Podcasts about Contrary

Today, we travel through Vermont in search of a family curse, a legendary lake creature, the ghost stories surrounding a terrible railroad disaster, and a group of mineral springs that seemed to resist every attempt to turn them into a business. Some parts of these stories are supported by historical records. Others belong entirely to folklore. Together, they reveal how real people, places, and tragedies can become legends passed down for generations. Long before Vermont had its present name or boundaries, Indigenous people lived throughout the region. Archaeological evidence shows that people were living in the Champlain Valley thousands of years ago. Over time, small seasonal camps developed into more permanent communities along the lakes and rivers. The Western Abenaki were among the Native peoples whose homeland included what is now Vermont. Lake Champlain provided food, transportation, and spiritual meaning, while rivers such as the Winooski and Missisquoi connected communities throughout the region. In 1609, Samuel de Champlain became the first European known to have set foot in what would become Vermont. Contrary to a frequently repeated claim, there is no reliable evidence that Jacques Cartier visited Vermont in 1535. The French built Fort Sainte Anne on Isle La Motte in 1666, creating Vermont's first European settlement. France eventually lost control of the region to Great Britain in 1763. Vermont then declared itself an independent republic in 1777 before joining the United States on March 4, 1791, as the fourteenth state. That long and complicated history created the perfect setting for stories in which fact and folklore are rarely far apart... Podcast Notes: https://ancestralfindings.com/american-folklore-vermont/ Ancestral Findings Podcast: https://ancestralfindings.com/podcast This Week's Free Genealogy Lookups: https://ancestralfindings.com/lookups Genealogy Giveaway: https://ancestralfindings.com/giveaway Genealogy eBooks: https://ancestralfindings.com/ebooks Follow Along: https://www.facebook.com/AncestralFindings https://www.youtube.com/ancestralfindings Support Ancestral Findings: https://ancestralfindings.com/support #Genealogy #AncestralFindings #GenealogyClips

Wrapping up our series today Pastor Ira teaches on The Church As The Catalyst. Contrary to our cultural understanding, church is not a static entity that we join and observe, but a Catalytic agent of change that challenges us to grow, heal, and walk in His power. Key Scriptures:Acts 4:32–33,13, 2:42,47, 5:41-42, Philemon 1:8, 1 Peter 4:10, Ephesians 2:4-5

Contrary to the impulsive, unpredictable and self-serving ways of the gods, the Ephesians are coming to know that the true God is loving, gracious and centered on His human family to reconcile and restore them through Jesus to the warm, loving, personal relationship for which He created them in the beginning.

Last week, we examined what the new life in Jesus looks like at home. Here, Paul points our eyes to look outside the home and ask: how are we supposed to live in the world? What principles should guide our interactions with our neighbors, coworkers, family members - anyone who doesn't yet believe in Jesus? Contrary to mistaken extremes some Christians have adopted (withdrawal, antagonism, accommodation, etc.), what we see commended by Paul is a model of prayerful, careful, winsome engagement. And once again, it's a model that looks like Jesus himself.

Contrary to the traditional flight-to-safety playbook, bond yields are rising alongside oil prices as war-driven inflation fears overwhelm demand for U.S. Treasuries as a haven asset. We examine why this unusual bond market behavior matters for every investor who holds fixed income, and what it signals about the durability of the post-pandemic rate environment.Today's Stocks & Topics: ZIM Integrated Shipping Services Ltd. (ZIM), Market Wrap, Netflix, Inc. (NFLX), High Deficit on Bond Markets, Financial Planning, War Bonds vs. War Stocks: How Treasuries Are Really Responding to the Iran Conflict, KPP Newsletter, Zions Bancorporation, National Association (ZION), Key Benchmark Numbers: Treasury Yields, Gold, Silver, Oil and Gasoline, Newmont Corporation (NEM), Edison International (EIX), Archer-Daniels-Midland Company (ADM), FCC Trying To Change Quarterly Earnings Rules.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Another fun-filled episode of Nerds Talking is here! Join Lafayette and Carlos as they bring you another week of entertainment news, movie talk, television reviews, and plenty of laughs.This week, we dive into the surprising box office struggles of Disney's upcoming live-action Moana. With a cast featuring Catherine Laga'aia as Moana, Dwayne Johnson returning as Maui, John Tui, Frankie Adams, and Rena Owen, the film seemed destined for success—but audiences don't appear to be rushing to theaters. Has Disney's live-action remake formula finally run its course? We discuss why these remakes may be losing their magic.Our old friend Joey Valentine is back behind the microphone! After returning with The Joey Valentine Show, he dedicated part of his latest episode to talking about Nerds Talking. We share our thoughts, react to the discussion, and reminisce about our long history together in podcasting.Meanwhile, the proposed Paramount/Warner Bros. deal continues to hit roadblocks. Is this blockbuster merger ever going to happen, or is it destined to become another Hollywood "what if?" We break down the latest developments and explain why we don't think this deal will ever cross the finish line.We also pull back the curtain on how Nerds Talking is made. Contrary to what some listeners might think, we don't write scripts or rehearse our conversations. Every episode is completely unscripted—we simply turn on the microphones, shoot from the hip, and let the conversation go wherever our nerdy passions take us.Finally, we review the final season of The Bear, starring Jeremy Allen White, Ayo Edebiri, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Lionel Boyce, Liza Colón-Zayas, Abby Elliott, Matty Matheson, and Oliver Platt. Did the acclaimed series stick the landing? We discuss the emotional moments, standout performances, and whether the finale lived up to the hype.Whether you're a movie buff, TV fanatic, gaming enthusiast, or simply love great conversations about pop culture, this episode has something for everyone. Tune in for laughs, nostalgia, hot takes, and plenty of nerdy insights as Lafayette and Carlos help make your day a little more entertaining!Listen now and join the conversation!#NerdsTalking #Podcast #EntertainmentNews #MovieNews #TVReviews #Disney #Moana #LiveActionMoana #TheBearFX #JeremyAllenWhite #AyoEdebiri #Hollywood #WarnerBros #Paramount #MoviePodcast #PopCulture #GeekCulture #FilmReview #Streaming #DisneyMovies #Television #ComedyPodcast #EntertainmentPodcast #MovieReview #WeeklyPodcast

Full Text of Readings Saturday of the Fifteenth Week in Ordinary Time Lectionary: 394 The Saint of the day is Saint Camillus de Lellis Saint Camillus de Lellis' Story Humanly speaking, Camillus was not a likely candidate for sainthood. His mother died when he was a child, his father neglected him, and he grew up with an excessive love for gambling. At 17, he was afflicted with a disease of his leg that remained with him for life. In Rome he entered the San Giacomo Hospital for Incurables as both patient and servant, but was dismissed for quarrelsomeness after nine months. He served in the Venetian army for three years. Then, in the winter of 1574, when he was 24, Camillus de Lellis gambled away everything he had—savings, weapons, literally down to his shirt. He accepted work at the Capuchin friary at Manfredonia, and was one day so moved by a sermon of the superior that he began a conversion that changed his life. He entered the Capuchin novitiate, but was dismissed because of the apparently incurable sore on his leg. After another stint of service at San Giacomo, he came back to the Capuchins, only to be dismissed again, for the same reason. Again, back at San Giacomo, his dedication was rewarded by his being made superintendent. Camillus de Lellis devoted the rest of his life to the care of the sick. Along with Saint John of God he has been named patron of hospitals, nurses, and the sick. With the advice of his friend Saint Philip Neri, he studied for the priesthood and was ordained at the age of 34. Contrary to the advice of his friend, Camillus left San Giacomo and founded a congregation of his own. As superior, he devoted much of his own time to the care of the sick. Charity was his first concern, but the physical aspects of the hospital also received his diligent attention. Camillus insisted on cleanliness and the technical competence of those who served the sick. The members of his community bound themselves to serve prisoners and persons infected by the plague as well as those dying in private homes. Some of his men were with troops fighting in Hungary and Croatia in 1595, forming the first recorded military field ambulance. In Naples, he and his men went onto the galleys that had plague and were not allowed to land. He discovered that there were people being buried alive, and ordered his brothers to continue the prayers for the dying 15 minutes after apparent death. Camillus de Lellis himself suffered the disease of his leg through his life. In his last illness, he left his own bed to see if other patients in the hospital needed help. Reflection Saints are created by God. Parents must indeed nurture the faith in their children; husbands and wives must cooperate to deepen their baptismal grace; friends must support each other. But all human effort is only the dispensing of divine power. We must all try as if everything depended on us. But only the power of God can fulfill the plan of God—to make us like himself.Saint of the Day, Copyright Franciscan Media

Armored Against Demon Invasion (audio) David Eells – 7/15/26 Bundle of Serpents Attacks  John David Feagin - 10/31/2011 (David's notes in red) In the brief dream I had, there was a bundle, like the old-fashioned bundle of wheat that was being passed down from two others in line to me, only this bundle was a bundle of serpents. I could tell that they were very venomous serpents, like sea snakes, cobras, mambas, or coral snakes. They tried to bite my arm and, naturally, I did not like this. I did remember that we are immune to the bites of serpents if we are covered in the Blood of Jesus, so this is where I put my trust. I was no longer so concerned and set them aside. At the time I awoke, this was puzzling to me, but now, after some thought, I believe I understand it more fully. The snakes involved have neurotoxins, which attack the brain, that is, our thoughts. We are strictly warned to take captive our every thought (that is, against the knowledge of God's Word) and this now means much more to me than it ever has before. I am certainly no expert with such things or spiritual warfare, but I do know that demons associated with pornography, bitterness, criticism, faction, etc., are very powerful and deadly. I also know that demons can be transferred by men, and inadvertently opening doors, even with the best of intentions, can invite personal attack. I personally believe this was a warning to be very careful, but it may also be a general warning to others as well, and may be applied to all sorts of demonic or thought influence. If the enemy can truly read our thoughts and insert them, as has been shown in a previous UBM study, then this is particularly devious. It is difficult to reject such thoughts if you think they are your own.  Then, this morning, as a sort of confirmation, I saw the UBM update about the bug detector and casting such thoughts to hell immediately in the name of Jesus. I also noticed that when I was praying, in the Word, and seeking wisdom in such matters, my thoughts were clear, but when my guard was down, my own thoughts and emotions in the matter, no matter how well-intended, were somewhat intoxicating. So, forewarned is forearmed. God bless always in His service.  Be careful of slander and criticism for the purpose of making disciples. It comes only from demons, and those they can use, and it comes for only one reason -- to impart demons and poison minds against someone the devil hates. Demons impersonating aliens to turn the world to the mark of the beast to destroy Christianity. The Word for “heresies” or “parties” in Galatians 5:20 means “a self-willed opinion leading to division”. The word for factions among these works of the flesh means separating followers through selfish ambition. Demons impersonate righteous indignation but are actually criticism or new revelation. {Jas.3:14} But if ye have bitter jealousy and faction in your heart, glory not and lie not against the truth. {15} This wisdom is not [a wisdom] that cometh down from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish. {16} For where jealousy and faction are, there is confusion and every vile deed.   Bluffing Demons & Spiritual Authority  Sandy Shaw 11/09/2011 (David's notes in red) The way this dream starts is that I'm walking into this room, and I'm watching a group of men (some I know, some I don't know) who are turning around and leaving the room. I ask the ladies there, “Where are the men going?” (These men are the chosen.)  The women who are there tell me not to worry because they need to go -- they have to go. The Lord wants them to go. When this happens, I feel like all the women are in unity that the men needed to go. (The spiritual catching up to the throne anointing of those who will return as the Man-child reformer ministry.) I then grab Tina's hand and ask, “Don't you feel the winds of change?” She answers, “What?” Then I say, “The change. The winds of change. Don't you feel the winds of change?” (From this point on, everything will change both positively for those who love God and are called according to His purpose and negatively for the wicked; a separation of the wheat from the tares. Tina ended up going factious, the opposite of Sandy.)  Then I go from there to an ancient-looking town square or plaza. People are walking all around. There are archways all around the square leading into different hallways, buildings, or rooms. It looks and feels like it's an ancient city. (Archways were made famous by the ancient Romans, who were the first to apply the technique to a wide range of structures. We are seeing a revival of the iron and clay of Daniel's end-time vision of the 10 toes of the world beast kingdom. There is no dispute that the iron is the seed of the Roman Empire.) As I'm walking slowly through this square, I'm praying. I'm praying continuously because I can feel the presence of evil so strongly there. (Great darkness is about to descend as the principality of the old Roman Empire prepares to take charge and make the covenant with many, as spoken of in Daniel 9:26,27.) As I'm looking at some of the people, they look human, but for a brief moment, I can see certain demons that are controlling them. (As we watch this progressive revelation, the people who belong to the body of the beast become less and less human and more and more demon, just as those who belong to the body of Christ become less and less human and more and more sons of God. Those from among the people of God who do not forsake their evil will go with the wicked. {Rev.22:11} He that is unrighteous, let him do unrighteousness still: and he that is filthy, let him be made filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him do righteousness still: and he that is holy, let him be made holy still. In the days before the coming of the Lord, at the end of the tribulation, Jesus will come in and then with His saints. {2Th.1:7} and to you that are afflicted rest with us, at the revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven with the angels of his power in flaming fire, {8} rendering vengeance to them that know not God, and to them that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus: {9} who shall suffer punishment, [even] eternal destruction from the face of the Lord and from the glory of his might, {10} when he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be marvelled at in all them that believed (because our testimony unto you was believed) in that day.) As I'm praying, some man grabs my arm and pulls me into one of the hallways. As he is pulling me into the hallway, I hear someone in the square saying, “We gotta find her. We gotta find her. We have to stop her. Her prayers are reaching the throne of Heaven!” (These voices are the demons speaking through men). (Our prayers do reach the throne when sent by faith, and the demons' plans are thwarted. {Psa.10:17} Jehovah, thou hast heard the desire of the meek: Thou wilt prepare their heart, thou wilt cause thine ear to hear. {Rom.10:13} for, Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. {Jer.33:3} Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and will show thee great things, and difficult, which thou knowest not.) So the man pulls me into this room, and there are mostly men and a few women there. This room is full of uniforms of all different kinds. The people are trying to figure out which uniform to put on. Some of the uniforms are military. As they are excited about finding the right uniform to wear, they are trying them on. I know in the dream that these people are Christians. (The “Christians” will be worried about how to appear to the world in this dangerous time and what lifestyle to put on besides Christ's. A military uniform indicates a militant lifestyle in dealing with this beast system, which will be disastrous since “they who take the sword will die by the sword”. We must put on the uniform of the new man, who is in the image of Jesus and His actions, according to the knowledge of the Word. {Col.3:9} lie not one to another; seeing that ye have put off the old man with his doings, {10} and have put on the new man, that is being renewed unto knowledge after the image of him that created him.)  I tell them that they have it wrong and that the full armor that they need to put on is the full armor of God, not one of these physical uniforms made by man. The people just look at me, not receiving anything I'm saying (as apostate patriotic Christians). A man asks me to sit down and take a look at this uniform. Then this man puts on some kind of uniform with a jacket. The jacket and uniform cover his legs, feet, and everything. There is a hood to the jacket that covers his whole head with a face-covering mask. The material of the jacket is a material I've never felt before. They then pour chemicals over it, resulting in no damage. Then they turn a blowtorch on it, and the torch doesn't burn or damage it. (As a volunteer fireman for Exxon, they gave us shirts that had metal woven into them to reflect heat.  Our government is allying with alien impersonating demons like the galactic federation or alliance in hopes of profiting from their “higher technology.” But these hate Christians and will help to bring about the mark of the beast to be rid of them.) They are really excited about the uniform/jacket and are picking it to be the one they will use. (There is no safety outside of God's will. He sent the curse, and no man can defend from it. {Jer.17:5} Thus saith Jehovah: Cursed is the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from Jehovah. ... {7} Blessed is the man that trusteth in Jehovah, and whose trust Jehovah is. {8} For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, that spreadeth out its roots by the river, and shall not fear when heat cometh, but its leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit.) I tell them again, “No, you have it wrong; it's the full armor of God that you need to put on. There is nothing manmade that will help you. You only need the full armor of God”. I then get up and walk out of there into the long hallway. As I walk down the hallway, it is full of men lining up to put on the uniform they think is going to help them in the battle ahead. {Psa.33:16} There is no king saved by the multitude of a host: A mighty man is not delivered by great strength. {17} A horse is a vain thing for safety; Neither doth he deliver any by his great power. {18} Behold, the eye of Jehovah is upon them that fear him, Upon them that hope in his lovingkindness; {19} To deliver their soul from death, And to keep them alive in famine. {20} Our soul hath waited for Jehovah: He is our help and our shield. ... {Psa.34:7} The angel of Jehovah encampeth round about them that fear him, And delivereth them. {8} Oh taste and see that Jehovah is good: Blessed is the man that taketh refuge in him.) After leaving the “Christians” in their false confidence, I kept walking and went back to the square. The ground in the square has changed: it's all dirt now, and I could see through the dirt. I see under the dirt different piles of bones all over the place. No one knows that those bones are there, and no one sees them either. I'm not quite sure why I'm seeing them. (The hidden bones represent those who are martyred behind the scenes because they are not prepared for the battle by putting on the Lord Jesus Christ, as in Romans 13:12-14. Notice that putting on Jesus IS putting on God's armor or protection. Notice that it is always called the “armor of God” because it is God Himself. {Eph.6:11} Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. {12} For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual [hosts] of wickedness in the heavenly [places]. {13} Wherefore take up the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and, having done all, to stand.  {14} Stand therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, {15} and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; {16} withal taking up the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the evil [one]. {17} And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God: {18} with all prayer and supplication praying at all seasons in the Spirit, and watching thereunto in all perseverance and supplication for all the saints. Notice that putting on all of these attributes: truth, righteousness, the Gospel, and salvation are manifestations of the Word, Who is Jesus. Putting on Jesus is putting on God. It is the armor of GOD Himself.) I'm walking through the square again, and I'm praying because I need to get to the other side of the square. (Contrary to popular opinion, we will all have to pass through this time of the revived Roman beast with America at the head.) As I'm walking and praying, the people that I saw with demons controlling them, I now see as full-blown demons, but to the natural eye, they still looked human. (The worldly people will be totally possessed, though they appear to each other as normal, and we are seeing more of this happening now. The D.S. can only be picked out by their leftist demon doctrines.) There was one demon that would walk really fast. So fast that it seemed as if he was flying. This demon went right in front of my face, standing right in front of me but he could not see me. He was really angry and talking with authority, telling the other demons, “We have to find these people who are praying! NOW! NOW, I say! Find them! (Prayer by those who believe in its power will be both destructive to Satan's kingdom and defensive to those who walk in the Lord's Kingdom. {Jas.5:16} Confess therefore your sins one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The supplication of a righteous man availeth much in its working. {17} Elijah was a man of like passions with us, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain; and it rained not on the earth for three years and six months. {18} And he prayed again; and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit.)  I was standing right in front of him, praying, and the demon had no clue that I was there. (In other words, I was hidden in Christ.) So, I keep walking and when I get to the right-hand corner of the square, I look. I stop, turn around, and I'm looking! I'm watching these people. And the room is not really a room. The way that it feels is completely off, like when you walk into a room, and you can see the light, yet you can see shadows behind things. This was now completely reversed. There was light where shadows would normally be. There were bits and pieces of light. It was completely off, completely out of order. It just didn't feel or look right. (When the light is dark, and the dark is light, it is when good is called evil and evil is called good. This is where demon-possessed society is and has been going. {Isa.5:20} Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! We see this with demon-possessed people now.) After I walked through there, I saw what looked like some kind of old train depot-type thing. I know it's some kind of old transportation system. I'm in this room where there are two big fences with gates -- a cement-type fence. There is a gate, and people are going in and out of the gate. And then there is like a middle part where a lot of people are walking -- a lot of traffic. (To get where they want to go, Christians can't walk where the masses do in their bondage, spiritually speaking. {Mat.7:13} Enter ye in by the narrow gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many are they that enter in thereby. {14} For narrow is the gate, and straitened the way, that leadeth unto life, and few are they that find it. We must be conformed by the Word within.) On the other end is the same kind of gate that people are entering this place from somewhere else. When I go there, I'm waiting for Tina, Sam, and my mom. I feel like Tina and Sam went to get my mom wherever she was to bring her here. I knew that it hadn't been very long since I had seen Tina and Sam, but that I hadn't seen my mom in a while. Tina and Sam were getting ready to go through the gate that's on the other side to go to the middle. My mom stopped them and said, “No, we can't go that way. We have to go the other way”. (Sandy said that she felt that if they had gone into the middle, they would have died. This warning was not taken seriously by them and they spiritually died. They did not listen. This is where the people of God need to go from the worldly to the spiritual; there cannot be ‘a halfway', ‘a lukewarm'. This would mean spiritual death to them in this time and a spewing out of the body of Christ. {Rev.3:15} I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. {16} So because thou art lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spew thee out of my mouth.) If you walked all the way around to the end, there was another part that was covered by the fence. They did not walk in the middle part. They had to walk all the way around to where I was. (The path of least resistance, or the shortcut, is the wrong way. The worldly church offers many of these. Just listen to them, and they will show you the quick and easy way to get saved and fly away, but the end is death.) They were almost down to that part, and there was another little gate to walk to the middle. My mom stopped and turned around and told Tina, “Grab Sam. He cannot walk in the middle. There is no middle; he can't walk in the middle”. (None of those who are lukewarm, middle-of-the-road walkers will spiritually survive.) As Sam goes toward the middle, Tina grabs him and they walk all the way around to where I was. I greet them and hug them. (This awakening was temporary.) Then I tell them, “Things are not what they seem to be”. My mom then says, “It's okay, it's okay, because everything that is happening is according to God's will. We just need to stay in constant prayer. {Pro.14:12} There is a way which seemeth right unto a man; But the end thereof are the ways of death. We just need to stay in constant prayer”. (In the days of strong delusion and deception, there's much advanced technology now using AI, CGI, and programming through drugs, mind control and manipulation, etc., we cannot walk according to our carnal mind or senses, or we will stumble. Prayer without ceasing is our command.) So, I'm walking ahead of them. Tina is walking on one side, my mom on the other side, both holding Sam's hand. Sam was not as old as he is now. He looked to be eight or nine years old. (We will have to help guide those Christians who are not yet mature in discernment. God will hear their prayers, too. Samuel is Hebrew for “God heard” or “God's name”. Shem is a variant of Sam, meaning “name”. Shem was the father of the people of the name, as Christians are now. Shem was the father of the Israelites.) Sam was trying not to act afraid when there was the presence of evil all around us. Even amongst all the evil, we knew we were under the protection of the Lord. There was no safe place other than the arms of God. I bent down to talk to Sam in his ear, saying, “It's okay to be afraid; you just fear the Lord. Don't fear anyone else or anything else. Nothing can harm you because they have to go through the Father first. Don't be afraid”. (Fear permits faith to be robbed and the enemies to take advantage of us. It is faith in reverse. {Psa.23:4} Yea, thou I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for thou art with me; Thy rod [of correction] and thy staff [of direction], they comfort me. {5} Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: Thou hast anointed my head with oil; My cup runneth over. (With this anointing of the Holy Spirit, we should give the good confession.) {6} Surely goodness and lovingkindness shall follow me all the days of my life; And I shall dwell in the house of Jehovah for ever.) Then we started walking back to the square. The dirt has changed again. The dirt now seems like it's a mud-like consistency. But to the natural eye, it looks just like dirt. I still see the piles of bones now with the mud going between the fingers, toes, etc. But now I also see something like a circle; it's a tunnel and I can see it at weird angles and kind of far. The things that I'm seeing in these tunnels are body parts with the flesh. I'm seeing arms cut off, legs, face, head, all different kinds of body parts. They look to be freshly cut off from the body because I can still see the blood. The blood is still wet. I can see the nerves on some of these parts still shaking and moving. (The ‘powers that be' have made many underground tunnels connecting cities, where the military and special forces have found remains of countless people who were murdered by satanists. According to other dreams and prophecies I have seen, it is in these tunnels that the saints will be expected to renounce Jesus or die. It behooves us to walk carefully so we fill out both our days and our ministry.)  I'm getting ready to step, and I stop. I put my hand out to stop my mom, Tina, and Sam as I watch the details of the body parts freshly cut off. It was gross. I then asked them if they saw those parts. Tina and my mom saw it; Sam closed his eyes. He didn't want to see it. I then asked, “But it's not there?” My mom said, “Oh, but it is there under the dirt”. We stopped then and there, and we started praying. We were praying in tongues. While we were praying, I told Tina to take my mom and Sam to the outer part of the square, find a place, and begin praying and interceding. And that's what they did. (As with the Nazi persecutions in the death camps of World War 2, many will deny for the sake of soothing their own conscience that these persecutions are happening, but they will be out of sight and out of mind, “under the dirt”.) I was taking very small steps as the Lord was guiding me and telling me to. (Every step in these days will need to be according to the Father's will because of the dangers. {Eph.5:15} Look therefore carefully how ye walk, not as unwise, but as wise; {16} redeeming the time, because the days are evil.) And I was just praying and praying and praying. As I was starting to pray, I saw the people in the square now completely as demons. I no longer saw them as humans. (The righteous will be able to see in the spirit realm those who have been displaced by demons.) As I was walking, I felt as if they were trying to find me, and they were bumping into me, but didn't know they were hitting me. I kept praying more and more. I prayed out loud, and they could hear me but couldn't see me. (Invisibility in the spirit realm makes for peace from the flesh realm.)  That big demon I saw earlier that walked really fast was now there, and there were more demons of his stature and size. They were frantic, upset and mad. One of them said, “Now there are more praying. Do you hear them praying? We have to find them NOW! I'm telling you, their prayers are reaching the throne room of Heaven. Things are going to change. Find them NOW!” There was such an urgency to find us. I walked all the way to the end of the square and I turned around and asked, “Okay, Lord. What is it that You want me to do?” (Truly, “things are going to change.” Walking to the end of the square represents that the saints will go through this beast tribulation and bring the Gospel to the whole world. Watch volume one of Hidden Manna for the End Times.) I don't know where the Lord took the men whom I saw at the beginning of the dream or what had happened, but I just knew that they were coming back. The demons were still looking really hard for the people who were praying. Not just us, but they were looking to stop everyone everywhere from praying. The Lord told me to step a foot back in the square, and I did. When I stepped back in the square, I was speaking the Word out loud. Everything that the Lord was saying to me, I was speaking out loud. The demons could now see me and were in my face, trying to intimidate or scare me. I knew that they could not touch me. They were telling me to shut up, be quiet, that my prayers were dead, and I was doing no good. “Don't you know we can kill you? We can take you out! You are nothing!” Many of them kept saying those things to me over and over. (Demons are full of threats to discourage the prayers and works of God, but most Christians don't recognize them as coming from demons, but feel they are their own thoughts and are defeated. The knowledge of God's Word will enable them to defeat the deceivers. {2Co.10:3} For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh {4} (for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but mighty before God to the casting down of strongholds), {5} casting down imaginations, and every high thing that is exalted against the knowledge of God and bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.) I said to them, “I am nothing, but through Christ Jesus He is everything. He is my all and all. Everything that I need, God is. God is the source. God is the strength. God is the great I AM! One of the demons was so close to my face that I could smell his stench. So close that he was almost touching me. I told him, “You are nothing! You can't do anything other than what my God allows. You are nothing! (God is sovereign over all, but He will allow many things that we allow because He has delegated authority over all the power of the enemies. {Mat.18:18} Verily I say unto you, what things soever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and what things soever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. {19} Again I say unto you, that if two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father who is in heaven. ... {Luk.10:19} Behold, I have given you authority to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall in any wise hurt you. {20} Nevertheless in this rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto you; but rejoice that your names are written in heaven. I heard a noise behind me, and I turned around and saw all the men who had gone out, and there were more with them coming, and with what looked like Christ in the middle. Everyone was dressed in white. When Christ and all those men came on the scene, some of those demons became smaller and smaller. The ones that were already small were trying to run, but they couldn't go anywhere, as you have seen in cartoons, only this was not a cartoon; they were liquefying before me into a puddle on the floor, and then they were gone. I was backing up as the men were going forward. I went with Tina, Sam, and my mom to this place where I saw a lot more people who were praying and interceding. Then I woke up. (Who are these men whom the demons fear? The Lord is in the Man-child ministry to raise up many in the image of the Lord. These are coming to wreak havoc on the spiritual hosts of wickedness. Hallelujah!)  After I woke up from the dream, I heard the Lord say, “Write this down: “You have all power and authority in the name of Jesus Christ. Understand and know the power of His blood. For you are adopted, therefore you are entitled to everything. Hear Me! Understand Me! Know Me! For then the enemy cannot deceive you for what's ahead.”   The Men Whom the Demons Fear Seven spiritual shepherds who are sent by the Man-child to minister to the seven Churches, which is mentioned in Hidden Manna for the End Times. First, Jesus is coming to be manifested in the Man-child ministry. (Mic.5:2) But thou, Beth-lehem Ephrathah, which art little to be among the thousands of Judah, out of thee shall one come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth are from of old, from everlasting. Obviously, this is Jesus. (3) Therefore will he give them up, until the time that she who travaileth hath brought forth (the man-child body): then the residue of his brethren shall return unto the children of Israel. Jesus left because of rebellion and will return in the Man-child who is born of the travailing woman in Revelation 12. As Jesus fed the former rain woman in a body of flesh, so He will feed the latter rain woman in a corporate body of flesh. (Mic.5:4) And He shall stand, and shall feed [His flock] in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord His God: and they shall abide; for now shall He be great unto the ends of the earth. The Jesus of the former rain was revered by the disciples and feared by His enemies, but because of apostasy, this has not been true for many centuries since because they have had “another Jesus.” The Man-child body and those disciples who follow in His/their steps will restore this, and He shall be “great unto the ends of the earth”. The Man-child's teaching will bring peace to the seven churches that are at war with the beast and harlot. (5) And this [man] shall be [our] peace, When the Assyrian shall come into our land, and shall tread in our palaces, then shall we raise against him seven shepherds and eight principal (Hebrew: “princes among”) men. The corporate body of the Man-child is “this man” who brings peace to the corporate woman with his teachings, which enable her to resist the beast invasion. He brings peace because the “Prince of peace” is in his heart. Spiritually speaking, we are the “land” with the “palaces” that the corporate beast is trying to invade. (1Co.3:9) For we are God's fellow-workers: ye are God's husbandry (Greek: “tilled land”), God's building (“palaces”). As we shall see, the beast is a corporate spirit from the abyss (Rev.17:8) that inhabits the body of the wicked (3) and seeks to inhabit the righteous and mark them. Notice that the “Assyrians” are called “him” which shows that they are seen as the corporate body of the beast. Since the Assyrian beast kingdom passed away over 600 years before Christ, they could not have been connected with Jesus or the Man-child. Therefore, God, as usual, was using the beast of that day to represent a particular aspect of the end time beast. As the Assyrian beast did not conquer Jerusalem, so the end time beast will not conquer those spiritually abiding in the New Jerusalem. (Mic.5:5) ...Then shall we raise against him seven shepherds and eight principal (Hebrew: “princes among”) men. The Man-child Jesus raised up twelve apostolic shepherds primarily to restore those of the “twelve-tribes of Israel” who would listen (Mat.10:5; Act.26:7; Jas.1:1; 1Pet.1:1). In exact parallel, the corporate Man-child will raise up “seven” corporate apostolic “shepherds” primarily to restore the “seven churches”. The Man-child's primary job is to feed the unleavened bread of the Word to disciples in order to manifest Christ in them. These will be the new leadership for the seven churches in the last 3 1/2 years. These “seven shepherds” are not sectarian religious leaders but one man in Christ and are inhabited by one “prince of peace”, Jesus, hence “eight princes among men”. In the next chapter of Micah, we will see that even after the Man-child Jesus' 3 ½-year ministry, He promised to be with the shepherds in spirit “unto the consummation of the age,” (Greek: Mat.28:20) hence “eight princes among men”. These princes are sons of the King and have authority over His realm of the seven churches. The seven churches of Revelation are a type of seven different types of Christians in the Church. (Isa.4:1) And seven women (the Church) shall take hold of one man in that day. The “one man” here is Jesus manifested in the Man-child. Then He will be manifested in the seven shepherds and then in the true Church. One of God's solutions to the apostasy in the Church is new leadership. (Isa.1:26) And I will restore thy judges as at the first, and thy counselors as at the beginning. The same type of counselors in the former rain will be given in the latter rain. Here is another confirmation of the Man-child giving His revelation to seven shepherds, who passed it on to the seven churches. When the Man-child Jesus sent His shepherds out, He called them “apostles”, meaning “one sent forth”. In other words, the shepherds were the Man-child's messengers to the churches. As a type of the Man-child, John on the Isle of Patmos was “a partaker with you in the tribulation” (Rev.1:9) when he was caught up to the throne of God and given a revelation of the coming tribulation to give to the seven churches. (4:1) After these things I saw, and behold, a door opened in heaven, and the first voice that I heard, [a voice] as of a trumpet speaking with me, one saying, Come up hither, and I will show thee the things which must come to pass hereafter. (2) Straightway I was in the Spirit: and behold, there was a throne set in heaven, and one sitting upon the throne. Like Jesus, he was given a revelation of the apostasy in the Church and told to send it to the seven churches by the hand of seven angels. (1:11) ...What thou seest, write in a book and send [it] to the seven churches.... (Rev.2:1,8,12,18; 3:1,7,14) To the angel of the church in Ephesus (and so with Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea) write.... “Angel” in these cases is the Greek word angelos meaning “messengers” and is also used of ministers in the New Testament (Example: Luk.4:24,27; 9:52). The equivalent Hebrew word in the Old Testament is translated “messenger” when speaking of priests (Mal.2:7), John the Baptist, and Jesus (Luk.3:1). Since it doesn't make sense that John sent the revelation by angels, he must have sent it by seven minister messengers to the seven churches. This is exactly what Jesus did as Man-child. He shared His revelation with minister messengers, who shared it with the seven churches.

Contrary to age-old prejudices, the wealth of the rich is not the cause of the poverty of the poor, but helps to alleviate that poverty. No matter whether it is their intention or not, almost anything that the rich can legally do tends to help the poor.

This is for us! Black women need rest too. Contrary to what culture may negatively believe about Black women, we are human and deserve, rest, care, love, and nurture. The past couple of years have intensified the disenfranchisement of Black women in areas of employment, opportunities, and even in the church. It is nothing new for Black women, but the intensity is more insidious, blatant, and unapologetic, from the perpetuation of negative stereotypes to the stripping of our dignity. Black women may seem to have shields of power to withstand the attacks, but do we not bleed when we are pricked. Let's talk about it. www.talkingwithdrtoy.com

In this morning sermon from John 3:17-21, Pastor Rockhill brings the conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus to its climax, unfolding the true purpose for which God sent His only begotten Son. Contrary to the popular Jewish expectation of a political Messiah who would come to condemn the Gentile oppressors, Pastor Rockhill shows that Christ came not to condemn the world but that the world through Him might be saved. The world already lay under condemnation because of sin, and its deepest need was not judgment but salvation and deliverance. Drawing on the covenant promise to Abraham and its fulfillment in Galatians 3, Pastor Rockhill stresses that this salvation extends to sinners from every nation, tribe, and tongue. The central burden of the message is faith: the one who believes in the name of the only begotten Son is not condemned, while the one who refuses to believe is condemned already. He grounds this in the sovereignty of God as Creator and in the reality that all people stand guilty in Adam, so that there is no injustice when God freely saves some and passes over others. Pastor Rockhill then presses the searching contrast between those who love darkness and hate the light lest their evil deeds be exposed, and those who do the truth and come to the light. He applies this pastorally, assuring believers that there is now no condemnation in Christ, and calling them to walk openly as beacons of light, bearing witness to the gospel amid a world darkened by sin.

With James Woodfall, Communication and Behavior Specialist, Raise Your EI As AI makes expertise more accessible, what becomes an advisor's true advantage? EI expert James Woodfall explains why authentic human connection may be the one thing technology can't replicate. In Summary As artificial intelligence reshapes how information is delivered, financial advisors are being challenged to rethink what truly differentiates their value. Mindy Diamond sits down with James Woodfall, a former wealth management business owner turned emotional intelligence expert and founder of Raise Your EI, to explore why emotional intelligence may become one of the profession's greatest competitive advantages. Together, they discuss how rapport, curiosity, and authentic human connection influence trust, referrals, leadership, and client loyalty and why those skills can be developed just like technical expertise. The conversation also examines the difference between AI's “synthetic empathy” and the authentic relationships clients continue to value—and why that distinction matters to financial advisors now more than ever.   The Storyline For decades, advisors have built successful businesses by combining technical expertise with thoughtful financial guidance. But as AI makes information more accessible and planning tools more sophisticated, expertise alone is becoming less of a differentiator. James Woodfall believes the future belongs to advisors who master something technology cannot authentically replicate: human connection. Drawing on his experience as both a former wealth management firm owner and a specialist in communication and behavioral science, James explains why emotional intelligence isn't simply a “soft skill.” It's a business skill that affects nearly every aspect of an advisory practice—from building trust and earning referrals to leading teams and helping clients make difficult decisions. Mindy and James explore why asking better questions matters more than having better answers, how curiosity creates stronger relationships than scripts ever can, and why advisors who create memorable client experiences may find themselves even more valuable in an increasingly automated world. The conversation ultimately reframes AI not as a replacement for advisors, but as a catalyst forcing the profession to rediscover the uniquely human qualities clients have valued all along.   Topics Covered Emotional intelligence as a business skill Building trust through rapport and curiosity Authentic empathy vs. synthetic AI empathy The psychology behind client decision-making Why referrals are rooted in emotional outcomes Coaching advisors to improve communication Leadership and emotional intelligence AI's impact on advisor differentiation Creating premium client experiences Future-proofing advisory businesses > Download a transcript of this episode… Listen and Learn Highlights for Advisors Why do better questions lead to better financial advice? (6:10) James explains why financial planning is only as good as the conversations that precede it—and why understanding a client's fears and aspirations leads to better outcomes than simply gathering financial facts. How does emotional intelligence translate into business growth? (15:30) Rapport isn't simply about making clients feel comfortable. James discusses why advisors who build trust quickly tend to earn more referrals and become significantly more referable. Can emotional intelligence actually be learned? (37:05) Contrary to popular belief, emotional intelligence isn't an innate personality trait. James explains why it is a trainable skill and how advisors can intentionally improve it throughout their careers. What makes authentic empathy different from AI? (39:10) One of the episode's most compelling discussions explores the difference between AI's ability to simulate empathy and the authentic emotional connection that develops between two people. Why should advisors think more about experience than efficiency? (45:10) Clients don't always pay more for information. Often, they pay more for confidence, judgment, reassurance, and the experience of working with someone they trust. Will AI replace advisors or elevate the best ones? (46:55) James shares why he believes AI is more likely to automate routine work while making relationship-centered advisors even more valuable. Key Takeaways Emotional intelligence is a measurable business capability—not simply a personality trait. Stronger client relationships begin with curiosity rather than advice. Advisors who solve emotional concerns make it easier for clients to recommend than advisors who simply deliver technical expertise. AI may replicate information, but authentic trust remains distinctly human. Premium advisory relationships will increasingly be defined by the experience clients receive—not just the answers they're given. Emotional intelligence improves leadership, client retention, referrals, and advisor well-being. The firms that embrace both technology and human connection will likely be best positioned for the future. https://youtu.be/xlQMQm6mqtc Quotable Moments “Rapport building is one of the foundational things for trust building.” “It's not real empathy. It's synthetic empathy.” “If all of our decisions were made on price, Ferrari wouldn't have a business.” “The advisors who create authentic human connection may be the ones who remain untouchable.” FAQs What is emotional intelligence, and why does it matter for financial advisors? James defines emotional intelligence as the ability to recognize, understand, and influence emotions in ourselves and others. For advisors, those skills strengthen communication, trust, leadership, and client relationships. Can emotional intelligence actually be developed? Yes. Unlike IQ, emotional intelligence can be improved through intentional practice, feedback, coaching, and greater self-awareness. Why do referrals have so much to do with emotional intelligence? Clients often remember and recommend how an advisor made them feel more than the technical work performed. Solving emotional concerns creates stories clients naturally share with others. What does James mean by “synthetic empathy”? AI can recognize language patterns and respond empathetically, but it doesn't genuinely experience human emotion. James argues that authentic empathy remains one of an advisor's greatest competitive advantages. How should advisors think about AI? Rather than viewing AI solely as a competitor, advisors should use it to improve efficiency while investing more time in conversations, judgment, and relationships that technology cannot fully replace. What is the biggest mindset shift advisors should make? Stop viewing emotional intelligence as a soft skill. Treat it as a business skill that directly influences growth, leadership, client loyalty, and long-term differentiation. James defines emotional intelligence as the ability to recognize, understand, and influence emotions in ourselves and others. For advisors, those skills strengthen communication, trust, leadership, and client relationships. Yes. Unlike IQ, emotional intelligence can be improved through intentional practice, feedback, coaching, and greater self-awareness. Clients often remember and recommend how an advisor made them feel more than the technical work performed. Solving emotional concerns creates stories clients naturally share with others. AI can recognize language patterns and respond empathetically, but it doesn't genuinely experience human emotion. James argues that authentic empathy remains one of an advisor's greatest competitive advantages. Rather than viewing AI solely as a competitor, advisors should use it to improve efficiency while investing more time in conversations, judgment, and relationships that technology cannot fully replace. Stop viewing emotional intelligence as a soft skill. Treat it as a business skill that directly influences growth, leadership, client loyalty, and long-term differentiation. Related Resources Why AI Matters Now: Filling the Estate Planning Gap with Wealth.com The Paradox of Choice Traps Successful Advisors Freedom vs. Familiarity: Is It Worth Disrupting Comfort for Something That Might Be Better? Guest Bio James Woodfall, founder of Raise Your EI, is a former financial planner who now advises financial services and firms on how they can leverage emotional intelligence (EI) to improve individual and organizational performance. He is the co-author, with Cliff Lansley, of “The Heart of Finance,” which teaches finance professionals to develop the emotional intelligence needed to build effective and profitable client relationships. NOTE: The views and opinions expressed by the guests on this podcast are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of Diamond Consultants. Neither Diamond Consultants nor the guests on this podcast are compensated in any way for their participation. View the transcript of this episode… Emotional Intelligence: The “Untouchable” Differentiator in an AI World A conversation with Mindy Diamond and James Woodfall, Communication and Behavior Specialist at Raise Your EI.      Mindy Diamond: Welcome to the latest episode of our podcast series for financial advisors. Today’s episode is Emotional Intelligence: The “Untouchable” Differentiator in an AI World. It’s a conversation with James Woodfall, Communication and Behavior Specialist from Raise Your EI. I’m Mindy Diamond, and this is the Diamond Podcast for Financial Advisors. At Diamond Consultants, we help elite advisors identify the right environment for their businesses to thrive, whether that’s at a wirehouse, boutique, or independent firm. With nearly three decades of experience, we’ve guided thousands of advisors and represented more than a quarter of a trillion dollars in assets transitioned. And each year, one in four advisors managing a billion dollars or more who change firms are our clients. Our process is education driven and based on building relationships, starting as your strategic partner well before you’re even thinking of a move. To schedule a confidential conversation, call us at (908) 879-1002. Wondering why advisors change firms and where they’re headed? Are transition deals going up or down? Those very questions and more inspired us to create our Annual Advisor Transition Report. It’s the award-winning, data-driven resource designed for advisors that connects the dots between the motivations around movement and the firm’s appetite for top talent. Arm yourself with the knowledge you need to make smart decisions. Download your copy at diamond-consultants.com/transitionreport. For years, advisors have competed on expertise, the ability to solve problems, deliver answers, and provide guidance clients couldn’t easily find on their own. But today, those answers are becoming easier to access via artificial intelligence and tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity. AI can generate planning ideas, summarize complex topics, and answer questions in seconds. As the technology continues to improve, it raises an important question. If information becomes increasingly commoditized, what will clients continue to value most? My guest today, James Woodfall, is the Founder of the training firm, Raise Your EI, and a former wealth management business owner. James now helps advisors, leaders, and organizations strengthen the communication and behavioral skills that drive trust, influence, and performance. Skills rooted in emotional intelligence or EI, something that AI cannot authentically replicate. What’s interesting about James’s perspective is that he doesn’t view emotional intelligence as a soft skill. He views it as a business skill, one that impacts how advisors build rapport, earn referrals, lead teams, deepen client relationships, and ultimately differentiate themselves in an increasingly competitive marketplace that includes human and machine-driven advice. Our conversation explores why rapport is the foundation of trust, how emotional intelligence can be developed like any other professional skill, and why advisors who learn to create authentic human connection may be best positioned to thrive alongside AI, not compete against it. Or as James puts it, remain untouchable in the face of a changing world. Because while technology may continue to reshape how advice is delivered, the experience of being understood, trusted, and guided by another human being remains remarkably difficult to replicate. So, let’s get to it. James, thank you for joining me today, especially coming all the way from the UK. I’m grateful. James Woodfall: Thanks for having me on. Mindy Diamond: So, let’s start at the beginning. You’re a different kind of guest for us, and a topic that is near and dear to my heart because I’m always all about emotional intelligence and EQ, but it’s a topic that sometimes can feel a little squishy to some folks. So, tell us a little bit about your background and really how you got into the world of wealth management. James Woodfall: I got into wealth management probably was by accident while I was, I think about 19 years old. I got a job at a bank because I was living with different jobs and it was the first company that would take me. So I ended up working in a bank as a cashier in a branch. And then after a series of different career moves, I ended up running my own wealth management firm for about nine years, which I sold about three and a half years ago. Around the time that I was selling it, I did my first master’s degree in communication and behavior analysis, and that’s when I started taking a bit of a deep dive into understanding emotional intelligence and behavior and communication. But really, I started that journey before I sold my wealth management company, and really the goal was, how can I become a better financial advisor to my clients by having a better understanding of their psychology behavior around money so that I could communicate with them more effectively, help them build their plans? So I had a bit of a… like a lot of people I speak to in wealth management, they fell into it. Mindy Diamond: So, a lot to unpack there and I’m fascinated by your story. Tell us a little bit about how you began to use or leverage emotional intelligence. You say you got into it or were fascinated by it because it was a way of helping your clients. So, talk to us a little bit about that. How did you begin to see the impact long before you started this business? James Woodfall: So going back a couple of steps to that. When I started the business, it was very transactional. You’d sit down with the client, you find out about what sort of assets they have, what type of plans they have already, and you look for gaps where you can optimize things, or there was a product which they need which you didn’t have. But I moved away from that type of service to a financial planning led service. So, where actually before we get talking about, well, how do we structure your world? We spend a lot of time building a plan in cashflow modeling software. So the one that I used was over at a company called Voyant, and effectively I build a cashflow plan for the clients, which would map out based on assumptions of what age they would reach financial independence. And then that then would then move on to, how to we optimize your holdings? Now what occurred to me pretty quickly in offering that service is that the outputs from that type of exercise are only as good as the inputs. So you’re really relying on the client to be able to come up with the answers to the questions that you ask them to make the financial plan work. And in my experience, quite a lot of the time you sit down with these people and you ask them, “Imagine you’re retired, what does an ideal week look like for you?” So, what I realized is actually I was asking clients a lot of questions which no one had ever asked them before, such as, “If you go retire, imagine you’re retired tomorrow, what does your idea week look like?” Very rarely do we get asked that day-to-day, especially not from friends, family members, certainly. So I went off and actually did a diploma in coaching because I thought initially I want to become better at actually getting people to think about the future and think about plans. And in doing that, I ended up wanting to take a bit of a deeper dive into understanding behavior at a higher level. So that led me on to getting my masters. Impacts on clients though is that I became, and me as well, is that I became a far better listener first. So I listened first, I stopped making so many assumptions as I found I had about people. And really, I think that changed the dynamic in terms of me constant, I suppose, dictating to people about what they should be doing. So of course that’s what a good advisor does, isn’t it, is advice. You switch around into actually making sure you’ve got a deep understanding of people’s hopes, fears, goals, dreams, and then ultimately, you can help them better in terms of optimizing their financial plans and wealth. Mindy Diamond: Yeah. 100% of what you just said speaks to me in a big way, because that is 100% our philosophy. Most recruiters, I don’t mean it disparagingly, but most recruiters in general are pretty transactional. They see a hammer, they see a nail. So, a recruiter sees a financial advisor and he’s a means to an end to making a deal to a transaction. And our whole approach from day one was never about seeing you, financial advisor, as a transaction, but rather first and foremost, wanting to understand what’s important to you. And we get told all the time that we were asking questions that nobody ever asked them before. And I want to unpack it more, because I love what you’re saying. The goal as far as I see it is not just to ask a bunch of questions nobody asked before, but it’s to ask questions as a means to an end, to start out by asking questions that make somebody comfortable that tell them that you care about them. Then it’s about asking questions that they’ve never been asked before because the answers to a question like, “How do you see yourself behaving in retirement,” has everything to do with how much money they’ll need to retire. So, one informs the other. In our world asking somebody, “What are the things that spark you and what are the things that really don’t? And what will you do with this information?” And all those sorts of questions are questions many people had never been asked before, especially if somebody was looking at them as a transaction. And yet, it’s what deepens relationships, it’s what creates trust, and it’s what allows you to identify me as a recruiter, identify the best solution or the best opportunity for someone. So, do you agree with that? Is there anything that I’m off about? James Woodfall: No, that’s exactly the point. I think I’m asking better questions as a wealth manager talking to your client. Because ultimately this is, I suppose, one of the things which comes from understanding emotional intelligence, is that for most of us, we make decisions in motion first and then we justify with logic and reasoning, which is basically back to from. If I was to start with logical reasoning and then expect people to make a buying decision. And so a lot of the time, especially with things like retirement savings, for example, because it’s in the future, it’s over there, especially if it’s 10, 20 years away, people think, “Well, why will I give up so much money a month now for something which is so far in the future that I can’t comprehend it yet?” But if you start reigning the questions in a way which gets to kind of the… Really what you want to uncover is, if you wake up at 3:00 in the morning and you can’t get back to sleep, what’s on your mind? Because if you can uncover that emotion that fits all that kind of pain or problem, then you deal with emotion first and logic second. Mindy Diamond: And it tells you what you need to solve for, right? James Woodfall: Exactly, yeah. Mindy Diamond: If what keeps me up is I’m worried I’m going to outlive my money, and you know that’s your true north in terms of how you begin to tackle that they’re thinking about the future, they want you to focus on the long term. Right? Is that what you get from that? What’s the typical answer you get to that question, that one in particular? James Woodfall: For retirement planning, it’s usually clusters around. “Well, I’m not sure I’m making the right decision. There’s lots of options that are complicated. But really, actually, am I going to have enough money? Am I going to run out?” Because it’s the big question, isn’t it? How long are you going to live and how much are you going to need? Mindy Diamond: Right. As I was preparing for this interview, I think I know the answer because I’m a person that lives in this world that believes fully in, I don’t have a degree in behavioral finance but I’m big on emotional intelligence, connecting, developing trust, and that I don’t have any right to sell anybody anything or suggest anything unless I’ve connected on an interpersonal level. But I don’t know that everybody believes that. So help us, our listeners to understand, why does this matter to financial advisors? So, I’m going to give you two examples. I’m a younger advisor that has, say, five to 10 years in the business, say $100 million or 100 million pounds under management and is looking to really build a business. How and why does the concept of emotional intelligence, of EI, matter to me? And then I’m going to ask you the same question again with respect to someone who manages a billion dollars or a billion pounds. How and why does it matter? James Woodfall: Yeah. I think probably a starting point is, let’s just clear up I suppose in definitions so that we understand what we’re talking about when we say emotional intelligence, it’s an EQ. Because I suppose let’s think about, let’s call EQ the measurement, and emotional intelligence is the concept. So the definition of emotional intelligence is it’s an ability, and it’s this ability to understand and influence emotions in ourselves and others. So within ourselves, can we perceive and understand our own emotions? What turns them on? What triggers them? Can we do something about that? Can we recognize it, manage it in the right context, or either initiate our emotions in the right context? And can we do that when we’re talking to other people? So, are we good at perceiving people’s emotions within different contexts, and are we good at influencing and utilizing that information to help us communicate more effectively? So, these are skills which requires regard within those two roles to make you effective. And so, one of the things that we’ve learned from probably 30 years of people studying emotion intelligence is that if emotion is involved within the job role, emotional intelligence correlates with job performance and has a meaningful impact on the difference between an average and a big performer. So regardless of whether it’s one of the two scenarios that you’ve said, performance improvements are always on the table. But one of the things which tends to happen as you move from, say, up in terms of the money that you’re managing is the stakes get higher. So quite often, you actually need a much far higher degree of self-management, a higher degree of self-awareness, a higher degree of ability to perceive emotions in others, and to be able to communicate with influence. Because quite often as you are dealing with clients who are more affluent, there’s a correlation between actually the skills that your clients have and the skills that they expect you to have as an advisor. So the higher you go up that sort of ladder in terms of value, the more effective you need to be. So that’s where that EQ measurement. If you had to sit down and do an EQ assessment, for example, you need to be scoring way above average the higher up you go. Mindy Diamond: How will somebody begin to notice that developing the emotional intelligence muscle, developing the quantity of EQ, how will that begin to show up and impact their business? James Woodfall: There’s a couple of ways, and I think it really does show up in self-awareness and self-management and awareness and understanding of others. So one of the things which will show up in terms of that awareness and understanding of others is, can you build trusted relationships quickly? So like those skills that we were talking about before about asking better questions and listening, especially the first time you meet a new prospective client, if you can really turn your ears on and get very, very curious about the person that you’re talking to, rapport building is one of the foundational things for trust building. And really, if you get rapport building right, one of the goals should be to find common ground early, because the minute that you can build a connection with people and you start uncovering things that you’ve got in common, it starts signaling to people that actually you’re someone who is like them, on their side, and that they’re someone that you can trust. Now people who get this right, they tend to close more clients and they tend to gain more referrals or recommendations to other clients. And when I used to run my business, referrals was the largest source of new clients. Every single year, all the other different marketing streams, they didn’t produce anything near referrals. And I think back to that, if you look back to the kind of retirement example, if you can really get an answer to that question of, you wake up at 3:00 AM, what’s on your mind, what’s up when you’re getting back to sleep? If you can uncover that and solve that, for a client, it’s far easier to articulate that to a friend than it is for them to explain the technicalities of what you did with their retirement savings. But it’s easier to articulate, “You should absolutely go and see James. We were worried about whether we’re saving enough, he solved that, it’s brilliant, you need to go and see him.” That’s what I mean, is that they’re able to articulate the emotional outcome. Mindy Diamond: Even though what we’re talking about here is someone making the case that strengthening one’s emotional intelligence will make you a better advisor, easier to say that, sounds logical. But you’re connecting it to, you’re saying that someone who actually gets this right, gets it better, is going to create more of an instant rapport rooted in trust, and likely grow their business because it makes them more referable. And those are things that certainly every young advisor wants, but every advisor wants. So, let me switch the tables a second. I get why a young advisor with 100 million wants to get to a billion, why this is really important. They want to do everything they can to really make themselves the most referable. But let’s take the advisor that’s on the back nine that has been doing this 30 years, manages a billion and a half of pounds, dollars in assets under management, is growing by referrals and it’s an organic referral stream. It’s a business that feeds itself. So, while everybody always needs to be in business development mode, they feel like they’ve cracked the code, they’ve got it covered. How and why does this concept impact a senior advisor, someone with a much bigger, more robust book of business? James Woodfall: Yeah, it’s interesting. So if we take a bit of a step back and look at a bit about what some of the research says about the impacts of emotional intelligence, there have been some studies done within financial services about the impact of your training on business outcomes. So there was a study done probably around about between 2000 and 2004 with Ameriprise, and they brought their agents through a year-long emotional intelligence development program. And it was interesting, they measured at the beginning of the program EQ, what someone’s EQ score was, but they measured things like health, anger, trade anger. So, how often were people experiencing anger, stress, and burnout. So they’re measuring all sorts of things other than EQ just to see what the impact of EQ training was. Now EQ scores went up, sales went up, I think on average of about 24% across four cohorts. But things like stress, burnout, health outcomes, perceived health outcomes, people are asked to rate, how would you rate your health, that went up. Experience of anger went down because people become better at managing it. So as you look at the kind of example that you described, I would say that as someone who’s in that stage of the career where they may not have the capacity to take on more clients. So just think, well, actually, I don’t want an uplift of 20%, 24% in sales because I might not process that. But one of the things which I suppose the EI research shows actually is that it impacts your quality of life. And there is finding which is quite common in research, is that actually EI scores correlate with age. So as we go through life and we have sort of ups, downs, highs, lows, and we learn from those. We learn from our emotional experience, and that’s hypothesis, is it feeds into our EQ score. So you’ve probably got people at that later stage of their career who actually probably have had experience which has developed their emotional intelligence. They’ve got mature standing, which means that they might not necessarily need to go out and find new clients. They’ve got experience, which has helped them develop client relationships, but they might want to take a step back at quality of life. If they’re experiencing stress, burnout, pressure, EQ can help absolutely with all of those. The other thing which is quite common as well is that if they’re playing any sort of leadership part within that business now, let’s say if they’re a business owner, EQ absolutely is key for leadership performance. So making sure that you’re building a team of people around you, you can help you develop the business. And actually, EI and leadership’s one of the biggest areas where research has been focused. But I think one of the other things I’ve got to say is that we’ve all got blind spots. It doesn’t matter where we are in life, we’ve all got things that I suppose that we could be better at. And actually shining a lens on those and improving our self-awareness is something that you can develop at all stages. Mindy Diamond: A lot of people in our industry, whether it be a recruiter or an advisor themselves, believe that efficiency or being most effective and efficient is the true north. And that to ask what may fee like unnecessary or ancillary questions that don’t directly get to help me to figure out what your asset allocation is so that I can grow your portfolio, may feel ancillary. And so, is that one of the most common objections you get when somebody, say, comes to you and they’re thinking about retaining you and they’re wondering what the benefit is? James Woodfall: Well, I think the people in firms I tend to talk to, there’s a couple of common things that are coming to mind now. One is pressure around fees. So, how can I make sure I’m articulating my value in a time where clients are more informed, they can go on AI and they come to meetings prepared with answers, and they’re challenging back around the value that advisors can provide. So getting back, I suppose, and the answer is funnily enough, is actually if you’ve designed your service around a proposition which makes yourself easy to replace by someone else who can do it for the same or cheaper price with a promise of better performance, or even in the years coming, a robo-advisor, it’s going to be challenging to retain and grow clients. But I’m not particularly worried about AI. The other types of firms that come to me is to say, “Look, we’ve identified actually that we need to think differently about our business model, what we do and who we serve, because it’s going to be easier than it’s ever been for clients to come up to do some of these things themselves.” But absolutely what is untouchable, I think, is this ability to create a human connection, to sit down and discuss a range of different options. “Do I do X, do I do Y? What are the trade-offs if I choose that over that?” And to uncover those things which, as I said, really keep people up at night and solve for them. I think it’s going to be quite hard to replicate that digitally. Mindy Diamond: So I want to get to a end that you hit the nail on the head, and I want to delve deeper into it. Whatever the advisor is looking for, they may not worry about pressure around fees, they may not be kept up at night. They have a practice or a business that’s worked well all these years and is growing organically and it’s more than good enough. But anybody who isn’t concerned about the potential impact of AI on their business and whether they’re a financial advisor or recruiter or anybody else, is living under a rock. So, the goal for everyone should be to make yourself untouchable. And you hit it on the head, it’s the ability to create human connection. So, I want to ask you something. It occurs to me, you talk a lot about learning to ask the right questions. In some cases, the questions that a client never been asked before makes sense to me. But I think the real skill, I mean, I imagine anybody can teach you a list of questions to ask. The real skill comes in is knowing what to do with that information. So, let’s assume that someone says an advisor says you ask that smart question, “What keeps you up at night? What do you think about at 3:00 AM?” Pressure around fees. I find people, clients asking me, prospects asking me all the time what sort of value I can add, whether it be in the land of AI or competitively, whatever it is, pressure around fees. What do you do? So you’ve asked the smart question, but what do you teach? What do you do with that information? James Woodfall: It’s a mindset, I think, because having just say a list of questions I don’t think is really helpful to any advisor when you’re training them. And yet I find I do get people who, okay, say, “Well, look, what questions should we ask? Have you got a list of questions that you would ask?” I hold back giving those out because I think that, well, that’s what I would say. It’s not necessarily going to land the same way if you say it. The mindset I’m trying to teach advisor is to adopt a curious mindset. So not asking questions for question’s sake, but if I’m talking to someone, what I want to do is I want to understand, how are you thinking? How do you see the problem? What assumptions are you making? What things do you believe which maybe don’t line up with how things are in reality, or goals, objectives, or whatever it is. So I’m trying to understand how you think, and that requires not asking questions off a list of great questions to ask, comes off of understanding the format for that, is utilizing the open questions to gather information, to check assumptions that might sit behind them, because actually understanding those assumptions is really, really useful. And to then summarize and play back to someone that you’re talking to so that you can demonstrate that you’re listening and you deeply understand them, and being able to summarize and be able to succinctly put their words into a, “Well, what do we do next about this?” Mindy Diamond: Yeah, and, why does it matter? I love that because what I always say is it’s art, not science. AI could give you a list of, if I put in the topic of emotional intelligence and give me a list of 10 smart questions to ask relative to X. One of the questions I would ask someone from an emotional perspective that demonstrates I have strong emotional perspective relative to pressure around fees, AI could spit out the questions. But I think you’re 100% right. The real key is being a good listener and meeting someone where they are. And it’s not about a prescribed or canned list of questions that demonstrate you have strong emotional intelligence. It’s much more about asking the right next question, saying the right thing, the validating statement afterwards. And not as a means to an end, not as a means to a transaction, not as just a way of checking the box, I have emotional intelligence, but really because demonstrating that you deeply care. And I like what you said, the notion of a changed mindset. Do people get that right away? I guess what I’m asking is, financial advisors, while smart ones who are looking to make themselves untouchable by AI will get that concept. They’re looking to differentiate themselves and they’re looking to hone the skills that AI can’t bring to the table. But at the same time, financial advisors are number oriented and goal oriented. And so, how long does it typically take to begin to see, or how do you paint the picture about getting from here to there, connecting the dots between strengthening changing your mindset, strengthening your emotional intelligence, and seeing more results? James Woodfall: Well, look, it’s about behavior change, isn’t it? Like any kind of behavior change, there has to be a few things at play. One is that you have to have a good understanding of where you are right now, what things that you are good at, but what things you need to work on. And then effectively the things you need to work on, you need a plan of how you’re going to work on them. So I think commonly how you develop these kind of relational skills is that you need to be able to get close to, what does the goal look like? Where am I headed? If I get this right, what’s it going to look like? And then you need to have a plan to get from A to B. And actually part of that plan has to be built around good feedback. And I was quite lucky where during my career, I worked for two large banks before I started my firm. And I had really, really good training from managers that I worked with, almost on a monthly basis would come and sit in my client meetings and then feedback to me about what I could have done better. And so actually, if you’re going to really commit to developing, I suppose relational skills and becoming more emotionally intelligent, you need help from someone within your firm or externally to come in and actually observe you by trying out new things and giving you feedback. Now of course, you could do some of that yourself if you’re doing a virtual meeting, you could hit record, play it back, be your own analyst. But quite often we can’t see that ourselves, but if you’ve got say a third party, they can watch you in action. Quite quickly they can hone in and say, “Well, actually, you could have asked a different question here, or actually if you’d phrased that like this, you might’ve got a bit more information, or the client closed down when you ask that question.” So actually then, you start to create that behavior change. So feedback I think is one thing, but actually aligning it with really, values, I think. So, one of the things that I suppose is quite important for behavior change is that we are motivated to do things where we strongly believe it’s the right thing to do. So, I think which is why it can be quite difficult for a firm to bring in with a team of advisors and say, “Well, we’re going to roll out emotional intelligence training,” because you’ll get some of us go, “This is brilliant.” Mindy Diamond: Eye roll. I would imagine eye roll is the… It can be a lot of the response, right? James Woodfall: You get a lot of resistance, because some people see it as a criticism of just saying, “Well, actually I’m good at that. I don’t need training in that, thank you very much.” Mindy Diamond: And because if efficiency in getting to a goal is the true north, I mean, I think the mindset shift you’re talking about is going from believing that getting to the goal by just asking the right numbers and dealing in data, changing that from it’s about building a relationship, which ultimately will impact the amount you manage and how you grow and how you connect and all of that stuff. But for people that are goal-oriented, linear in their thinking, I imagine this can be not just felt as a criticism but hard to embrace. James Woodfall: Oh, yeah, no. I think we view the brain as kind of a black box. I do get people I speak to, they go, “Mental health isn’t real. And all of this is psychobabble,” but from the people that I’ve had feedback from, and this is even for people I haven’t trained. I wrote a book about 18 months ago about the topic which talks about emotion intelligence within the 5X context. I’ve had people contact me on LinkedIn and say, “Look, I read your book. I’ve been following your content for a while. I’ve put some of the ideas to work, and I’m now getting my manager and their manager contact me and saying, ‘What are you doing differently?’” Because all of a sudden they’re opening up conversations with clients that they couldn’t before, doing business with clients where they couldn’t before. And all it is that this kind of focus on the client, the relationship, building that connection, and all of a sudden you start seeing that convert into more sales opportunities. Mindy Diamond: Yes and more yes, because that’s always been our philosophy, my philosophy from starting the business and our philosophy, and I couldn’t agree with you more. You articulated it probably as did, I got to it instinctively. You have research behind it, etc. By the way, for our listeners, we will link your book in the notes for this episode if anybody’s interested in buying it. But you hit the nail on the head, so, or you took the words out of my mouth in terms of next question. Who are your clients? Are they individual advisors? Are they independent RIAs? Are they Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch? And what kind of work do you do for them? James Woodfall: So, I do, there’s probably two parts to my business. One is the consulting training part, which is going into firms, typically firms that were the owner managed typically, where the owner either is still advising or has a big impact on other behaviors of the advice team that’s underneath them. And really, I work on a consultancy basis. So rather than going and just provide EI training, what I do is effectively start with understanding the business. So exactly as I’ve been talking to you about, the process I used to follow as an advisor, it’s the same process I follow when I’m working with practices, is I want to find out what’s going well in the business. Where are the blockers, what’s not going so well? And I’m a social science researcher. So I’d want to spend some time in the business actually doing a bit of a deep dive and maybe speaking to the team while the owner’s not in the room and finding out a bit about how they’re seeing things. Because ultimately, what that will do is it allows me to look at thematically extracting what types of training interventions might move the needle within the business. And then I put that onto a report for businesses and say, “Look, this is what I think we should be doing.” Some of that might be me working one-to-one, doing that coaching, observing, training with particular people in the business who have been highlighted as requiring development, or it might be group training, might be taking the whole teams through a training program. And then following up, helping build those development plans, and then being there supporting with the one-to-ones as they bed in that behavior change. So, that’s one part of the business. The other part of the business is working for the larger firms. I’ve done a bit of work for Fidelity this year and last year, and they’re looking to hire me as an authority expert on the topic to put together training programs that go out to the advisors that they work with. So, there’s the two aspects, like an external speaker trainer that’s brought in by some of the larger companies. And then the other one is a bit more hands-on, applying not only the science but my experience of having been there and run a business. Mindy Diamond: Right. So are the big firms like… So you mentioned Fidelity, are the wirehouses, Merrill, Morgan, UBS, Wells Fargo, are they embracing this? Are the big banks embracing it, or is this largely in the RIA space right now? James Woodfall: In the UK, there’s been a huge kind of interest in emotional intelligence, behavioral finance, relational skills. And actually, a lot of the kind of people who require influential in the UK are actually based in the US. And so, I think there’s a good bit of crossover. We’ve got good people who are specialists in looking at the retirement piece from a retirement transition about, how do you support people through what is a profound psychological transition? So, I think the RIAs are really interested in it as a topic. Then we’ve got the larger institutions are interested in it either as the RIAs are clients of theirs and they want to be seen to providing thought leadership to the RIAs and helping them develop these skills. But also, we’ve got some quite large companies in the UK now here, like the banks, for example, the banks or the whole exited the advice market in around about 2012, 2013, and then this year they’re starting to come back. So they’ve had 15 years nearly out of the market and they’re coming back because they’re just wanting an opportunity for face-to-face advice. So, I think actually it’s a hot topic now and I think all segments of the market are looking at, how do they develop non-technical skills to help them succeed in the future? Mindy Diamond: Can someone who was not born with strong EQ, can they learn this? James Woodfall: Absolutely. One of the interesting things about EQ is it’s not like IQ, for example. IQ is our a sort of cognitive ability. There was some good research that was done probably about, I think 2016, which looked at, do you remember all this sort of brain training apps like, if you do Sudoku, do you get smarter? You get better at Sudoku, but it doesn’t translate into performance on another. You don’t get better at crosswords from doing Sudoku, for example. So, IQs are pretty much fixed and there’s not a lot we can do about that. But EQ has been shown to be a trainable ability. So regardless of where you are now, if you understand your strengths and weaknesses and put a plan together for improvement, everyone has the ability to improve their EQ. And it’s not like personality, for example, where it’s quite hard to shift the dial. Let’s say if you’re quite strongly introverted and you find social situations difficult, if you just took that approach and said, “Well, look, can we make you extremely extroverted?” The answer would be, well, probably not. But EQ absolutely helps that person because noticing that you feel uncomfortable in, say, a networking situation if you have to do that professionally, having the tools in the bag to manage that feeling and throw yourself into the experience, that’s EQ in action. So, it doesn’t matter your baseline of where you are, EQ can have a big impact on your ability to perform across a range of different contexts, home, work, with friends. Mindy Diamond: Yeah. Let’s talk about your comment that EQ or strong emotional intelligence is what can make an advisor untouchable by AI. And I assume the premise being that, I can’t replace a human relationship. It may be able to come up with the questions, but at least for today it lacks the ability to know what to do with that information and to create the human connection. Talk to me more about that. How and why is that? I mean, is that part of why people are coming to you, because they’re worried about AI encroaching on their business? James Woodfall: Where we are at the moment is actually AI… Let’s look at healthcare for a second. Chatbots in healthcare have actually been outperforming humans in some respects. So there’s a type of therapy called cognitive behavior therapy, that’s been run with AI agents and patients. And as researchers to show that actually, disclosure has increased when patients are speaking to a chatbot because cognitive behavior therapy is like it’s guided, is a method, it’s a methodology to it. But disclosure increases and this theory behind that is is that people open up more when they don’t feel like they’re being judged by another person. So that’s interesting, because that saying to us, “Well, actually, people are trusting AI agents with very, very personal information, and people are already getting that feeling of empathy with AI agents.” Because if you tell an AI agent something deeply personal and it says, “That must have been really difficult for you,” for example. Mindy Diamond: Yeah, it does that well. Wonderful feedback about how great you are or what a smart question you just asked. James Woodfall: Yeah, but it’s synthetic, it’s not real empathy, it’s synthetic empathy. Whilst we might feel actually we get that feeling that we’re being understood, it’s not real. And I think the advisor’s edge is, look, I think where we might end up with this is that if you take a step back and you do this kind of exercise of what’s my ideal client, the ideal client is, I think, now is someone who is still time poor. So yes, an AI agent might be able to interview you, build a financial plan, but do you really want to spend the time doing that or do you have any inclination to do that? No. Well, that’s a perfect client who would hire an advisor. They value human relationships. Obviously when we do get AI entering the advisor market, it’s going to be at a lower price point. So actually, we’re now talking about a difference between experience. So the experience of being with an advisor comes at a premium. So that experience is going to be what people are going to pay additional value for. So, it’s the experience of dealing with a human. It’s the experience of dealing with a human who can talk them through complex information and options, help them understand their thinking and apply judgment, connect with those emotional things. But there’s a whole range of information that we get when we’re talking face-to-face, which AI doesn’t have access to. So back to that retirement example, if we say, “Well, man, I’ve modeled your plan. If we do X, Y, and Z, you’re not going to run out of money when you retire. You’re going to be okay.” And then the person, usually what they do is they sigh with relief, which is actually the emotion of joy, relief is actually happiness. So that sigh of relief and the softening of muscle tension in the body that you see when you’re face-to-face with another person, AI can’t, doesn’t get that data. Mindy Diamond: And how powerful is that? So, why does that matter? If I say, “I have X, I need Y. I have X number of years until I retire. Will I have enough money to retire the way I want to?” AI can spit that answer out faster than any financial advisor and come back hopefully saying, “Yes,” they’ll know that I will experience relief and joy because I’ll write back saying, “Great news.” It’ll say, “Yes, that is fabulous news.” It’ll tell me why I’m relieved and all that sort of stuff. So, why does that matter? James Woodfall: I think fundamentally, it comes back to trust. For those people who can get that quick answer, they’ll go, “Yeah, that’s great.” But there’ll be some people who go, “Yeah, fine. I’ll take that answer at face value.” There’ll be other people who go, “Well, what if you made a mistake?” Quite interesting that actually, people will get the same answer from a human advisor and they’ll trust it more. And I think one of those things is because we’re wired for connection, so when empathy develops, it’s quite interesting. Something which you see in young children, for example, is when we develop at the very early stage, probably about three or four years old, before children have learned to self-regulate their emotions, you see emotional contagion in groups of children happen quite rapidly. You get one child who say gets a toy taken away from them and starts crying, and then all the other children at the same age in the nursery start crying. Now, none of those other ones are crying because they’re sad. They’re crying because we have these things called mirror neurons, which means we pick up and mirror the emotional state of people around us. So, you actually get an experience of shared feeling and especially if you’ve got strong rapport, strong relationship, you actually share emotions of the people around you. Now, of course, as we grow out of that developmental stage, we learn this ability to understand that actually what we’re feeling isn’t happening to us, it’s happening to someone else. But have you ever been around… My favorite example for this is, if my wife has had a bad day at work because she comes home and starts slamming the door and banging cupboards, why I start to feel anger, because it’s rubbing off, it’s in the room. So, it’s this shared understanding that I think is where the value is. And so absolutely the answer might be faster and quicker, but for some clients they value that experience of having that answer delivered by someone who understands them. Mindy Diamond: And I think, so the point is that there will be clients or prospects that will value the efficiency of AI, that don’t necessarily need the face-to-face, that don’t necessarily… They just want the answer. They want the answers to the test, they don’t care how you got there. But what you’re talking about is finding the clients that really value the human connection. And if that’s what in fact is going to make advisors untouchable, then they need to make sure that they really strengthen this skill. James Woodfall: It’s not just the answer, but it’s the whole experience that’s wrapped around that. So actually last year, and my wife took me to a restaurant and we had a lovely, lovely meal. And on the menu there was this cup of coffee and the beans were like one of the rarest beans in the world. They’re the ones that get eaten by this little animal with the jungle in it, poops them out, and then the beans get roasted. But it was about 40 pounds for this cup of coffee and I thought, well, I’m going to have that. But that’s the experience, isn’t it? I could get a cup of coffee at McDonald’s, but actually the experience of this, something which is rare, exclusive, delivered in an amazing environment, that’s what you’re paying for. So, you’ve got to remember that actually if experience dictates a lot of what we value as well. So because if all of our decisions were made on price, Ferrari wouldn’t have a business because everyone would just be buying the cheapest car that does the job. You’re going to think advisors that are going to operating in this space, well, they need to think about the whole package, as in the experience that the plan that’s delivered, and the advice. Mindy Diamond: But it speaks to the notion of any advisor that isn’t thinking about AI’s impact on his business and how to reshape or rewire the business, even just rewiring the value proposition, retooling their value proposition, how they explain their value and what they do needs to change because they’re competing not only with the advisor that sits next to them or down the hall, but they’re competing with AI. How about as AI, as you see AI develop? So fast-forward five years, you and I are talking about where AI is today, but AI is, God knows where it’ll be five years from now. So, how do you foresee, do you still foresee the advisor being untouchable if they get this right, five or 10 years from now? James Woodfall: I don’t think it’s financial advice that’s unique with this, because I think it’s any profession where at the moment human judgment and understanding are valued. Healthcare, for example, same thing, doctors follow consultancy process. You’ve got this like tax, legal, a whole range of professions which are all grappling on the same problem. So I think in five years time, I think the answer is, is that we just don’t know what AI will look like. But certainly in the moment, if you track what Claude are doing with code work, and what Perplexity is doing with its skills and add-ons, a lot of it is actually at the moment geared up to freeing up the advisor’s time so that they can spend more time with clients. So, I think at the moment this sort of trend is looking like AI companies want to support advisors to be way more efficient so that they can deal with more clients. But in five years time, who knows? I think probably one of the biggest leaps that will happen is when AI is no longer working from, say, just a transcript. If it gets out to that kind of chat where you can actually interact with an AI agent like you and I are talking, I think that’s going to provide a different experience, because then you’re moving it from, as I said, that kind of structure where somebody is stuck there tapping away at keyboard, having a conversation with a chatbot, effectively, to actually having a conversation with an embodied agent with a face, gestures, a voice. That I think will start to change things a little bit. Mindy Diamond: Yeah. Well, it will be an interesting future, for sure. This has been a fascinating conversation. I really enjoyed it, and thank you so much for sharing so graciously. Is there anything to wrap up that I didn’t ask you, that you would want an advisor to know about this concept or anything you’re thinking about? James Woodfall: I think we’ve taken a broad sweep and then a deep dive into certain areas. I think really probably have to get started. I think probably one of the… I mean, you mentioned obviously I’ve got a book that you share the links to, which is fantastic. Audiobook is available to that as well on Spotify or wherever audiobooks are listed. I think there’s a lot of good advice in that about how to get started. So, I think for people who are looking at covering that next step of, what do we do, it’d be, yeah, pick up a book and have a bit of a deep dive. If you want to skip the book and come straight to having a conversation with me, then I write a weekly email, which goes out once a week, which is just one topic. So very much like we’ve been talking today, I share ideas on that once a week, or on LinkedIn, I’m around on LinkedIn as well. Mindy Diamond: Good. Well, we will link all of it so everyone knows how to find you. Thank you again for being so gracious. Love the topic, love the work that you’re doing, love that there’s a need for it, and can’t wait to see where you go from here. James Woodfall: Brilliant. No, I enjoyed it. Thank you. Mindy Diamond: Thank you. As a financial advisor, you hold yourself to the highest standards of integrity, honesty, and credibility. You are successful because you take your professional responsibility seriously, and are dedicated to your clients. But are you living your best business life? Are your goals aligned with your firms or could a better option exist? Should I Stay or Should I Go? Is a book written with you in mind? It’s a self-guided journey that walks you through the key steps that we take with our advisor clients. This strategic thought process and roadmap to professional self-discovery is designed to help you ask the right questions and think critically and objectively, whether you’re considering change or not. Learn how to get your copy at diamond-consultants.com/thebook. Emotional Intelligence: The “Untouchable” Differentiator in an AI World A conversation with Mindy Diamond and James Woodfall, Communication and Behavior Specialist at Raise Your EI.      Mindy Diamond: Welcome to the latest episode of our podcast series for financial advisors. Today’s episode is Emotional Intelligence: The “Untouchable” Differentiator in an AI World. It’s a conversation with James Woodfall, Communication and Behavior Specialist from Raise Your EI. I’m Mindy Diamond, and this is the Diamond Podcast for Financial Advisors. At Diamond Consultants, we help elite advisors identify the right environment for their businesses to thrive, whether that’s at a wirehouse, boutique, or independent firm. With nearly three decades of experience, we’ve guided thousands of advisors and represented more than a quarter of a trillion dollars in assets transitioned. And each year, one in four advisors managing a billion dollars or more who change firms are our clients. Our process is education driven and based on building relationships, starting as your strategic partner well before you’re even thinking of a move. To schedule a confidential conversation, call us at (908) 879-1002. Wondering why advisors change firms and where they’re headed? Are transition deals going up or down? Those very questions and more inspired us to create our Annual Advisor Transition Report. It’s the award-winning, data-driven resource designed for advisors that connects the dots between the motivations around movement and the firm’s appetite for top talent. Arm yourself with the knowledge you need to make smart decisions. Download your copy at diamond-consultants.com/transitionreport. For years, advisors have competed on expertise, the ability to solve problems, deliver answers, and provide guidance clients couldn’t easily find on their own. But today, those answers are becoming easier to access via artificial intelligence and tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity. AI can generate planning ideas, summarize complex topics, and answer questions in seconds. As the technology continues to improve, it raises an important question. If information becomes increasingly commoditized, what will clients continue to value most? My guest today, James Woodfall, is the Founder of the training firm, Raise Your EI, and a former wealth management business owner. James now helps advisors, leaders, and organizations strengthen the communication and behavioral skills that drive trust, influence, and performance. Skills rooted in emotional intelligence or EI, something that AI cannot authentically replicate. What’s interesting about James’s perspective is that he doesn’t view emotional intelligence as a soft skill. He views it as a business skill, one that impacts how advisors build rapport, earn referrals, lead teams, deepen client relationships, and ultimately differentiate themselves in an increasingly competitive marketplace that includes human and machine-driven advice. Our conversation explores why rapport is the foundation of trust, how emotional intelligence can be developed like any other professional skill, and why advis

On today's show, former A Public Affair host, Zoltán Grossman, is back behind the mic in conversation with political anthropologist, David Vine. They talk about the on-again-off-again war between the US and Iran, the proliferation of US military bases around the world, and the scale of the US military budget. Vine's scholarship shows how US military bases are the linchpin of the expansion of the US empire, creating the conditions for perpetual war. Gulf States have hosted US bases for decades, making them targets in the US war with Iran. US bases encircle the globe and more are planned for construction in the Philippines. Contrary to the claims that these bases protect US democracy, in reality, they ramp up geopolitical tensions and harm the local communities they impose on. With an erratic and dangerous president at home, Vine says that we need to start closing down these bases because they continue to operate as launch pads for unjust wars. Close the bases, bring the troops home, and build up diplomacy, says Vine. With the $100 billion the US spends on these bases, Vine says we could be funding universal healthcare and free college education.  David Vine is a political anthropologist and author of a trilogy of books about war and peace, including The United States of War: A Global History of America's Endless Conflicts, from Columbus to the Islamic State, Base Nation: How U.S. Military Bases Abroad Harm America and the World, and Island of Shame: The Secret History of the U.S. Military Base on Diego Garcia. Vine was a professor of anthropology at American University in Washington, DC from 2006 to 2024. He recently co-authored the Project On Government Oversight report The True Total U.S. Military Budget.  Featured image of a map of US military bases in the Middle East via Wikimedia Commons (CC0 1.0). Did you enjoy this story? Your funding makes great, local journalism like this possible. Donate hereThe post The Network of US Military Bases Provoke Endless Wars appeared first on WORT-FM 89.9.

Original link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddlHPfVJKyc _______________________________________ To order Suicidal Empathy: https://lnk.to/SuicidalEmpathy To order a signed copy of Suicidal Empathy: https://premierecollectibles.com/suicidalempathy _______________________________________ If you appreciate my work and would like to support it: https://subscribestar.com/the-saad-truth https://patreon.com/GadSaad https://paypal.me/GadSaad To subscribe to my exclusive content on X, please visit my bio at https://x.com/GadSaad _______________________________________ This clip was posted on July 7, 2026 on my YouTube channel as THE SAAD TRUTH_2051: https://youtu.be/QZ6Pj5Pbcno _______________________________________ Please visit my website gadsaad.com, and sign up for alerts. If you appreciate my content, click on the "Support My Work" button. I count on my fans to support my efforts. You can donate via Patreon, PayPal, and/or SubscribeStar. _______________________________________ Dr. Gad Saad is a professor, evolutionary behavioral scientist, and author who pioneered the use of evolutionary psychology in marketing and consumer behavior. In addition to his scientific work, Dr. Saad is a leading public intellectual who often writes and speaks about idea pathogens that are destroying logic, science, reason, and common sense.  _______________________________________

Contrary to a common—and incorrect—critique of Rothbard, he was not a fanciful purist who refused to support any political movement that failed to be perfectly libertarian in every way. Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/why-rothbard-sided-american-revolutionaries

Contrary to a common—and incorrect—critique of Rothbard, he was not a fanciful purist who refused to support any political movement that failed to be perfectly libertarian in every way. Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/why-rothbard-sided-american-revolutionaries

From the restaurant menu that has 10 pages of entre options, to trying to pick out a new set of ear buds on Amazon, to telling kids they can be “anything they want.” The anxiety around our seemingly unlimited world continues to increase. Tactically I think we must become more discerning. But conceptually I think it helps to understand that too many options are unhelpful, and why. So when a new book titled,  INSIDE THE BOX: How Constraints Make Us Better, came across my desk, I interested myself. The book is authored by David Epstein who is already the author of the #1 New York Times bestsellers Range and The Sports Gene, and has worked as a senior writer for Sports Illustrated. The tagline for Range is Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World. I like David's questioning and relevantly contrarian approach and was eager to sit down and talk with him about how constraints make us better. David claims that total freedom is the enemy of creativity, and constraint its companion. He says, “Contrary to popular belief, the brain is not designed for thinking. It's designed to save you from having to think.” And thus all the thinking that too many options gives us has a cost. I ultimately interested myself in going forth with decisions by first, vetting them not for what is possible, but what is most probable. And shifting my mindset from wanting no limits, to understanding that less options is actually helpful for my mindset, and my life.  Sign up for your $1/month trial period at shopify.com/kevin Go to shipstation.com and use code KEVIN to start your free trial. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Have you wondered what’s behind the energy in the polygamy revisionist movement? Are these the same as RLDS polygamy arguments? Back in 2010, Newell Bringhurst wrote a chapter in “Persistence of Polygamy” on the evolution of RLDS thinking on Joseph Smith’s polygamy, how it got forgotten, and recycled among a new generation of LDS members who weren’t aware of the previous history. https://youtu.be/wD-ZHracUnA Are the modern arguments that Joseph Smith was a strict monogamist actually new? In this deep dive, we explore the “layered archive” of historical claims surrounding Joseph Smith's polygamy, revealing that many of today's “polygamy revisionist” arguments are actually recycled 19th-century RLDS positions. The presentation breaks down the 150-year evolution of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (now Community of Christ) through four distinct phases: The Early Concessions (1852–1860): Contrary to popular belief, early leaders like William Marks and Isaac Sheen did not initially deny Joseph Smith’s involvement. Instead, they claimed he had been involved in “spiritual wifery” but recognized his error and repented shortly before his death in Carthage. The Era of Absolute Denial (1860–1960): Under the leadership of Joseph Smith III, the strategy shifted toward establishing the absolute innocence of the founding prophet. This century-long “institutional mandate” framed D&C 132 as a “Brighamite forgery” and placed the blame for polygamy entirely on Brigham Young. The Academic Shockwave (1960s–1980s): The “dam broke” when mid-century historians like Robert Flanders and Lawrence Foster published research that eroded the bedrock of the church’s denial. This led to a painful institutional reckoning, eventually forcing the church to acknowledge Joseph Smith's foundational role in plural marriage. The Modern Revisionist Resurgence: Today, a new wave of LDS members—facing their own faith crises—are adopting these older RLDS arguments to resolve cognitive dissonance regarding the prophet’s moral legacy. Drawing on works like Newell Bringhurst's The Persistence of Polygamy and Robert Flanders' Nauvoo: Kingdom on the Mississippi, this presentation weighs revisionist claims against the preponderance of contemporaneous evidence. We also discuss the psychological toll of these shifting narratives and the ongoing battle to control the legacy of Joseph Smith. RLDS Polygamy Arguments Chapters 0:00 Introduction and the RLDS Foundation 07:53 Anatomy of a Narrative Shift 08:19 The Bedrock: 1852 to 1960 12:30 Early Concessions 16:42 Joseph Smith III and the Strategy Shift 21:09 D&C 132: Brighamite Forgery? 27:35 Historical Reckoning (1960s to Present) 51:12 Modern Skeptic Movement 1:26:44 Three Paradigms of Polygamy 1:29:17 Conclusion: The Enduring Battle for Legacy

Contrary to what is sometimes assumed, Paul tells us that certain things of global significance have to happen before Christ returns. These things are not happening currently as far as we can see. If this is the case, then in what sense is Christ's return 'imminent'? Borrowing from John Piper, we look at three ways: 1) prophetically near; 2) divinely near; and 3) potentially near. You can watch this message here.

Sacrifice for Kingdom Rewards (1) (audio) David Eells – 7/1/26 Eat Your Manna David Eells Don't miss any opportunity to eat your bread of life from heaven every day. Partaking of the Word of God and fellowship with those who share it is of utmost importance. Exo.16:4 Then said Jehovah unto Moses, Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a day's portion every day, that I may prove them, whether they will walk in my law, or not. The Israelites didn't obey God in this, and they murmured and fell in the wilderness. When, because of worldly pursuits, we pass up the chance to eat our manna today with the excuse that we will do it tomorrow, we miss the only chance we had to eat that manna and prepare our soul for the wilderness. 19 And Moses said unto them, Let no man leave of it till the morning. 20 Notwithstanding they hearkened not unto Moses; but some of them left of it until the morning, and it bred worms, and became foul: and Moses was wroth with them. You see, either you eat it, or you lose it forever. If you have a phone, you can listen and program your mind daily. All excuses aside, people do what is important to them. If the Kingdom is not first in a person's life, God will find someone else who values what He has to offer. Mat.22:4 Again he sent forth other servants, saying, Tell them that are bidden, Behold, I have made ready my dinner; my oxen and my fatlings are killed, and all things are ready: come to the marriage feast. 5 But they made light of it, and went their ways, one to his own farm, another to his merchandise. 8 Then saith he to his servants, The wedding is ready, but they that were bidden were not worthy. 9 Go ye therefore unto the partings of the highways, and as many as ye shall find, bid to the marriage feast. Luk.14:15 And when one of them that sat at meat with him heard these things, he said unto him, Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God. 16 But he said unto him, A certain man made a great supper; and he bade many: 17 and he sent forth his servant at supper time to say to them that were bidden, Come; for [all] things are now ready. 18 And they all with one [consent] began to make excuse. The first said unto him, I have bought a field, and I must needs go out and see it; I pray thee have me excused. 19 And another said, I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to prove them; I pray thee have me excused. 20 And another said, I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come. Jesus accepted none of these excuses to abstain from the Word. 21 And the servant came, and told his lord these things. Then the master of the house being angry said to his servant, Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in hither the poor and maimed and blind and lame. 22 And the servant said, Lord, what thou didst command is done, and yet there is room. 23 And the lord said unto the servant, Go out into the highways and hedges, and constrain [them] to come in, that my house may be filled. 24 For I say unto you, that none of those men that were bidden shall taste of my supper. (Manna Lost) 25 Now there went with him great multitudes: and he turned, and said unto them, 26 If any man cometh unto me, and hateth not his own father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. (Even these cannot be an excuse.) 27 Whosoever doth not bear his own cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple. I pray for you that God will be first in your life. You have a chance to prepare for the wilderness. Without taking advantage of this, you will fall and someone will take your place. “Let no man take thy crown”.   A Call to Sacrifice Debbie Fenske Prophesy 1/25/26 (My dear children, I am doing a work in each of you. My Beloved, I am preparing you. Have you sensed a preparation? Yes, I have been preparing you for a new thing. A new thing, by My Spirit, is coming to you. But it will take you seeking Me so much more than you do. It will take sacrifice. For I need your attention, My children. Attend to Me. Give ear to My words. Give ear to this, My dear ones, whom I have chosen to be in My Bride company. Not only have I chosen you, but you have been My choice pick. Yes, My children, precious to Me. My first pick. So, now comes the sacrifice. It is this one in particular. Give ear. There is much going on. There is much news. What can you trust? Who can you trust? You have been hearing and reading things that have been preparing you and helping you to know how to pray. But I see your confusion. I see doubt and uncertainty in things you are hearing and reading. It is time My children, to pull back. No more, for the time being, of being on your own, hearing and reading so much news. Pull back from letting your eyes see and your ears hear all this news going forth. Pull back and spend time seeking Me, speaking to Me, and hearing Me. Starting now, set that time for Me first. Your daily duties can follow. I appoint your leaders; your leader, David, and your leader, Michael, to give to you what is important for you to know, and to pray for, and to do spiritual warfare against. Whatever they give you to read, and whatever you hear from them, is My will for you to know about, and to do the job I have equipped you for: prayer and spiritual warfare. No seeking, and no sifting through the news, but seeking only Me and gleaning what I have for you from My Word, with ears and eyes wide open to the things of My Spirit. This will be a training for you. A training in sacrifice. For truly, the flesh is what drives you to know these things of the world. I say, listen to your leaders whom I have appointed over you. I know you can do this. I know you can seek Me and hear Me. And I know you can listen. I know you can lay down your life in this small way of sacrifice. My Beloved, you will be rewarded. And the time to let up on what I am putting on you right now will be revealed. But now is the time for sacrifice in this way, unto Me with obedience of heart. This is for your good, My Beloved. And as the days continue on, and as the news continues on, and as the things happening continue on, you will know for certain that this is for your good, and for the good of many, My Beloved. Be humble. Be faithful. Be true. Be obedient to Me out of your love for Me. And, remain in love with one another.   Rewards and Penalties David Eells I want to share a revelation the Lord gave me a few years ago (6/25/02). I was walking on the road next to a golf course, where I sometimes get some exercise. I immediately noticed golf balls here and there by the road, having been knocked out of the course. It is not unusual to see one or two like this, but I was seeing many now. Usually, this area is combed very well by earlier walkers. After picking up six or seven balls, I thought, “How unusual, I wonder if you are talking to me, Lord”. Then I saw a bright yellow advertisement on the ground, probably blown from someone's mailbox or front door. The unusual thing was that it was within inches of a golf ball that was the exact same unusual color. There was nothing else of that color as far as I could see. The chances against this happening are awesome, I am sure. Then I knew the Lord was speaking to me, but I was not yet sure what. I continued my walk, picking up nine golf balls. My pockets were bulging. On my way home, I had the distinct impression that I would find one more ball. I turned down my street, and just before reaching home, I found one more ball, quite a ways from the course. That made ten in all. I asked the Lord what He was saying, but received no answer until the next day. The Lord showed me that the golf course was like the believers' race to the finish line. I know little of golf, but I understand the trick is to follow that little ball (like we are to follow Christ) across the finish with as few strokes as possible. A hole-in-one, which would of course win the race for that particular hole, would necessitate hitting the ball only once. In disregard to God's command to merely speak to the rock, Moses “smote the rock with his rod twice” and it brought forth water. The penalty for this was that he was not permitted to enter the Promised Land with Joshua and Caleb (Num.20:8-13). 1Co.10:4 and did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of a spiritual rock that followed them: and the rock was Christ. 5 Howbeit with most of them God was not well pleased: for they were overthrown in the wilderness. Jesus, our Rock, who brought forth the water of life, was smitten once at the crucifixion. We are told that He is not to be smitten twice. We are told that those who walk in willful disobedience “crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame” Heb.6:6. The person who walks in obedience crucifies the old man (2Co.4:16), but those who walk in willful sin “crucify to themselves” the new man who is “Christ in you the hope of glory”. They smite the rock twice. Those who are twice born and continue to walk in this way will be “twice dead, plucked up by the roots” Jude 12. Heb.10:26 For if we sin willfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more a sacrifice for sins, 27 but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and a fierceness of fire, which shall devour the adversaries. 28 A man that hath set at nought Moses law dieth without compassion on [the word of] two or three witnesses: 29 of how much sorer punishment, think ye, shall he be judged worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace? Jesus bore all sin; He also bore the penalty for all sin, except willful disobedience. Notice that there is “no more a sacrifice” for that sin. Instead, there should be “a certain fearful expectation of judgment”. Many of us have been lied to about the cleansing of the blood. 1Jn.1:7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanseth us from all sin. Notice that the blood cleanses the one who walks in the light of the Word, not in the darkness of willful disobedience. For willful disobedience, we are promised certain judgment. Those who knock the ball off the course cannot retrieve it and pay the penalty for losing a stroke, while everyone else passes them up. We pay the penalty for this sin here and now, as in the following verses: Mat.18:34 And his lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors (demons), till he should pay all that was due. 35 So shall also my heavenly Father do unto you, if ye forgive not every one his brother from your hearts. God will use the demons to make us pay for the sin of the will. Mat.5:25 Agree with thine adversary quickly, while thou art with him in the way; lest haply the adversary deliver thee to the judge (God), and the judge deliver thee to the officer (demon), and thou be cast into prison. 26 Verily I say unto thee, thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou have paid the last farthing. The prison here is spiritual bondage to sin and the curse is administered by the demons. Jesus came “. . .to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening [of the prison] to them that are bound” Isa.61:1. Willful disobedience throws us back into the prison that Jesus delivered us from. David sinned willfully with Bathsheba. When he repented, Nathan the prophet said, “The Lord also hath put away thy sin”; but he also said, “The sword shall never depart from thy house”. In other words, I forgive you, but you will have to pay the penalty. This proved true, for David lost three sons and many people. His own son Absalom won the sympathy of the people and usurped the kingdom. David had to flee for his life. As parents, we do not spank our children for failure or mistakes, but for willful disobedience. Paul said, “For the good which I would I do not: but the evil which I would not (or willed not), that I practice. But if what I would not (willed not), that I do, it is no more I that do it, but sin which dwelleth in me” Rom.7:19,20. Paul was failing God in a sin that his will was against. Notice that he hated the sin and was not accounted guilty; the old sin nature was guilty. When we are against the sin, God takes our side against the sin. He takes the side of the spiritual man against the old man. In this state, Paul cried out to the Lord. 24 Wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me out of the body of this death? Then he accepted God's promise of deliverance by faith. 25 I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Jesus bore the curse of the sin for a person who is repentant, like Paul, even before he overcomes the sin. There are types on top of scriptural types, and one does not negate the other. The clear type that the Israelites in the wilderness show us is that those who walk in rebellion and do not bring forth a measure of fruit will not enter the Promised Land, representing the Kingdom of Heaven. Many years ago, I saw another less-known type in the same text that is important here. In golf, as in life, there are penalties. Moses struck the rock twice and did not enter the Promised Land in his body as Joshua and Caleb did. He entered the heavenly Promised Land as a spiritual man. The Israelites who failed to totally walk by faith died in body, but their fruit, the spiritual man, represented by their children, entered the Promised Land of heaven. Num.14:30 surely ye shall not come into the land, concerning which I sware that I would make you dwell therein, save Caleb the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua the son of Nun. 31 But your little ones (Their fruit, Christ in You, the spiritual man), that ye said should be a prey, them will I bring in, and they shall know the land which ye have rejected. 32 But as for you, your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness. After their bodies died, their little ones, that which was conceived in them and born from them, as is our spiritual man, entered the Promised Land of heaven. Only the seed, representing the spiritual man or new man, of those whose bodies died in the wilderness, entered the Promised Land of heaven. Mat.13:38 and the field is the world; and the good seed, these are the sons of the kingdom; ... The body is not a son of the kingdom or son of God, but a son of man. 1Co.15:50 ... Flesh and blood shall not inherit the kingdom of heaven. Only a body born from above can enter the Promised Land. Joshua and Caleb had their bodies under submission to the Word. In these days, the totally faithful, represented by Joshua and Caleb, will receive this body before dying, but “the soul that sins must die”. The ‘pre-wilderness all fly away' lie says that everyone will enter the Promised Land in their new bodies, but the penalty for not overcoming sin in the wilderness is that the body will die. In a nutshell, those who believe, like Joshua and Caleb, will enter the Promised Land in body after the wilderness trial. 51 Behold, I tell you a mystery: We all shall not sleep, but we shall all be changed, 52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump. The faithful will not die but be translated. Heb.11:5 By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and he was not found, because God translated him: for he hath had witness borne to him that before his translation he had been well-pleasing unto God: 6 And without faith it is impossible to be well-pleasing [unto him]. However, those who walk in a measure of unbelief will have to die in body in the wilderness and will enter only as the spiritual man. Num.14:33 And your children shall be wanderers in the wilderness forty years, and shall bear your whoredoms, until your dead bodies be consumed in the wilderness. 34 After the number of the days in which ye spied out the land, even forty days, (The number of tribulation) for every day a year, shall ye bear your iniquities, even forty years, and ye shall know my alienation (meaning, the revoking of my promise). Contrary to popular opinion both those who sleep, whose bodies fell, and those “who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord”, like Joshua and Caleb, will go through the wilderness which God says is the tribulation (Rev.12:6, 17:3). Joshua and Caleb knew because of God's promises that they could conquer the carnal man (the Canaanite) and take the Promised Land. They spoke the good report (Num.14:6-9). Those who say that the carnal man is too strong for us, that we are always going to be sinners, and speak the bad report will die in the wilderness (Num.14:36, 37). To them, the carnal old man is a giant, but to little David they were nothing. Remember that Jesus already crucified the old man, and you are to “reckon ye also yourselves to be dead unto sin, but alive unto God in Christ Jesus” Rom.6:11. God is able to do it for the people who believe it, as Joshua and Caleb did. Getting back to golf, the trick is to keep the ball in the fairway. That's the “fair” “way”. Those who do not run the race and keep their ball in the fair-way will fall into the hazards of the water, the sand traps, the rough, or out of the course entirely, like the balls that I found. These hazards are the penalty of costing golfers more strokes to get the ball back in the fairway while everyone else passes them up in points. The major penalty is losing the race to the one who does it right the first time and hits the ball the fewest times down the fairway. The water represents the curse of the Word that falls on those who are contrary to it. There are penalties written there for the disobedient. The sand traps are for those who do not stand on, or build their house on, the rock of Jesus. Mat.7:26-27 And every one that heareth these words of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, who built his house upon the sand: 27 and the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and smote upon that house; and it fell: and great was the fall thereof. The rough and sand trap is for those who are not on the fairway of the straight and narrow road, the manicured grass. Mat.7:13-14 Enter ye in by the narrow gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many are they that enter in thereby. 14 For narrow is the gate, and straitened the way, that leadeth unto life, and few are they that find it. Pro.13:15 Good understanding giveth favor; But the way of the transgressor is hard. Those who knock the ball out of the course cannot retrieve it and pay the penalty of losing a stroke, while everyone else passes them up. I believe the Bride and the Man-child are hole-in-one golfers. Rev.3:11 I come quickly: hold fast that which thou hast, that no one take thy crown. We struck the ball, the rock of Christ, once. Let us not do it again. I asked the Lord why there were ten balls. Ten represents the law of God, as does the Ten Commandments. Paul taught that God's law in our covenant is no longer written on tablets of stone but hearts of flesh, meaning it is to be a part of our nature (2 Cor.3:3). For much of the church, God's law has been struck out of the “fair way” like the balls I saw. The curse of the law is the penalty for this. When Moses was in the mountain of God getting the law, Israel took the opportunity to create their own God, the golden calf, to follow and called it in Hebrew YHWH and Elohim (Exo.32:4,5,11), much like the church today puts the name “Christian” on their own creation. When Moses came down and saw this, he cast the tables with the commandments down and brake them (Exo.32:15,19). The church is in much the same way today, and the Man-child is coming with the true Word that has been broken by them. Again, here is a true type in the midst of many true types. When Israel was in Egypt, as the church is in the world, the Egyptians represented the old carnal man, and the Israelites represented the spiritual man. Here is clear proof of this. When Moses (representing Christ), put to death the Egyptian (representing the carnal man who died on the cross), he left Egypt (the world) and married a Gentile bride, one of seven daughters (representing the seven churches - Exo.2:16; Isa.4:1; and Rev.3:10- who was the obedient Philadelphia Bride who escaped the trial.). These were daughters of one father, Jethro (Hebrew meaning: His excellence), who represents the Father. Paul also said that Israel was baptized in the Red Sea and, of course, the Egyptians, who represented the carnal man died there in a baptism. I said all that to say this. God smote the Egyptians, the old man, with ten strokes, from the waters being turned to blood to the Passover. The world is headed toward many strokes of judgment from the hand of God, but ten categories typified by these judgments. This represented the curse of the law that was broken. This was to cause Israel to repent and come out of Egypt, out from among them. In this type, they left the world represented by Egypt. A parallel revelation is that Israel tempted God ten times by not hearkening unto His voice in the wilderness (Num.14:22). The Egyptians took the penalty of ten strokes, while Israel missed out on seven of them because they abode in Goshen, representing Christ. It took three strokes before God made a division between Israel, the spiritual man, and Egypt, the carnal man (Exo.8:22,23). When Paul no longer willed to do sin, even though he was failing, God made a division between him and the sinner, the carnal man. Rom.7:20 But if what I would not (willed not), that I do, it is no more I that do it, but sin which dwelleth in me. After seven more strokes, they not only willed to give up sin, they gave it up. The old man was put to death in the baptism of the “washing of water with the word” Epe.5:26 in the Red Sea. I found the last ball when I was almost home. The Passover was the last great stroke that came on those not under the blood when Israel left Egypt, the world, to go home. That last great stroke will be the Day of the Lord at the end of the tribulation, when God pours out His wrath in a spiritual end-time flood of destruction as Noah lifts off. Now the following dream speaks to those disciples of Christ who abide in Him by grace through faith and have endured the trials to walk in His steps of His Word. 1Jn.2:4 He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him; 5 but whoso keepeth his word, in him verily hath the love of God been perfected. Hereby we know that we are in him: 6 he that saith he abideth in him ought himself also to walk even as he walked. If Jesus lives in you by His Word and Spirit, He can do this. Joh.7:38 He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, from within him shall flow rivers of living water. 39 But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believed on him were to receive…   Bride Rewarded for Building the House of God Eve Brast - 10/01/2017 (David's notes in red) (I was hesitant to send this, but I believe it primarily has a corporate meaning. I asked Father if He wanted me to send this dream, to give me all heads on three quarters, and He gave me all heads. So I think I'm representing the corporate bride body. Maybe it has individual meaning as well. But I believe the first fruits are about to be rewarded for diligence in “building the house” and being a habitation for the Lord to dwell in. :o) I dreamed that I was at the back of our local UBM meeting. (Which is a type of Larger UBM) I had been working very hard cleaning the house up with those white Mr. Clean “Magic Erasers”. (1Pe.4:8 above all things being fervent in your love among yourselves; for love covereth a multitude of sins) (Eve and all of the Bride do work hard to clean up the house. They are very serious about pleasing God in this way.) Everyone was sitting facing the opposite direction than usual, and the musicians weren't in their normal places with their instruments. David had called a special meeting to make an announcement to everyone. (David here represents those Davids who will take the place of the Sauls to raise up Jerusalem, which John in Revelation revealed is the Bride. God said He is restoring the Kingdom of David, but in the spirit. Amo.9:11 In that day will I raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen, and close up the breaches thereof; and I will raise up its ruins, and I will build it as in the days of old.) In the meantime, while everyone was sitting and talking amongst themselves, waiting for the announcement, I was over in the back left-hand corner of the room, near the front door with a flat-edge shovel, shoveling a 3-foot diameter pile of leftover dust and red dirt into a container or bucket of some kind, in order to throw it out the front door. (Here are the first three mentions of “dust” in the Bible. Gen.2:7 And Jehovah God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath (Hebrew = spirit) of life; and man became a living soul. (So the carnal man is dust. The spirit breathed into man is from God.) Gen.3:14 And Jehovah God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, cursed art thou above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life: (So Satan, the serpent, can devour dust which is the carnal or fleshly part of the man. If we don't want Satan taking advantage of us we must lose our carnal life.) Gen.3:19 in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. (1Co.15:50 Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption. So dust goes back to dust and the fruitful receive a NEW heavenly body. So the dust must be swept out of the house of God, which is to be holy.) I was also patting down the red dirt into a hole in the floor with the shovel and trying to seal it up. (So that what is earthly is removed from the house of God and put under our feet. Red dirt reminds us of getting rid of the flesh of Esau and his faction against his brother. Esau was red, and his seed, Edom, means “red”. And dirt is what the flesh comes from.) This seemed like hard work in the dream, and I was breaking a sweat. (It is hard work. Eve worked a regular job, raised a family, and carried on her prophetic ministry, too. Also, this is great training for the Bride to deal with God's people in the wilderness tribulation.) David had been observing what I was doing with a smile while standing in the dining room. (This was true even in the letter.) He then walked swiftly past me into the room and took his seat, which was located near the restroom. I felt the wind (Greek word pneuma: wind, spirit) rush past me as he went by. As David sat down and began to speak, everyone settled down and became quiet. He said, “The Father has instructed me concerning a blessing for Eve Brast (As a type of the larger Bride body.) and here's why... Father gave me these verses....” 1Ch.22:3, And David prepared iron in abundance for the nails for the doors of the gates, and for the couplings; and brass in abundance without weight; (The Davids are preparing the “Words”, which are nails, to build the house of God, which is His people. They build the walls which separate us from the world. They build the gates that keep the enemy out and the sheep in. And Eve received this very fitting verse.) Ecc.12:11, The words of the wise are as goads; and as nails well fastened are the words of the masters of assemblies, which are given from one Shepherd. (Who is Jesus. Goads are sharp prods to keep the sheep or cattle in line. They are like nails in this regard. The “Words” keep the people in line and hold them together. The Word is what the people are made of. Like their Lord, they are the Word become flesh. Joh.1:14 And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us (and we beheld his glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father), full of grace and truth. Heb.2:17 Wherefore it behooved him in all things to be made like unto his brethren, that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.) Exo.39:40, the hangings of the court, its pillars, and its sockets, and the screen for the gate of the court, the cords thereof, and the nails thereof, and all the instruments of the service of the tabernacle, for the tent of meeting; (All furnishings of the house of God, which is His people.) Ecc.2:4 I made me great works; I builded me houses; I planted me vineyards; 5 I made me gardens and parks, and I planted trees in them of all kinds of fruit; 6 I made me pools of water, to water therefrom the forest where trees were reared; (Houses, vineyards, gardens, trees, fruit are ways the scripture uses to speak of God's people, which are “builded” here by the wisdom of Solomon, son of David.) Pro.24:3 Through wisdom is a house builded; And by understanding it is established; 4 And by knowledge are the chambers filled With all precious and pleasant riches. (The wise and humble love to be taught truth, seeing it as riches. The wise teacher will separate the sheep from the goats by the Word. The sheep are the building blocks of the house.) Heb.3:4, For every house is builded by some one; but he that built all things is God. (God uses His Man-child reformers and five-fold ministry to build His house.) Eph.2:20 being built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets (These have laid the foundation of the Church which is God's house), Christ Jesus himself being the chief corner stone; (Jesus is a replica of the whole building and it is squared by Him.) 21 in whom each several building, fitly framed together, groweth into a holy temple in the Lord (We, as individual buildings, are builded together as God's temple.); 22 in whom ye also are builded together for a habitation of God in the Spirit. When I heard my name in the dream, I straightened up, and leaning upon the handle of my shovel, I stopped to listen. I was shocked that the Father had wanted to bless me like that. (The Bride is a humble and unassuming people.) I thought the blessing should be for someone more deserving and involved, someone who was more useful or important to His Kingdom. In my mind, all I had been doing was hard, menial labor in the background that didn't seem to amount to much. Then I woke up. (Eve has worked hard to clean up the Kingdom people who are the House of God being built in the verses given. She is a good type of the Bride. She worked full-time and had a household to take care of, but she took time to type up and think about the prophetic exhortations to the body, too. So this is a labor of love. I also believe there is an important larger view here, in that the Lord uses Eve as the bride of Adam, and the last Adam is Jesus. So the Bride, and Eve as part of the Bride, is working to perfect God's people, and we are so thankful to God for all of them.) (As David read the verses, the words nails, build, builded and house, stood out to me and were very important to his message to everybody. David read them as if they were one whole passage. He didn't give scripture references in the dream, so when I woke up, I searched for the key words nails, build, builded, and house. The Spirit helped to clarify which ones I had heard David read in the dream.) I asked Father for a personal word for me concerning this dream, if there was a personal aspect for me in it. (Because the dream doesn't seem to fit with my current reality. I've had to devote so much of my time to working in “Egypt”. The enemy tries to use this a lot to condemn me, which is probably why I was shocked in the dream and even afterwards, when I woke up and was pondering on what it could mean. [The enemy does a lot to keep us humble.]) So anyway, I received: Pro.8:31 (in context: 30-31) (my finger was on “habitable” from Pro. 8:31 in the Bible concordance.) 30 Then I was by him, as a master workman; And I was daily his delight, Rejoicing always before him, 31 Rejoicing in his habitable earth; And my delight was with the sons of men. (God delights in His builders who delight in His people. The wicked and the Pharisees hate them with a passion.) In the context of Proverbs 8, these verses seem to fit with the ones David read in the dream. :0) Very encouraging. Thank you, Father!

In this week's Stansberry Investor Hour, Dan welcomes Andy Schectman to the show. Andy is the founder and CEO of Miles Franklin Precious Metals, a company dedicated to transparency, ethics, and long-term wealth preservation.   Andy kicks things off by explaining why gold prices breaking down isn't as bad as many people believe. He says that while the paper price of gold is going down, the physical asset has been going strong. In fact, since the start of President Donald Trump's second term, billions of physical gold bars in contracts have been delivered to CME Group's Commodity Exchange ("COMEX"). Silver also had strong deliveries to COMEX, with December 2025 seeing a record 65 million ounces in contracts delivered. Andy also says that one reason why gold exchange-traded funds ("ETFs") have experienced increased outflows is because large firms are redeeming their shares in exchange for gold to fulfill delivery contracts. And some of these contracts are for foreign countries that have lost trust in the central banks. (0:00)   Next, Andy shares his thoughts on bitcoin (BTC) and gold. Contrary to the stances supporters of either asset have, he doesn't believe investors need to be in only one of them and opposed to the other. He believes it's best if you invest in both. Andy personally invested in 1 BTC early on so he could have some exposure to the development of bitcoin. Andy then talks about the country's debt problem. With the U.S. in debt by more than $39 trillion, our country needs a way to pay it off. Andy says we have no way of selling products to other countries in the hopes of being paid in dollars, and other countries have established their own methods of trade without relying on the U.S. dollar. And with a trifecta of worse education rates, a lack of at-home manufacturing, and AI replacing certain jobs, the future outlook is grim. (19:14)   Finally, Andy says that Trump does have a plan to address this problem. The key is to bring manufacturing back home and sell that to the world. The U.S. cannot afford to be reliant on other countries. Also, the U.S. needs to aggressively buy gold. That would go straight into the Treasurys and help pay off our debt. While in the short-to-mid term this will be painful for Americans as certain services might need to be withheld, in the long term, Andy says it would be worth it. He ends the interview by warning investors to not save their money in dollars due to its dwindling value but to put their money into hard assets instead. (39:46)

In this week's Stansberry Investor Hour, Dan welcomes Andy Schectman to the show. Andy is the founder and CEO of Miles Franklin Precious Metals, a company dedicated to transparency, ethics, and long-term wealth preservation.   Andy kicks things off by explaining why gold prices breaking down isn't as bad as many people believe. He says that while the paper price of gold is going down, the physical asset has been going strong. In fact, since the start of President Donald Trump's second term, billions of physical gold bars in contracts have been delivered to CME Group's Commodity Exchange ("COMEX"). Silver also had strong deliveries to COMEX, with December 2025 seeing a record 65 million ounces in contracts delivered. Andy also says that one reason why gold exchange-traded funds ("ETFs") have experienced increased outflows is because large firms are redeeming their shares in exchange for gold to fulfill delivery contracts. And some of these contracts are for foreign countries that have lost trust in the central banks. (0:00)   Next, Andy shares his thoughts on bitcoin (BTC) and gold. Contrary to the stances supporters of either asset have, he doesn't believe investors need to be in only one of them and opposed to the other. He believes it's best if you invest in both. Andy personally invested in 1 BTC early on so he could have some exposure to the development of bitcoin. Andy then talks about the country's debt problem. With the U.S. in debt by more than $39 trillion, our country needs a way to pay it off. Andy says we have no way of selling products to other countries in the hopes of being paid in dollars, and other countries have established their own methods of trade without relying on the U.S. dollar. And with a trifecta of worse education rates, a lack of at-home manufacturing, and AI replacing certain jobs, the future outlook is grim. (19:14)   Finally, Andy says that Trump does have a plan to address this problem. The key is to bring manufacturing back home and sell that to the world. The U.S. cannot afford to be reliant on other countries. Also, the U.S. needs to aggressively buy gold. That would go straight into the Treasurys and help pay off our debt. While in the short-to-mid term this will be painful for Americans as certain services might need to be withheld, in the long term, Andy says it would be worth it. He ends the interview by warning investors to not save their money in dollars due to its dwindling value but to put their money into hard assets instead. (39:46)

Send us Fan MailIn this retrospective single-center study from Toronto, Adrianne and Nim explore the echo findings of preterm infants with septic shock and hypoxemic respiratory failure. Contrary to the common assumption that elevated pulmonary vascular resistance drives hypoxemia in sepsis, the data points to left ventricular dysfunction as a key contributor. Babies with hypoxemic respiratory failure showed lower LV systolic and diastolic performance, while pulmonary pressures were similar between groups. Mortality was significantly higher in the hypoxemic group. This challenges the reflex to reach for nitric oxide first and asks clinicians to look at the whole heart.----Cardiopulmonary Physiology of Hypoxemic Respiratory Failure Among Preterm Infants with Septic Shock. Kharrat A, Nissimov S, Zhu F, Deshpande P, Jain A.J Pediatr. 2025 Mar;278:114384. doi: 10.1016/j.jpeds.2024.114384. Epub 2024 Nov 6.PMID: 39510164Support the showAs always, feel free to send us questions, comments, or suggestions to our email: nicupodcast@gmail.com. You can also contact the show through Instagram or Twitter, @nicupodcast. Or contact Ben and Daphna directly via their Twitter profiles: @drnicu and @doctordaphnamd. The papers discussed in today's episode are listed and timestamped on the webpage linked below.Enjoy!

Contrary to popular belief, Christians who follow God's design for sex within marriage actually experience the deepest, most fulfilling intimacy possible, because sex was God's idea first.

Bible Prophecy Under the Microscope-Episode 98 Gary responds to a recent video by Joel Richardson about Matthew 24:15 and the "abomination of desolation." Before addressing Joel's claims, Gary conducts a brief survey of the Gospel of Matthew, reminding readers (and hearers) of what Jesus said and to whom He was speaking. Context and audience relevance are important and crucial to understanding.

Contrary to popular belief, life may very well not have begun on the sunlit surface of the planet--but rather in the deepest part of the deepest oceans. In his new book, "The Dark Frontier," marine geobiologist Jeffrey Marlow explains why.

Contrary Motion - False Relation - Episode 8 Show: Contrary Motion Artist: False Relation Air Date: 26 June 2026 Genre: Drum & Bass Drum & Bass mix Tracklist: ... Originally broadcast on Data Transmission Radio. Listen live and explore the archive: https://radio.datatransmission.co

Shakings Coming (1) (audio) David Eells – 6-24-26 IT WILL SHAKE THE WORLD! Lynne Johnson 5-27-26 IAM, King Yeshuya wants you, My people to know that all will erupt soon in Iran. President Trump is playing a waiting game with the radicalized left in the IRGC for there are many factions vying for control. Trump is ensuring that when the United States military strikes Iran, the United States will have very few casualties. Trump doesn't want American casualties, therefore the United States is intending to use all intelligence being fathered to ensure few American casualties. When the U.S. Military strikes, there will be no doubt that the IRGC, in its radical form, is no longer in existence. Once assured of the success of this campaign, Trump will have the military pull back to the general areas away from Iran. Very shortly after the United States military pulls back from Iran, then Israel will strike. First, Damascus, Syria (a weapon depot) destroying it. Next, Israel will move against Iran's nuclear facilities along with their weapon depots. These strikes will effectively end Iran's nuclear program. Once this is concluded, then very shortly look for the First Event of MY Judgments (again these events of Mine, King Yeshuya, are not those of Tribulation, which are far worse, for a much longer time frame), the California earthquake which will shake the world as this earthquake is massive in size and in effect. I AM, King Yeshuya tells you this again so that you MY children, MY Believers are warned to plan, to prepare for what is soon to occur. IAM always warns ahead through MY prophets and messengers. Listen to My Words, heed My Warnings for they are to help protect you and your families. Continue MY children to come to ME in prayer, stay in MY Word, stay focused, stay calm. Come directly to ME, King Yeshuya with your queries. I AM will gladly answer you. IAM loves you MY children. Your King Yeshuya, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, the Most High, Commander of heaven's hosts and armies, the Lion of Judah, the Prince of Peace. Scriptures: Psalm 20:7 NKJV “Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we will remember and trust in the name of the Lord our God.” Isaiah 43:2 NKJV “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they will not overwhelm you. When you walk through fire, you will not be scorched, nor will the flame burn you.” Ezekiel 7:7 NKJV “Doom has come to you, you who dwell in the land; the time has come, a day of trouble is near, and not of rejoicing in the mountains.” Isaiah 17:1 NIV “A prophecy against Damascus: “See, Damascus will no longer be a city but will become a heap of ruins.” Isaiah 13:9 NKJV “Behold, the day of the Lord comes, cruel with both wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate; and He will destroy its sinners from it.” Isaiah 13:6 NKJV “Wait, for the day of the Lord is at hand! It will come as destruction from the Almighty.” John 14:29 NKJV “And now I told you before it comes, that when it does come to pass, you may believe.” Lamentations 3:25 NKJV “The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him.”   FAMINE WILL EXTEND WORLDWIDE Lynne Johnson – 5-9-26 I AM, King Yeshuya, would like MY people to know that it is soon for the “Iranian Conflict” to conclude. It will end as IAM has stated; the United States will deploy missiles, which will effectively end the IRGC Regime's control over Iran. Then the United States will pull back their military, leaving destroyers, aircraft carriers, and such in the area. Shortly after the United States military is pulled back, Israel will strike Damascus, the other weapon depots in Syria, then strike Iran's nuclear facilities and weapon depots. Israel will present the truth with proof that Iran fully intended to finish the building of nuclear bombs to destroy Israel. There will be the usual outcry, but no one will “lift a hand” against Israel, for all of the surrounding Arab nations know the truth. They also know that they were not safe from Iran's nuclear attacks. Again MY children, this is your marker to know that you only have a short time to finish getting your food, to prepare for what is coming, MY First Event – Judgment upon California. Do not put off procuring your food, your other necessities. Use cash as much as possible and by going to different stores. Do not discuss storing food with ANY OTHERS as IAM has clearly stated unless you have spoken directly with ME, King Yeshuya, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords to find out who you are able to trust. Ensure that you get your answer from ME, BEFORE you talk with others. If you choose not to listen to ME here, you and your family will suffer harm. People will become desperate quickly for food – any food that they are able to find. They do not wish to share, and they will harm others to get food. Those who have not done so recently or at all, are to read Jeremiah – ALL OF IT! You will see what hunger does to people. There will be few people who you will be able to trust now, so be discreet and come to ME, King Yeshuya to find out who you can SAFELY SHARE YOUR FOOD WITH. You must also accept MY answer as final. IAM alone sees the hearts, minds, thoughts and intentions of ALL people! You do not. You must also understand that the famine will extend worldwide. It will not be located only in specific cities, areas, or countries. With the famine, there will be deaths and then pestilences due to these deaths. IAM will give you more specific detail on this soon. FOR NOW YOUR JOB IS TO PREPARE. COME DIRECTLY TO ME WITH YOUR QUESTIONS AS I AM WILL GLADLY ANSWER YOU. MY BELOVED CHILDREN, STAY IN PRAYER TO ME, STAY IN MY WORD, STAY FOCUSED, STAY CALM. Your King Yeshuya, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, the Most High, the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, the Lion of Judah, the Prince of Peace Scriptures: Isaiah 17:1 NKJV “The burden against Damascus. “Behold, Damascus will cease from being a city, and it will be a ruinous heap.” Luke 21:11 NKJV “And there will be great earthquakes in various places, and famines and pestilences; and there will be fearful sights and great signs from heaven.” Psalm 9:8 NKJV “He shall judge the world in righteousness, and He shall administer judgment for the people in uprightness.” Ecclesiastes 8:6 NKJV “Because for every matter there is a time and judgment, though the misery of man increases greatly.” Psalm 76:8 NKJV “You caused judgment to be heard from heaven; the earth feared and was still.” Deuteronomy 8:6 NKJV “Observe the commands of the LORD your God, walking in obedience to Him and revering Him.” Proverbs 15:11 NKJV “Hell and Destruction are before the Lord; so how much more the hearts of the sons of men.” Psalm 112:5 NKJV “A good man deals graciously and lends; he will guide his affairs with discretion.” Deuteronomy 32:24 NKJV “They shall be wasted with hunger, devoured by pestilence and bitter destruction; I will also send against them the teeth of beasts, with the poison of serpents of the dust.” Romans 12:12 NKJV “Rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing steadfastly in prayer,”   GOLDEN DOME MR POOL X - *GOLDEN DOME went fully operational on June 14, 2026.** Not announced. Not disclosed. ACTIVATED. Posted By: Lymerick 6-23-26 www.rumormill.news/269653   Mr. Pool @MrPool_QQ

Contrary to popular belief, hope isn't a feeling. It's a formula that Dr. Ashley Cross is about to teach you about. And according to research, it's the single best predictor of wellbeing. More than grit, resilience, confidence, and it’s needed to unlock all of them. Dr. Cross is one of the nation's leading practitioners of the "Science of Hope” through the incredible work of her Rochester nonprofit Hope 585 and now through her work advising the hope-centered movement in Memphis. Her hope lessons in this episode might just change your life… and definitely can help many of the lives you’re serving. Learn more about her work at Hope585.orgSupport the show: https://www.normalfolks.us/#joinSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Contrary to popular belief, hope isn't a feeling. It's a formula that Dr. Ashley Cross is about to teach you about. And according to research, it's the single best predictor of wellbeing. More than grit, resilience, confidence, and it’s needed to unlock all of them. Dr. Cross is one of the nation's leading practitioners of the "Science of Hope” through the incredible work of her Rochester nonprofit Hope 585 and now through her work advising the hope-centered movement in Memphis. Her hope lessons in this episode might just change your life… and definitely can help many of the lives you’re serving. Learn more about her work at Hope585.orgSupport the show: https://www.normalfolks.us/#joinSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Front Row Classics is pleased to welcome Emmy-winning actor, Christian Le Blanc. Christian and Brandon chat about his background and acting influences which eventually led him to a multiple decade run on The Young and the Restless as Michael Baldwin. The two also discuss his experiences working with the likes of Julie Harris, Charles Nelson Reilly and Eileen Brennan.  A twelve-time Emmy nominee and three-time Outstanding Lead Actor Emmy winner, Christian Jules Le Blanc, stars as Michael Baldwin on CBS's number one rated daytime drama, The Young and the Restless. Christian joined the cast of The Young and the Restless in October 1991, departing in 1993. He returned to the series in April, 1997. A slick attorney, Michael has found happiness in his marriage to Lauren Fenmore (Tracey E. Bregman), despite the antics of his troubled brother, Kevin (Greg Rikaart) and his unpredictable mother, Gloria (Judith Chapman). In 2022, Christian made his New York theater debut in Ruth Stage Company's production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Christian's television appearances also include the role of Kirk McColl on As the World Turns, a starring role as a regular on In the Heat of the Night with Carol O'Connor and Howard Rollins, and many guest appearances including Perry Mason, Cheers and Gabriel's Fire. He produced and starred in his first short film, Puppy Love, with actress, Grace Zabriskie, which was honored as the Outstanding Short Film at the Los Angeles and New York International Short Film Festivals. Le Blanc's stage credits include Ladies In Retirement, in which he starred with the legendary actresses Julie Harris and Eileen Brennan. More recently, Le Blanc appeared in the Los Angeles Times Pick-of-the-Week, No Orchids for Miss Blandish. In 2008, he appeared in The Catonsville Nine, in 2009, Appearances to the Contrary and in 2011, The Tennessee Williams Literary Festival in New Orleans. He is currently a member of the Rogue Theater Company of Los Angeles. Christian also has taken on the role of host at many high-profile venues including: The 2012 Creative Arts Daytime Emmy Awards, The Annual Young and the Restless Charity Tea, Soap Cruise, and numerous charitable and daytime functions. Christian is also an award winning artist. His work has been shown in Los Angeles and Washington D.C., and New Orleans where they are currently on display at the Jean Bragg Gallery of Southern Art. He is currently working on a children's novel which he is illustrating. Christian, an army brat, was born in Fayetteville, North Carolina, but calls New Orleans, Louisiana, home. He is one of the eight children of Andre and Alice Le Blanc. His father is a decorated veteran of the U.S. Special Forces. Le Blanc lives in Los Angeles. His hobbies include genealogy and languages and sports including: water skiing, swimming, and racquetball. He has also worked as a substitute teacher in the Los Angeles school district. A world traveler, Le Blanc's journeys have taken him to Australia and the Middle East.

The devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus is a devotion to Our Lord's immeasurable love. Although the Sacred Heart devotion had been around since the Middle Ages, its prominence came at a crucial point in ecclesiastical history, namely during the spread of Jansenism in France during the 17th century. Contrary to the belief in God's mercy, Jansenism taught that we can never be pleasing to God. As fallen and fallible humans who are often consumed by our own desires, we find it difficult to return love to Our Lord despite His great love for us. However, His love, and the unfathomable patience that comes with that love, never abates.

When does being Trump's look-alike pay off in the animal world? Eye candy alert! 9 puppies now 3 weeks old playing and nursing and tumbling around just before their big move from the living room to the heated barn. Subscribe and subscribe to Deb Wolfe, Pet Expert on YouTube so you don't miss any puppy action as they learn to bark and wrestle and discover grass and hay and change every day. Would you want a tail? 2 Grade 12 Calgary students invented a human tail that I do believe you'd be lining up for if you had a balance issue like Parkinson's disease. 230 Bear attacks in Japan!!! And Deb says about last year's Superman movie, ‘Krypto get the toy'! if you don't know what that refers to watch the movie! Why should you send Deb Wolfe your pet questions and not AI? Because if you don't ask the exact right question to AI, specifying carefully what vetted sources to check, it defaults to general possibly out of date, often incorrect info. Swallows for example can be reached by cats if the birdhouse and nest are 8 feet off the ground, though AI told us to build it there. Contrary to the first AI answers swallows do not care about human scent and their nests can be moved successfully but it was only after specific searches to sources such as the Audubon Society and legitimate authorities that Deb found the correct answers and saved the baby birds.EPISODE NOTES: Trump Look-Alikes, Puppy Chaos & 230 Bear Attacks?!Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/animal-party-dog-cat-news-animal-facts--6666735/support.

Portland's Business Struggles and Las Vegas's SCHEDULE JBS 6-19-2026.1900 LAGrowth. Guest: Jeff Bliss. High taxes and progressive policies in Portland are driving a corporate exodus, including Under Armour, as business districts empty. Conversely, Las Vegas is thriving, highlighted by the opening of a massive four-story In-N-Out on the Strip. The segment also covers California's proposed wealth tax and calls to nationalize AI. 1Ethics Investigations into the Newsom Administration. Guest: Jeff Bliss. Governor Gavin Newsom and his wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, face investigations regarding millions in "behested payments" from entities like PG&E to her media company. While Newsom dismisses the probe as political weaponization, critics suggest these payments indicate potential undue influence and significant ethical scandals within the administration. 2Critique of Middle East Ceasefire Strategy. Guest: Richard Epstein. Epstein argues that recurring ceasefire declarations are merely strategic devices for rearmament rather than genuine steps toward peace. He criticizes current negotiation styles for alienating allies and failing to pursue the unconditional surrender of adversaries, which he believes is the only stable solution for regional security. 3Supreme Court Rulings on Gun Rights and Drug Use. Guest: Richard Epstein. In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court ruled that marijuana use alone does not justify the categorical stripping of a citizen's Second Amendment rights. Epstein critiques the court's narrow reliance on originalism, suggesting a "police power" analysis should instead determine if a person poses an immediate physical threat. 4Economic Resilience in D.C. and Lancaster County. Guest: Jim McTague. A drop in gasoline prices has boosted consumer spending at retail stores and supermarkets. While D.C. remains popular with tourists, employers are struggling to find workers with specialized technical skills. Meanwhile, the housing market remains robust at the high end despite higher interest rates. 5Italian Defense Pressures and the Summer Heatwave. Guest: Lorenzo Fiori. Italy's government is balancing NATO's demands for increased military spending against rising energy costs. Simultaneously, a record-breaking heatwave reaching 104°F in Milan is straining public resources, prompting Fiori to recommend the cooler Garfagnana region for its fresh environment and traditional bean and cabbage soup. 6SpaceX's Aggressive Launch Schedule and Innovation. Guest: Bob Zimmerman. Gwynne Shotwell indicates that SpaceX's Starship may begin operational flights and orbital refueling tests by year's end. The company is also demolishing older facilities at Vandenberg for new launchpads, while private startups advance 3D-printed rockets and orbital satellite rescue missions to assist aging telescopes. 7Mars Discoveries and Cosmological Mysteries. Guest: Bob Zimmerman. The discovery of galaxies devoid of dark matter is challenging fundamental astronomical theories. On Mars, the Curiosity rover has reached smooth ground after five years of rocky terrain. Additionally, orbiters have detected multiple dust devils and potential frost and ice in the planet's equatorial regions during winter. 8Literary Giants of the New England Renaissance. Guest: Bruce Nichols. This segment explores the intense relationship between Hawthorne and Melville, who dedicated Moby Dick to Hawthorne. While Ralph Waldo Emersonoften criticized their dark worldviews, these authors, alongside Walt Whitman and Margaret Fuller, were instrumental in inventing a uniquely original and enduring American literary voice. 9Thoreau's Performative Solitude at Walden Pond. Guest: Bruce Nichols. Henry David Thoreau built his famous cabin on land owned by Ralph Waldo Emerson. Contrary to his image as a total hermit, Thoreau was quite social, often walking into town for fresh-cooked meals and laundry. He eventually spent years refining his journals into the masterpiece Walden. 10The Struggles and Triumphs of Louisa May Alcott. Guest: Bruce Nichols. Louisa May Alcott supported her family because her father, Bronson Alcott, failed to earn a consistent living. She served as a Civil War nurse, dealing with horrific casualties before contracting a severe illness she attributed to mercury poisoning. Her 1868 novel Little Womenfinally resolved the family's debts. 11The Literary Legacy and Final Days of the Alcotts. Guest: Bruce Nichols. Following the success of Little Women, Alcott resisted fan demands for her protagonist to marry Laurie, choosing an independent path. As the circle aged, both Emerson and Bronson Alcott suffered significant cognitive decline, with Louisa providing essential financial and personal support until her death in 1888. 12Diplomatic Strains and Escalation Risks in Ukraine. Guest: Anatol Lieven. European leaders are divided over initiating direct negotiations with Russia as the war remains stuck on the ground. While some advocate for offering Putina "golden bridge" to claim a symbolic victory, others argue for continued pressure, despite the constant risks of accidental or nuclear escalation. 13The Rise of Andy Burnham in UK Politics. Guest: Anatol Lieven. Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham is emerging as a formidable potential successor to Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Though Burnham enjoys strong regional support, he faces daunting national issues, including the funding crisis in the NHS and Britain's inability to borrow like the United States. 14A Vision for Governance Reform in Canada. Guest: Conrad Black. Biographer Conrad Black and billionaire Stephen Jarislowsky have proposed recommendations to streamline Canadian governance by reducing duplicated bureaucracy. They argue that Canada's public service is top-heavy and that lowering corporate and personal taxes is essential for maintaining economic growth and competitiveness with the United States. 15CISA's Mission to Protect Critical Infrastructure. Guest: Francis Rose. Acting Director Nick Anderson explains CISA's role as a vital clearinghouse for cyber threat information across federal and private sectors. Since 85% of critical infrastructure is privately owned, CISA focuses on information exchange to prevent bad actors from moving laterally to disrupt water or power supplies. 16

Thoreau's Performative Solitude at Walden Pond. Guest: Bruce Nichols. Henry David Thoreau built his famous cabin on land owned by Ralph Waldo Emerson. Contrary to his image as a total hermit, Thoreau was quite social, often walking into town for fresh-cooked meals and laundry. He eventually spent years refining his journals into the masterpiece Walden. 101929 EMERSON OLD MANSE

Engineering Global Socialism: Ownership, Non-Alignment, and Corporate Culture in a Bosnian Company (Indiana UP, 2026) chronicles the journey of the Bosnian global corporation Energoinvest and its workers from its Yugoslav socialist ideals through decades of dissolution, reconstruction, and post-socialist transformation. Author Anna Calori provides a company-centric window into the business history of socialist globalization during periods of national development, destruction, and rebuilding. Contrary to popular perceptions of "centralized" socialist states, Energoinvest actively shaped trade relations with the Global South, driven by a socialist corporate culture that encouraged competition as well as collective decision-making. Even after Yugoslavia's disintegration in 1992 ended its dreams of a socialist path to globalization, these core characteristics shaped Energoinvest's adaptation to capitalist transformations and made it a key player in the struggle for Bosnia's post-war economic reconstruction. Through oral histories and archival research, Calori reveals how Energoinvest's workers paired the promise of a new model of global integration with their own visions of a working world in which they set the rules of engagement—and how, upon its sale to mostly foreign owners, the marginalization and ethnic homogenization of employee shareholders mirrored changes around citizenship in Bosnia. Now, in the twenty-first century, Energoinvest offers new promises of a post-industrial future, but its often hazy parameters leave workers to rely on the memory of "what could have been" to make sense of change. Tracing the long trajectory of a Yugoslav enterprise through decades of large-scale social change, Engineering Global Socialism presents a historical and sociological moment in which workers' ideas about social and corporate enterprise offered the possibility of a more democratic path to globalization. Anna Calori is Lecturer in Contemporary Economic History at the School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Glasgow. Filippo De Chirico is a Ph.D. Candidate in Energy History at Roma Tre University. His research focuses on the history of the Italian natural gas sector. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Engineering Global Socialism: Ownership, Non-Alignment, and Corporate Culture in a Bosnian Company (Indiana UP, 2026) chronicles the journey of the Bosnian global corporation Energoinvest and its workers from its Yugoslav socialist ideals through decades of dissolution, reconstruction, and post-socialist transformation. Author Anna Calori provides a company-centric window into the business history of socialist globalization during periods of national development, destruction, and rebuilding. Contrary to popular perceptions of "centralized" socialist states, Energoinvest actively shaped trade relations with the Global South, driven by a socialist corporate culture that encouraged competition as well as collective decision-making. Even after Yugoslavia's disintegration in 1992 ended its dreams of a socialist path to globalization, these core characteristics shaped Energoinvest's adaptation to capitalist transformations and made it a key player in the struggle for Bosnia's post-war economic reconstruction. Through oral histories and archival research, Calori reveals how Energoinvest's workers paired the promise of a new model of global integration with their own visions of a working world in which they set the rules of engagement—and how, upon its sale to mostly foreign owners, the marginalization and ethnic homogenization of employee shareholders mirrored changes around citizenship in Bosnia. Now, in the twenty-first century, Energoinvest offers new promises of a post-industrial future, but its often hazy parameters leave workers to rely on the memory of "what could have been" to make sense of change. Tracing the long trajectory of a Yugoslav enterprise through decades of large-scale social change, Engineering Global Socialism presents a historical and sociological moment in which workers' ideas about social and corporate enterprise offered the possibility of a more democratic path to globalization. Anna Calori is Lecturer in Contemporary Economic History at the School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Glasgow. Filippo De Chirico is a Ph.D. Candidate in Energy History at Roma Tre University. His research focuses on the history of the Italian natural gas sector. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/eastern-european-studies

The state of public education is a mess. At the heart of it is a real struggle about a fundamental question: How much tech should our kids be exposed to daily in the classroom?Contrary to what parents have been told by public schools nationwide, there is no single one-size-fits-all solution for kids and that includes the use or non-use of tech tools like artificial intelligence (AI) in classrooms.Also, did those high-tech school districts warn you your kid's basic math skills would erode so much that she/he would be tethered to a tech device for the rest of their lives?Priten Soundar-Shah, author of Ethical Ed Tech: How Educators Can Lead on AI and Digital Safety in K-12, shares a better way forward based on the intelligent and deliberate use of technology that fosters better engagement in our public schools this week on Spirit Gym. Learn more about Priten and his much-needed work in the non-profit sector at his website. Listen to his podcast, Margin of Thought with Priten, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you listen to them. You'll find him on social media via Instagram, Linkedin and TikTok.Read the opening chapter of Priten's book, Ethical Ed Tech, for free at this website. Buy his book on Amazon, Barnes & Noble or Bookshop and upload your receipt, and you'll receive several free resources, including an exclusive bonus chapter and video course.Timestamps7:39 Living the life of a non-profit entrepreneur, tech tool-builder and teacher.19:14 The conversations about the role of tech in schools moved from teachers to big tech companies.26:03 Reading a book on how to read inspired the name for Priten's podcast.32:26 How do know what red is if you don't experience it?44:36 How do you persuade kids to eat vegetables and learn things too?50:19 Making things happen faster and easier — what tech does best — is often not the best environment for learning.58:00 Paul's crashing conversation with Claude about generating faulty AI art.1:02:47 There is no one-size-fits-all solution for improving education and that includes the use/non-use of tech like AI.1:11:40 Gamified engagement versus learning engagement.1:18:06 Are we so dependent on technology that your kid's basic math skills have been “downloaded” to a digital calculator on a cell phone?1:25:30 The case studies featured in Ethical Ed Tech provide scenarios and options for the ethical use of tech in schools, not absolute solutions.1:33:17 One unintended consequence of tech dominance in schools: A fixation on measuring and controlling every aspect of them (including reading and test scores).1:46:11 There's no community consensus on the purpose of schooling.1:53:36 The real-world limits on how much schools can solve external factors like personal flourishing, contributing to the world and how a kid feels about herself/himself away from school.2:03:21 Priten hopes schools will deal with AI faster than they did cell phones (10-15 years).ResourcesAI and the Future of Education: Teaching in the Age of Artificial Intelligence by Priten Soundar-ShahPedagogy FuturesAcademy 4 Social Civics The work of ConfuciusPaul's podcast conversations with Dr. Jared Horvath and Elizabeth NelsonThe Digital Delusion: How Classroom Technology Harms Our Kids' Learning — And How To Help Them Thrive Again by Jared HorvathThe Living Soil and the Haughley Experiment by Lady Evelyn Barbara BalfourFind more resources for this episode on our website.Music Credit: Meet Your Heroes (444Hz), Composed, mixed, mastered and produced by Michael RB Schwartz of Brave Bear MusicThanks to our awesome sponsors:PaleovalleyBIOptimizers US and BIOptimizers UK PAUL15Organifi CHEK20Wild PasturesPique LifeSpirit GymCHEK InstituteWe may earn commissions from qualifying purchases using affiliate links.

Harpal Brar | 1 May 2026 Stalin made regular efforts to counter the tendency of Soviet scientists to adopt a servile attitude towards their equivalents in the more backward imperialist west. Contrary to the myths peddled by Khrushchev and Trotsky and repeated endlessly by anticommunist historians, Josef Stalin was a selfless, modest and devoted revolutionary, and a lifelong student of Marxist-Leninist science. ---------------------------------------------------- Subscribe! Donate! Join us in building a bright future for humanity! www.thecommunists.org www.lalkar.org www.redyouth.org Telegram: t.me/thecommunists Twitter: twitter.com/cpgbml Soundcloud: @proletarianradio Rumble: rumble.com/c/theCommunists Odysee: odysee.com/@proletariantv:2 Facebook: www.facebook.com/cpgbml Online Shop: https://shop.thecommunists.org/ Education Program: https://thecommunists.org/education-programme/ Each one teach one! www.londonworker.org/education-programme/ Join the struggle www.thecommunists.org/join/ Donate: www.thecommunists.org/donate/

Welcome back to another episode of the unSeminary podcast. Today we're joined by John Plake, Chief Innovation Officer and Editor-in-Chief of the State of the Bible research at the American Bible Society. With decades of experience as a pastor, missionary, professor, and researcher, John brings a unique perspective on how people are actually engaging with Scripture and what we should do about it. The “movable middle” is growing. // One of the most significant insights from recent research is the rise of what John calls the “movable middle”—millions of people who are open to the Bible but not yet engaged with it. This group has grown by approximately nine million people in recent years. They are curious, interested, and even positive toward Scripture, but they lack the tools, confidence, or guidance to engage it meaningfully. This represents a massive opportunity for churches willing to step in and help. People want a guide. // Through focus groups and research, John discovered that many people in the movable middle feel intimidated by the Bible. They struggle with language, context, and navigation. But perhaps most striking is they want help. Contrary to what some leaders might assume, they are not rejecting the church as a guide. In fact, many say, “If we can't trust the church to help us understand the Bible, what good is it?” This creates a clear invitation for churches to step into a more relational, guiding role in discipleship. A surprising discipleship gap. // One of the most sobering findings is that nearly half of weekly church attenders are not regularly engaging Scripture on their own. While churches invest heavily in preaching and programming, many people are not developing personal habits of Bible engagement. John suggests that churches often focus on delivering content rather than equipping people to engage Scripture themselves. The result is a gap between what happens on Sunday and what happens in everyday life. From teaching to equipping. // If churches want to close that gap, they must shift from being primarily content providers to equipping environments. This means helping people develop the skills, habits, and confidence to read and apply Scripture on their own. It also requires understanding the real barriers people face, like time constraints, confusion, or lack of community support, and addressing those barriers with practical solutions. A new tool for churches. // To help leaders take action, the American Bible Society has developed the “Next Step for Church” assessment. This free tool allows churches to measure spiritual health, Bible engagement, and key leadership behaviors within their congregation. Within a few weeks, leaders receive a detailed, data-driven report highlighting strengths, challenges, and suggested next steps. Data that leads to discipleship. // John emphasizes that data is not an end in itself; it's a tool for better shepherding. By listening to their congregation at scale, leaders can identify patterns, confirm instincts, and prioritize what matters most. The assessment surfaces both what's working and where growth is needed, giving churches a clear path forward. It also connects individuals to personalized Scripture engagement resources, helping them take their next step spiritually. Why Scripture engagement matters most. // Nothing has a greater impact on spiritual growth than a person's relationship with the Bible. In fact, Scripture engagement accounts for a significant portion of overall spiritual health. When people consistently engage with God's Word, transformation follows—affecting beliefs, behaviors, and relationships. Signs of hope for the future. // Despite broader cultural challenges, John sees encouraging trends, especially among younger generations. Millennials and Gen Z show increasing openness to Scripture, even if they are still exploring. While overall trends may appear flat, meaningful change is happening beneath the surface. For churches willing to engage this moment, there is real opportunity for impact. To explore the research further or access the free church assessment, visit church.nextstep.bible and begin discovering how your church can better equip people to engage Scripture every day. Thank You for Tuning In! There are a lot of podcasts you could be tuning into today, but you chose unSeminary, and I'm grateful for that. If you enjoyed today's show, please share it by using the social media buttons you see at the left hand side of this page. Also, kindly consider taking the 60-seconds it takes to leave an honest review and rating for the podcast on iTunes, they're extremely helpful when it comes to the ranking of the show and you can bet that I read every single one of them personally! Lastly, don't forget to subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, to get automatic updates every time a new episode goes live! Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Risepointe Do you feel like your church’s or school's facility could be preventing growth? Are you frustrated or possibly overwhelmed at the thought of a complicated or costly building project? Are the limitations of your building becoming obstacles in the path of expanding your ministry? Have you ever felt that you could reach more people if only the facility was better suited to the community’s needs? Well, the team over at Risepointe can help! As former ministry staff and church leaders, they understand how to prioritize and help lead you to a place where the building is a ministry multiplier. Your mission should not be held back by your building. Their team of architects, interior designers and project managers have the professional experience to incorporate creative design solutions to help move YOUR mission forward. Check them out at risepointe.com and while you’re there, schedule a FREE call to explore possibilities for your needs, vision and future…Risepointe believes that God still uses spaces…and they're here to help. Episode Transcript Rich Birch — Hey friends, welcome to the unSeminary podcast. I am so glad that you have decided to tune in today. This is one of those episodes that there’s a great resource in it that going to want to make sure you engage with. There’s super helpful content. Plus it’s about an area that I know so many of us are thinking about, we’re wondering about, we’re asking questions about. Rich Birch — So super excited to have John Plake with us today. He is the chief innovator ah innovation officer and editor-in-chief of the State of the Bible Research Series, which comes from the American Bible Society. And they’re on a mission to make the Bible available to every person in a language and format each can understand and afford so that all may experience its life-changing message. ABS has really a whole bunch of different tools and approaches, and we’re excited kind of expose a little bit more about that today. John has been in ministry over 30 years. We’ll just call it over 30 years. And it served as a pastor, missionary, professor, researcher. John, welcome to the show. So glad you’re here.John Plake — Thanks so much for having me today. It’s great to be with you.Rich Birch — Why don’t you fill in the picture a little bit? Tell us a little bit about your background. You know, what brings you to your current work?John Plake — Yeah. Closer to 40 years now. Rich Birch — Nice. Yeah, yeah. That’s great.John Plake — It’s a little uncomfortable to talk about that.Rich Birch — That’s great.John Plake — Yeah. You know, I start out like a lot of people in ministry. I grew up in a home that ministry was central. Actually, both my grandfathers were ministers. My father was a minister. Ministry is kind of the family business in a way, but I really did sense a direction from God when I was about 15 years old to to pursue full-time ministry.John Plake — There was some detail around that. Ended up going to Bible college and and then started what turned out to be about nine years of full-time pastoral service. And I hadn’t been in that for very long before I realized that everything I learned in Bible College was preparing me to serve a generation that no longer existed in a culture that was gone. John Plake — And I thought, my goodness, I know God’s word pretty well. And mean, I’m a lifelong learner of God’s word. I love the Bible. And yet, didn’t really know culture very well. And I didn’t develop those tools until just years and years of practice, some missionary service, wonderful teachers at at Wheaton College and graduate school and and just a lifelong journey of learning.John Plake — So at American Bible Society, when I got here, the State of the Bible, program or this research project was already underway. And we’d been helped out by the Barna Group, which does some wonderful foundational work. And eventually it just kind of grew up and it got to a place where we had an internal team that was running it ourselves, now in collaboration with the National Opinion Research Council or NORC at the University of Chicago. We just do, I think, what is the largest ongoing study of Americans’ relationship with the Bible and faith and the church. And we get to talk about it all the time. Rich Birch — Yeah, I love it.John Plake — So, I mean, this is the best job in the world.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s so good. It’s it’s great research, something that I think should be on the kind of list of things that we need to be paying attention to. It’s been a gift to the church for so long and something that we should continue to to pay attention through. Now, let’s talk about you specifically. You spent three plus decades. I didn’t want to say almost 40. You know, I’m not saying that. I’m not saying that. I could say that, you know, a couple years ago, I clicked across one of those numbers with a zero on the end as my birthday. And ever since then, I’m a little sensitive about the the age thing. Rich Birch — So anyways, As a ministry, missionary professor, researcher, you’ve done a lot. How does wearing all of those hats, what do you what does that bring to you as you come to the data? How does that impact you as you think about really the state of the Bible research?John Plake — Yeah, you know, I think research can be dull. You know, it can sound like it’s all about writing questions or it’s all statistics and numbers. But for me, the research is all about the people. Rich Birch — So true.John Plake — It’s all about the people in our communities and in our churches that we’re trying to understand better so we can serve them well with the gospel. I, for years, I’ve used the analogy that that being in gospel ministry is like being a human bridge across a river. I grew up not very far from the Mississippi River in the St. Louis area, and there was a big 100-year flood when I was early on in ministry. And I mean, none of the bridges worked anymore. You couldn’t get from one side to the other.John Plake — And I thought, you know, that’s a tragedy that I encountered sometimes in ministry where maybe I was deeply rooted in one bank of the river, the text, but I wasn’t necessarily deeply rooted in the other bank of the river, which was the context.John Plake — And it’s this lived experience of the people that I was I was serving. And that I wanted to serve in my community, but I needed to understand them better. So I wasn’t just spouting you know Aristotelian logic to them. Or I wasn’t just coming at them with the pat answers that I’d learned. Like I’d never heard anybody in my life walk into my office and say, Pastor John, you got to tell me, what can you describe hamartiology to me from. You know like I had to learn that in school, but that’s not what people struggle with. Rich Birch — That’s so true. Yeah. John Plake — They had totally different questions and I needed to love them and honor them enough to understand their questions and answer them responsibly and reliably from the pages of scripture.Rich Birch — Yeah, love it. Okay, well, we’re going to dig into a little bit of just a couple of the findings just to kind of, we’re trying to whet your appetite, friends, to take steps towards this. So the 2025 data showed, and we’ve seen this, a real bump in Bible engagement, particularly among millennials and men. If I’m reading it correctly, though, we saw 2026, a shift happen, maybe back down. And so what’s going on? Actually, I heard another sociologist in a kind of a related field that was about church attendance talked about the dead cat bounce, that it was like, you know, which I thought, oh, that’s a, but there’s a similarity going on here. Pull this, this finding apart. Help us understand this.John Plake — Yeah, apologies to cat lovers out there.Rich Birch — Yes, exactly.John Plake — We were we were hoping, you know, I think we were really hoping. We looked at 2025. We saw that men in particular were leaning into the Bible in ways we hadn’t seen recently. Millennials doing the same thing. There there were some interesting numbers in 2025. And so when the 2026 numbers came to my desk in late January, I thought, I hope we’re extending I hope it’s going to be a trend. But it wasn’t. It was a blip.John Plake — And there’s more to it, though, than just the fact that scripture engagement didn’t go up. It also didn’t go down. And the level of people in America who are Bible disengaged, meaning they never pick up the Bible on purpose at all, that actually didn’t go up either. What grew was this kind of curious explorer group in the middle that we call the movable middle. And over the last two years, it’s grown by 9 million American adults. Rich Birch — Wow.John Plake — And so what we do see is there’s there’s openness to the Bible. There’s experimentation with the Bible. But people are jumping in and they’re trying it and they’re not being able to get hold of it. And I think that’s largely because of us.John Plake — Because Bible people who are around them aren’t saying, please come do this with me. Let me help you. Let me honor you enough to to respect your questions, to ask what you’re dealing with, and help you explore those issues through the pages of Scripture.Rich Birch — I love that movable middle, man, that feels like the kind of group we want to connect with and reach out to in our community. Any other, when you, when you’ve been thinking about this movable middle, what are some other kind of characteristics of those people or other things that, you know, are kind of telltale signs of this group as we’re thinking about them as it, as it pertains to Bible engagement?John Plake — Yeah, they’re an amazing group, and we’re going talking more about them all year, but they are probably my favorite subject in America. There are 74 million American adults that are in the movable middle.Rich Birch — Wow.John Plake — 74 million of our neighbors who are like…Rich Birch — Wow.John Plake — …and here’s what they tend to say: They love the Bible. They think it’s a great idea. But if you handed them a Bible, they don’t know how to find what they’re looking for. They don’t know how to navigate it. They get confused by the language in in Scripture.John Plake — I remember doing a a focus group with a bunch of people in the movable middle. I was in Chicago. it was an area I was really familiar with. I used to pastor in that area. And we got them talking about their experience with the Bible. And we said, hey, does anything ever stop you or kind of you know make you check out because you’re struggling with what’s going on? John Plake — And one young lady at the table said, yeah, you know the language of the Bible is really really hard for me to understand. It’s it’s a really old book. It uses expressions I don’t understand. And a gentleman sitting across the table from her just kind of chuckled and said, yeah, what the hell’s a mustard seed? And everybody laughed.John Plake — I was behind the glass and I just about fell out of my chair because they didn’t teach me to talk like that in a Assemblies of God seminary.Rich Birch — Yes.John Plake —Things like that, you know, that’s just not the way we roll.Rich Birch — Yeah, yeah. Yes.John Plake — But it was so authentic and he wasn’t being mean.Rich Birch — No.John Plake — He was just saying, boy, I don’t I don’t get it. And then they said, you know, we really want a guide. Rich Birch — That’s good.John Plake — And so we pushed on that a little bit. At the time, there were some clergy abuse scandals that actually there were billboards up in Chicago about clergy abuse scandals that all of us lamented. And so we’re like, OK, listen, do you trust the church to be your guide? Because ee saw these billboards, you know, and it’s your city. And so what what do you think?John Plake — And they said, well, of course we do. I mean, it’s terrible when people in the church abuse their position and abuse others. And that’s not what they’re supposed to do. But if we can’t trust the church to help us understand the Bible, what good are they, really? And so, yes, we’re looking to you, church, to help us connect more deeply with the Bible, understand what it meant to the original hearers and readers and how we apply it to our lives today.Rich Birch — Okay, that’s yeah, that’s really cool. I look forward to hearing more about the movable middle in this coming year. Another thing that jumped out to me, which I feel like, man, I’ve seen this in my church. This is like you you named a group that I see, but it’s surprising, at least it’s surprising on its face. So nearly half of weekly church attenders, weekly church attenders, which is, that’s like really engaged, you know, are not regularly engaging, engaging scripture on their own.Rich Birch — Man, what, so what should we do about that? That’s an interesting, how does, how should that impact our discipleship strategy? What are you encouraging us to be thinking about? And these people that are with us all the time, but they’re not engaged with scripture.John Plake — Well, I think the first thing to do is to just recognize it. Rich Birch — Right.John Plake — You know, a lot of pastors that I’ve talked to, when we talk about scripture engagement, they tell me things like this: Everything we do is scripture engagement. I spend my whole week preparing a scriptural message. I’m, you know, we’re preparing small group curriculum and Sunday school curriculum and all of this stuff. It’s all about the, everything we do is about the Bible. John Plake — Well, okay. But I had a I had a young youth pastor come to me not that long ago and he said, John, look, you were me once a few years ago. If you knew then what you know now, what would you do differently?John Plake — And the answer is I would do everything differently, than the way I ought to do it. Because what, in my tradition, there was a lot of emphasis on the preaching event, and I put a lot of effort into those communication events, but what I didn’t put as much effort into is empowering people in my church to do what I was doing, which was dig into scripture, understand it for themselves, giving them the tools to do that.John Plake — And then in May, we’re going to be releasing a chapter, just in a few few days now, we’re going to be releasing a chapter all about parents. And one of the startling things is the time pressure that moms are under. I mean, it’s incredible. And so we need to understand where they’re coming from and where they have barriers, but also have some compassion on them and help to support them when they’re really facing struggles. Like they don’t have enough time. They don’t have the resources or the community coming around them to help them to engage God’s word ah more fulsomely, more transformatively.John Plake — We know how to do this stuff, but we’re not connecting the dots to everybody that’s coming to hear us talk every…Rich Birch — That’s good. That’s good. I know I’ve in my seat as an XP, um you know, I’ve overseen a lot of what we do on the programming side and what we do on the weekends. And I’ve, you know, it’s like, that i don’t think I’ve ever said this publicly. It’s like the kind of behind the scenes conversation. I’ve sometimes wondered, I’ve said, you know, like, what we do on the weekend to try to make the Bible understandable is so completely different than Tuesday morning in someone’s life. Rich Birch — Like, we pull out all the stops to make it interesting. We get like world class communicators, incredible graphics, you know, emotional music, all of this to try to… But then the question is, okay, so now on Tuesday morning when you’re tired and you haven’t had your coffee yet and you’re just about to go read scripture, man, like that feels like a long ways away. There’s like a gap there that I sometimes wonder maybe we’re making it worse. You know. Maybe we’re making it harder. I said that. You didn’t say that. Rich Birch — So maybe there’s pastors that are listening here and they read this kind of report. They read this kind of finding and they’re like, hey, that’s interesting. But like, how what do I do in my church specifically? So you know we want we don’t want to just leave people with a tough stat.Rich Birch — I think we see that in our church. There’s people in our church that are here all the time. They’re not that engaged. But you’ve actually developed a new tool or ABS has developed a new tool to help us think through that. Why don’t you walk us through it? Tell us a little bit about it. How’s it work? Talk us how it can help us.John Plake — Yeah, so recently we developed two tools that kind of work together. One of them you can find on the internet at nextstep.bible. And it’s just for anybody who’s like, hey, I’m on a spiritual journey. I’m kind of stuck. I don’t really know what to do next. Maybe you’re just getting started exploring what it means to be a Christian. Maybe you’re Jesus’ little brother or sister. Wherever you are in that journey, there’s always a next step for us.John Plake — And so what we’ve done is analyzed along about a million spiritual life surveys. Rich Birch — Wow.John Plake — And from this huge quantity of data, we’ve learned that people are at different places in that journey. They’re at different points on the map. And we want to make sure that they’re equipped to have the right thing at the right time. I think currently there are 21,000 scripture engagement resources available there.Rich Birch — Wow.John Plake — They’re absolutely free. They’re in English, Spanish, and French. So go check it out, nextstep.bible.John Plake — But if you’re a pastor or you’re a church leader, you’re probably wondering, well, what’s going on in my church, right? So I see all the national data, but I think our tendency is to say, well, we’re the exception, right?Rich Birch — So true. Well, that’s not our people. John Plake — I know I know everybody else is struggling, but we’re doing okay.Rich Birch — Yes.John Plake — And and so it’s good to check our assumptions a little bit. They used to say a really sad statistic that 10 o’clock on Sunday morning was the most segregated hour in America, which makes me sad. What makes me sad also is that 12 o’clock noon in America is the most dishonest hour in America. That’s the hour when pastors tend to start greeting their people after the church service closes and they hear all these comments: oh, Pastor, that was the best sermon I’ve ever heard. And it wasn’t. It just wasn’t. All right, let’s face it.John Plake — There’s somebody out there who preaches better than you do and better than I do. They’re available on YouTube. People don’t need you to be the best Bible teacher in the world. They need you to be the best pastor for them. Rich Birch — That’s good.John Plake — And the tools that are all about focusing on their relationship with the Bible, their holistic spiritual formation, and our leadership behaviors. And so for that, we built the Next Step for Church Assessment.John Plake — It’s actually standing on the foundation or built on the engine block, if you want a different metaphor, of the old reveal research that the Willow Creek Association had come out with. It’s no longer available. And we were able to acquire all of their historical learnings, but also add in things like human flourishing and e-pastoral leadership behaviors that lead to churches really being missionally effective and strong. Excellent stuff on Bible engagement and spiritual formation. John Plake — So the the big challenge we had, I was talking with Dr. Ed Stetzer about this because he was at LifeWay Research when the Transformational Church Assessment was being built. And it was always hard because analyzing this kind of data required a lot of human intervention. It’s very expensive to do. It’s very complicated to deliver. And even a small cost can be a barrier for churches that have strained budgets. It doesn’t matter if you’re a church of, you know, 2,500 25,000 or 250. There’s always more places to put your money than there are dollars that are available to do it.John Plake — And so at American Bible Society, we said, you know what, as a gift to the church, because we love the church, we need to make it completely free. And so you can go to church.nextstep.bible and you could sign up today. Literally, we’re recording this on a on a Thursday. You could go there today and by Sunday, you could be launching your survey. Two weeks later, you’d automatically have results in your own online dashboard. You’d get key highlights emailed to you. There’s a place for custom questions. There’s just all kinds of really, really rich information.Rich Birch — So good.John Plake — And it it doesn’t take the place of the kind of learning that you have as a pastor. You learn deeply in relationship with others. You’re observing what’s going on. You have a team that’s around you. But what it does is it provides this valid, reliable sift and sort function. It’s based on well, I don’t know even know how many, well over 3000 churches, well over half a million survey responses went into building this and making it a tool that that is a good benchmark for you to say, you know what, if we want to move from where we are today to where God is calling us, here are the things we need to focus on.Rich Birch — It’s so good. And friends, I want to encourage you to to go there. Just church.nextstep.bible. I know many of us have a heart for saying, listen, we want to measure more than just nickels and noses. The number of people that show up and revenue that comes in. And this a great way to kind of inject at something that’s at the core of what we’re supposed to be doing as a church. So why don’t we just give a little bit more detail?Rich Birch — What is it? You know, what’s it actually measuring? How is it? You know, how could it be helpful? How how could it kind of dovetail with some of the things we’re already tracking? Maybe give us, you know, what kind of insights are we going to gain from this if we if we put our people through this?John Plake — Yeah, maybe it’s worthwhile to just back up and say it’s based on a congregational assessment. So really this kind of work is all about just listening to your congregation at scale. So if you have 25 people coming to church, you can probably have this conversation with them if you know how to ask the right questions. Rich Birch — Right.John Plake — You can go to the website. You’re like, what’s in the survey? There’s a button you can click. You can read the whole survey. It’s fine. We’re not going to try and surprise you with anything. But really simple stuff. How’s your relationship with Jesus? How often are you interacting with Scripture? What difference is that making in your life? We ask the standard Harvard human flourishing questions. We ask about um how the pastoral team or the senior pastor, him or herself, is doing at actually modeling Christlike leadership for you. Rich Birch — It’s so good.John Plake — And all of that reporting then gets brought into a database. It’s all anonymous. So individuals don’t, they don’t have to tell you who they are. They can’t tell you who they are other than by characteristics. And you’re going to get this really good, robust picture of what’s going on at the church. John Plake — Now, what does it take for somebody to do that? It takes about 20 minutes of their time, and time is expensive, right? People always have too much to do. So in return for that investment, at the end of their survey experience, they will have already told us everything we need to know to match them to great resources at nextstep.bible.John Plake — And with their permission, not without it, they can click a button, pass that data over to the individual nextstep.bible platform. They can create an account and right away, they’re going to be finding things like YouVersion Bible reading plans that are just for them.John Plake — If you’ve got people in your church and they’re outliers, they’re they’re way more spiritually advanced than everybody else, or they’re just getting started and everybody else is way ahead of them, these kinds of tools create bespoke pathways for them so they know what to do next. All the while, the church leadership can sit back and say, okay, here’s our results. And as a team, now what do we need to do to serve the whole congregation well?Rich Birch — I love this. You know, this is what incredible tool that you’ve put together here for our churches to wrestle through and to, you know, not only help us as a church as we’re thinking about these issues, but then help individuals in our church. What what would be some of the ways that churches might use the data that’s generated to impact what we’re doing in our programming? How how could we use this to improve what we’re doing?John Plake — Sure. There are really three things we want everybody to do. First, just discover what’s going on. Just just check your assumptions at the door and and say, okay, what do the data tell us about what’s going on in our church life and in our people’s lives? That’s the first thing.John Plake — Second thing is it’s going to surface for you the top three things that you’re doing great. And it’s going to give them to you in the report. And you need to throw a party. Like there are people who make these things happen for you. No pastor is doing this all by themselves. And so plan a party, celebrate what’s going well.John Plake — The third thing it’s going to do is it’s going to give you suggestions about, okay, here’s where your congregation is today. It won’t surprise you, but it might inform you. I’ve never seen a pastor look at the report and go, ah you guys got it wrong. Rich Birch — Sure, right.John Plake — Usually they they see the report and they go, yeah, okay, yeah, you got me.Rich Birch — Yeah. Confirmed some hunches I’ve had. Yeah. Yeah.John Plake — Right? But we don’t we don’t have time. We don’t have the resources. We don’t have the expertise to be able to sit down and and kind of scientifically walk through this process. So we do that for you. We deliver the report. And then we’re going to give you two key action items that we think churches like yours in a similar place have done that have helped move them toward spiritual health and missional effectiveness.John Plake — And that’s really what it’s all about. We want your congregation to be spiritually healthy. We want your your church as a whole to be missionally effective. And when that happens, often there’s numerical growth. Often there’s financial growth. But there’s certainly more missional impact that’s coming through your congregation and its work.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s cool. So if I’m like a church of a thousand people, let’s say, and just round number to picking out of the sky, how how what kind of percentage of my congregation would I need to take this to give me a reasonable, you know, statistical, you know, feeling good about the data for it? What what kind of number um should I be thinking about?John Plake — Well, the first thing is we’ve built in a tool that will tell you how to get to a margin of error of plus or minus 3%. Rich Birch — Love it.John Plake — And that does vary depending on the adult attendance that you have. So let’s say you’ve a thousand adults. And by adults, I mean anybody in high school or older can probably take this survey. Rich Birch — Yep.John Plake — And you can cut the data like by gender or by age. All of that live filtering is in the online platform. Rich Birch — Oh, that’s so good.John Plake — So if you’re the you’re the youth pastor and you’re like, well, wait, tell me about the young people that took the survey. You can just look right at them and compare them to the rest of the congregation, which I bet will be enlightening. But nevertheless, how many do you need if you’re a church of 1,000, it’s about 275.Rich Birch — Okay.John Plake — If it’s a smaller church than that, then you’re still going to need a pretty significant percentage. So if I roll that all the way down to a church of 100, you need 80.Rich Birch — Okay.John Plake — And if you roll that up to a church of 5,000, well, you don’t need that many more than 275.Rich Birch — Interesting.John Plake — So you’re going to report that out to you. It’s very, very doable. And, you know, I’ve pastored at large churches and I pastored a small church. And I’ll tell you, when I pastored a church of under 100, I could have gotten a census of the people, like everybody, to do a survey like this. They would have been glad to tell me these things. Rich Birch — Right.John Plake — And it’s not that I couldn’t have had a conversation one-on-one with most of the adults in the congregation. It was something different in that case. I actually didn’t know what to ask. I used to run into this when I was a campus pastor at a Christian university. And I would have young people walk into my office and I was like, I know I should be able to help them, but the challenge they’re facing is different than anything I’m familiar with. I don’t have any analog for this in my personal experience. And so this sort of takes the mystery away. We don’t ask fluffy questions. We ask research proven questions that are going to give you the information you really need so you can take action.Rich Birch — That’s amazing. That’s think this is such a great tool for people. I can see how, you know, it’d be so helpful for folks that are listening in to, you know, might be be able to plug in grab this experience for their people, help their church, help the folks that are attending. That’s, that’s incredible.Rich Birch — So, you know, you’ve picked an interesting vocation to be connected with the American Bible Society. And because, you know, this is such a critical and important part of developing people’s relationship, obviously, with Jesus; its core to all of it. And we have seen a long historical downward trend, and you’re pushing against that, which is amazing. But what gives you hope in the middle of all of that? What would it when you look at the church around you know, the country, where do you see flashes of just good things going on that are like, you know, when it comes to the relationship with scripture that even, you know, even when we see maybe the overall numbers are not as great as we want them to be, what are some kind of flashes of hope we should, that we could encourage folks with today?John Plake — Well, I’d like to maybe point to just three things that leap to mind. Rich Birch — Yep.John Plake — The first of them is I never talk to anybody in the church who says the Bible is a bad idea. Rich Birch — Sure.John Plake — Everybody likes the Bible. We’re all trying to figure out how to communicate its message better, to understand it more deeply. It’s transforming our lives, and we want to be able to share it with others. John Plake — And that’s great because, number two, there’s nothing that makes a bigger difference in somebody’s spiritual life than their relationship with the Bible. I mean, absolutely nothing. And I’m saying this as a researcher. I’ve tested it. I can’t find anything that makes a bigger difference. John Plake — In fact, when we looked at Christian college and university students, 60% of their overall spiritual health across lots of domains—beliefs, practice, putting faith into action, loving God, loving others, all these things, 60% of the variance in their spiritual health is solely accounted for by their relationship with the Bible.John Plake — So if we can help people have a dynamic relationship with scripture, we win. That’s all there is to it. It’s just that simple. And so that is really encouraging.John Plake — And then the third thing, ah the third thing is how I say this nicely? I'm I’m from Gen X and so to my Baby Boomer friends, I’m sorry, but you guys don’t have the influence that you once did.Rich Birch — Yeah, it’s true.John Plake — And that’s a good thing because there’s new openness among Millennials, and Gen Z and even younger Gen X um that we just don’t see among Baby Boomers. It’s like Baby Boomers made up their minds in the 60s and early 70s and said, this is what I believe and I’m not changing. And they haven’t. John Plake — That’s not to say that someone who’s a Baby Boomer can’t have a a spiritual experience and transformational experience. It does happen. But on the population level, like when we looked at the Bay Area of San Francisco, if you look at the scripture engagement, church engagement, love God, love others data in the Bay Area, it looks like what you’d expect, until you strip out the Baby Boomers. And then suddenly it looks better than every place else in America.John Plake — You’re like, what’s going on? Well, looks like all the unreconstructed hippies that moved to the Bay Area are actually holding a lid on the population numbers. And when you remove that and you go, oh, wait a minute, let me look under the headline and say what’s happening. There’s more going on than is easy to see. And I think this happens in big national trends.John Plake — Oh, is Scripture engagement up or down? Is you know church attendance up or down? Whats what’s going… big national trends. Yeah, okay, those are helpful, and we want those to change. But what’s changing first is below the fold. Things in Gen Z, things among Millennials, things in young men, those things are starting to change, and I think those are the first glimmerings that God is at work in a new way in America, and I can’t wait to see it.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s that’s a great word. And that lines up with what we’re seeing, even just experientially talking to churches across the country. You know we’re so we’re seeing there is something going on with younger generations, which is great to see. I was I was born in 1974, the lowest birth rate year of the 20th century. I am classic Gen X. Like you know I am like statistic I’m the statistical average Gen X and has spent a lot of my time trying to hand stuff from the Boomers to the Millennials. And, yeah, there’s lots of encouraging news there, particularly with the younger generations. Rich Birch — I also want to speak to on the the work I’ve done in the church growth stuff that I’ve done and coaching I’ve done with churches, one of the things that’s just undeniable is churches that have a high view of scripture, that is, they’re trying to get people engaged with scripture. They they talk about it like it’s actually true. How do we say don’t know what’s the best way to talk about that? Those are the churches that are prevailing, and that actually works out statistically. You see that time and again. Talk to us about that dynamic, which is kind of co-related to the things we’re talking about today. From your perspective in the stats and all that, how how have you seen that work out as you’ve looked at churches across the country?John Plake — Yeah, I think you’re exactly right. The churches that are the healthiest in America, that are growing, that where where people are spiritually healthy, have a really dynamic relationship with Scripture. And it kind of it cuts across tradition. Rich Birch — Yep.John Plake — There are some traditional things going on. I was listening to Justin Brierley and his surprising Rebirth of Belief in God podcast, and it was from last season, and he he had someone on, he was interviewing, and what she was saying was there are the parts of the church that seem to be thriving are kind of the, the the older, the ancientness traditions, whether it’s Catholic or Orthodox, that what she called somewhat irreverently, the smells and bells side of of the church.Rich Birch — Sure, sure.John Plake — And on the other side, kind of my end of the swimming pool, I’m, from the Assemblies of God, so the Pentecostal and Charismatic side. And she said, what’s going on is that both ends of that spectrum are totalizing. John Plake — They’re saying, you know what, the the Bible places certain expectations and demands on people. Christ places certain expectations and demands on people. And these parts of the church aren’t sort of shy about talking about that from a biblical perspective. She said, what’s what’s dying is that part in the middle where we’ve reduced church to a PowerPoint and you know an Excel spreadsheet. And she said, that part of the church seems to be dying and no one’s coming to the funeral. Rich Birch — That’s good. John Plake — And I thought, you know okay, right?Rich Birch — Yeah. Yeah, that’s good.John Plake — So if we revitalize our relationship with God through scripture, there’s a next step for every church. It doesn’t matter what, you know whether you’re mainline or evangelical or, you know, Pentecostal or Orthodox or whatever it is, but but reviving our relationship with God through Scripture is really where it’s at.Rich Birch — That’s so good. i Yeah, I call that middle group the just because it rhymes doesn’t mean it’s true group. You know, like the, you know, were just like, it’s all my thoughts. No one wants to come and find us. They want to find God ultimately. Well, I don’t want to pick any fights with anybody that’s listening in, but I really appreciate today’s conversation, John. This has been great. So we want to send people to church.nextstep.bible.Rich Birch — The the promise of in two weeks, your church could have a comprehensive report on spiritual health, on where your church is, spiritual health is at, that’s a huge promise. And so again, this is go to church.nextstep.bible. Any kind of final words as we wrap up today’s episode?John Plake — You know, you might be familiar with Cally Parkinson. Cally was the co-author of all of the Reveal books, every single one of them. She was head of communications for the Willow Creek Association when they were running this. She’s probably had more conversations with pastors and church leaders about survey results like this than anybody I know, maybe than anybody alive. And Cally likes this so much. She said, John, I want to have a personal consultation with the first hundred churches that go through this.John Plake — And so if you want to be in that group, she’s going to offer to spend an hour with you and just walk through your results and help explain it. There are videos throughout the platform that will explain it as well. And you can’t beat talking to Cally. She loves pastors. She says you’re the salt of the earth. And she just really wants to serve you because the work that you do to save people is just so valuable to her. So anyway, just wanted to offer that. And I know you’d probably love to meet Cally.Rich Birch — Yeah, that’s fantastic. Well, appreciate you being here today. Thanks for the great work you do at the American Bible Society. John, appreciate you being on today. Thank you.John Plake — Thank you.

Could Jesus really have called a legion of angels?  Episode 1340 Greg's new book: Inspired Imperfection Dan's new book: Confident Humility Send Questions To: Dan: @thatdankentTwitter: @reKnewOrg Facebook: ReKnew Email: askgregboyd@gmail.com Links: Greg's book:"Crucifixion of the Warrior God" Website: ReKnew.org  

Contrary to the myth that kings routinely ruled over cowed subordinates by "divine right" in the Middle Ages, civil governments of the period faced countless institutional obstacles to the exercise of power.Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/medieval-europeans-paved-way-freedom-west

Contrary to the myth that kings routinely ruled over cowed subordinates by "divine right" in the Middle Ages, civil governments of the period faced countless institutional obstacles to the exercise of power.Original article: https://mises.org/mises-wire/medieval-europeans-paved-way-freedom-west

OA1268 - Patents, trademarks, and copyrights, ach mein! How did the Fender Stratocaster, a guitar that has been in continuous manufacture since 1954, Suddenly become the subject of an intellectual property dispute? Well, maybe this didn't exactly come from Out of the Woods. Fender has had 5 utility patents, 1 design patent, and 3 trademarks relevant to the Stratocaster Through the Years. But the one thing that's been Slipping Through Their Fingers all this time was protection for that iconic (or is it?) body shape. After their design patent expired, their trademark application was Denied, and US copyright was definitionally Forbidden, anyone could see that Nothing Really Matters to the US Patent and Trademark Office, and Fender was left Walking in the Snow. Very similar (some might say identical) body shapes entered the market. It's Late, but perhaps not too late. Fender sailed the Seven Seas to another country with different copyright laws. But with only a German court order in hand, will Fender be able to make this exclusive protection Live Forever, or is it just Cheap Talk other guitar makers can ignore? Contrary to the hot takes everywhere, it could be A Hard Day's Night before we get a definitive answer. Is any of it JU$T? You decide. Tune in for the history that got us here, an overview of US IP law, and to hear Jenessa argue with a computer, and 90% of people talking about this, who just cannot seem to link to the documents they're referencing… Fender patents, relevant to Stratocaster: Guitar shape (utility/functional features): U.S. Patent No. 2,960,900 (issued Nov. 22, 1960) Guitar shape (design/ornamental features): U.S. Patent No. Des. 169,062 (issued Mar. 24, 1953) Bridge and pick-up assembly: U.S. Patent No. 2,573,254 (issued Oct. 30, 1951) Tremolo: U.S. Patent No. 2,741,146 (issued Apr. 10, 1956) Pickup and circuit: U.S. Patent No. 2,817,261 (issued Dec. 24, 1957) Adjustable neck: U.S. Patent No. 3,143,028 (issued Aug. 4, 1964) Dating a Fender Stratocaster, Adirondack Guitars. Relevant Fender trademarks Fender brand name: FENDER, U.S. Trademark Registration No. 0805075 (issued/renewed Mar. 8, 1966) Stratocaster name: STRATOCASTER, U.S. Trademark Registration No. 0839997 (issued Dec. 5, 1967) Headstock: U.S. Trademark Registration No. 1148870 (issued Mar. 3, 1981) USPTO, 1512 Relationship Between Design Patent, Copyright, and Trademark. Stuart Spector Designs, Ltd. v. Fender Musical Instruments Corporation, 94 USPQ2d 1549 (TTAB 2009) [precedential]. Düsseldorf Regional Court (Az. 14c O 64/25) Carolin Thurner, The Fender Stratocaster before the Regional Court of Düsseldorf - First application of the ECJ Principles from Mio/konektra to a work of applied art in Germany, Lexology. Katheriner Sayer (May 28, 2026), The Brewing Fight Over the World's Most Popular Electric Guitar, Wall Street Journal. Josh Gardner, Fender reportedly demands boutique builders stop making Stratocaster-style guitars: This is what it means for the industry, Guitar.com. Wayne's World clip Check out the OA Linktree for all the places to go and things to do!

What is the future of the Christian? In this sermon on Romans 13:11–14 titled “The Christian's Future,” Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones preaches about what is awaiting the Christian. All over Scripture, the answer is clear— Christians are waiting for the coming day of the Lord. Contrary to what some people say, Scripture tells that this coming is a visible and physical coming of the Lord. At this time Jesus will be coming to complete His work. After passing judgment, He will set up His eternal kingdom. What are the consequences of this? First, Dr. Lloyd-Jones explains that time will be no more. One of the main effects this will have is on the condition of the world. It will undo the results of the fall. All things will be restored to their original, perfect condition that existed before humanity sinned. Additionally, there will be a judgment and for believers, a judgment about rewards— the righteous are promised in Scripture that they will receive rewards corresponding to their acts on earth. Judgment for the wicked involves both the body and the spirit. However, the righteous are promised eternal life in the presence of the Lord. Listen as Dr. Lloyd-Jones helps the reader grasp the vision for what the future holds if one has repented and believed in Jesus for forgiveness from their sins and is a child of God.

No doubt you've heard the cliché, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” Contrary to that little couplet, words can indeed hurt and they can hurt deeply. And you know, once words are spoken, they can never be unspoken. One of the most Christ-like things we can do is to think before we speak so our words don't hurt others. I've been encouraging all of us to make it a habit to think before we speak, and to help us remember to do that, we're offering you a bracelet which simply says think. By wearing it, it is my hope we will all get better at thinking about what we're going to say before we say it. Using the acronym of think, we've seen our words should be T – true, H – helpful, I – inspiring, N – necessary, and finally: K stands for kind: We need to think about how we can say what we have to say in a kind way. How many times have words been spoken to you in an unkind manner, and while the message itself was not necessarily a problem, the words or the tone of voice used to send the message were very hurtful. Oh, how important it is for us to think before we speak. Ask yourself, “How would I feel if someone said that to me?” Anxiety weighs down the heart, but a kind word cheers it up (Proverbs 12:25). When you're getting ready to speak, ask yourself if the words you will speak will cheer someone up, encourage an anxious heart. In Proverbs 15, we read a gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger. It is amazing to see the difference it makes when you think before you speak, and you choose words that are gentle and kind. Those words become words of life, and they are pleasing to the Lord Jesus. What do you think? Can we get serious about thinking before we speak? It will make us more like the Lord Jesus, and we'll be a much more effective witness for him. If our think wristband will help you to think before you speak, then please contact us and we'll send it to you.

Discover all of the podcasts in our network, search for specific episodes, get the Optimal Living Daily workbook, and learn more at: OLDPodcast.com. Episode 3419: Ross Enamait explains that while jumping rope is an outstanding conditioning tool, it is not always the best starting point for weight loss because beginners must first overcome a skill and coordination learning curve. He emphasizes that long-term success comes from combining sustainable exercise habits with dietary improvements, reminding readers that nutrition plays a larger role in weight loss than any single workout method. Read along with the original article(s) here: http://rosstraining.com/blog/2015/10/jumping-rope-for-weight-loss/ Quotes to ponder: "Contrary to what some believe, jumping rope is not a high impact exercise once you are proficient with the tool. It's entirely possible to skip rope while remaining light on the feet." "As an old saying suggests, you can't outwork a bad diet." "Instead, clean up your diet and slowly make exercise a part of your daily routine. Eventually, it will become part of who you are and what you do." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“Cease, my son, to hear the instruction that causeth to err from the words of knowledge.” (Proverbs 19:27) One of the saddest realities in the modern world is that many of the leaders of e... More...

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for May 25, 2026 is: sacrosanct • SAK-roh-sankt • adjective Sacrosanct is a formal word that describes something too important and respected to be changed or criticized. It can also mean "most sacred or holy." // While the family's new matriarch aimed to maintain the familiar traditions of the holidays, she did not consider the details of their celebration to be sacrosanct. See the entry > Examples: "Sen. Paul Strommen of Sidney ... said there's no appetite among senators to empty the Veterans Aid Fund. 'There's certain things that are kind of sacrosanct, and veterans' aid is one of those things.'" — Todd von Kampen, The North Platte (Nebraska) Telegraph, 7 Mar. 2026 Did you know? Contrary to the beliefs of some, language is not sacrosanct; rather, it is subject to constant modification based on the needs, experiences, and even whims of those who use it. Take the word sacrosanct itself, which likely comes from the Latin phrase sacro sanctus meaning "made holy by a sacred rite." There's a definite semantic softening from that to the "too important and respected to be changed or criticized" meaning of sacrosanct. But holy moly, has sanctus led to a whole bunch of other English words with a truly pious flavor, from saint and sanctimony to sanctify and sanctuary. Sacrum ("a sacred rite"), source of the sacro in sacro sanctus, is no slouch either, living on in English anatomy as the name for our pelvic vertebrae—a shortening of os sacrum, which translates literally as "holy bone."