Murder: True Crime Stories - UNSOLVED: The Library Murder Pt. 2
Episode Date: February 11, 2025After 22-year-old Betsy Aardsma was murdered in Penn State’s Pattee Library in 1969, the police scoured the campus for her killer. After interviewing multiple suspects without any luck, the police c...losed her case. But decades later, two Reddit detectives believe they know who got away with Betsy’s murder. Murder: True Crime Stories is a Crime House Original. For more, follow us on Tiktok and Instagram @crimehouse To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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This is Crime House.
Whenever there's a murder, everyone wants to see the case solved immediately.
But as hard as it is to accept, sometimes it's just not possible.
Whether you're waiting for a witness to come forward or hoping for a new piece of technology
to come around, the wait can be agonizing.
But when that one piece of the puzzle finally clicks into place, it can change everything.
After 22-year-old Betsy Arzma was stabbed to death at a Penn State University library in 1969,
it seemed like her murder would remain a mystery forever.
But that all changed in the early 2000s.
As the internet completely altered the way people exchanged information,
two citizen detectives became determined to solve her case.
And thanks to them, we might finally know who killed Betsy.
And why.
People's lives are like a story.
There's a beginning, a middle, and an end.
But you don't always know which part you're on.
Sometimes the final chapter arrives far too soon, and we don't always get to know the
real ending.
I'm Carter Roy, and this is Murder True Crime Stories, a Crime House Original.
Every Tuesday, I'll explore the story of a notorious murderer murders.
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This is the second of two episodes on the murder of Betsy Arzma, a 22-year-old graduate
student at Penn State University.
On a late afternoon in 1969, she was in the library looking for a book.
Minutes later, Betsy was dead.
Last time I told you about Betsy's childhood and how she followed her boyfriend to Penn
State. I detailed Betsy's time as a graduate student, her death, and the ensuing investigation.
Today I'll discuss a 21st century break in the case and explore the one suspect no one
took seriously until it was too late.
All that and more coming up.
Hey everyone, it's Carter.
If you're loving murder true crime stories, you won't want to miss our studio's new
show Crime House True Crime Stories, you won't want to miss our studio's new show, Crime House True Crime
Stories.
Every Monday, you'll go on an in-depth journey through two of the most notorious true crime
cases from that week in history, all connected by a common theme.
From notorious serial killers and mysterious disappearances to unsolved murders and more.
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When 22-year-old graduate student Betsy Arzma was stabbed to death in Penn State's Petit
Library in November 1969, her murder sent shockwaves through the community.
Betsy was sweet and bright, the kind of person you'd love to count as a friend, which was
a huge reason why so many people wanted to help find her a killer.
In the years after Betsy's death, police honed in on two suspects.
The first was Bill Spencer, a disgraced former instructor in the Penn State Art Department.
At a Christmas party a few weeks after Betsy's murder, Bill told several guests that he knew
Betsy and that she had even posed nude for one of his sculptures.
He went on to say how easy it would have been to murder her.
His unsettling comments were reported to the police and Bill was brought in for questioning.
But detectives quickly realized Bill didn't even know Betsy, he was just doing whatever
he could to insert himself into a high-profile murder investigation.
After cutting Bill loose, police turned their attention to one of Betsy's classmates,
Larry Moorer. Now Larry did actually know Betsy, but he also knew one of the witnesses, Mary Lee Erdly,
and Mary Lee had seen Betsy's assailant running from the crime scene.
The three of them were in the English department together, and Mary Lee was able to confirm
the man she saw that day was not Larry.
By the time the authorities had ruled out Bill Spencer and Larry Moorer as suspects,
they had lost precious time, and it was too late for them to notice another potential
murderer hiding in plain sight.
It wasn't until decades later that two citizen detectives realized the police were looking
in all the wrong places.
In 2009, 40 years after Betsy's murder, Derek Sherwood and David DeKock were investigating
Betsy's case.
Growing up, Derek's father worked at Penn State.
As a child, his parents would tell him about the female student who was killed in the library.
When Derek got older, he started reading about Betsy's case.
And eventually, he decided her death should be more than a cautionary tale.
He wanted to make sense of the decades-old mystery and
bring her killer to justice.
By the time the case picked back up in 2009, Derek had a blog that was a well-researched,
well-documented archive of information on Betsy's life and death.
As for David, he and Betsy had gone to the same high school in Holland, Michigan, although
they never crossed paths.
Betsy was six years older than David and already way at college by the time David started there.
But after her murder, David couldn't stop thinking about what happened to Betsy.
Eventually he came upon Derek's blog and the two connected. Before long, they were working together to find her true killer.
After eliminating suspect after suspect, there was only one man left standing.
While police focused on what happened the day Betsy was murdered. Derek and David realized a strange event the night before might hold an important clue
about her killer's identity.
On November 27, 1969, Betsy had returned to campus after having Thanksgiving dinner at
her boyfriend's house 100 miles away in Hershey, Pennsylvania.
The moment she got back, she went straight to Petit Library.
After studying late into the night, Betsy left to go back to her dorm room.
There was a campus security officer patrolling the area outside the building.
Given the late hour, he approached Betsy and asked if she needed someone to walk her back
to her dorm.
She responded, quote, No, the guy upstairs isn't around, so I'll be fine.
The officer didn't pry, but maybe he should have, because the following afternoon, Betsy was dead and the guy upstairs seemed very suspicious.
The man Betsy was referring to was a student named Richard Hefner.
Born on December 13, 1943 in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, his parents didn't have a ton of money to
go around. Still, they
funneled whatever they could into Richard's education.
Richard was an incredibly gifted child and discovered a passion for geology at an early
age. While Richard was still in high school, he began volunteering at the North Museum
at nearby Franklin and Marshall College. Known as the Lancaster volunteering at the North Museum at nearby Franklin and Marshall College.
Known as the Lancaster Smithsonian, the North Museum had an impressive rock and mineral
collection, which Richard immediately honed in on.
After high school, he enrolled as an undergraduate at the university and continued to work at
the museum.
Richard quickly made a name for himself on campus publishing multiple research articles even co-discovering a new mineral
But there was a darkness behind all that brilliance
While Richard worked at the museum several parents filed reports that a knowledgeable well-dressed curator had attempted to
inappropriately touch their sons.
Those reports were connected back to Richard.
He denied the accusations, but the evidence was too much for the museum to ignore.
Shortly after, sometime before, in 1965, Richard was let go. The museum cited the reason for his termination as a difference of opinion, which was very
nice of them.
If they wanted to, they could have pressed charges.
Instead, they did Richard a favor.
And without any official blemishes on his record, Richard finished his undergraduate
degree with flying colors.
After graduating from Franklin and Marshall College in the spring of 1965, 21-year-old
Richard was accepted into a Ph.D. program at nearby Penn State.
He started that fall. But what could have been a fresh start for Richard quickly devolved into more disturbing
behavior.
In the fall of 1967, when Richard was 23 years old, he went on a research trip to Death Valley,
California with his mentor, geology professor Lauren Wright.
Professor Wright thought Richard was a promising young geologist and had taken him under his
wing.
He had no idea the other people on the trip didn't exactly enjoy Richard's company.
In Death Valley, Richard met a younger student from another program. Mary Kelley was confident and outspoken, with curly
brown hair and a bohemian style. After Richard met Mary, he was smitten. The feelings were
far from mutual. Mary found Richard strange and off-putting. The way he stared at her made Mary's stomach turn, and she refused the many advances he
made.
When the trip was over, Mary was relieved to be back in her dorm room at Brown University
in Rhode Island and far away from Richard.
Until one day, when there was a knock at her door.
She opened up to find him standing there, bursting with excitement.
He'd driven 800 miles from Pennsylvania to surprise her, because he had something very
important to tell Mary.
He was in love with her.
Mary responded by telling Richard to leave immediately.
If he contacted her again, her next call would be to the police.
Richard did as he was told, but on the inside he was reeling and confused.
But two years later in the fall of 1969, Richard wasn't thinking about Mary anymore.
He had a new obsession,
and her name was Betsy Arzma.
Hey everyone, it's Carter.
If you're loving murder true crime stories,
you won't wanna miss our studio's new show,
Crime House True Crime Stories.
Every Monday, you'll go on an in-depth journey through two of the most notorious true crime
cases from that week in history, all linked by a common theme.
From infamous serial killers and mysterious disappearances to unsolved murders, we are
bringing you the defining events that shape true crime both past and present.
Each episode dives into the stories behind the headlines, featuring high-profile cases
from past and present, including the murder of Gabby Petito, the kidnapping of Elizabeth
Smart, the Heaven's Gate cult tragedy, and so much more.
Follow Crime House, True Crime Stories now, wherever you get your podcasts.
And for ad-free listening and early access to episodes, subscribe to Crime House Plus on Apple Hey everyone, it's Carter, and I've got something special for you today.
True crime can be intense and heavy.
And while I can binge just as many episodes as you can, sometimes you need a little balance.
Crime House's sister company, Open Mind, just launched a new show called Mantra with
Gemma Speg.
And Gemma is here with me now.
Hi, Carter.
Hey, Gemma.
Can you tell our listeners a little bit more about Mantra?
Absolutely.
So each week on the show, I share personal stories and insights that are focused on a
specific mantra.
This season, we'll be tackling everything from gratitude to grief and nurturing relationships to really knowing when it's time to let go.
Oh, wow. I am especially excited to hear the episode about grief when it comes out.
I just listened to the episode.
I am worthy of success and will achieve my goals and especially working in the entertainment industry.
It's safe to say that I'm going to keep going back to this one.
Oh, I totally relate.
Most, if not all of these mantras are things that I need to be
reminded of myself.
Well, Gemma, thank you so much for stopping by today. And for everyone listening,
make sure to stay tuned at the end of the episode to hear a clip from Mantra.
And if you like the clip, go and search Mantra wherever you listen to podcasts and follow it now.
Listen to podcasts and follow it now. By the fall of 1969, 25-year-old Richard Hefner had his sights set on his downstairs neighbor,
a 22-year-old grad student named Betsy Arzma.
They had first met in front of their dorm.
Betsy was writing a letter, and she and Richard got to talking.
Richard found Betsy beautiful and interesting.
After a few more conversations, he asked her to hang out.
Unlike Mary Kelling, Betsy wasn't totally put off by him and she said yes.
In October of that year, they went to an ice cream shop on campus.
Another time they went bowling, and after that they got dinner.
Richard described the outings as dates, but Betsy wasn't looking for romance.
She was dedicated to her boyfriend, David Wright.
Still, she was lonely.
David lived 90 minutes away and she only got to see him on weekends.
Betsy didn't have many friends on campus and Richard seemed like a genuinely good guy,
so she told him she was faithful to David, but she would still like to be Richard's
friend.
Betsy and Richard continued to spend time together, and she told him things she'd never
told anyone else.
But while Betsy was opening up to Richard on a platonic level, he saw her vulnerability
in a different light.
Because despite what Betsy had said to him, Richard was convinced she wanted to be with
him.
His delusions ran so deep that he even told his family he was seeing a girl at college
named Betsy.
He told them he planned to propose to her over Thanksgiving break. However, while Richard was busy imagining a future with Betsy,
she was starting to become wary of him.
Apparently, he was starting to rub her the wrong way,
and she even told her family she was scared of Richard,
which would line up with what she told the campus security guard the night of
November 27th, 1969.
Remember, the guard had asked Betsy if she needed an escort to walk her back to her dorm.
Betsy responded, no, the guy upstairs isn't around so I'll be fine.
But while Betsy believed Richard was out of town that night, that wasn't the case.
The guy upstairs was around.
Like Betsy, Richard had returned early from Thanksgiving break, and from his vantage point
across the courtyard, he would have been able to see that Betsy was back in town too.
It would have been all too easy for him to wait until Betsy and her roommate left their
apartment the next day, November 28, 1969.
Richard could have trailed them to the library, then followed Betsy down into the stacks and
confronted her about their relationship.
If Betsy and Richard did have a conversation in the stacks that day, no one will ever know
what was said, but if Betsy's plans to stay with her boyfriend came up, there's a chance
that Richard became confused and angry.
Angry enough to draw the pocket knife he was known to carry.
Now it wasn't unusual for geology students to carry knives on them for fieldwork, but
Richard brought the knife with him everywhere.
And if he did approach Betsy that day and drew his blade, it would make sense that no
one heard her scream and that she didn't have any defensive
wounds.
All signs pointed to the fact that Betsy knew her killer.
Whether or not Richard was down in the stacks that day, we do know that by 6pm that night,
he was at his mentor's house.
Geology professor Loren Wright was eating dinner with his
family when there was a knock at the door. He opened up to find Richard
standing there agitated and out of breath. Richard asked professor Wright,
have you heard? A girl I dated was murdered in the library. But Richard
didn't seem upset about it. Rather he seemed jumpy, almost like he was excited.
Professor Wright found Richard's behavior extremely odd.
Still, he didn't immediately report the encounter.
He knew Richard well, and he was aware that his star pupil could be strange, so at the
time Professor Wright
probably thought Richard's behavior was nothing more than misplaced anxiety.
Maybe if he'd gone to the police that night, the authorities would have connected the dots
sooner, especially because there was more evidence Richard may have been involved, and
it painted a very ugly picture.
After Merrilee Erdly and Joao Uefinda found Betsy in the stacks that day, they provided
statements to the police.
As part of their questioning, the authorities asked them to draw sketches of the man they'd
seen fleeing from the basement. While Marelie's sketch
looked like a generic male student, Joao's was much more detailed, and it looked a lot
like Richard Hefner.
Joao had followed the man through the library and out onto the street, he would have gotten a much better look at him than
Mayor Lee had.
But for some reason, only Mayor Lee's sketch was released to the public.
Whether it was because Joao was a foreign student and they didn't know if his description
was accurate or something else, the result was the same.
Still, Richard was eventually called in for questioning in the investigation's early
stages.
The authorities had gotten a tip from Betsy's roommate Sharon Brandt.
She said Betsy used to hang out with their upstairs neighbor and they might want to speak
to him.
During Richard's interrogation a few weeks after Betsy's murder, he appeared calm,
concerned and helpful.
He told police he and Betsy had been on a few dates, but she called things off because
of her boyfriend.
He explained he was at his parents' house in Lancaster the night Betsy died and only
found out about her murder the following evening, November 29th.
We know those were both lies.
Richard was on campus November 28th and was at Professor Wright's house just 41 minutes
after Betsy was declared dead.
But Richard didn't mention that to the police.
He also didn't mention how he told his family he wanted to propose to Betsy.
However, when detectives followed up with Richard's mother, she confirmed his alibi.
And because Professor Wright didn't go to the police, they didn't see any reason to
pursue Richard as a suspect. They let him go and moved on with an investigation that would drag on for weeks, then months,
then years.
But just because investigators were done with Richard doesn't mean he had moved on.
People who knew him, said Richard would often bring up Betsy's murder in strange and unsettling
ways.
And, on at least one occasion, Richard even returned to the scene of the crime.
One day in 1970, about a year after Betsy's murder, 26-year-old Richard brought a young
geology student with him to the Penn State
campus.
The student worked at the rock shop Richard's father operated from his garage two hours
away in Lancaster.
That day, Richard led the teenager to Petit Library and down into the stacks.
The teenager followed Richard through the bookshelves until Richard instructed him
to go down a specific row. When they reached the end, Richard told him to stand still and
be quiet. Then Richard came up behind him and said, a girl that I used to date was murdered here.
You're standing in the exact spot where it happened.
In 1972, 28-year-old Richard Hefner graduated from Penn State with a Ph.D. in geology.
After getting his diploma, Richard moved back into his parents' house about two hours away
from Penn State's main campus.
He operated the rock and mineral shop he and his father had set up in their garage before
securing a teaching position at the University of South Carolina.
But a successful career wasn't enough to keep Richard's dark impulses at bay.
He was accused of pedophilic tendencies more than once and in 1975, six years after Betsy's
murder, Richard was arrested for allegedly molesting two boys who worked
at the rock shop.
The case went to trial, but it ended in a hung jury and it doesn't seem like he was
retried.
Still, Richard served two weeks in jail for contempt of court for speaking out of turn
during the trial.
He left prison angry and vengeful, eventually suing just about everyone involved
in the case against him.
But the allegations were enough for at least one person to come forward with additional
information about Richard. After hearing about the molestation charges, Professor Lauren
Wright finally reported his disturbing encounter with Richard to the dean
of the geology department.
In turn, the dean notified the university's attorney.
But after that, the trail went cold, and news of the encounter never made it to the police.
Still, more revelations followed that year, and they made it very difficult to believe
that Richard wasn't behind Betsy's murder.
Later in 1975, Richard's nephew Chris was helping his 31-year-old uncle in the garage
rock shop when Richard's mom came in.
She didn't realize Chris was in the garage and started yelling at her son.
She was furious about the recent pedophilia charges.
She said she had protected him and kept him out of jail in the past, only for him to turn
around and get arrested for touching children.
The argument got louder and louder before reaching a boiling point. Richard's
mom told her son, you killed that girl and now you're killing me.
Chris, who was just 17 at the time, never went to the police about the conversation he heard that day. And so Richard was free to continue his unsettling behavior.
Seventeen years later, in 1992, 48-year-old Richard took a 13-year-old boy on a trip to
Virginia without his mother's permission.
The mother had no idea where her son was and reported him missing.
They tracked Richard down and
arrested him for interfering with the custody of a minor. Luckily for Richard, he was able
to smooth things over with the boy's mother and the charges were dropped. Even so, that
wasn't Richard's last brush with the law. Six years later, in 1998, he got into a verbal altercation with a woman
outside a liquor store. The argument turned violent, and Richard beat her severely. He
dislocated her jaw and loosened several of her teeth. Richard served 30 days in jail
for aggravated assault. As time went on, Richard's behavior became even more erratic.
His neighbors in Lancaster despised him.
On several occasions, he punctured their tires and threw dog feces at them.
Richard spent the next few years wreaking havoc in Lancaster, but despite his behavior,
only a few people suspected he was involved in Betsy Ardma's murder.
None of them, however, were the police.
It had been 33 years since Betsy's death, and it looked like Richard would never have
to answer any more questions about what happened that day.
To many, it seemed like he would take his secrets to the grave.
Their prophecies came true in 2002.
That year, Richard was on a geology trip to the Mojave Desert when he died from a congenital
heart defect.
He was 58 years old.
His nephew Chris was left to clean out Richard's house.
According to Chris, the things he saw in there were incredibly disturbing.
While he refused to give specifics, Chris would state that his uncle clearly had a demon
in him.
Although Richard was gone, the second phase of the investigation was just beginning.
That same year, internet detectives Derek Sherwood and David DeKock began looking into
the case, and they quickly honed in on Richard as a potential suspect.
Over the next few years, their amateur investigation gained steam as they interviewed past colleagues,
family members, and rock shop employees.
They learned valuable information, like the conversation Chris overheard that day in the
garage, and the time Richard took his dad's employee to the exact spot where Betsy died.
Both pieces of evidence are some of the most compelling information in the argument against
Richard.
In 2005, forty years after Betsy's death, David and Derek went to the authorities with
their findings, but since Richard was dead, it was too little too late.
With so many witnesses and key players now dead, there isn't much hope that Betsy's
case, which remains open today, will ever be officially solved.
Still, it seems like Betsy's killer has finally been identified.
Mike Mutch, the state trooper who worked on Betsy's case back in 1970 even said as much. In 2010, Mike was asked about Richard's involvement in the murder.
He said,
I think you've got your man.
While the Ardma family doesn't give interviews anymore, hopefully Derek and David's investigation
has given them some closure.
Because although they can never get Betsy back, there are still so many people out there
who are fighting for her to get justice.
Thanks so much for listening.
I'm Carter Roy and this is Murder True Crime Stories.
Come back next week for the story of a new murder and all the people it affected.
Murder True Crime Stories is a CrimeHouse original powered by Pave Studios.
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Murder True Crime Stories is hosted by me, Carter Roy, and is a Crime House original powered
by PAVE Studios. This episode was brought to life by the Murder True Crime Stories team,
Max Cutler, Ron Shapiro, Alex Benadon, Natalie Pertsofsky, Sarah Carroll, Greg Benson,
Beth Johnson, and Russell Nash.
Thank you for listening. Check out Crime House True Crime Stories. Follow Crime House True Crime Stories now wherever you
get your podcasts. And for ad-free listening and early access to episodes, subscribe to Crime House
Plus on Apple Podcasts. And as a reminder, make sure you stay tuned for a clip from Mantra with
Jemma Spagg. To catch the rest of this episode, I am worthy of success
and will achieve my goals. Search for Mantra wherever you get your podcasts.
What big dreams and goals do you have? Even if they feel impossible, even if they feel
larger than life, can you picture yourself achieving that vision? Can you really feel
it as you pictured this? Whatever it was for you, I'm sure that something else came up
for you as well. And that is doubt. That is doubt, fear, feeling like even though this
is your dream, right? You came up with it. It came from your mind. you are not worthy. When we don't feel deserving, we don't act.
When we don't feel deserving,
we don't feel in control and we don't grasp what we want from life,
or even the things that life hands us,
even the moments that we are just purely lucky.
A lot of us struggle to feel like we're deserving in my mind because
of three main themes or
three main core reasons.
Firstly, at some stage in your life, someone told you that you don't deserve success or
that you don't deserve what you want from life.
Someone along the way said, you're not worthy, you're a loser, you're not good enough, you're not smart enough,
you don't have what it takes. And those external voices that we heard
became our own in the form of imposter syndrome, in the form of self-doubt.
And I really want to make this point to you today.
Any nasty voice that you hear in your head saying, you don't deserve that, you will
never have the success that you want.
Someone else had to say those words to you first.
Think about it.
No child, no infant leaves the womb thinking, I'm not good enough.
There is no two year old or three year old who walks around thinking that they can't do
be or have anything that
they want.
You know, children have like the craziest confidence in themselves.
They're loud, they sing, they babble, they run around, they dress however they want,
they say whatever they're feeling, they say they want to be president, they want to be
Taylor Swift because no one has said to them yet, you know, be realistic,
be serious.
You're not good enough for that.
But one day someone does say that and then someone else and then we encounter cruelty
and bullies and mean people and we take all of those words that have been said to us and
we start to say them to ourselves in our own voice.
So that's the first reason, self-doubt, external doubt that has been placed on us.
I think the second reason that we feel we are undeserving of success is because of our
fear of responsibility.
We're scared of what it will actually mean to achieve all our goals, where we're going
to go from there, what if we lose it all.
Maybe it's the case that you've just never seen someone in your life take responsibility
for their success or you just don't have a model for what success could look like.
Thirdly, I think we're scared of not doing things perfectly and this is definitely, I
think, the faction that I fall in with. We don't
feel we're deserving of success, of our goals, because we feel like we don't know how to
go about it in the exact perfect way. We feel like we don't have a plan, we are afraid of
misstepping, and essentially, I think being found out as this fraud. And what that really comes down to is imposter syndrome.
And that's very similar to self-doubt, but it's much more insidious because self-doubt,
I think can be proved wrong.
When you find success, the doubt that you're ever deserving of it does begin to fade
because the proof is in the pudding.
You have it in your hands.
But for imposter syndrome,
no matter how much success you achieve,
no matter how many goals you meet,
you are never going to feel like you are deserving of them
or that you were the one who controlled them happening,
if that makes any sense at all.
I always think about people who find
incredible career success and they're always waiting for the other shoe to drop.
I think that that was very much me for a long time.
My journey with imposter syndrome has definitely been a long one.
If you're a woman, that is more likely to be the case.
There is a lot of doubt that comes with being
a woman who has done something new or been successful. In fact,
when we talk about the idea of imposter syndrome, the very first study ever done on this phenomena
was on very successful women who had PhDs, who had master's degrees, and still they would tell
people it was a mistake, it happened by accident. For me, when my first show,
The Psychology of Your Twenties,
started getting a lot of listeners, it was terrifying.
I was waiting for everyone around me,
everyone online, everyone listening,
to figure out that I was a fraud.
I was especially waiting for my luck to run out.
I was like, this just has to be a product of something else
that has nothing to do with me.
It has to be luck.
Maybe an element of that is because I'm Australian, right?
Tall Poppy Syndrome is a huge thing here
if you don't know what that means.
It's basically that the flower that grows the highest
is the first to be cut.
So don't stick your neck
out. Don't be the one who is showing off or who is successful. Stay silent, stay small.
And so I think because of that way of being raised and that conditioning and that philosophy,
I was always waiting for my luck to run out. I thought that this was a fluke.
To catch the rest of this episode, I am worthy of success and will achieve my goals.
Search for Mantra wherever you get your podcasts.