in shape, we've got your back. Prices, they're still high, and the economy is all over the place. But 2026 is the year for you to get intentional and make real progress. That's right. Yeah, each week we break down what's happening with your money, the most important issues to focus on, and the small moves that make a big difference. Kick off the year with confidence. Listen to How to Money on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm John Polk. For years, I was the poster boy of the conversion therapy movement, the ex-gay who married an ex-lesbian and traveled the world telling my story of how I changed my sexuality from gay to straight.

1:00:13You might have heard my story, but you've never heard the real story. John has never been anything but gay, but he really tried hard not to be. Listen to Atonement, the John Palk story on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, Kyle. Could you draw up a quick document with the basic business plan? Just one page as a Google Doc and send me the link. Thanks. Hey, just finished drawing up that quick one page business plan for you. Here's the link. But there was no link. There was no business plan. I hadn't programmed Kyle to be able to do that yet. I'm Evan Ratliff here with a story of entrepreneurship in the AI age.

1:00:53Listen as I attempt to build a real startup run by fake people. Check out the second season of my podcast, Shell Game, on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. You know, we always say new year, new me, but real change starts on the inside. It starts with giving your mind and your spirit the same attention you give your goals. Hey, everybody, it's Michelle Williams, host of Checking In on the Black Effect Podcast Network. And on my podcast, we talk mental health, healing, growth, and everything you need to step into your next season, whole and empowered. New year, real you. Listen to Checking In with Michelle Williams from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

1:01:39This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.