An Army of Normal Folks - Michelle Penczak: Binders Full of Military Spouses (Pt 1)

Episode Date: July 29, 2025

Military spouse unemployment is 21%, which is 5 times the national average, often because employers don't want to hire people like Michelle Penczak who move every 3-4 years. So Michelle started a virtual assistant company called Squared Away where location wouldn't be an issue. And it's skyrocketed to employing 400 military spouses who serve 1,000 clients! Support the show: https://www.normalfolks.us/premiumSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I have countless emails and messages from people who work with Swerd Away over the past eight years and just said, thank you for being a part of my journey because you gave me myself back. And it's amazing to be able to say, you know, we've paid out over $30 million to military spouses and military families over the last eight years. How much? Over $30 million at this point. In salaries?

In salaries. In income? To military spouses. Yes. Yes. Yes. Welcome to an Army of Normal Phobes. I'm Bill Horton.

I'm a normal guy. I'm a husband. I'm a father, I'm an entrepreneur, and I've been a football coach in inner city Memphis, and somehow that last part led to an Oscar for the film about our team. That movie's called Undefeated. I believe our country's problems will never be solved by a bunch of fancy people in nice suits

using big words that nobody ever uses on CNN and Fox, but rather by an army of normal folks. That's us, just you and me deciding, hey, you know what? Maybe I can help. That's what Michelle Pinczak, the voice you just heard, has done. Michelle is the founder of Squared Away, which has helped 400 military spouses find work as virtual assistants. And I cannot wait for you to meet her right after these brief messages from our generous sponsors.

My uncle Chris is definitely somebody worth talking about. He was the kind of guy that lived in a trailer with an ex-con and a retired stripper, left loaded machine guns laying around, drank a bottle of whiskey a night, claimed he could kill a man with his bare hands, drove a garbage truck for a living, spoke fluent Spanish with a thick southern accent, and is currently buried in a crypt alongside the founding families of Panama. Listen to the Uncle Chris podcast to hear all about him and a whole lot more. Wild stories about adventure, romance, crime, history, and war intertwine as I share the

tall tales and hard truths that have helped me understand Uncle Chris. This collection of stories will make you laugh, it'll make you cry, and if I do my job right, they'll let you see the world and your place in it in a whole new way. I can't wait to tell you all about Uncle Chris. Listen now to Uncle Chris on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Kelly Harnett spent over a decade in prison for a murder she says she didn't commit. — I'm 100% innocent. — While behind bars, she learned the law from scratch. — Because, oh, God, Harnett, jailhouse lawyer. — And as she fought for herself, she also became a lifeline for the women locked up alongside her.

— You're supposed to have faith in God, but I had nothing but faith in her. So many of these women had lived the same stories. I said, were you a victim of domestic violence? And she was like, yeah. But maybe Kelly could change the ending. I said, how many people have gotten other incarcerated individuals out of here? I'm going to be the first one to do that. This is the story of Kelly Harnett, a woman who spent 12 years fighting not just for her own freedom, but her girlfriends too.

I think I have a mission from God to save souls by getting people out of prison. The girlfriends, Jailhouse Lawyer. Listen on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. For my heart podcasts and Rococo Punch, this is the turning river road. I knew I wanted to obey and submit, but I didn't fully grasp for the rest of my life what that meant. In the woods of Minnesota, a cult leader married himself to ten girls and forced them into a secret life of abuse. Why did I think that way? Why did I allow myself to get so sucked in by this man and thinking to the point that if I died for him that would be the greatest honor? But in 2014, the youngest of the girls escaped and sparked an international manhunt.

For all those years, you know, he was the predator and I was the prey. And then he became the prey. And then he became the prey. Listen to The Turning River Road on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Just like great shoes, great books take you places through unforgettable love stories and into conversations with characters you'll never forget. I think any good romance, it gives me this feeling of like butterflies. I'm Danielle Robay, and this is Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club,

the new podcast from Hello Sunshine and iHeart Podcasts. Every week I sit down with your favorite book lovers, authors, celebrities, book talkers, and more to explore the stories that shape us, on the page and off. I've been reading every Reese's Book Club pick, deep-diving book talk theories, and obsessing over book-to-screen casts for years. And now I get to talk to the people making the magic. So if you've ever fallen in love with a fictional character, or cried at the last chapter, or passed a book to a friend saying, you have to read this, this podcast is for you.

Listen to Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. No one is harmed, no death, no trauma, just a few cells grown in a dish. This is David Eagleman from the Inner Cosmos podcast. And this week, we're tackling a tough question where brain science meets the future. Lab-grown meat is going to force us to confront the boundaries of our ethics and our imagination. It invites us to question why we draw lines exactly where we do and whether those lines are drawn in ink or in pencil. And what does this have to do with sanctity, brain plasticity, social belonging, messed

up boundaries between mental categories, flesh copyrights, and the future of personhood? What is the table we're going to set for ourselves? What does this question uncover about brain science and our calculations of morality. Listen to Inner Cosmos on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Michelle Pensack, welcome to Memphis. Thank you. How'd you get here? Where'd you come from? Did you come here last night? I did. I came here last night. Michelle Pinsack, welcome to Memphis. Thank you.

How'd you get here? Where'd you come from? Did you come here last night? I did. I came last night or yesterday afternoon. From? Just outside of Wilmington, North Carolina. Yeah.

And Memphis is hot. Yeah, it's warm. Hotter than Eastern North Carolina breathing through a hair dryer. And I didn't even think that was possible. And Memphis has humidity that is ridiculous. You can get dressed, walk outside during the summer, and you're soaking wet immediately. I didn't even try to do my hair. So don't judge me.

Yeah, I won't. So where'd you grow up? I actually grew up in North Carolina, about an hour from where we are now in Clinton and Little Washington, so both places. Yeah, and did you go to college or anything? I did, I actually went to college in Tennessee, in Bristol.

UT? Or in Bristol, at King College, King University. Yeah, no, we had another guest about a year ago. Maybe around a Poulsen. Yeah, I think so. That went to King. Yeah. No way. Yep.

Yeah, there's some in the water over there, apparently. Hey, there's good things in East Tennessee. So Michelle, everybody, is the founder and CEO of Squared Away, which we're going to get to all of it. We've had a few guests that are similar to Michelle. And we talk about a lot of times on an Army of Normal Folks that you don't have to start some massive 501c3, that you can serve anywhere in your community.

You can serve in your home. You can be a member of the Army of Normal Folks by just doing what you can, where you can. We've also talked about there are occasions where we find people that have for-profit organizations, but the organization itself has a social mission to it. Not necessarily just in who that company serves in terms of their client base, but also who works with them. Michelle is one of those rare folks who has bumped around, found a way to start a business

that also has a really poignant social mission. And I can't wait to unfold that for everybody. Let's go back to the beginning. All I know is that you were a young woman, single and free, and the one thing you were not gonna do is marry anybody in the military. Oh yeah. I met my husband, my now husband, at a wedding, Labor Day weekend, 2013, and I was somebody else's date.

Funny story. Oh, nice. But we just went as friends. That's really, that's- We just went as friends. Why don't we open with the fact that you two times your date to find your current husband. All right, so you go to a wedding with a date and this dude comes in and scoops you up

and breaks your date's heart. Is that what happens? Well, I've kicked his butt at beer pong. So there's that. There is that. And. At a wedding? At a wedding.

I don't know what kind of wedding you guys come to. It was in Virginia. This is, hey, this is, this is, this is Appalachia. So there's that there's and at a wedding at a wedding This is Appalachia we're talking East Tennessee over Virginia Appalachia Beer pong is more important than first dance. So I mean and it was a military wedding I mean you have to have beer pong or something. I get it. So I kicked his butt at beer pong and apparently that hooked him and I was like, I don't even like Marines and you guys have bad haircuts like I but he was really nice and we had a really good time and it kind of kicked off from there. And you end up marrying a freakingin, is it a Jarhead? Is that what Marines are?

What are Marines? Yeah, pretty much Jarhead. But he calls himself the elite because he's a V-22. What does that mean? He's an Osprey pilot. Which is first of all, very cool. Oh yeah. So an Osprey first of all, very cool. Oh yeah. So an Osprey is Osprey or Osprey? Osprey, it's a tilt rotor, so it can fly. It's an airplane that can fly as a helicopter. Can they take off vertically, but then fly like airplanes? Yep.

What do they do? Are they assault vehicles or are they transport? They're transport, troop transport, CAS evac,, casualty evacuations, that kind of thing. So that's actually really cool. So he's kind of a boss. He thinks he is. Right, right. So you dumped your date.

Now you're married to this rotor fly, fixed wing, doesn't really know what he's flying, Marine who thinks he's the boss. Oh yeah. And you're starting life. And I'm starting life. Which is wonderful, but I mean, nothing overly crazy, just starting life. Yep. Right?

And you first get based where? In Jacksonville, North Carolina. So... What is Jacksonville, North Carolina? Basically the biggest Marine Corps town. Is it? It's nothing but Marines. And if you're there for a different reason, I would be curious what that would be, honestly. But I grew up about an hour from there. So I felt like I was going back to my roots and my hometown. And I was very much the brand new military spouse,

everything patriotic Marine Corps wife sticker on the car type deal supermodo. And so you went from I don't like Marines to all. Oh, yeah, I was like, I mean, if I'm going to marry you, like I'm committed, like let's, let's do this. And I, I went in very optimistic about the opportunities because I wanted to work. I still wanted to have a career. And I was like, this is my hometown. Like I can, I can do this. And I have this great experience from working in DC. Like I can make something happen. What'd you do in DC?

I was a personal assistant to a lobbyist. Uh, really? Now that's interesting. Um. Chaos all day, every day. Well, and why don't you tell us what lobbyists do? I know because my kids work in DC and one works with lobbyists every day, but describe that world.

Advocating for different things. Basically getting in politicians ears and saying, this is what we want from you and this is why. A lot of deal making behind the scenes. As an assistant, what are you doing? You name it. A little bit of everything from managing dinners and coordinating events, travel planning, washing dogs, they get in bed before.

Calendars. Calendars. Chasing down dresses from the postal service that got lost in DC. Like everything you can absolutely imagine. Literally taking all of the minutia off of the boss so the boss can go do the work they have to do to make a living. Exactly. That's it. Exactly.

All right, so you had that experience in DC, which kind of cool. How'd you get into that? Completely by accident. I started as a nanny and- After college? No, I'll go back a little bit. So I graduated from college with the intention of going into the Navy as an officer.

Hold it. You didn't want to date a Marine, but you're going to go to the Navy? Yeah. Marines are department of the Navy. Okay. I get it. Okay, go ahead. So that's what you wanted to do. So that's what you wanted to do.

So that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to be a surface warfare officer because I wanted to shoot the big guns and blow shit up. Are you kidding me? No. Okay, so maybe. That's literally what I told them when I joined. I was like, they were like,

why do you want to be a surface warfare officer? Well, you see that gun on that destroyer? I would have blow shit up with that. It was really cool. So you're the boss. like, why do you want to be a service warfare officer? Well, you see that gun on that destroyer? I would have blurched it up with that. It looks really cool. You're the boss. That's what we just found out. The ice-free guy, he just transports people.

You want to blow stuff up. I mean, I'm from this town. I get it. Especially the Bristol area. He probably went out with Tanya Wright as a child and blew up old cars and stuff. Not quite, but close. Okay, so that's what you want to do, but you end up an assistant to a lobbyist.

So my story gets a little bit crazy. I went through OCS and around week eight I got injured and they said that I can have surgery and then start at the beginning again. And I was like, oh hell no. Like I made it through eight weeks, there's no way. Like I am not a runner, I am not that person and I just had marine gelling in me. Absolutely not.

I can't do it, I know I can't. I'm, I can't do it. I know I can't. And now a few messages from our general sponsors. But first, if this episode or any other episodes inspire you, I hope you'll consider sharing your reflections about it on social media and tagging us at Army of Normal Folks. Your reflections can help others and also evangelize the army. Thanks for thinking about doing this noble deed. We'll be right back. My Uncle Chris is definitely somebody worth talking about. He was the kind of guy that

used Confederate flags as window curtains, lived in a trailer with an ex-con and a retired stripper, left loaded machine guns laying around, drank a bottle of whiskey a night, claimed he could kill a man with his bare hands, drove a garbage truck for a living, spoke fluent Spanish with a thick southern accent, and is currently buried in a crypt alongside the founding families of Panama.

Listen to the Uncle Chris podcast to hear all about him and a whole lot more. currently buried in a crypt alongside the founding families of Panama. Now to Uncle Chris on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. Kelly Harnett spent over a decade in prison for a murder she says she didn't commit. I'm 100% innocent. While behind bars, she learned the law from scratch. Because oh God, Harn and that jailhouse lawyer. And as she fought for herself, she also became a lifeline

for the women locked up alongside her. You're supposed to have faith in God, but I had nothing but faith in her. So many of these women had lived the same stories. I said, were you a victim of domestic violence? And she was like, yeah. But maybe Kelly could change the ending. I said, how many people have gotten

other incarcerated individuals out of here? I'm gonna be the first one to do that. This is the story of Kelly Harnett, a woman who spent 12 years fighting not just for her own freedom, but her girlfriends too. I think I have a mission from God to save souls by getting people out of prison. The Girlfriends, Jailhouse Lawyer. Listen on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

From iHeart podcasts and Rococo Punch, this is The Turning, River Road. I knew I wanted to obey and submit, but I didn't fully grasp for the rest of my life what that meant. In the woods of Minnesota, a cult leader married himself to 10 girls and forced them into a secret life of abuse. Why did I think that way? Why did I allow myself to get so sucked in by this man and thinking to the point that if I died for him, that would be the greatest honor?

But in 2014, the youngest of the girls escaped and sparked an international manhunt. For all those years, you know, he was the predator and I was the prey. And then he became the prey. Listen to The Turning River Road on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Just like great shoes, great books take you places, through unforgettable love stories, and into conversations with characters you'll never forget. I think any good romance, it gives me this feeling of like butterflies.

I'm Danielle Robay, and this is Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club, the new podcast from Hello Sunshine and iHeart Podcasts. Every week I sit down with your favorite book lovers, authors, celebrities, book talkers, and more to explore the stories that shape us, on the page and off. I've been reading every Reese's Book Club pick, deep diving book talk theories, and obsessing over book to screen casts for years. And now, I get to talk to the people making the magic. So if you've ever fallen in love with a fictional character, or cried at the last chapter, or passed a book to a friend saying, you have to read this, this podcast is for you.

Listen to Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club on the iHeartRadio app. Apple podcasts are wherever you get your podcasts. No one is harmed, no death, no trauma, just a few cells grown in a dish. This is David Eagleman from the Inner Cosmos podcast. And this week, we're tackling a tough question where brain science meets the future. Lab-grown meat is going to force us to confront the boundaries of our ethics and our imagination. It invites us to question why we draw lines exactly where we do,

and whether those lines are drawn in ink or in pencil. And what does this have to do with sanctity, brain plasticity, social belonging, messed up boundaries between mental categories, flesh copyrights, and the future of personhood? What is the table we're going to set for ourselves? What does this question uncover about brain science and our calculations of morality? Listen to Inner Cosmos on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your

podcasts. So literally kind of fell flat on my face is what it felt like at the time. And we had a family friend that had triplets and was moving to the DC area and needed a nanny. So that's how I got to DC. So you went to DC as a nanny and then that played out and you got a job as a? Yeah, I started looking at different roles. I really liked coordinating things, especially for the girls. They were tiny little crazies running everywhere, but it was a unique experience because I was coordinating doctors appointments and traveling with them and

they had feeding tubes so just making sure all that was maintained and I was like man I really like coordinating stuff and I started looking for Assistant roles at that point to get myself into the corporate world It's really weird how the steps along your life have led you to where you are now because these are just little baby steps to being squared away. Yes. So very much so. So now you become an assistant to a lobbyist. And then you marry the Marine. And here you are in Jacksonville, North Carolina and you feel like hey, I got skills. Oh, yeah. And you want to work. And

I want to work and I'm motivated We weren't ready to start a family at that point. You got a degree. I have a degree and you know, you got a degree You've got experience you've worked in DC You've done all of this and you're now in Jacksonville, North because surely someone wants your skill sets you would think so so we were moving from Corpus Christi where Sean got his wings and I started applying for jobs literally immediately in Jacksonville, so that I would have something when we got there. And I started going on interviews and the interview was really interesting. They would start talking about my background, asking me all the typical interview questions.

And then they would get to what brings you to Jacksonville, North Carolina? Why do they ask? They must know everything. Everybody that comes to Jacksonville, North Carolina is on the military. I honestly think it was a question to see like, is this person a military spouse? I think it was a weeding out question, to be perfectly honest, because this was 2013. It was very much the military and the community surrounding the military were ingrained in the, well, you're only going to be here temporarily, temporary, three to four years.

That's not temporary in my opinion. That's not, that's a long time. Exactly. And it was their, their way to say no. Yeah. Their way to say no. And when I would tell them, this is why I'm here. My husband's at new river. He's learning to fly the V 22. Oh, that's such a cool aircraft. Let's talk more about that. And I'm like, Hi, Sean already has job. Can we get back to this right now? And they were just like, Okay, well, we'll be in touch. And they were in touch and let me know that they weren't going with me.

And finally, the very last interview I went on, I got so ticked off because it was going the exact same way. And he goes, well, what does your husband do? I said, I would tell you, but I would have to kill you. And he goes, what does your husband do? And I said, well, I would tell you, but I would have to kill you. And he goes, what did your husband do? And I said, well, I would tell you, but I would have to kill you. And he just looked at me like I was crazy.

And I was like, I know how this is going. Thanks, have a good day. Like, I just knew. I was like, I see it going down the exact same rabbit hole. Like I'm done. I was so over the whole interview process. I'd done it so many times. Wow.

So. That's deflating. It was. I. Were you depressed? I was. I got very depressed. All my military spouse friends were having babies

and doing the stay at home mom thing and we just weren't there. And I wanted to work and it was frustrating because I knew I had the skill set, I had the drive and nobody wanted to hire me. So I went from depressed to ticked off real quick. This is for later, so this is a setup question. But I do wanna get between years a little bit

at that time in your life, All right. You've done what everybody says you need to do. You've gotten your degree. You're married. You're a faithful wife. You're supportive of your husband, you uproot your life and you move wherever the military tells you to move. And like a good little soldier, you soldier on, right? And here you are in this community of a bunch of Marines with a degree, talent, the right attitude, motivation,

all you're supposed to have. The world says you're supposed to get a job if you want a job. And I can't imagine you had to been laying there in bed looking at the ceiling going, this sucks and being really unhappy with your station in life at that point. I was. It was so frustrating because I'm not a Pinterest person. I don't do Pinterest projects. I'm not, I need something for me.

I can support my spouse. I can support my kids, but I need something that brings me joy as a human and I can be committed to. And I had that, but nobody wanted to kind of point me in the right direction. And I kind of had to figure that out for myself, honestly. And that's when I found a virtual assistant company that was hiring remotely. So remote before remote was cool in the end of 2013. So now you get this job as a virtual assistant. All right, I don't even know what that means because I've got a company and

And I have people in my office and people outside manufacturing and all of that How does how is a CEO how would a virtual assistant work for me? How does it make sense for me that how do I contact my assistant? How does my assistant keep up with my calendar if I'm not there? Kind of explain the role of a virtual assistant as it unfolded you when you first started. Yeah, so a virtual assistant is basically doing everything that you would in a typical office setting at home or wherever in the world they are. So if you can get on a phone call, if you can text, if you can send an email, this person can do essentially the exact same thing remotely that they could

in your office. So honestly, it's delegating everything to them, even though they're not sitting right next to you. So you're my virtual assistant off in North Carolina in Jacksonville that you get this job, right? And I'm sitting in Memphis running my business and I have a coach football team. I run a business. I sit on three boards and I got Alex messing with me over this podcast telling me when I got to do interviews, when I got to do new narrations and my calendar right now is booked out until June of next year. All right.

That's what my calendar looks like. It is bonkers. And if I don't have that, I'm lost. Yep. I wouldn't work for you. Tell her why she couldn't be your virtual assistant. I don't know. You tell her.

Because he uses a paper calendar. Oh, see that right there. Was I here today on time? Yeah, so I'm old school. I admittedly so. But I got my stuff on lockdown. So you missed one interview so far because of this paper calendar issue. He double hooked himself once and I had to do the interview that did it.

But it's not bad out of over on it. I felt so sorry for the guest having to spend two hours with Alex. So anyway, tell me how you replace my world and make things easier for me and how it's efficient. Well, number one, you can keep your paper calendar. Okay, good. You can still keep your paper calendar

if you're going to manage it. But if you delegate your entire calendar and say, here, Michelle, here's 50 different things that has to be managed, I can set it up so that, number one, you don't miss an interview, ever. That'd be good. You get notifications, you are still committed to everything, you get reminders every single day.

Do I contact you by email, text or phone? Or is the answer to that yes? Say anything, including smoke signals. Like, however you want to communicate, it would just, it would be like picking up the phone, just saying, hey, I need this. Okay, cool. So it's no different than you just being outside the office. You just happen to be a phone call away instead of 10 steps away.

So that's the job you take on. All right. So your first, when you get hired, what do they do? Assign you three or four companies that, how's it work? So clients sign up for support for any number of reasons. And then they select you based on your experience as to who would be the best fit for you. So I started off with five different clients in totally different niches, things that I had never experienced before, venture capital, e-commerce,

um, travel, so many different things that I was learning as I went, but I still had that basic core skill set that I had of being an assistant in DC. Yeah. I mean, it translated perfectly. It translated amazing. All right. So are you on eight hours and you're just at home? Or I guess you could be anywhere as long as you have your phone. As long as I had my laptop, I was good to go. I was coordinating stuff all the time. One of my clients used to love to call me with a task when I was going to the grocery

store. And I was like, you know where I am. Give me an hour and I'll work on it. It's fine. But it worked really well with the Marine Corps lifestyle because there were days my husband was working days. There were days he was flying at night and he was home during the day and it worked out really well.

Okay. So here you are. You finally found your spot. You're over your depression. You got a job. Feel like you're doing something you're earning. You're doing something for you. And, and we, I made it to a manager position.

So I was now teaching other assistants how to work with their clients, be better task managers, put together processes, and I loved it. It was amazing. And then we found out in 2015 that we were gonna have our first little boy, which was insanity and Sean was getting ready to deploy for the second time. So he was

Due to miss pretty much all of my pregnancy. Yikes. What does deploy mean? Go overseas or be stationed somewhere else for and you guys don't get to go with them when they do that. No station somewhere else for. And you guys don't get to go with them when they do that? No, this, that was for our second deployment. His first deployment was, uh, to Afghanistan five months after I started, uh, working. Let's talk about that for a minute. What is it like as a spouse when you have now married and followed

your husband to some base and then he comes home and says okay I've been deployed I'm gone for nine months and you're not gonna see me and I may be in harm's way. What happens in you? Oh my gosh every emotion that you could possibly have runs through your body a multitude of times and the lead up to the actual deployment is just awful. You're sad. You're trying to help them coordinate all of their stuff. We lost our cat like three hours before he left and I'm crying because I can't find the cat and he's going to Afghanistan and my life is chaos and he's going to Afghanistan for the first time in 2014

and we didn't know how long we didn't know what communication would be like and you know it's it's just me and my job. We'll be right back. My Uncle Chris is definitely somebody worth talking about. He was the kind of guy that lived in a trailer with an ex-con and a retired stripper, left loaded machine guns laying around, drank a bottle of whiskey a night, claimed he could kill a man with his bare hands, drove a garbage truck for a living, spoke fluent Spanish with a thick southern accent, and is currently buried in a crypt alongside the founding families of Panama.

Listen to the Uncle Chris podcast to hear all about him and a whole lot more. Wild stories about adventure, romance, crime, history, and war intertwine as I share the tall tales and hard truths that have helped me understand Uncle Chris. This collection of stories will make you laugh, it'll make you cry, and if I do my job right, they'll let you see the world and your place in it in a whole new way. I can't wait to tell you all about Uncle Chris. Listen now to Uncle Chris on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Kelly Harnett spent over a decade in prison for a murder she says she didn't commit. I'm 100% innocent. While behind bars, she learned the law from scratch. Because, oh, God, her and that jailhouse lawyer. And as she fought for herself, she also became a lifeline

for the women locked up alongside her. You're supposed to have faith in God, but I had nothing but faith in her. So many of these women had lived the same stories. I said, were you a victim of domestic violence? And she was like, yeah. But maybe Kelly could change the ending. I said, how many people have gotten other incarcerated

individuals out of here? I'm going to be the first one to do that. This is the story of Kelly Harnett, a woman who spent 12 years fighting not just for her own freedom, but her girlfriends too. I think I have a mission from God to save souls by getting people out of prison. The girlfriends, Jailhouse Lawyer. Listen on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. For My Heart podcasts and Rococo Punch, this is The Turning, River Road.

I knew I wanted to obey and submit, but I didn't fully grasp for the rest of my life what that meant. In the woods of Minnesota, a cult leader married himself to 10 girls and forced them into a secret life of abuse. Why did I think that way? Why did I allow myself to get so sucked in by this man and thinking to the point that if I died for him, that would be the greatest honor? But in 2014, the youngest of the girls escaped and sparked an international manhunt.

For all those years, you know, he was the predator and I was the prey. And then he became the prey. Listen to The Turning River Road on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Just like great shoes, great books take you places. Through unforgettable love stories and into conversations with characters you'll never forget. I think any good romance, it gives me this feeling of like butterflies.

I'm Danielle Robay and this is Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club, the new podcast from Hello Sunshine and iHeart Podcasts. Every week I sit down with your favorite book lovers, authors, celebrities, book talkers, and more to explore the stories that shape us, on the page and off. I've been reading every Reese's Book Club pick, deep diving book talk theories, and obsessing over book to screen casts for years. And now, I get to talk to the people making the magic. So if you've ever fallen in love with a fictional character,

or cried at the last chapter, or passed a book to a friend saying, you have to read this, this podcast is for you. Listen to Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. No one is harmed, no death, no trauma, just a few cells grown in a dish. This is David Eagleman from the Inner Cosmos Podcast, and this week we're tackling a tough question where brain science meets the future. Lab-grown meat is going to force us to confront the boundaries of our ethics and our imagination. It invites us to question why we draw lines exactly where we do, and whether those lines are drawn in ink or in

pencil. And what does this have to do with sanctity, brain plasticity, social belonging, messed up boundaries between mental categories, flesh copyrights, and the future of personhood. What is the table we're going to set for ourselves? What does this question uncover about brain science and our calculations of morality? Listen to Inner Cosmos on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I think it's important for people to, we hear about deployments and it's always from the perspective of the deployed.

We rarely talk about the spouses and how hard that must be. I think it was very lonely and the military spouse community is just amazing. It's like an ingrained family that you have and you embrace the suck together. You embrace the suck together. You embrace the suck together. Yes. It's funny to hear a cute young lady say that. I've heard that from guys before, but I guess the spouses have to take the same mentality. Oh yeah, oh yeah, very much so.

Did you have friends whose husbands were lost? Oh yeah, we, there is no community like the military spouse community. It's you grow together in every possible way. You cry, you laugh, you're ticked off because the Marine Corps does XYZ. And so it's kind of like being married to the spouses in a way. It's just they're your support and. But the commitment.

The commitment to our nation's sovereignty and our liberty and the freedoms we enjoy. Forget politics for a little while. For God's sakes, I'd like to forget politics every day, but the commitment, the dedication to the strength of our country, which is on the backbone of men like your husband, who maintain our liberty and our freedoms, that sacrifice is very much borne by you guys, the spouses too. And I think they get, I think they're unheralded. Very much so.

And I've seen some of the strongest men and women, because guys are military spouses too, So, just figure it out without any accolades or any support when it comes to that. So, we have to lean on each other more so than anything. Even our families don't get it sometimes. Well, this is what you signed up for. Can't tell you how many times I've heard that and still want to bop somebody in the head for it. But. Meanwhile,

Meanwhile, like my spouse is, you know, I haven't heard from him in two weeks. I can't turn on the TV because I'm watching all this crazy news about where he's at right now. And every time my door gets knocked on, my heart sinks into my toes and... Because you think it's someone coming to tell you that your husband's gone. You don't want that. Like that is a feeling that is so hard to understand.

It's dread, it's fear, it's sadness, it's anxiety of every level. I don't think there's a need for it. And at the same time, you can't even get hired. Exactly. Can't even get a job. I need something to distract me from this and otherwise it's just an emotional turmoil.

You need a distraction during deployment. Okay, so now you have a job that you love, you've made manager, Sean comes home and says, I'm being deployed again, second time. Yeah, we knew, he came home in October 2014 from Afghanistan and we knew before he got home that he would be leaving again in July. To go to?

Spain. At least not Afghanistan. At least not Afghanistan. They closed out Afghanistan. But now you're pregnant. Now I'm pregnant. And your husband's leaving and you got this job. Mm-hmm. So how's that all unfold? He left the beginning of July and I was like, you know what? I'm trucking along, you know, growing baby, doing my thing, having a grand old time. And I actually went to Hilton Head, South Carolina with my in-laws and I had gotten there on Sunday and my husband's brother was also in the Marine Corps at the time.

They were in transition from moving from Germany to Japan. So they were stopping in Hilton Head just to have a week of family time. And I got to meet our baby niece that I hadn't got to meet yet. And so it was like family vacation slash working vacation. So it was like family vacation slash working vacation. So this was August of 2015 and I Was like, okay, I'm gonna get up. I'm gonna log into work on Monday morning couldn't get in my laptop and I

Was like what's going on? My team started calling me. I had clients calling me What's going on? I can't get my laptop Zurchul is sending these really weird emails about you know, talk to your assistant. I hadn't seen what was going on, but I Got a news article a few minutes later and it was Zurchul lays off over 400 employees with no notice. So now your husband's deployed. Yeah. The one thing that's keeping you busy and hanging

on is your job. You're pregnant. I'm with my in-laws. Let's put that out there. Your husband's missing your pregnancy, and you go to work one day virtually, and now that you're jerked out from under you. Yeah. I was a hot hormonal mess. A hot hormonal mess. I think you're allowed to be hormonal. You have a quit in you. I was, I mean, I was crying. I would, clients that were asking me what's going on,

I'm like, I have no idea. I'm, I can't call Sean, he's in Spain. He's not answering his phone right now. And I was just like, what the heck am I gonna do? And one of my clients, who is a very near and dear friend, he was like, just for him in LLC, you can just start an LLC. I was like, you made that sound so easy. He goes, go online and start an LLC.

And he was like, Zurchel released your clients. Like we'll come work with you. We'll put you on a contract today and we'll take it from there. And all my clients came with me. I had seven clients at the time and they all came with me. So you just decided I'll start a company and I'll be a virtual assistant with Moan Business. Yep, I don't care about what virtual is.

How pregnant are you at this time? I was three, yeah, just over three months. I don't care about what... How pregnant are you at this time? Was three, yeah, just over three months. Okay. So... Post-morning sickness, I was feeling great. Very motivated at that point. So how's that going?

It was great. I, it was just me, so I wasn't managing anybody. It was my clients. I was like, man, no pressure here. How'd you know how much to charge? I just charged them the exact same thing. I was already, like they were already paying. So basically your customer said,

start a business, I'll be clients, and other clients came. Cool, so now you got a gig. Yep. And then the Marine Corps shows back up. Oh yeah. It was, I mean, it was fantastic from August to the beginning of January. I was living my best life.

And now you're eight months pregnant though. Yeah. And I was due the end of January. Got it. So Sean came home a week and a half before Sawyer was born. So I think he came home around like January 14th, 15th, but I didn't have coverage for my clients. So I had to get other assistants to basically fill in for me.

And I didn't want them to lose confidence in me. So I scheduled two weeks off to have Sawyer, which is insanity. Don't ever only take two weeks off for maternity leave when you're having a baby ever. But it worked. And Sawyer was born the end of January and he was an infant and I was recovering from a C section again, don't take only two weeks off. So, but it worked and my clients stuck with me and they were fantastic through that crazy period of my life.

And then you get to move. Yeah. By the time I was kind of getting in the swing of things with having an infant company, doing all that. Um, Sean came home in April. Very excited. He was stoked. He was like, they're setting up a new unit in Hawaii.

They're setting up a new unit in Hawaii And I think I just stood there and I was like Wait, what come again and I went and sat in our bedroom closet and I was like I cried for like 45 minutes I was like holy crap, I I Just had a baby. I'm just figuring this out. And now I have to move six time zones. That's what I was going to ask.

Was it five is Hawaii five or it's six from North Carolina? Spring forward is six, fall back is five. Okay. Six. Six time zones. So I kind of imploded for about 45 minutes and most of my clients were on the East Coast. So I was like, well, this is going to be fun. But I told him I was moving in October.

So I had a little bit of prep time to, there is no guide to moving to Hawaii. It is insanity, especially with a baby and you don't have housing and it's a whole different ballgame from being in North Carolina. So that was a coordinating effort. So I tell my clients, I said, we're moving with the Marine Corps. Didn't tell them where I'm taking a week off. They were fine with it. So I get to Hawaii in October of 2016. Keep in mind, we're still on the housing list. On the housing list. What do you live when you don't have a house?

The BOQ. What is that? It's basically a hotel on base. Oh, how nice. Which was fabulous with a 10 month old at that point, or a nine month old. And why didn't you tell your clients you're moving to Hawaii?

I didn't want to freak them out and be like, okay, you can't support me from Hawaii. And I wanted to show them, not tell them, basically. And so we got there. We're literally in a room that has a small kitchenette, a bedroom, a playpen, and a bathroom. That was it. Because we didn't have housing and we didn't have housing for two months after we got to Hawaii. So I had an infant basically still and a husband who had to go to work

in the morning. So I was doing Zoom calls and emails from the bathroom. Are you kidding? No. At what time? That had to have been two or three in the morning. I set my alarm for 3 a.m. So I was in my client email by 3.15, Hawaii time. Sponsored by all things.

In the bathroom while your kid sleeps. Caffeine. You could be a commercial for Red Bull or some kind of stimulus. You know what, I've been trying to get sponsored by any caffeine product for like 10 years. Let's do this. That's insane.

It is. Looking back, I'm like, what the heck was wrong with me? Truly, but. You needed you. I needed that. I needed you. Did anyone ever ask why you're doing the Zoom call from a bathroom? No, because the way I had my

The way I have my setup. Why is there a shitter behind you right now? They can only see the door they can always they can only see the door closed So, oh, yeah, I was like, yeah. No, i'm gonna just have to hold it but uh So, oh yeah, I was like, yeah, no, I'm going to just have to hold it. But, uh, they could only see the door at that point. So I was like, all right, this works. And they didn't ask questions. They were just like, how was your move? And I'm like, great.

Toilet flushed or something in the middle of those calls. Thank God. And there's only one bathroom. Oh my gosh. Okay. So how long, how's that going? I did that for six weeks before we moved into our house and I was like, thank you, Lord, I don't have a bathroom, toilet as a desk right now for calls.

And it worked. It actually worked out really well because I would work from three to noon, Hawaii time, and taking out with Sawyer in the afternoon. And then I had the rest of the day with him in Hawaii. So it was actually a really great setup. You made it work. I made it work.

All right, so then I think if I remember the story correctly, a client calls and says we're growing, we need more. Yeah. So Shane, who is my co-founder, he was actually... Shane... Shane Magg. Yeah. But your husband's name is Sean. It's Sean. Sean and Shane. Okay, so Shane... Shane was one of my clients and He was actually a South by Southwest in 2017 he was in Austin, Texas. He was running a tech company at the time that was growing and he was scaling and doing all kinds of crazy things and He called me and was like hey

We need we need you to scale. And I was like, you mean scale? I have a one year old and like, I'm in Hawaii, like I haven't slept in three years, like come on. I can't do this. I haven't slept in three years. Like that's what it felt like. And I was just like, yeah, I'm gonna have to get back to you. And we're gonna gonna have to think about it. And one of my friends at the

time, actually came to my house and she was a new military spouse in Hawaii. And is it just as hard in Hawaii for military? Good jobs. The same. How long are you gonna be here? Yeah, we're looking for someone more permanent. That's not germane to only Jacksonville. It's all military spouses facing that crowd. Every military town around the world. That is, remember Dr. Trina Clayu from given our. Yeah, she's a military spouse.

And remember, she lied to it spouse and remember she lied to because she faces the exact same issue exactly like most people I've seen it on Facebook pages constantly I'm hiding the fact that I'm a military spouse like why the heck should you hide it no in fact you should wear it as badge of honor. And more importantly, employers have an opportunity, I'm not saying a responsibility, but an opportunity to maybe be a little supportive in that remote. Exactly.

But they're not. Not, and I think it's because they feel like there's a bottleneck in how they can support a military spouse or support them in a remote capacity because- I kind of get it. On the one hand, you spend a lot of time and a lot of money, a lot of efforts and effort training somebody to be proficient in their job. And you don't want to invest that amount of time and effort training someone to be proficient

in their job for them to then in a year and a half or two, get transferred and you're starting over. But what if you can make it work remotely? Okay, I'm teeing you up. I'm challenging you here. But agreed, if you can make it work remotely, then it doesn't matter when they move. But here's the thing, so this guy, Shane,

his business is blowing up, and you have another military spouse friend and you bring on and say hey. I was I didn't bring her on at that point but I was like you know what if we're gonna do this we're gonna do this with military spouses being the focus because you have an immense talent pool that people are just completely glossing over and not even trying to employ and making it their mission to employ. So I said, let's do this. I didn't know how the heck to start a company and I knew enough to be dangerous basically at that point. But you are surrounded, your clients are all pretty high energy business folks.

Exactly. So you do have a pool of mentors at least. Shane was a fantastic, he has been a fantastic mentor over the past eight years and he kind of gave me the lay of the land and told me, okay, here's how you start putting the idea in minds. Here's how you start talking about Squared Away and, you know, just kind of guiding me through the blueprint of what we were trying to build. And that concludes part one of my conversation with Michelle Pinsack.

And you don't want to miss part two. It's now available to listen to. Together, guys, we can change this country. But it starts with you. I'll see you in part two. My Uncle Chris was a real character, a garbage truck driver from South Carolina who is now buried in Panama City alongside the founding families of Panama.

He also happens to be responsible for the craziest night of my life. Wild stories about adventure, romance, crime, history, and war intertwine as I share the tall tales and hard truths that have helped me understand Uncle Chris. Listen now to Uncle Chris on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. The Girlfriends is back with a new season, and this time I'm telling you the story of Kelly Harnett.

Kelly spent over a decade in prison for a murder she says she didn't commit. As she fought for her freedom, she taught herself the law. He goes, oh God, her and that jailhouse lawyer. And became a beacon of hope for the women locked up alongside her. You're supposed to have faith in God, but I had nothing but faith in her. I think I was put here to save souls by getting people out of prison. The Girlfriends, Jailhouse Lawyer.

Listen on the iHeartRad app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I knew I wanted to obey and submit, but I didn't fully grasp for the rest of my life what that meant. For my heart podcasts and Rococo Punch, this is the turning, River Road. In the woods of Minnesota, a cult leader married himself to 10 girls and forced them into a secret life of abuse. But in 2014, the youngest escaped. Listen to The Turning, River Road on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. A body, a suspect, and a hundred years of silence. Buried Bones is a podcast about the forgotten crimes history tried to leave behind. A common misperception about serial predators is that every single time they commit a crime, they commit it the same way. The past is a way of talking if you know what to listen for. New episodes every Wednesday on the Exactly Right Network. Listen to Buried Bones on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. OpenAI is a financial abomination,

a thing that should not be, an aberration, a symbol of rot at the heart of Silicon Valley. I'm going to tell you why on my show, Better Offline, the rudest show in the tech industry, where we're breaking down why open AI, along with other AI companies, are dead set on lying to your boss that they can take your job.

I'm also gonna be talking with the greatest minds in the industry about all the other ways the rich and powerful are ruining the computer. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, wherever you happen to get your podcasts. This is an iHeart podcast.