​Most crimes are committed for financial reasons. You rob, you sell drugs, you prostitute... And then you waste your precious time on this planet, sitting in prison while the currency you committed the crime for is debasing. That's the wake up call that we go in prison and talk about.

Hey, Everybody. Welcome to Orange Hatter. Before we dive into my conversation with our guest today, I want to share with you a very exciting project, the Orange Hatter Women's Retreat. The mission of this retreat is to create a nurturing sanctuary where women in the Bitcoin space can connect with each other, recharge batteries, find grounding, and form deep friendships so that you don't feel so isolated where you are sharing the potential of Bitcoin with the world while keeping an eye on the fiat system. This retreat is going to be absolutely amazing. I am partnering with the Yucatan Project in Mexico. Keep an eye out on Twitter at Orange Hatter Pod. I'll give out more information as they are finalized. Spaces are very limited, and they're going to fill up fast. So sign up for it when the registration and I will see you in Mexico. And now we're going to. Continue with our podcast. Here is my conversation with our wonderful guests today. STacey, welcome to Orange Hatter. So glad to have you here. Sounds like we've got a fabulous story to, dig out of you in today's episode. Can't wait. Thank you very much for joining us.

Thank you. I'm thrilled to be here. What a fun way to spend my afternoon.

Awesome. So let's start by, chatting a little bit about your background. Would you mind sharing with us, where you grew up and maybe a little bit of on education profession, et cetera.

Yeah, yeah, happy to do it. so I grew up in Oklahoma. I grew up in Oklahoma City, went to high school in Oklahoma City, and I followed sort of the traditional path that, you know, many women were groomed to follow. Right? So you get out of high school, you go to college, you earn a degree, you get married, you have your babies, and you keep working, and then you retire, and then whatever happens, you get to have fun when you retire, right? So I did that traditional path, unbeknownst to me, that it was a traditional path, and I did not know I was going to follow it. There's no intention to do that. but I did, and after I graduated from high school, I went to college at Oklahoma State University, and I was there for 12 years. I got a bachelor's, master's, and Ph. D. all at Oklahoma State. And then after that, I finally left Oklahoma and, moved to Illinois. I got a job at Anderson Consulting back in the day. You know, it's Accenture now. but it was the big consulting firm, and so I lived in Chicago for 25 years, and I just recently, a little over a year ago, relocated to Las Vegas. And I'm in Las Vegas now living the fabulous Bitcoin life and my friends and everybody is envious and curious about what in the heck I'm doing and why did I leave the corporate world and start a non profit in the Bitcoin space.

Okay. So what did you get your PhD in?

Research and evaluation, so it's like quantitative, so I've taught at universities like research design and all that kind of thing.

And then for Anderson Consulting, you were a consultant for corporate.

Listen, I actually worked internal at Anderson. I wasn't a century. You know, I wasn't a line consultant. I worked internally. I've got 25 years in the learning and development space. So primarily, I work with I consult with chief learning officers, like, fortune 100 nonprofits, the federal government and help them build out their learning strategy, their tech strategy and their measurement strategy, usually, you know how to demonstrate business impact. Which a K is now called proof of work in the Bitcoin space. So that's what I've done for a long time.

How interesting. Okay, so how do you measure corporate impact?

Well, one, it depends on the client Two, if I'm a consultant, it depends on how much they're funding me. The government I worked for defense, as a consultant, defense acquisition university, pulled me in. And what they do is they train all of their vendors and suppliers. to the government and they conducted, I think, six or seven ROI. Studies to look at the impact of their investment training and, nobody could really get the right data. They couldn't get anything to satisfy the executive team. So I said, okay, they called me up and I said, let me take a swag at it. And we talked about it. And I, I know the problems that a lot of organizations have is actually getting the data and knowing what right data to get and to capture. So I did that. I laid out a plan and said, these are the metrics we need. And they said, Oh, you can't. This is the same thing I heard when I did a big consulting project for Verizon. I did five ROI projects for Verizon. And they're like, you can't get the data. It's not possible to get sales data. The government was saying, Oh, you can't get data from these other departments. And I'm like, watch me. I'm Watch me do it. And I just called these people and I'm like, Hey, I'm a paid consultant, so I'm a third party, they've got some money invested in me, so that's how I can get data. So I'm not internal. So that was the advantage that I always had. So I had the ability to go knock down the bricks out of the wall and knock down the wall and get in to get the data that they needed. And the strategy I always follow is I say, look, I'm going to have you go with me, I'll lead in, I'll knock down the wall and you're in with me. And then by the time my consulting gigs over, I'll back out and you're right in there. And they're used to working with you. So we were able to get data from different departments. They never could before. and we did 5 ROI studies for them. No, wait, we did 4 ROI studies for defense acquisition university, and, and it was great. They want awards for what we did and everything was just kind of unique because this is what. My consulting firm does and what we did. So we knew how to go about it. And I've done this for non profits. Like I said, the government, big consult, like McDonald's, Verizon, I consulted to the big, fortune 500 companies. So, lots of wounds, lots of scars, full of hard knocks with that approach. I figured it out.

Okay, so you're measuring, impact through sales numbers, or through social impact, some kind of, scale of social change or environmental or like what kind of impact were you measuring

Well, it would depend, right? So for the corporations, usually it would be a financial impact. So they would say we give the learning function, 5 million this year. What's our ROI in the 5 million? Learning and development is sort of similar to marketing, right? how do you know it was really that ad, or that investment in marketing that sold more Coke, sold more hamburgers, and the same thing with learning, We're investing all this money in learning, and most corporations look at learning and development sort of like a necessary evil. Because they, they like, why do we have to fund this? What do those people really do? All you do is take my salespeople off the street when they should be making money. You're putting them in these classrooms. What are they doing? Is it really changing the numbers? sometimes the learning department's not transparent. The big problem was always, honestly, throughout the years, is that the chief learning officers didn't have the ability to speak the language of the business. And they would go in and they would speak learning and L and D language, learning and development language. And that didn't resonate. You have to go speak finance to the finance people. You have to speak, you know, by like softer impact, like to the marketing people. So how you measure the impact of marketing issues is kind of similar, how you would do it and learning and development. So the idea is you've got to take you usually a longterm approach, because for instance, you pull your salespeople off the street and you train them. I'm not going to see an impact tomorrow. Next week, next month, it could take six months. It could take a year. It could take two years to see an impact. So that's when I started going through this whole process, I created a tool called the impact blueprint, and I have a trademark for that. And what I've done is I set up a model. It's literally just a logic model that says, look, you invested, and funded in this program or this initiative, this department, and we're going to show you the little micro steps of where we're making an impact because you're not may not see the financial impact or the big needles moving for a while. So we have to show them the little needles. That are moving until we get to the big needles and that satisfies their need to understand and say, Oh, we are, making a difference here. And then when you're looking at these little needles, these little factors, levers that you can pull if you're not doing well on those, you get to go back and revamp your plan. So you roll out a training program. Oh, the people were satisfied, but it's really hard to apply on the job. Well, then let's go back and retool and figure out how can we make it easier for them to apply on the job for them to understand. So you can start tweaking the program. It gives you insights on how to tweak your program to drive impact. Because you don't want to wait two years later and be like, Oh, darn, we sent them to a month long training two years ago and nothing happened. That's not going to fly, and that's what, learning leaders would often do before. So, things have changed a lot, but you have to show those little micro steps before you show the big impact.

so you went from working with major agencies big corporations and now to a nonprofit so tell me about that process

Yeah, I'm just a continuous learner, right? I have a growth mindset, continuous learner. So, I worked for non profits, well, not worked for, but I've consulted to non profits before. I did a huge evaluation study for, United Way in Minneapolis. I did a four year longitudinal study for them. Minnesota had the largest, achievement gap between, in high schools of white students and students of color. So, You've got white students and everybody else was considered students of color, and they're the largest achievement gap in the nation. And so United Way donated 6 million, I think somewhere between six and 10 million to the high schools to implement these programs to close that achievement gap between white students and students of color. So I did a longitudinal study across four years, looked at the investment, the programs, the high schools were building. I worked with the high schools. I worked the school districts. I worked the colleges. so I just designed this whole program, my consulting team and I, and we delivered it. And that's where I created the impact blueprint. Which what is the trademark that I have to show this little micro steps and that's what united way then use my report actually to this day. so I finished in 2018 and a couple weeks ago, I looked on their website and I realized they're still using my impact blueprint and they're still referring to my consulting practice in 2023 for the work we did. And what I did for United was kind of the same thing I did at McDonald's was I showed them the importance of evaluation and how to set up the evaluation team. I always tell them when I start I said my job is to work myself out of a job with you. Is to teach you how to fish because I'm not going to be here forever. And I don't want to do this forever. And I don't want to work for the same company forever. So I want to teach you to fish. So United Way end up building their own evaluation department based on my coaching and consulting and my techniques. And then I did the same thing at McDonald's. I built the evaluation model for McDonald's corporate when I was in Chicago. And I became really good friends with their chief learning officer, Diana Thomas, and when she retired in 2016, I called her and I'm like, Hey, Diana, we have such a great story to tell. We should write a book. So Diana Thomas and I wrote a book and it was released in 2018 called, how to be more strategic in business. So we got our book. Look here.

that's so cool

Yeah, so it's kind of interesting. And I tell this story at the beginning of the book about, I went straight through to get my PhD. I got my PhD at 29, I didn't have life experience at all when I got out. And I got my first job at Accenture. And there's some consulting and I was there six months and I got my first performance review and I moved from Oklahoma to Illinois and it's my big career and I was out of college. I was a freshly minted doctor all excited and I got my first performance review at six months and they're like, people don't like you, Stacy. They don't like meeting with you. And I was like, what? I am sitting here working my butt off. Are you kidding me with all this? And they're like, you need to be more strategic. Like, what did that mean? That's not me. And they couldn't explain it to me. I, I had business classes in school, but I wasn't a business major and I didn't really understand it. And this was in 97. There was no Google. I couldn't Google it. I mean, I go to the library and looked up books about strategy, but it didn't help me. And so I finally, I figured out, I'm like, I just learned throughout time watching people and learning about what being strategic meant. So I taught myself when we talk about that journey, in our book and the difference between being tactical and being strategic and we give examples and most of our examples, of course, are L and D learning and development examples. but it's where I really grew and learn to be more strategic. And we use a Stephen Covey metaphor about, climbing a ladder in a jungle. So it's the leader's job to climb the ladder and look in the jungle and look over the trees and say. Hey, we're in the right jungle or look over the trees and say, Oh, my gosh, we're in the wrong jungle. All you guys, workers and producers down below, you need to shift, we need to change what we're doing. So you listen to your leader doing that. But the leaders down there with you, plowing the weeds and cleaning up, they won't be able to help you. So it's a leadership book really. And it's really about how to think strategically when you're not trained or it's not natural, like strategic thinking, wasn't natural for me, but it was very natural for Diana. So that's kind of how we complimented each other.

so you went from co authoring a book and then Somehow you discover Bitcoin, which we're going to talk about. And then you completely transitioned into a full time Bitcoin nonprofit.

You know what? Good things and bad things about COVID. So that was a good thing because it forced me to slow down and stop and think, and be more thoughtful and actually be more strategic about my own life. I'm sitting here consulting every single day with businesses about how to be more strategic, how to communicate to the executive team, how to get the right data and tell your story and all this, but I wasn't doing it in my personal life. And COVID forced to happen. When COVID happened, I was on a nine month contract. I was consulting to Booz Allen Hamilton, a consulting firm in Washington, D. C., and I was, we were restructuring their learning development function from a traditional L& D to become a corporate university. So we were probably about, I'd say, 75 percent of the way through with this project. I'd been training and upskilling their, learning department of 70 people. then COVID hit. and my friend that was a CLO said, Stacy, I don't even know if I have a job, I can't continue your contract, we don't know what's happening, L& D was really in a weird place because when COVID hit, training, which is weird, like, are we going to train? Are we not going to train? Is it going to be virtual? How's it going to happen? It was so confusing. So I essentially lost all of my work. And I'm like, what do I do now? So what happens is, my sister tells me about this new app called Clubhouse. It's like, oh, there's this thing called clubhouse. You should go in there. So I'm at home I live by myself and I was so bored So i'm just exploring clubhouse and I saw this room called cafe bitcoin that neil jacobs started I always wonder about this cryptocurrency thing What is I don't even know what any of this is about I had no time to think about any of it And I got in these bitcoin rooms. I started listening. I'm like, this is interesting I'd hop around in different rooms then started listening. I'm like I kept getting drawn back into that room for some strange reason. And I started listening and I was just amazed. It was actually was affecting me emotionally when I was listening to these stories and these people talk about it because now it's sort of like a gap that they get and they just talk, but back then it was really educational. They were talking about how to get a wallet, the difference between Bitcoin and crypto and kind of one on one. And I learned so much. And Every time somebody mentioned a book, I'd grab my phone, write it down, go buy that book and read it. So, I literally was doing all of my background research and my own personal proof of work, during COVID. And when I did all that, I started, I told myself, cause I, I pushed myself quite a bit and I said, okay, in six months, you're going to be on that stage. You're going to get enough. You're going to know enough to get enough confidence to where they invite you up to be a speaker and cafe Bitcoin. And I got there and I did it. I was so interested cause I was lit. I would look like I was obsessed with it. I was on clubhouse 24 seven, no matter because it was COVID anything else to do. and then, through Clubhouse, then I'd go into Black Bitcoin Billionaires and then I heard Justin Redrick talking once about his Bars to Bitcoin book, about how he came out of prison and how Bitcoin, enhanced the quality of his life and gave him confidence and motivation. And I'm like, I like this guy. He's really smart. He's really nice. And I can't believe what he's doing. Bitcoin helped him turn his life around. Like, how can that be? So I started thinking about it. And at that time I was pretty active in Rotary Club with the exchange students. And so I was like, you know what? The Rotarians, it's kind of humanitarian organization. They would love Justin's story. So I just reached out to him on Clubhouse and said, Hey, would you be willing to come do a virtual? Presentation of my Rotary Club and he's like, yeah, so he did that and then we just kind of kept in touch. I sent him a copy of my book and I'd wake up some mornings and he'd send me text messages of screenshots of where he circled something in my book. Oh my god, I didn't know about this. This is a great saying. Thank you. So we kind of just stayed in touch that way. And then in March. So I worked for a Silicon Valley tech startup. You know, you work for a tech startup, and the goal is to get sold, right? So I knew it was coming. And of course, big fish hit the little fish, I went over to the big organization and they don't need any more executive leaders. They've got executive leaders, but they're like, Oh, we're not going to lay anybody off. And then, six months later, they lay off 95 percent of us that came into the acquisition. So in March, I lost my job, this past March. And I'm like, what do I do now? what do I do? and so I called Justin and I was talking to Justin. I'm I'm like, Hey, I lost my job. Let's do what do we want to do? Like we just start talking and he was telling me about everything he's been through and we just kind of worked together and decided that we wanted to start a nonprofit. I decided that I really only wanted to be around Bitcoiners. I only want to talk about Bitcoin. I wanted to be surrounded, by Bitcoiners and just kind of my people and we were aligned from a value perspective, we're aligned, with our values. So that's why I decided to do it. And, and there's another thing, and I tell this story often. But really, really the truth of what happened. Okay. Here's the okay. Here's the wizard behind the curtain. in December of 21, my daughter and I went to visit my, I was living in Chicago. My daughter and I went to visit my sister in San Diego, and we get home to Chicago. And I've been to San Diego like a week, you know, beautiful, beautiful weather and everything. And we get back and it was just snowing like heck in Chicago and I had a, two and a half hour drive home, white knuckling it all the way, thinking, oh God, don't kill both of us, you know, on the drive home. We get home and I hadn't been home for a week and I get out of the car and I'm like, okay, let me go check the mail. So I'm walking down the driveway and I fall, hit my head, break my phone. And check the mail and I went in the house and I just had a bloody meltdown and something hit me. I started screaming. I'm like, I'm done. I'm done. I'm done. I'm moving to Vegas. And my daughter's like, she's 23 or she's 22 at the time. And she's like, What? You're moving to Vegas? I think I have a concussion. I don't know. I'm moving to Vegas. It's like, Mom, we just got home from the airport. Like, what are you talking about? And, I said, let me do some research. Cause I'm not really, I don't think I'm really a spontaneous person, too spontaneous. I'm like, I'm very thoughtful and planned about what I do. so I said, let me do a lot of research over the weekend. I said, I'll tell you by Monday. And of course I dug in on the weekend. And then on Monday I said, I'm moving. I said, I'm moving to Las Vegas. I figured finances out. I did everything. And I said, I'm going and I really because I could feel I feel like our company is going to get sold. I was I had my full time job at the time. I was leading a solution consulting team at the time, a global team. And I could just feel it coming. So I told my daughter said, okay, by the end of first quarter, I'm out of here. And I lived that house 25 years. So I sold my house at the top of the market, flew out to Vegas, found a rental property. Transcribed And moved here April 1st. So my best friend helped me sell 90 percent of the stuff in my home. So I freed everything up, sold everything, moved to Vegas. My daughter graduated from college in May. I moved here in April last year. She graduated in May. And she's like, Can I move to Vegas with you? I'm like, I don't care. come on. So, yeah, so now I live with my daughter and she lives here and it's so fun. I started the Vegas Bitcoin Meetup here as well, I often say that I did not pick Vegas Vegas picked me, Satoshi came to me. I fell got a concussion or something hit my head and Satoshi, moved the puppet strings and said sell your house move to Vegas go on on bitcoin So I say it wasn't my choice. I was driven I don't know what do I honestly don't know. It was just a passion and everything. I felt I've been going through the past year and I did it and my family and friends were in shock. They're like, what? So I'm shocked a little bit, but I'm living my dream now.

What a fun story. I'm glad you're okay. Cause you know, falling on ice, that's no joke. okay. So I'm, I have several questions. so you studied really hard. you were in clubhouse 24 seven, and you're reading every single book that people recommend you get on the stage. What was your first? Speech about

Well, I didn't really speak. It was just getting invite. They can bite you up. And I never had the courage to raise my hand. I was just listening and learning. And then finally I got the courage. I don't think I would even raise my hand very often in the beginning. Cause that's very intimidated. I knew nothing about this at all. It was like zero. So I started getting more and more confidence when I was listening to podcasts, reading books, listening to Guy Swan, reading, just everything, everything, all I can consume. I was just insane. And so then I got enough confidence to go up and ask a question. Then I started listening and learning. Then when I would test myself, when people would go up and ask questions, I would answer their question in my head. And when I got to the point where I could answer their question, I'm like, I can go on the stage now. So then I felt okay. I felt knowledgeable enough. And actually when I first moved to Vegas, I needed my own proof of work, you know, because I went through the traditional education system. You get a degree, that's your proof of work. Well, so, I was like, how do I really know how much I know in Bitcoin? And so I went and took the certified Bitcoin professional exam. Of course, so I studied for that and I did learn quite a bit But I was really proud of myself because I knew most of it. There's some little fine details I didn't know but by studying I got it And so i'm happy to say i'm a certified bitcoin professional and I told just and I said that's my does my own personal proof Of work for myself. So that's my degree for my bitcoin learning

okay. So when you first heard about Bitcoin, I know that you were listening to Justin's life transformation testimony. Was there any time when you were listening to him speak when you thought to yourself that can't be real? Like, that sounds too good to be true.

Yes. And actually when I heard Justin was not the first time I heard about Bitcoin. So I'm Gen X generation, right? The first time I heard about Bitcoin was Silk Road. So I was like, when I heard about Bitcoin was, 11, 12, between 11, 20, 12, something like that. And I'm like, that is disgusting. That's criminal. That Ross Albrecht, he should go to jail. These people are bad, bad, bad. Good. They all got caught. And anything I heard about it, I would like to shut down. I'm like, nope, nope, nope, bad, bad, bad. What do you, I was so busy. I wasn't paying attention. I just knew I didn't like what they were doing. all the stuff going on with Silk Road. So I was, I just shut it out. I'm like, it's horrible. Cafe Bitcoin was what opened my eyes. Like I said, I have a growth mind. So I said, listen, I'm like, these people sound normal. They don't sound like criminals. They sound like normal people and they're passionate. And so I started learning. Then I'd go to the black Bitcoin billionaires. I'm like, what is this about? You know, and I'd learn more and more and listen. And so I changed my perspective from what I thought earlier about Bitcoin to falling in love and being an advocate. And now Orange Pilling Businesses in Las Vegas about it. So

so what is your nonprofit about?

Justin and I, May 12. Of 2022, we became a legal entity in the state of Nevada. And the reason May 12th is an important day was because that was the day that Justin was released from prison. I don't know if you're know who Justin is. He's sort of an OG in the space. he went to prison when he was. I think 21. He was in prison for three years, 21 to 24. and he's been, he was incarcerated. He's been through homelessness, college dropout, pretty rough life. And he gets out and discovers Bitcoin. he's a young black man, cannot get a job. He can't do anything. He applied to wash dishes, moving companies, right? Everything. He could, nobody would hire him. He was desperate. For money, and he did not want to go back to a life of crime. He, he didn't want to do anything illegal because he doesn't have to learn that lesson again. Right. So, so he, that's when he discovered Bitcoin so Justin actually went to Empowerment Gideon Powell in Texas invited him to the Empowerment Conference, which is about Bitcoin mining, and he discovered that the miners are really need employees, they need workers. The halving's coming, there's a sense of urgency, and, he said, I've been thinking about this project, he wrote the book, From Bars to Bitcoin, and he sent me his book, and I read it and loved it, and by the way, his book is very good. it's really inspirational as well. So I read his book and everything. and then he said, they really need, miners really need employees. And he's like, I think these people that get out of prison could be employees, for these mining companies. So we just noodled on a little bit, thought about it and dug in. And then we really decided that this is what we want to do. so we designed a, called From Bars to Bitcoin Reentry Tour and what we do is we go into prisons across the US, and we go into prison and I built a whole program, right? We go in and we teach them Bitcoin basics, just Bitcoin 101. 101, and that's because in the prison we can really only use paper based materials. Really? I mean, we're not going to teach them mining. I can't get an A6 in the prison, right? It's not going to happen. Someday it will, but today it can't. So we've got a whole conceptual project, that we built out. And I told Justin, I said, look, there's so many assets, learning assets and educational assets in the space. We don't need to recreate, create the wheel. I don't need to sit here and build out a whole curriculum for us. So we just started looking around. We pulled like, the, me premier Bitcoin from El Salvador. Open source. They're using it to educate the students in El Salvador. I'm like, oh my gosh, I grabbed that looked at that. I'm like, oh, there are big chunks in here. We can use. the average reading level of people incarcerated. It's like 4th grade. So we got to keep the reading level pretty low. We've got to simplify. We have to boil down. So complex topics. So we go into prisons and the program that we designed, we essentially start talking about money. What is money? And one of the great things, and Justin's just so brilliant, one of the ahas that he had and that he brought to me is that these people that commit crimes, most crimes are committed for financial reasons. You rob, you sell drugs, you prostitute, you do a lot of things and use it for financial reasons. And then you waste your precious time on this planet, sitting in prison while the currency you committed the crime for is debasing. You get out! and the dollar's not the same value as the ones you went in for. You lost ten years of your life, for a ten cent, eight cent loss in the currency. Stop doing that. Quit doing that, people. Right? So that's the wake up call that we go in prison and we talk about. And these people have big ah hahs, about it. For instance, we were in prison. He was, like, he was in a prison September 9th. And there's a guy said, oh, yeah, I mined Bitcoin for four years. I'm like, some of these people will have more Bitcoin than we do all, put together probably they mine it. And there are people who have no idea what in the heck it's about. So our goal is we have three strategic goals to the program. And the reason we set the nonprofits, because Jess and I both believe we want to be super transparent about everything we do. And when I built that website. I put everything out there. We have the impact blueprint to show how we're measuring the that's the trademark. I have how we're measuring the impact of what we're doing. so we're just like. Plugging along, and we're going to be very transparent. I told you a minute ago that I'm doing the survey analysis from the satisfaction survey I designed. And so we're collecting data. We got a 30 day survey going out to the inmates as well. So, we just decided we want to be transparent what we're doing. And we've got big plans to go into many prisons private facilities, and we thought we're using a, like I said, there's so many great assets out there we're using a partnership model. So I say that we work in the intersection of Bitcoin and reentry. So reentry is relatively new. So what that's doing is helping people who are leaving the prison system or correctional facilities, reentering them into society. So this is where we're helping them with that transition. So our program has three strategic goals, which is outlined on our website and in our impact blueprint. And our goals with the program, one is to increase Bitcoin awareness. With this targeted population in the facilities to is to, help people, give them hope and motivation because when you have hope and motivation and yes, I can measure hope and motivation when you have hope and motivation, this will stop this generational poverty mindset that people have when their eyes are opened. and they're aware of things of what's going on in your own behavior. I often think and talk about that meme of the one fish talking to other fish and says, Hey, how's the water? And the fish like, what water? That's I felt like I would that fish all these years. I was like, what water? What system? I'm doing what I'm supposed to do. And these people are doing the same thing, so we're opening their eyes to that, so we're giving them hope because that will stop the cycle of poverty thinking, they'll talk to their friends and family, and all that, and our goal is to also reduce the recidivism rate. so they don't go back to prison, quit committing crimes, selling drugs and whatever you're doing for money that's debasing year over year, day over day for that matter. And then our third goal is to, offer skilled and credentialed employees to, right now we're focused on mining employers because there's a big sense of urgency. So we're giving these people quick, Trying to get them job placement very quickly and the Bitcoin ecosystem if they want to go on. We've got two pathways I set up now they can go a Bitcoin mining pathway or just like kind of a generic Bitcoin pathway if they want to do marketing accounting Learning and development whatever they want to do We want to get them place them with the Bitcoin employer or somebody where they can focus on Bitcoin So those are the three strategic goals we have with the program. So that's one, we have one initiative, we've got other initiatives listed on our website. I've got a blue sky initiative to you know, in Vegas, the reason why I moved here because Vegas is the number one tourist destination in the U. S., number five in the world, 40 million people a year. And I'm like, that's 40 million, that's 40 million mouths, 80 million eyeballs, assuming everybody has two eyes, who knows, right? And I'm like, This, we've got a multiplier effect. We've got a network effect, knock on, whatever, that we can drive here. Because when you go to Vegas, when you come to Vegas, it's all about money. It's about fiat. You know you're going to spend money, you know you're going to waste money, you know you probably could win money. It's all about money. And I want to get Bitcoin. You know, the initiative on the website is to weave Bitcoin into human consciousness. And people that come to Vegas, if they get off and see a billboard about Bitcoin, a big black billboard with an orange B, what is this? And then everywhere they see Bitcoin accepted here stickers in Vegas, they're going to go back home. And talk to their friends and family and there you go. And so that's raising awareness. So that's why I started, this Vegas Bitcoin meetup now, to do that. The Vegas Bitcoin meetup is my side hustle and the Bitcoin transformation community is my day job We're, we're, we're self funded, you know, we're, we're doing this all on our own, we're applying for grants and all that. So every little donation we get, we've got, the bars, the Bitcoin project on Geyser right now. So our expenses mainly are around travel, We've got to fly Justin to Maryland, to Washington, Nevada, California, wherever to go in these prisons and, and stay a night. So our expenses are mainly around travel. so that's how we're doing the nonprofit. A couple other initiatives and everything's listed on our website. So I encourage people to go visit our website, Bitcoin transformation, community. org.

Well, you sound like you're on fire. Very, very infectious. wonderful, wonderful work. I'm curious about how things are going, how the inmates are receiving this.

You know, it's really interesting. Like I just told you, I was just doing the survey analysis a minute ago, and the comments are really interesting. Most people are very excited, and what just, and I'm, you know what we're getting a lot of comments? The session was too short. We wanted more. Come back, come back. And when Justin got home, he told me that the staff from the correctional facility sat in his sessions, and they wanted him to come back. They're like, whoa, they learned a lot. I didn't even think about that. When we designed this, I didn't even occur to me, I was just thinking about the inmates, the incarcerated people. so yeah, so I'm learning, this is, I never did any work with correctional facilities, I've never been to prison a day in my life, I, I say yet. Because, I might get pissed off about something and end up in prison someday, I don't know. But, I haven't been in prison yet and Cardell, our re entry partner, he was incarcerated for like 16 years, I think. he and Justin, we were talking one day and they're like, okay, Cardell, so you're not in state? I said, nope, I am not going into a facility, I'm scared to death, not happening. And Cardell said, well, because you said that, you're going in. So I'm getting, the peer pressure is pretty heavy on me right now, so I'm gonna suck it up. I'm gonna go in. I'm scared to death, but you gotta face your fears, right? So, I'm gonna go in with them, someday. I gotta decide when, but I don't know if I'm more scared to go in the men's or women's, honestly.

do you think that the biggest obstacle for these inmates to get over when they come out is their scarcity mentality, which you're trying to correct with Bitcoin?

No. No, the biggest problem is they need money. You know, you think of Maslow's hierarchy, basic needs, they need food. They may have families out there, elderly parents, they've got to take care of themselves. They need food, they need food, clothing, shelter. You have to have USD to do that right now. They need a job to get some money. They're not in a position to save so they need money. We got to get them a job. Once they get money, some dollars to live and survive, then. They'll and if they're living and breathing in the Bitcoin ecosystem, they're, they're going to be Bitcoiners. I'm not worried about that at all. It will happen. but it's not their mindset because they're open to change. Many of them are, and if they're not, they're going to end up back in prison anyway, because after five years, the recidivism rate in the U. S. is 77%. So we gotta stop this. In five years, if you're incarcerated, when you get out, 77 percent of people go back. Justin just made his nine year mark. That boy's not going back to prison. not under my watch, it's not happening. He's not letting it happen anyway. He's just amazing. So he's an inspiration to everybody, And I think if we can get its basic needs met and get them out of the cycle that they've been in, the biggest challenge, I think, for everybody in Bitcoin, everybody, myself included, is unlearning. It's what we learned. It's what we knew. I've been groomed. I've been the fish in the water, not knowing what water is. I didn't know I was in this horrible treadmill feeding the government and everything my whole life. Now I've become that old man, that get off my lawn old man. I'm so mad about everything right now. I'm mad at what I've done and what I didn't do and the quality of life I didn't lead that I should have led.

Okay. So other than, changing your professional life, What are you noticing after entering the Bitcoin space that you were not aware of before? And how has that changed the practicalities of your life? Not necessarily the viewpoint, but the practicalities?

Yeah. I'd say, all pointed out Bitcoin is happy. I did it. I love it here. I've noticed that, I'm a little less happy here than I thought that I would be. And part of the reason is the gender reason, when you listen to Twitter spaces. People aren't really nice to women. A lot of times the way they treat women. And I never really looked at things like that. So I was just always pretty confident, secure in my skills and what I could do and what I bring to the table. I know what I bring. And I know my strengths. I know my areas of improvement. and I'm pretty and I'll be very transparent about that. But I walked into an industry where I'm unknown. I'm not a thought leader. I wasn't, I'm a thought leader in my space and I've been in that space 25 years and I came here. I'm a nobody. Justin's the thought leader and Justin's the influence in the space. I have no problem stepping back. And let him drive that. But even I noticed, I told Justin, I said, watch, when we get on calls, some of these guys, when you talk, they listen and they'll ask me a question, but they don't listen to me. They'll say, Oh, Stacy, tell me about something. And then I'll tell them no follow up, nothing. I can see their eyes are dead. Their brains aren't thinking. They turn to just, okay, Justin, what about this? they're engaging Justin. They don't engage me. And I've experienced it many times. And we'll get on calls right before you get on the call and I'll say, Jesse, watch, watch. This is what's going to happen on this call. And he's like, damn, you're right. You're right. Exactly what happens. I call it every time and I don't like that. It's not nice. So I think again, I don't really, it's nothing personal. It's nothing personal against me or women. I think it's again, that fish in the water. They don't know they're doing it. They're not aware and they don't really care that they're doing it because nobody's called them out. everybody, every freaking buddy brings value to the table. I don't care who you are. I always say, I can make conversation with anybody. I can find something in common with anybody in this world, on this planet. Either we like tacos, we like Bitcoin. We like true crime, whatever it is. I can find something to come with everybody cause you're another human being. And I want people to start thinking about that because what women say is just as important as what a man says. And we are just as smart. We put in just as much work, if not more, because we're climbing uphill battle. I mean, the scars I have through my corporate life, you would not believe. So it's, sexism and ageism, I'm experiencing right now, and it's no fun, it's no fun, and I don't deserve it, and nobody deserves it, so I just would like this field, and it's new, right? It's kind of a new industry, new space, but it has been dominated by white men, and we need to be aware of that, and we need to bring value. When international people get on Speak, people kind of don't listen to them. Americans don't really listen to them. I see it. I hear it in their voice and it's not right because we're missing opportunities and we don't want to be like that.

I guess I see it slightly differently. The reason I started this podcast is because I feel like there is a void that isn't met. When I traveled with Scott, and by the way, he To OrangePillMe, he created a Bitcoin mining game, which I think maybe you guys can use when you go into the prisons because everything is paper. It's cardboard. It's a tabletop Bitcoin mining game that Scott created to orange pill me because I'm not a technical thinker. I think very much by feel and emotion. And, uh, and he created this game to help me understand what Bitcoin mining is. When he finally orange pill me and I was 100 percent in Bitcoin, we started traveling to different Bitcoin meetups to share this tool and we see it as a bridge builder between Bitcoiners and their families because there are a lot of Bitcoiners that are alone in their It's great. Intimate social circle. They're the only one. And so we see as a conversation opener as a bridge builder. So we bring it all over the place traveling up and down the East Coast, mostly to share this tool. And what I noticed was that at a lot of the gatherings, Bitcoin gatherings, Men outnumber women, maybe four to one, sometimes five to one, and there are some women who, when I have conversation with them, tell me that they feel very uncomfortable being that space, not necessarily in the way that you perceive, but just that they feel Like they don't belong everybody's very friendly. Everybody's very welcoming, but the conversation style is very masculine and women talk differently. in general, we like the warm and fuzzy. We want you to ask how our week has been, not just let's sit down. Let's talk about the topics are listed. Let's talk about technology development and let's talk about politics. Like, I want to know how your week was, how did you feel, what happened in your life kind of thing. And I see it as like a whiskey and cigar versus tea and biscuit kind of difference. And so I just felt, and a lot of podcasts are also hosted by men. And they have a very particular communication style. And so I just felt like, women need women's space for us to speak openly about how we feel. I feel like Bitcoin hyper Bitcoinization must involve more women for it to happen because we have influence over the next generation just by the amount of hours that we have for them, because most families still the men work more. outside the house and women more inside the house. That's why I created this podcast. And in terms of international exposure and talking to people who travel in and out, I guess I haven't noticed what you noticed, but I can see how some people might be unaware of how they come across. So yeah, awareness for sure, would be really helpful, but I see people just. You know, you and I will vibe differently with different people and that's a, that's an energy thing. It's not even a conscious decision. It's just. We vibe with people that we feel connected to, right? And so perhaps that plays a part here, but yeah, I, I definitely think that awareness, would be important.

Yeah. And I, another example is like the over talking women, right? They'll let men finish, but they over talk women a lot, and I think in some ways you and I are kind of different, right? I think I've just been in the corporate world so long. I have more of those masculine traits. I don't need you to ask me how my day. I'm ready to sit down and talk about what in the heck did this mean on the news? What did I read? that's the first thing I start talking about. I'll sit down at the meetup. I'm like, I can't open a bank. Nobody will open our account because I got Bitcoin in the name of my business. What am I going to do? Like I start, and they're like, Oh my God. Okay. What bank did you go to? So the meetup was really kind of helping me figure some of that stuff out. cause I'm just type a about that. And yeah, I guess in the corporate world, you know, as a female, I've just kind of learned that my emotions and feelings had to take a back seat for me to thrive in that space. And so it made me come off as, it can be more aggressive, because I know what I want. I know what I need to do and I know what the end goal is and I'm going to get there and you're really not going to stand in my way because if you do. You know, I had my best friend once said to me, she said, if there were a nuclear war when all the dust cleared, it'd be Stacy walking out carrying four people on her back. She's like, you are a cockroach. You'll survive anything and you'll pull everybody through it. And I was like, Oh my God, is that Hans? Receive is like, yeah, it is. And I'm like, oh, okay. So I'm softer and fuzzier now than I used to be, but I used to be pretty darn bad. So I'm better now. I'm more humane now than I used to be.

But again, there are going to be people who relate much more to you than somebody else who might be very warm and fuzzy. So, yeah, that's our space. we are just filled with. Regular human beings and regular human beings are all very different and that's good, It's good we have someone like you and it's good that we have someone who's the opposite of you. So

Yeah, my daughter's more like you. She's Taught me a lot. She's taught me a lot to calm down and focus and live in the moment. I changed a lot because of her. And this has been a great influence. And I think it's definitely made me a better person. It's made me better to be around. I'll tell you that much. Cause I was like corporate leadership mode. Let's go.

Type a plus plus Okay, so what would you say to someone a woman who is Bitcoin

about purchasing Bitcoin or getting the Bitcoin space,

either one

gEtting in the space, a hundred percent. do it. I don't get my feelings hurt that easily. I'll get worked up about stuff, but then it's over with. But what I like here is this is really a new space, right? It's uncharted territories, and it's really fun. What Jus and I are doing, nobody's telling us we're doing it right or wrong. We're doing what we think is the right thing to do. His experience and my experience, we have the skills, the capability, and the connections to make this happen, and we're doing it the way we want. We don't have a boss. The boss we have is Satoshi. So, we've got the Bitcoin ethos, it's on our website. As long as we adhere to our ethos, we're good. And, I love it. this treating women thing is worse probably in the corporate world than it is here. The stuff I've had to deal with but I think it's a great place to be. It's really fun, it's exciting. so, I encourage women. And we need Female mindset in here we just need diversity. That's all when we're building on our board. I'm like we need some diversity I don't want to look at myself in the mirror all day That's not going to get us anywhere here suck our own exhaust isn't going to be good so definitely get into the space and invest in bitcoin, one of the main inspirations, part of the reason why Bitcoin resonated with me was my best friend. I've got a few best friends, but one of my best friends is a woman from India. Mid 40s and when she was in her early 40s, we find out that, she had an arranged marriage at 19 years old in India. So her mom sold her off, moved to America, married a 26 year old Indian man, when she was 19. So essentially, you know, this man raised her. She was 19. she did the, stayed at home, be the wife, have the kids and all that. We find out when she's like in her early 40s that, he's an alcoholic and a lot of fraud, like used her name on the credit cards, took all this debt under her name. And he ended up being hospitalized because he was going to die. And the mom from India flies over. This guy's like 45 years old. The mom from India flies over and gets him, takes him back to India. And it's been Probably eight years. They've never heard from him still. So here's this woman that came to the country, never had a job has two kids. Her credit is totally destroyed. What are you going to do? It was devastating. So Naturally, I roll up my sleeves, get down there, clean, literally roll up my sleeves, getting to clean up that pukey basement that man lived in, cleaned up his house, try to get her straight, she can't get divorced because she's out of the country. The attorneys couldn't even help her because now she's low income, her credit's destroyed, she's got to file bankruptcy, even though she never had a credit card in her own name in her whole life, never had a job, it's like, what am I going to do? And I said, we're going to get you a job. She was very smart, brilliant, like from a technology perspective, passionate about it. So we just said that she worked for my company in the marketing department, used me as a reference. We got our job as a bank teller, little hourly job. She got in, within two months got promotion to manager. And then a year later, she called me, she's like, Stacy, I passed some, I forgot, some IT certification exams and got hired as an IT consultant in Washington, D. C. And so we packed her kids and the U Haul up and shipped her off to Washington, D. C. And I was like, oh my God, if she had had Bitcoin, it would have been a lot better. A lot better situation. And I know this is mild compared to some of the international stories we hear. Mild. But that's something where I looked at it and I was like, this isn't a savings technology like it is for the rest of us. It would have been a survival. It would have helped her. It would have given her hope and motivation. It would make me feel better. It would save me some money, too, cause she would have, felt better about herself, and been able to take care of herself and she couldn't and it was horrible. so that's kind of the part of the reason that inspired me to get into this and to support women and Bitcoin because we're held back and held down sometime, not of our own doing just because of, our circumstances.

Thanks for joining us today If the discussion with our guests resonated with you and you would like to dive deeper into the world of Bitcoin, don't miss out on joining the Orange Hatter Women's Reading Club. The meetup link is in the show notes. Also, if there are women in your life whom you think would both enjoy and benefit from learning more about Bitcoin, please share Orange Hatter with them. Until next time, bye!