With Hat and Cattle

Dani Raschel Chou
  • 5.0 (4)
  • Society & Culture

With Hat and Cattle is built on stories that are earned, not borrowed. We sit down with people who’ve put in the miles, learned the hard lessons, and kept showing up when it would’ve been easier to quit. This is a place for straight talk and quiet wisdom. You know, qualities that many Texans hold dear.  These are stories meant to be listened to slow, turned over, and carried with you. Because when you hear from people who truly walk the walk, you don’t just feel inspired. You leave better for it.

  1. 4d ago

    More Networking Tips from the Trenches: Following Up, Building Relationships and Asking for Referrals with Wes Hoblit

    You leave a networking event with a few business cards and a good conversation. Now what? Wes Hoblit, land use consultant, joins host Dani Raschel Chou to talk about all the networking tips, like how to follow up after a networking event, build professional relationships, and ask for introductions without rushing the relationship. His approach is practical: Remember something specific, send a short email the next day, and keep showing up. Sometimes a conversation leads to work quickly. Sometimes, as Wes recalls, an email gets a reply about four years later. We cover networking tips for business development, career growth, and job searching, including: ·       Starting conversations when you walk into a room alone ·       Writing follow-up emails that reflect the conversation you actually had ·       Deciding when to ask for a meeting or referral ·       Building relationships with people beyond their current job titles ·       Handling a conversation that is not going anywhere ·       Reaching out to people you know when you need your next role And yes, there is a little banter about my introduction to EBITDA. Your homework: Send one follow-up message today. Mention something you discussed, ask how it is going, and offer useful help if you can. If you are looking for work, name the kind of role you want so people know how to help. Follow With Hat and Cattle for more conversations with people who walk the walk and leave you better off for listening. Produced by The House of Chou and filmed at Purposefull Productions in Plano, Texas. Chapters 0:00 Why every relationship counts 02:00 Networking when the room feels awkward 04:00 How to join a conversation 06:00 The email reply that took four years 08:00 Curiosity and seeing the same people again 10:00 How to follow up after a networking event 12:00 Building relationships beyond job titles 15:00 When to ask for coffee or a meeting 16:00 The first fifteen minutes at an event 18:00 Listening when you do not know the topic 20:00 LinkedIn and networking follow-up 22:00 Introductions referrals and graceful exits 24:00 Networking when you are looking for a job 26:00 Showing up after a difficult day 29:00 Where to start when you need your next role 31:00 Measuring the value of a networking event 33:00 How long a strong network takes to build 34:00 Your takeaway and follow-up homework That's the With Hat and Cattle promise: Bringing you stories from people who walk the walk and leave you better off for listening. Connect with Dani Raschel Chou on Instagram @withhatandcattle or via email at dani@thehouseofchou.com.  Subscribe to our YouTube channel for more conversations that leave you better off for listening: With Hat and Cattle I Hosted by Dani Raschel Chou - YouTube!  Go to www.withhatandcattle.com to sign up for our mailing list so you don't miss weekly insights. Be sure to check out our affiliate links!

  2. Oct 1

    What You Don’t Deal With Doesn’t Disappear: Grief, Energy Healing & Getting Your Color Back with Emma Guenther

    Can grief affect your body? Why do we numb difficult emotions instead of feeling them? What does it actually mean to process grief? And can practices like somatic or energy healing help someone reconnect with themselves after loss? Guest Emma Guenther’s answer begins with a loss that divided her life into before and after. In 2023, Emma’s daughter Magnolia was stillborn. Emma went home postpartum without her baby and had to navigate profound grief while protecting the recovery she had worked years to build. Today, Emma is an evidential psychic and somatic medium who describes her work as helping people “get their color back.” Before the word psychic makes you skip this one, stay with us. This conversation isn’t asking you to adopt Emma’s spiritual beliefs. It’s about a much more universal problem: what happens when grief, anger, disappointment or old wounds go unaddressed because life keeps moving and we learn to keep moving with it. Emma and host Dani Raschel Chou explore questions including: • Can grief affect the body? Grief isn't only emotional. Emma shares how she understands the physical experience of grief through her somatic practice and personal experience. • Why do people numb grief? Emma talks openly about her history with alcohol, food and other ways she once avoided difficult feelings—and what helped her choose differently after Magnolia died. • What does it mean to process grief instead of suppressing it? For Emma, it begins with acknowledging what is there instead of immediately trying to make it disappear. • Is grief only about death? Emma distinguishes between traditional grief and what she calls non-traditional grief: unmet needs, childhood wounds, lost relationships, missed experiences and the life you thought you would have. • What can grief look like in men? They discuss the exhaustion, disconnection, anger, drinking, scrolling and other behaviors that may accompany loss even when someone would never describe themselves as grieving. • What are somatic healing and energy healing? Emma explains how these practices fit into her spiritual work and how she uses her intuition and mediumship with clients. • What is an evidential psychic medium? Emma explains what the term means in her practice and addresses some of the assumptions people make about psychic work. And underneath all of it is one question worth taking with you: What are you still carrying because you learned how to function while carrying it? You don’t have to believe in mediumship to take something from this conversation. As Dani says at the end: maybe your guide is a psychic. Maybe it’s a therapist, counselor or trusted friend. The point is to stop standing in the backed-up water and call somebody. Content note: This episode includes discussion of stillbirth, grief, addiction and recovery. Emma discusses her personal experience with energy healing and spiritual practices; those experiences are not presented as medical treatment or medical advice. Find Emma on Instagram at @magnolias.way.mediumship and on Facebook here. That's the With Hat and Cattle promise: Bringing you stories from people who walk the walk and leave you better off for listening. Connect with Dani Raschel Chou on Instagram @withhatandcattle or via email at dani@thehouseofchou.com.  Subscribe to our YouTube channel for more conversations that leave you better off for listening: With Hat and Cattle I Hosted by Dani Raschel Chou - YouTube!  Go to www.withhatandcattle.com to sign up for our mailing list so you don't miss weekly insights. Be sure to check out our affiliate links!

  3. Sep 24

    Think You Need to Be a Master at AI? You Just Need to Start Today with Chris Trevino

    What if the right way to prepare for AI isn’t to trust it more, but to get better at thinking for yourself? Chris Trevino is Vice President of Technology at The Judge Group, but some of the most useful lessons he brings to this conversation came long before AI. He spent five years serving aboard a nuclear submarine, where preparation mattered because when something went wrong, there wasn’t time to pull up a manual. In this installment of the With Hat and Cattle AI Literacy Series, Chris joins host Dani Raschel Chou for a practical conversation about using AI without surrendering your judgment to it. They talk about why fear keeps people from experimenting with AI, why critical thinking becomes more important as these tools improve, and how AI can give ordinary people the ability to build things that once required years of specialized training. Chris also gives you something you can actually do today: A simple exercise for discovering how AI could make you more effective in your own work and life. But using AI well also means knowing when not to use it. The conversation turns to digital privacy, personal information, confidential business data and the growing problem of employees using unauthorized AI tools without realizing the risk they may be creating. You don’t need to become an AI expert after this episode. You do need to keep learning. Because the advantage isn’t letting AI think for you. It’s learning how to use better tools while becoming a better thinker. Using ChatGPT at work? Want to learn more about AI privacy or shadow AI? As mentioned, this episode is part of our AI literacy series. Be sure to find the playlist on YouTube for more. CHAPTERS 00:00 — When “this isn’t a drill” became real 00:01 — Using AI to prepare for meetings 00:05 — Why you should never outsource your thinking 00:07 — Building a life around preparation 00:11 — Leadership when you don’t like your teammates 00:17 — An emergency aboard a nuclear submarine 00:21 — Why training matters when pressure hits 00:25 — Leaving the Navy and starting over 00:29 — AI as a watershed technology 00:32 — Doing more without years of technical training 00:34 — What Dani learned from trying to vibe code 00:38 — The advantage of not being an expert 00:40 — Why failure makes you better 00:42 — Dani fact-checks the conversation 00:43 — Never used AI? Start here. 00:47 — What AI can find out about you 00:50 — Your digital footprint and personal privacy 00:54 — What not to put into an AI tool 00:56 — Shadow AI and the risk to businesses 00:58 — Your 10-minute challenge That's the With Hat and Cattle promise: Bringing you stories from people who walk the walk and leave you better off for listening. Connect with Dani Raschel Chou on Instagram @withhatandcattle or via email at dani@thehouseofchou.com.  Subscribe to our YouTube channel for more conversations that leave you better off for listening: With Hat and Cattle I Hosted by Dani Raschel Chou - YouTube!  Go to www.withhatandcattle.com to sign up for our mailing list so you don't miss weekly insights. Be sure to check out our affiliate links!

  4. Sep 17

    You’re Measuring Success Wrong, and Why You Shouldn't "Let Someone Else Grade Your Paper"

    You can spend years chasing success without ever stopping to ask a surprisingly important question: Whose definition of success am I using? This month, host Dani Raschel Chou, Nicki Ketcham, and Wes Hoblit brought three very different books to the With Hat and Cattle table: Robert Cialdini’s Influence, Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy’s The Gap and The Gain, and Tim Powers’ supernatural pirate novel On Stranger Tides. Somehow, they all led to the same place. How much of your life is being shaped by other people? Dani digs into the psychology of persuasion, including why liking someone can make you more likely to believe them, buy from them, or give their ideas more credibility. Nicki challenges the way high achievers measure progress. If your definition of success keeps moving every time you get closer to it, you may be accomplishing a lot while still convincing yourself you’re behind. And Wes brings pirates into the conversation with a character who leaves home expecting one life and gradually becomes someone completely different. Together, the books raise a bigger question: Can you want more for yourself while still appreciating how far you’ve already come? They also get into social comparison, first impressions, ambition, personal standards, failure, persuasion, identity, targeted advertising, second refrigerators, Tupperware parties, and whether you’d rather be a samurai, pirate, or cowboy. You do not need to have read any of the books. But if you’re ambitious, in transition, questioning what comes next, or tired of measuring your life against everybody else’s highlight reel, there’s something at this table for you. And to quote previous guest Dallas Cothrum: "Don't Let Someone Else Grade Your Paper." CHAPTERS 00:00 Pirates, persuasion, and success 01:20 Meet Nicki and Wes 02:12 On Stranger Tides: Why Wes chose fiction 06:35 The Gap and The Gain: Why Nicki picked it up 08:35 Influence: Why Dani finally read Cialdini 11:00 Why liking someone changes our decisions 13:30 The problem with fighting emotion using facts 16:00 Tupperware parties and the psychology of selling 18:30 Appearance, attractiveness, and first impressions 24:20 Measure backward, not against an imaginary future 27:30 The hour before bed that Nicki can’t stop thinking about 30:20 Stop borrowing other people’s definitions of success 35:20 When “find the gain” goes too far 37:20 Recognizing progress without lowering expectations 40:00 What a pirate novel teaches about changing your life 43:00 Permission to become someone different 46:15 When fiction sends Wes down a history rabbit hole 48:15 Why we root for pirates, cowboys, and outlaws 51:00 When a driven person suddenly stops 57:00 The surprising idea connecting all three books 58:15 Does understanding influence give you more freedom? 1:00:30 What the books taught us about human nature 1:02:10 Who should read each book 1:04:00 What’s on our nightstands next 1:05:25 Don’t let somebody else grade your paper That's the With Hat and Cattle promise: Bringing you stories from people who walk the walk and leave you better off for listening. Connect with Dani Raschel Chou on Instagram @withhatandcattle or via email at dani@thehouseofchou.com.  Subscribe to our YouTube channel for more conversations that leave you better off for listening: With Hat and Cattle I Hosted by Dani Raschel Chou - YouTube!  Go to www.withhatandcattle.com to sign up for our mailing list so you don't miss weekly insights. Be sure to check out our affiliate links!

  5. Sep 10

    Stop Waiting for Permission: Sharon Flatte on Building a Business That Lasts (Replay)

    Sharon Flatte once walked into one of Dallas’ best-known tattoo shops looking for work. The owner told her he didn’t hire women. Two years later, she owned the shop. But that might not even be the most important part of Sharon’s story. Sharon built her career without a business degree or a carefully mapped-out plan. She and her husband learned as they went, eventually building multiple tattoo shops and becoming part of the fabric of Deep Ellum. Then her husband died, and the business they had built together became hers to carry forward. People expected her to fail. Did she? No, she kept going. In this conversation, Sharon talks with host Dani Raschel Chou about teaching herself business, navigating Dallas regulations as an industry changed around her, learning the value of relationships before she knew she would need them, recognizing talent other people overlooked, giving up micromanagement, surviving mistakes, and leading through enormous personal loss. There’s a lesson here for anyone who has ever wondered whether they’re qualified enough for the next thing. Sharon didn’t wait until she had all the answers. She learned the answers because the work required them. And perhaps her most important business lesson has nothing to do with tattooing at all: Culture is something people can feel. For more than 30 years, Taboo Tattoo has remained in the same Deep Ellum location. Sharon says it was built on love, and that belief shaped the people she hired, the customers who returned, the artists she mentored and the business that survived. Whether you lead a company, manage a team, are building something of your own or are trying to figure out what comes next, this is a conversation about trusting yourself enough to keep becoming the person the moment requires. Chapters 00:00 “I don’t hire females to tattoo for me” 00:41 Why we’re replaying this one 01:26 Same show, same table, new name 03:32 35 years, and the only thing she’s ever done 04:11 Her dad’s black panther, and a piece of Juicy Fruit 06:36 “Let’s do it. We’ll figure it out as we go.” 07:38 Four shops on Main Street — and then 2006 09:57 “I’m from Dallas, and we don’t do business this way” 12:41 Oklahoma, back when tattooing was still illegal 13:52 Her son’s accident, and letting the shops go 15:21 The shop that wouldn’t hire her 18:21 Business school, by way of the Dummies books 19:23 The secret plan she walked in on 22:14 Her mother’s GED 24:00 The kids who were her why 26:49 The right people on the bus 28:15 “I wanna talk to you first” 32:55 The night they locked eyes 35:07 The psychic’s cassette tape 38:49 The $100 tattoo she ran out on 43:13 “I just outlasted them” 45:05 “Taboo was built on love” 46:44 About that book club episode That's the With Hat and Cattle promise: Bringing you stories from people who walk the walk and leave you better off for listening. Connect with Dani Raschel Chou on Instagram @withhatandcattle or via email at dani@thehouseofchou.com.  Subscribe to our YouTube channel for more conversations that leave you better off for listening: With Hat and Cattle I Hosted by Dani Raschel Chou - YouTube!  Go to www.withhatandcattle.com to sign up for our mailing list so you don't miss weekly insights. Be sure to check out our affiliate links!

  6. Sep 3

    Feeling Stuck in Your Career? 5 Lessons From Successful Leaders

    What do you do when you can't afford therapy? When host Dani Raschel Chou said that out loud at work, an intern (younger than her, junior to her) knew something she did not: Ask for a clinician who is still accruing supervised hours. The person she found working on hours became her counselor for seven years. It's one of five lessons in this episode, and they all point in the same direction. With Hat and Cattle is hosted by Dani Raschel Chou, an executive assistant and a strategic communications graduate student at Syracuse University. She started this podcast to help people reach success a little faster by asking the people who had already done it. After more than a year of interviews, she noticed something the show had been teaching her, and this first solo episode is a reflection on that. Five guests with five lessons but one thing underneath all of them: Nobody gets anywhere alone. The first comes from Jim Futrell, an amusement park historian and author, and from AJ and Colescott Rubin, AKA the Rubin Brothers, musicians raised on vaudeville. Jim's parents thought his fascination with amusement parks was an unusual hobby and backed it anyway; his father spent family vacation days driving him to parks and coming back for everyone else. The Rubin Brothers were told many times to grow up and pick something serious, but never by their parents, who raised them on the art and the activist artists who came before them.  The second comes from Dallas Cothrum, owner and CEO of Masterplan Consultants, talking about his son's ambition to pitch in college and the handful of things inside his control. On tape he builds the line himself and then says, “that's a pretty good line.” And it's this: People spend a lot of time making excuses instead of making progress.  The third comes from Chaplain John Betz, who joined the With Hat and Cattle AI panel. The panel covered disruption across history, like the printing press, industrialization, the internet, artificial intelligence, but he reframed the danger. The question is not whether machines get more capable, because they will. It is whether people lose clarity about what it means to be human.  The fourth comes from Mike Nurre, a business broker and the unofficial mayor of Casa View in East Dallas, a title given to him by the neighborhood he helped organize. His line is the sharpest in the Episode: everybody wants a village, but nobody wants to be a villager. Dani unpacks what a villager actually does through her run club, where somebody has to load water jugs into a car and drive them out to the mile markers before anyone runs a step in a Texas summer. Community isn't something you find. It's something you help maintain. The fifth comes from Heath Hilliard, founder and CEO of EQHR Consultants, telling the story of the high-value sales call his mentor disqualified him from for showing up dressed for a club. The leadership principle underneath it: Recognize the good someone already brings, then identify the missing good and help them develop it. Listen today to level up your success! Mentioned in this episode: Jim Futrell, the Rubin Brothers, Dallas Cothrum and Masterplan Consultants, Chaplain John Betz, Mike Nurre and Casa View, Heath Hilliard and EQHR Consultants, Darin Newbold, Nicolle “Nicki” Ketcham, the City of Arlington, Stephen King, the Enneagram, The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, and Influence by Robert Cialdini. FIND THE GUESTS •  Jim Futrell — amusement park historian and author — Find His Books on Amazon •  AJ and Colescott Rubin, the Rubin Brothers — musicians and vaudevillians — Rubin Brothers | Boston's #1 All-Ages Entertainers & Circus Musicians! •  Dallas Cothrum — Owner and CEO, Masterplan Consultants, Dallas — Masterplan Consultants | Zoning and Land Use •  Chaplain John Betz — from the With Hat and Cattle AI panel — The Chaplain's Compass - Podcast - Apple Podcasts •  Mike Nurre — business broker; the unofficial mayor of Casa View, East Dallas — LinkedIn profile •  Heath Hilliard — Founder and CEO, EQHR Consultants; ZERORISK assessments — EQHR Consultants •  Darin K. Newbold — referenced at 20:50 — Your Bold Solutions •  Nicolle “Nicki” Ketcham — back next week — Small Business Marketing | Big Future Consulting THE FIVE LESSONS, WRITTEN DOWN Free PDF: withhatandcattle.com/notalone FINDING A THERAPIST YOU CAN AFFORD •  Ask for an associate, pre-licensed clinician, or intern (someone accruing supervised hours). In Texas, LPC-Associate or LMFT-Associate. Supervised, real, and a fraction of a full private rate. •  Open Path Psychotherapy Collective — sessions run roughly $40–$70 after a one-time membership fee, for households earning under about $100,000 a year. openpathcollective.org •  A university training clinic in your area. •  Your county's community mental health center. •  Your employer's EAP. This is one person's experience, not medical advice. This episode also includes a personal discussion of depression; if you are struggling, the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline is available 24/7 by call or text in the US. DISCLOSURE Heath Hilliard is a friend of the show. He ran my ZERORISK assessment at no charge, and I may earn a commission if you take one. CHAPTER LIST 0:00   Welcome, and what I thought this chair would teach me 1:15   Lesson 1: Don't be the first person to call a kid's dream ridiculous 1:30   Jim Futrell: the vacation days his father spent driving 2:25   The Rubin Brothers: raised on their parents' and grandparents' media 3:15   A silly obsession at 10 becomes the vocation at 50 5:30   Lesson 2: Stop making excuses, make progress 5:40   Dallas Cothrum on what his son can actually control 6:40   When a legitimate explanation becomes an excuse 7:10   “I probably should be in therapy. I just couldn't afford it.” 7:35   What an associate or pre-licensed clinician actually is 7:55   University clinics, community mental health, and the EAP you've never used 9:20   Lesson 3: When the world changes, don't surrender your humanity 9:40   Chaplain John Betz: love your neighbor 11:15  Enneagram 4, and the sophisticated answer that isn't sophisticated 12:15  Lesson 4: If you want a village, be a villager 12:25  Mike Nurre, the unofficial mayor of Casa View 13:05  Pizza party behavior 14:15  Water jugs, barbecue, and what run club taught me 16:10  Lesson 5: See the good, then bring the missing good 16:45  The sales call Heath Hilliard got disqualified from 18:50  Last Friday, and the friend who wouldn't let me decide 20:10  Mentors don't have to be older than you 20:50  Parents protect the dream. Mentors prepare the dreamer. 22:50  Before you go, let's recap 24:15  Subscribe and until next time That's the With Hat and Cattle promise: Bringing you stories from people who walk the walk and leave you better off for listening. Connect with Dani Raschel Chou on Instagram @withhatandcattle or via email at dani@thehouseofchou.com.  Subscribe to our YouTube channel for more conversations that leave you better off for listening: With Hat and Cattle I Hosted by Dani Raschel Chou - YouTube!  Go to www.withhatandcattle.com to sign up for our mailing list so you don't miss weekly insights. Be sure to check out our affiliate links!

  7. Aug 26

    Chronic Pain, Fibromyalgia, and Four Joint Replacements He Refused I Dan Esposito, Former NFL Running Back

    What do you do when a surgeon tells you to schedule four joint replacements? Dan Esposito, a former NFL running back diagnosed with fibromyalgia and degenerative arthritis in his early forties, declined all four, spent the next four years reading studies, and is now a two-time USA Track and Field Masters National Champion at 54. This is how he got there. Dan Esposito did not play a down of football until his senior year of high school. He was a baseball catcher in Florida, third in line behind two prospects, one of whom was Jason Varitek. He moved to Philadelphia to live with his father, went out for the team, was told he was not a tailback, and walked on at Millersville University in Pennsylvania. Three days before his first game as a junior he was told he had won the starting job. On the morning of the game he was third on the depth chart. After two games without a carry he went to his position coach and said he needed the truth or he was done. The truth was that every coach wanted him starting and the head coach had vetoed it, because he was a walk-on and the two men ahead of him were on scholarship. His answer: "Well, I'm a man of my word." He stayed. The next season, the third game they finally played him, he ran for over 300 yards. He ran a 4.3 forty at 215 pounds, went undrafted, earned a contract at a free-agent tryout with Washington, and broke his jaw in two places on the first play of his NFL career — running down on the opening kickoff, against Rich Gannon's Kansas City Chiefs. He told nobody and played the rest of the half. He was later signed by the New Orleans Saints after a gumball machine full of mini helmets dropped their logo at a pizza place in 1996, a week before his agent called. A linebacker who could not cover him in practice broke the same jaw again, and that was the end of it. He turned down an offer from a team in Ancona, Italy at 24, and calls it his one regret. Then the second half of the story. He got into banking, then started an energy brokerage with no experience that became one of Philadelphia's hundred fastest-growing companies two years running, all while eating two pizzas a day, three days a week, in front of a computer. In his early forties came fibromyalgia, then degenerative arthritis. Surgeons told him he would need four joint replacements and that they could not begin until he turned 50, because the implants would degrade and he would have to do it all again. After seeing a skeleton with the hardware in it at a museum body exhibit, he decided against it. The turn comes three months before his second son was born. At 265 pounds, unable to lift his shoulders, he was standing in a gym thinking that his partner would leave him and he would not be a good father. Then he said out loud: "I'm going to figure this out." He says that saying it aloud is what made it real. What followed was four years of self-education: podcasts, then the studies behind them, then the biochemistry. He talks about cellular hydration, about sitting in front of near-infrared light and hearing his own body click for the first time, about fasting and enzymes, and about the day he decided that "biochemistry" and "mechanisms of action" were the two most useful phrases available to anyone trying to understand their own health. He now gives away a free Chronic Pain Playbook and a free World's Greatest Shopping List at undu.me, which is the playbook he compiled after his research, and consultants told him to charge $3,000 for it. Dan is not a doctor and says so in the episode. What he shares is his own experience and his own research, not medical advice. If you live with chronic pain, take it as encouragement to ask better questions and talk to your own physician before changing anything. Mentioned: Millersville University; Jason Varitek; Rob Thomas and Matchbox Twenty; Rich Gannon and the Kansas City Chiefs; the Washington and New Orleans franchises; the XFL; Ancona, Italy; Dr. Zach Bush; near-infrared light therapy; Undu and undu.me; the Undo Method Chronic Pain Playbook; the World's Greatest Shopping List; and Flexibility Fuel. CHAPTERS 0:00   "I said it out loud" 0:18   Welcome — who Dan Esposito is 1:05   A catcher in Florida, behind Jason Varitek 2:35   Three high schools, and no football until senior year 3:05   Walking on at Millersville 3:30   "You're the starter" — then third on the depth chart 3:55   The veto: because you're a walk-on 4:35   A role player, and the 300-yard game 5:20   A 4.3 forty and a free-agent tryout 6:05   Rich Gannon, and the first play of his NFL career 6:35   Finding faith halfway through 7:25   "Did the benching fuel you?" 8:15   "I was already fueled inside" 9:20   The half he finished with a broken jaw 10:50   After the injury: DJs, McDonald's, and a body starting to slip 11:25   The gumball machine that picked the Saints 12:20   A punch in practice, and the end of a career 13:55   The one regret: Ancona, Italy 14:25   The pivot — banking, and an energy brokerage 16:25   Two pizzas a day, and limping home 16:55   What we were told to eat, and who told us 18:00   Micros, macros, and being 54 19:20   Fibromyalgia and degenerative arthritis 19:45   Four joint replacements, starting at 50 20:15   The skeleton at the museum 20:35   265 pounds, and what it means to be useful 21:15   The gym, three months before his son was born 22:15   "There's the reel and the title" 22:25   Why he refused the surgeries 22:55   Super glue in the joints 24:10   "Did you have any help along the way?" 25:15   Hydration at the cellular level 25:45   Near-infrared light — and the first click 26:50   Fasting, enzymes, and building a supplement 27:45   "I have a brain and I can read" 28:50   Advice for anyone starting at ground zero 29:50   The playbook he was told to charge $3,000 for 31:55   The World's Greatest Shopping List 34:00   Rice Krispie treats and fat-free everything 34:45   Flexibility Fuel 35:40   A box of sweet potatoes 36:55   The line I'm keeping That's the With Hat and Cattle promise: Bringing you stories from people who walk the walk and leave you better off for listening. Connect with Dani Raschel Chou on Instagram @withhatandcattle or via email at dani@thehouseofchou.com.  Subscribe to our YouTube channel for more conversations that leave you better off for listening: With Hat and Cattle I Hosted by Dani Raschel Chou - YouTube!  Go to www.withhatandcattle.com to sign up for our mailing list so you don't miss weekly insights. Be sure to check out our affiliate links!

  8. Aug 20

    Vibe Coding, AI Agents, and the One Rule for Your Data — Dr. Yeshwant Muthusamy

    TL; DR: Is vibe coding safe to use in a business? Host Dani Raschel Chou asks Dr. Yeshwant Muthusamy, a thirty-year AI veteran with seven U.S. patents, and his answer is yes, with one condition: somebody has to read the code before it ships. Then he tells the story of what happened when nobody did. Dr. Yeshwant Muthusamy is the owner and principal of Yeshvik Solutions in Allen, Texas, and a fractional Chief AI Officer. He trained his first artificial neural network in 1989, spent thirty years across Texas Instruments, Nokia, Samsung and Immersion Corporation, holds seven U.S. patents, chairs an AI governance working group, and was named a 2025 Dallas Innovates AI 75 honoree. He is also, as it turns out, a gourmet chocolatier. This episode is part of the With Hat and Cattle AI Literacy Series, and it starts where the hype does not. Dr. Muthusamy has watched artificial intelligence go out of fashion and come back, so he is unusually hard to impress. The refrain he rejects outright is "AI is coming for your jobs." The version he accepts is sharper: the person who learns to use these tools well will take your job if you do not. The center of the conversation is vibe coding, which is describing what you want in plain English and letting a large language model build the code. He is completely comfortable with the model doing the heavy lifting. He is not comfortable with shipping code nobody has read. He reviews every line his own firm produces, because the client receives something with his company name on it and he knows whose head is on the line if it is wrong. Then he tells the story of the Tea app: an application built so women could share information about people they had dated, which required every user to upload a selfie holding their driver's license. It was built fast, it was a great advertisement for vibe coding, and the founders never checked the security on the database. Within a week those photographs and driver's licenses were on the dark web. His reaction: "nobody in your start-up company took the time to read the code?" is the argument of the whole episode. Dani takes it a step further, asking what it means for a woman on that platform who was hiding from someone. From there they get practical. Dr. Muthusamy walks through the EU AI Act and why he leans closer to Europe's approach than to the American appetite for unfettered innovation, covering deepfake labeling, algorithmic bias in hiring, and why model audits are onerous and necessary anyway. Dani asks the question most listeners actually have: if she downloads her health data from her Garmin, is it safe to paste into a chatbot? His rule of thumb is simple enough to use tomorrow: keep any information that can be traced back to a specific person out of the model. The back half of the episode is his life, or how he earned the right to have the hat and cattle. The Nokia years inside standards bodies, which he describes as a heady mix of politics and technology, learned by shutting up for the first few meetings and watching the room...and which involved far less sightseeing in Nice and Seoul than anyone assumes. The move from corporate to his own practice in 2012. Teaching more than a hundred non-technical business professionals, including a tax advisor in his seventies, fifty years into his career, who is now writing a book with AI. Why so few companies that adopted AI agents have dared to put them into production. And the phrase the episode turns on: humans at the helm, not just in the loop. It closes on the two things he built that nobody would predict from the résumé: The Blissful Gourmet, a small-batch chocolate business he is deliberately not scaling yet, and his favorite of seven patents, which is about keeping students safe in school parking lots. The following are mentioned in this episode: Texas Instruments, Nokia, the Khronos Group and the OpenMAX working groups, Samsung, the EU AI Act, the Anthropic fair use ruling, OpenAI and Hugging Face, Descript, Seedance, the Texas Cottage Food Law, UT Dallas, and Paul Byrne, previous guest and author. Be sure you're subscribed so you don't miss out on future episodes and conversations that help you level up your sucess! Links: •     Yeshvik Solutions — AI consulting and training: https://www.yeshvik.com/ •     The Blissful Gourmet — handcrafted chocolate: https://theblissfulgourmet.com/ •     Stop Prompting, Start Delegating: No-Code Agentic AI for Business — Friday, August 28, 2026, in person at The Meeting Place. Register: https://t.ly/sjVA0  CHAPTERS 0:00  Cold open: nobody read the code 0:25  Welcome, Dr. Yeshwant Muthusamy, Yeshvik Solutions 0:55  Thirty years in AI, and a working distrust of hype 2:55  The hype that makes him roll his eyes 3:05  "AI won't take your job — the person using it will" 4:20  Training a neural network in 1989 5:15  What to expect from a large language model 6:05  Be at the helm of everything you do with it 6:40  Are AI agents still the thing to learn? 7:00  Agents are cool. Do you have a governance framework? 7:15  Seedance, Descript, and an hour of work in seven seconds 9:15  So what is vibe coding, actually? 10:00  Where he has serious problems with it 10:10  Why he reads every line of code himself 12:00  "ChatGPT's a little liar" 12:10  Can you read the code it wrote? 12:20  "You can't build strategy on hope" 12:35  The Tea app: a selfie, a driver's license, and trust 13:40  Shipped fast. Great advertisement for vibe coding. 14:00  A week later, it was all on the dark web 15:00  "Nobody in your startup took the time to read the code?" 15:20  The Rainbow Bridge, and when it stops being abstract 16:15  Is AI governance moving fast enough? 16:40  The EU AI Act vs. the American wild west 18:10  Deepfake labeling and what has to be disclosed 19:00  Bias, audits, and why governance is onerous but needed 20:15  "Does my Garmin data put me at risk?" 20:35  The one rule: keep anything traceable out of the model 22:10  Inside the Nokia standards years 23:00  Khronos, OpenMAX, and who is really in the room 25:00  "A heady mix of politics and technology" 26:45  What IP actually stands for 27:15  Seven patents meets generative AI 28:00  Where the Anthropic fair use ruling landed 29:05  Leaving corporate to start Yeshvik Solutions 30:50  Teaching 100+ non-technical professionals 34:00  The question everyone asks now: "what next?" 34:35  Agentic AI, and why so few have shipped it 35:40  Humans at the helm, not just in the loop 37:00  When OpenAI's models escaped and reached Hugging Face 38:15  The chocolatier: The Blissful Gourmet 39:00  "Creating something from scratch — it's a high" 39:30  The ceiling built into a cottage food business 41:40  Why North Texas and not the Bay Area 42:35  His favorite of the seven patents 43:10  One office action, and Dani's trademark filing 44:20  Safe parking for students, explained 46:10  Thank you 46:45  Outro That's the With Hat and Cattle promise: Bringing you stories from people who walk the walk and leave you better off for listening. Connect with Dani Raschel Chou on Instagram @withhatandcattle or via email at dani@thehouseofchou.com.  Subscribe to our YouTube channel for more conversations that leave you better off for listening: With Hat and Cattle I Hosted by Dani Raschel Chou - YouTube!  Go to www.withhatandcattle.com to sign up for our mailing list so you don't miss weekly insights. Be sure to check out our affiliate links!

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About

With Hat and Cattle is built on stories that are earned, not borrowed. We sit down with people who’ve put in the miles, learned the hard lessons, and kept showing up when it would’ve been easier to quit. This is a place for straight talk and quiet wisdom. You know, qualities that many Texans hold dear.  These are stories meant to be listened to slow, turned over, and carried with you. Because when you hear from people who truly walk the walk, you don’t just feel inspired. You leave better for it.

Information

  • Creator
    Dani Raschel Chou
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    43
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 With Hat and Cattle
  • Show Website
    With Hat and Cattle

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