Podcasts about costa rico

Catching Up With Jacob is political commentary from a Biblical perspective. This week Jacob is back and rejoins regulars Davy and David and welcomes Ken from Ken's Corner and Bret Gunderson from Costa Rico.  as they discuss today's hot topics. The rest of the team has returned from filming the documentary in Israel, but are too jetlagged to go today.Aired live on 3/15/2025 on MorielTV, RTNTV, YouTube and Rumble.

The LEAF Global Arts Series continues with Luis Porras, a Costa Rican journalist, musician, and founder of the Jirondai Project. This initiative preserves indigenous languages and cultures through captivating audiovisual recordings, blending ancient songs with modern sounds. Luis emphasizes that when a language disappears, we lose unique ideas and our potential as a species. The Jirondai Project amplifies indigenous voices, creating world fusion music that connects the past with the present, making it accessible to everyone. Luis shares that the language of the spirits is encoded in song, making singing vital to their traditions. He emphasizes that this tradition, especially among women, is beautiful because it celebrates their creation, talents, and humility."The language of the spirits was created in a code that is only understood by singing. So that's why it's so important. That's why the singing is so important for these people and especially this type of tradition from women is so beautiful because they talk about how well they were created. How big is their talent? How humble they are, even. Because they know they have just a little short life. And they have to develop their talent as much as they can." Listen to this moving, inspiring, and encouraging story with Luis Porras. A true World Changer and Culture Keeper!For more information about LEAF Global Arts and their upcoming festivals, visit their website.Only on Speaking of Travel. Thanks for listening to Speaking of Travel! Visit speakingoftravel.net for travel tips, travel stories, and ways you can become a more savvy traveler.

It appears that next week I wll join a couple of buddies to fish an offshore tournament. It will be my first excursion since fishing in Costa Rico after my accident. I'm hopeful that I have enough stamina to make it an entire day. My wife and I will go a day early so I can be well rested . . . https://www.wordsfortheday.com/2024/06/ask-and-you-will-receive/

The Colombian craft beer scene is one that deserves to be recognized. And one of those Colombian craft breweries is located in the heart of Medellín.Welcome to Sierra Blanca Cerveceriá, where the beer is fantastic and the people are even better. This is Sierra Blanca Cerveceria's story, but it's also a story that belongs to Medellín's craft beer scene just as much.The Wonders of Medellín, ColombiaMedellín is a thriving city full of a diverse group of people consisting of locals, expats, digital nomads, and tourists. Many of them looking for the next best thing to experience, the next best dish to savor, or, if you're like us, the next best beer to write home about.And while the Medellín craft beer scene is about ten years behind the craft beer scene in the States, it is thriving just as much as the city is. And people here are beginning to appreciate the wonders of craft beer alongside the wonders of this culturally vibrant city.Meet Carlos from Sierra Blanca CerveceriáCarlos, owner and head brewer at Sierra Blanca Cervecería is helping that appreciation for craft beer along quite nicely. A conference interpreter turned brewer and brewery owner, Carlos has visited many countries. Places like Panama, Chile, the U.S., Ecuador, Peru, Costa Rico, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, and more.And along the way he fell in love with beer. So when the pandemic hit and his conference travels slowed down, it was a given. Time to brew more and dial it in. And that he did. The result?Carlos now heads up one of the best breweries in Medellín with a focus on local ingredients. He and other brewers in Colombia are working hard at creating a craft beer scene that is distinctly Colombian. And that includes the welcoming personas of the Colombian people along with the flavors native to the countryside. Flavors such as passion fruits (of which there are many) and tomate arbol (a fruit which roughly translates to tree tomato.Inspired by his Latin American roots, Carlos loves to be unique and creative. He brews saisons, barrel-aged beers, and even chichas (a corn-based brew dating back to the Inca era), alongside the more typical craft beers such as IPAs, ambers, and more.So, grab a beer. Join us as we chat with Carlos about the Colombian craft beer scene and how Medellín craft beer fits into it. But also, and more importantly, about how beer brings people together across aisles, countries, and cultures.For the complete set of show notes, including connections, images, and the beer we drank, click here.Relevant Links:To connect with Sierra Blanca, click here.To learn more and register for Camp Carpe Diem, click here.To learn more about visiting Medellín, click here.To learn more about Harvest Hosts, click here.Connect with Us:The Craft Beer Travel & Adventure Podcast is hosted by Living a Stout Life, where we share stories, community, and resources for all your craft beer travel and adventure lifestyle needs.We would absolutely love it if you subscribe to the podcast and leave us a review. As my nephew once said, "We say please and thank you!"Subscribe to Living a Stout Life:NewsletterYouTubeFacebookInstagramBuy Us a Beer:Like our podcast? Help keep it going with a donation for a beer. We'll even zoom ya for a happy hour, if you'd like. Or meet up in person if we can. Click here.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/craft-beer-travel-and-adventure/donations

There is no direct path when it comes to being a sport fish captain . Most have to figure it out on their own , Fraser Simpson tells us about his journey on becoming a a true pro. Advice he got from some of the best in the game like Bob Lemay and Jose Wejebe, and Tom Roland. Starting in Costa Rico in scuba and now living the dream here in South Florida. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Host Chat 5Meeting with KatiePeople and dog watchingThe Surrounded By Idiots bookCosta Rica Dogs Resort dogsClosing Where you can find us at https://www.facebook.com/peopleswolfpodhttps://www.instagram.com/thepeopleswolfpodcast/peopleswolfpod@gmail.comMusic Produced by: WaresdannyIG: @waresdanny, Website: https://waresdanny.bandzoogle.com/home

doctors to help us get out of our heads and into our bodies. This modality can benefit anyone who is breathing. Contraindications are for those with heart conditions, epilepsy, and newly pregnant. It can be approached from physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual places. This is a deeper experience than coping skill type of breath-work. "Using our breath as a flashlight to shine within the parts of our bodies where we might be holding, suppressing, repressing, and using the breath, we are able to shine the light and dispel those shadows. In doing that we are able to live more fully, more connected, more authentically." A typical session with Kaley starts with getting to know you and learning about your intentions. Next you will move to either the massage table or the floor and start with a grounding meditation. From there, the active breath starts that moves like a wheel, no breath holds. This active breath continues for 25-40 minutes. It can take 7-10 minutes to get past the mind's resistance. During this time, you can drop into the subconscious. The active breath will end and integration happens for about 10-15 minutes. The session ends with tea and discussion if you want. Kaley recommends 6-10 sessions that can be conducted individually or with a small group either in-person or virtually. Some of her clients have said that it helps them release physical tension, create stronger connections with others, and releases bitterness or resentment. Kaley says the key is to accept whatever happens. "I am very sentient. I do love to talk about feelings and go deep with people. I care so much about the nitty gritty parts of people. I didn't know what to do with that and it was at this breath-work retreat where I had this knowing of 'this is for you, this is why I created you, this is your thing.'" Kaley was drawn to this work and she has a background in dancing, yoga, and as a fitness instructor. She has always been body oriented and in her feelings. At one point, being so connected to her feelings felt heavy for her but now she looks at it as a gift. She found this type of breath-work while on a retreat in Costa Rico. "I hold it very sacred and I recognize it's extremely vulnerable for people. So I feel very fortunate that I'm in this place to hold people and show up for people in this way." Kaley wants to heal Charlotte because she sees so much potential for goodness, love, and seeing people for who they really are. She wants to offer more compassion and connection to this community. Connect with Kaley through her website, Facebook, and Instagram.

This week on A Podcast About Catholic Things, Eric (The Ambassador of Common Sense) and Dan (The Ambassador of Nonsense) discuss the latest cases of Catholic bishops persecuting good priests… especially since Pope Francis's Motu Proprio. Costa Rico bishops are pure lunatics. Some American bishops aren't much better. We're once again faced with the fact that such men either have to be stupid or evil--or both, and the time for pope-splaining and bishop-splaining is over. We've got to support our good priests--there aren't enough of them. In the news, Eric goes over some of the recent scandals in the church, including Pope Francis's statement that the Ten Commandments aren't 'absolutes', and Mayor Lightfoot receiving communion. Natural disasters continue throughout the world but have somewhat lessened. The Taliban takes control more fully and all other nations are now out of Afghanistan. A mass grave from Stalin's purge is discovered in Ukraine. Cuba accepts 'cryptocurrency'. Gunman kills woman in Garland, Texas, steals car, and fires on police. China prohibits kids from playing video games. North Korea is using a nuclear reactor again. 20 states sue the Biden administration. SpaceX docks with ISS carrying a 4,800 pound load. In the land of nonsense, milk crate challenge is banned on TikTok. Mugshot inspires false accusations. Stingray photobombs baby picture. Cow is stuck in tree. Car thief does not want to become body thief. Woman escapes from jail by stealing identity.VIEW ON APPLE PODCASTS VIEW ON GOOGLE PODCASTS VIEW ON AMAZON VIEW ON AUDIBLE VIEW ON CASTBOX VIEW ON PODCASTADDICT VIEW ON STITCHER VIEW ON BITCHUTE VIEW ON RUMBLE VIEW ON TUNE-IN VISIT US ON FACEBOOK

Chuck and Mary Casselman left San Diego, California to retire in Playa Flamingo, Costa Rica. You may be asking yourself why anyone would leave the beautiful beaches and near perfect weather of San Diego. The Casselmans had enough of California's ever increasing taxes, high cost of living and horrible traffic. In Costa Rica, they love their beautiful modern home with a pool and the warm people of Costa Rica. Find out more about what brought the couple to Costa Rica, on Episode 122 of Retire There with Gil & Gene.Chuck and Mary Casselman's informative website about relocating to Costa Rica is Going Pura Vida.

(Discount Code TOPHER for 10% OFF at Check out) (00:36:36) https://slowdownclothing.bigcartel.com/ Sweatshirts, Sweatpants & Winter Beanie Official Email talkinwithtopher@gmail.com Topher's Social Media (linktr.ee) https://linktr.ee/talkinwithtopher (instagram) https://www.instagram.com/talkinwithtopher/?hl=en (twitter) https://twitter.com/_conderman (snap chat) https://www.snapchat.com/add/cconderman?share_id=HiV14moKPns&locale=en-US (tik tok) https://www.tiktok.com/@talkinwithtopher?lang=en (facebook) https://www.facebook.com/christopher.conderman Music By Tyler Crain Follow him on (linktr.ee) https://linktr.ee/grydlynkmusic (Instagram) @grydlynkmusic (Twitter) @grydlynkmusic (Facebook) @grydlynkmusic (Soundcloud) https://soundcloud.com/tyler-crain-279047332 Time Stamps (00:00:00) Start (00:03:20) I hate the snow (00:12:54) Clean OFF the ROOF of your CAR!! (00:14:48) Time management is so important (00:26:10) What's up with eggs and why is there no fiber in food today (00:30:32) Keeping you sick | upside down food triangle (00:39:03) Obesity for children does not need surgery or pills!!! (00:44:43) Menthol ban across the USA (00:53:14) Carole Baskins husband alive in Costa Rico (00:57:12) Elon speaks out on Twitter about Vaccine issues (01:05:03) CGI fooled me again (01:07:17) What if ChatGPT can be my producer Music Mastering Eric Sauter (Mastered the tracks) Instagram: @blackheart_sound Website: http://www.blackheartnh.com/ Logo and Album Art Link for Lily's art: Thumbtack: Lily Durocher's Art: https://www.thumbtack.com/nh/manchester/art-services/lily-desrochers-art/service/420155477233508358?utm_medium=web&utm_source=txt&surface=sp&referrer_pk=420155458886606852 Episode Link's https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/09/health/childhood-obesity-treatment-guidelines-wellness/index.html https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/fdas-proposed-menthol-ban-advances-140000806.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cteWFob28tY29tLmNkbi5hbXBwcm9qZWN0Lm9yZy8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAD_699Hx_TWx3nGoP0xI_FsJR36QZ-IDeFeTwhYFQPrgHCNMz5FSP_CA9iCvryYMOhfc1uIeYHcKM2KjDzcz9Ey6KTkHD0u2d7e3WLh3bH0INj9mULtpdFmXtUnFTlDxSOOIF2UJwfCsL5GEjdonu5uJQWqYQZT3bkOQH8w6pu0w https://nypost.com/2023/01/18/carole-baskins-dead-husband-found-alive-last-year-but-no-one-noticed/?sr_share=facebook https://twitter.com/catturd2/status/1616808699494039553?t=XFug2wlxKftdU9sU7IdqVw&s=03 https://twitter.com/cooIboobs/status/1616542127428718617?t=dAg7mj6o5UFL7-Fx8EXNUg&s=03 --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/christopher-conderman/message

We're back with another special Saturday livestream. We'll be discussing the revelation that Carole Baskin's husband is in fact alive and well in Costa Rico. Please go and support the show, go check out the Patreon and sign-up there so you get over a hundred hours of extra content. That way, you're supporting the show and you get tons of bonus content so what are you waiting for? Do it. Sign up for the Patreon now. It''s gonna get wild folks! If you enjoyed the show, please Like & Subscribe to our channel and share the links. This show can be found @hiddeninplainsightradio on Instagram and @thehiddenpod on Twitter. iTunes Link: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hidden-in-plain-sight/id1488538144?i=1000459997594 Spotify Link: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5zsntvl63Do7m9gNTD8Za2?si=MczvbuMlRuCbmWChclVUZA YouTube Link: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNRejWJs0hn8pefj5FiE7ZQ If you want to support the show, check out our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/hiddeninplainsightpod --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/hiddeninplainsightradio/message

The lads are back again with another huge episode! This week we welcome Linn Sandstrom back to the show. We chat all about her crazy year that's seen her travel the planet multiple times while racking up an impressive 6 fight win streak! From Sydney to the Phillipines to Costa Rico to Mexico to Los Angeles to London, she hasn't stopped, and has an even bigger 2023 planned! Don't miss this one. We also preview UFC 282 and recap a big week in boxing! Hit the download button and step into the ring! Presented by Palmerbet. Gamble responsibly.

Duitsland zit nog in het toernooi. Het duel met Spanje eindigde in 1-1. Maar het gevecht was mooi. In de AD WK Voetbalpodcast bespreken Etienne Verhoeff en Maarten Wijffels het mooie WK duel tot nu toe, maar ook de stand van zaken bij Oranje. Moet Xavi Simons een kans krijgen?Belgie verloor van Marokko. Costa Rico won van Japan. Kroatie was te sterk voor Canade. De voetbalzondag op het WK bood genoeg vermaak. Met Spanje-Duitsland als hoogtepunt. 'Het ging in een wervelwind voorbij', vertelt Wijffels in de AD Voetbalpodcast. 'Spanje-Duitsland was wel de beste wedstrijd van het WK tot nu toe. Uitstekend geleid door Danny Makkelie trouwens. Ik heb ook genoten van Füllkrug bij Duitsland. Die spits speelde vorig jaar nog op het tweede niveau in Duitsland. Hij komt erin met z'n Russell Crowe baard en schiet die bal nog goed binnen ook.' Maar het duel tussen Duitsland en Spanje maakte voor Wijffels ook wel andere zaken duidelijk. De ploeg van Luis Enrique maakt dit toernooi indruk met het spel.‘Hoe wil je dat met 4-3-3 gaan bestrijden als Nederland? Je wordt weggevaagd. Oranje heeft al geen buitenspelers mee. Dus dan speel je al met negen man. De enige kans tegen ploegen als Spanje heb je met dit systeem. En dan op snelheid er ook uitkomen, zoals de Duitsers dat ook deden.' Beluister de AD WK Voetbalpodcast via AD.nl, de AD App of jouw favoriete podcastplatform. Meer lezen over het WK? Kijk dan op https://www.ad.nl/wk-voetbal/  Support the show: https://krant.nlSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Mateo is a student at Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana double-majoring in studio art, Japanese Language, and Linguistics. He was born in Guatemala City and attended high school in Costa Rico before coming to Earlham. Mateo has a passion for the intersection of queer and migrant identities and would like to be a middle school teacher.   Scripture Readings (The Inclusive Bible) Exodus 35:30-35 (Note: This translation is not available online.) Hymn My Life Flows On (VT #605)   Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HoustonMennonite Website: https://houstonmennonite.org

Join Wendi and Sarah at Irazu in Chicago Illinois!  This is the dorks first time trying Costa Rican cuisine! 

Psych! Its Psychedelics! Tune in this week as we interview a special guest, Cacique "Antonio" Cuevas, Chief of the Taino tribe, discusses the positive benefits of entheogenic plants and their pairing with Mental Health.

Juan Carlos Zuniga is a biologist and the program manager of the Costa Rico site for Ecology Project International (EPI). He shares how their hands-on, science-focused programs around the world are life-changing.Founded as a nonprofit organization in 2001, Ecology Project International creates positive long-term environmental impacts through its science education programs, conservation initiatives, and engagement with local communities and partners. EPI's travel programs are designed to nurture the sense of discovery at the heart of all learning. Juan Carlos shares how students and teachers are free to explore, inquire, and investigate all their curiosities. By working with wildlife and helping out researchers, the program  ignites a passion for science and conservation that lasts a lifetime.Also on Speaking of Travel, Justin Bellame, an innovator, successful entrepreneur and travel industry expert, explains how his companies and partners are supporting each other with resiliency and resolve. And Tina Kinsey of the Asheville Regional Airport sheds some light on what's new and important to know when you are going through an airport and boarding a plane these days to ensure our trips run smoothly. 

Rev. Tiffany White Sage Woman is a Cosmic Heart Healing Practitioner, Level 6 Seraphim Blueprint Practitioner, Usui Reiki Master Teacher, a Run Valdr Healing Practitioner, Multi Dimensional Healer, Divine & Celestial Channel, Holistic Health Practitioner and ordained Spiritual Inter-Denominational Minister. She attended the Soul Body Fusion ® and Divinity School and incorporates the Soul Body Fusion ® process in her Healing Sessions.She is the Owner of Goldylocks Temple of Healing in Groton, CT and has clients located all over the world. Goldylocks Productions is a subdivision of Goldylocks Temple of Healing, llc. Tiffany produces Live Streamed Shows, Podcasts, and Events for those in the Spiritual, Metaphysical and Holistic Professions.http://www.whitesagewoman.comSpecial Co-Host: Rev. Lea ChapinRev. Lea Chapin MS.Ed holds a Master of Science Degree in Counselor Education and a Bachelor of Science in Psychology with over 40 years of experience as a psychotherapist, spiritual counselor and teacher, author, podcast/radio host and associate pastor. In 1993, Rev. Lea began receiving Divinely inspired messages from the Ascended Masters and Angelic realm. She began teaching the Universal teachings of the Ascended Masters in workshops and classes. As a Divine Channel for spirit, Rev. Lea helps her clients understand their life's issues and soul challenges as part of their soul ascension process. Most recently, her ministry has taken her traveling to sacred sites around the globe to promote Peace upon the planet!https://leachapin.comhttps://www.celestialconnections.bizSpecial Guest: David MillerDavid K. Miller is the director and founder of an international meditation group focused on personal and planetary healing called the Group of Forty. He has been director of this global healing group for over 25 years. David has been developing groundbreaking global healing techniques using group consciousness and planetary healing techniques.He works to direct powerful healing group energy to help heal areas in the Earth which need balance, restoration and harmony. One technique he uses with his group work is called Bio-relativity, which uses group consciousness work to restore the Earth's “feedback loop system”, a complex planetary system which maintains the correct balance of our planet's atmosphere, ocean currents and weather patterns. Another technique he uses is called developing Planetary Cities of Light, which helps to create sacred cities of light around the globe.David's planetary meditation group has over 1200 members worldwide. In addition to his lectures, online webinars, and workshops, David is also a prolific author, publishing over 16 books and numerous articles on Earth Healing techniques.His published books (www.lighttechnology.com) include: Connecting with the Arcturians, Volumes 1-4, Teachings of the Sacred Triangle Volumes 1-3 , New Spiritual Technology for the 5th Dimensional Earth and Raising the Spiritual Light Quotient of the Earth, 5th Dimensional Soul Psychology and Kabbalah and the Ascension. Several of his books have also been published in German, Portuguese, Spanish and Romanian.David works together with his wife, Gudrun Miller, who is a psychotherapist and visionary artist. Together they have conducted workshops and planetary healing events in Brazil, Germany, Australia, Mexico, Argentina, Costa Rico, Spain, New Zealand, Belgium, Turkey and Spain. David's foundation for this work lies in his study and connection to Native American Teachings and his intense study in mysticism, including the Kabbalah.htpps://groupofforty.com Get bonus content on Patreon See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In 2010, Christina was blindsided with a deadly disease and a poor prognosis—Stage 4 Metastatic Melanoma. Doctors told her that she had two years to live if she was lucky. She had two little boys at home and a whole world of dreams still unaccomplished in front of her. Her world had been shattered, but she was a fighter who was not going to give up. After five years of battling this horrible foe, miraculously Christina defeated cancer. This gave her a greater appreciation for life and a renewed sense of vigor to not hold back and chase her dreams. On this episode, Christina shares that while on a family trip to Costa Rico, she told her husband that she wanted to make her dream of traveling the world with their young children a reality. So when they returned home, they went to work to make this dream happen. Friends suggested that they share their outdoor and travel adventures through social media. In late 2015, they launched their Instagram account @macs_explore. Their Instagram account began to rapidly grow in 2016, and at the end of that year, they landed their first paid trip with Royal Caribbean with less than 10K followers. Since that first partnership, they have partnered with various tourism boards and top brands from all over the world while generating thousands of dollars for their content, influence and unique skills. Since then, they have continued to grow their brand. In the process, they learned a great deal about what it takes to build a sustainable and profitable travel brand on Instagram. In 2019, they made the decision to share their knowledge and experience to help countless others do the same, through their online membership program, Insta-Success. Brought to you by: daleschaefer.com, MaxDRIVE Marketing, and Passion 2 Brand TikTok & IG: Macs_Explore

In 2010, Christina was blindsided with a deadly disease and a poor prognosis—Stage 4 Metastatic Melanoma. Doctors told her that she had two years to live if she was lucky. She had two little boys at home and a whole world of dreams still unaccomplished in front of her. Her world had been shattered, but she was a fighter who was not going to give up. After five years of battling this horrible foe, miraculously Christina defeated cancer. This gave her a greater appreciation for life and a renewed sense of vigor to not hold back and chase her dreams. On this episode, Christina shares that while on a family trip to Costa Rico, she told her husband that she wanted to make her dream of traveling the world with their young children a reality. So when they returned home, they went to work to make this dream happen. Friends suggested that they share their outdoor and travel adventures through social media. In late 2015, they launched their Instagram account @macs_explore. Their Instagram account began to rapidly grow in 2016, and at the end of that year, they landed their first paid trip with Royal Caribbean with less than 10K followers. Since that first partnership, they have partnered with various tourism boards and top brands from all over the world while generating thousands of dollars for their content, influence and unique skills. Since then, they have continued to grow their brand. In the process, they learned a great deal about what it takes to build a sustainable and profitable travel brand on Instagram. In 2019, they made the decision to share their knowledge and experience to help countless others do the same, through their online membership program, Insta-Success. Brought to you by: daleschaefer.com, MaxDRIVE Marketing, and Passion 2 Brand TikTok & IG: Macs_Explore

Join myself, & Catherine Tetreault-Ayotte, Transformational Mentor for Women  for this weeks She Rose Revolutionaries Podcast.This week (which is SO perfect for our descent in the Northern Hemisphere into the darker half of the year) we are talking Ritual, Grief and Catherine's personal transformational story with her current family move from Canada to Costa Rico in just a few days!The title for this weeks podcast episode is: Transmuting Darkness into Light: The Art of Grieving to be One with Self. Navigating grief through change.Catherine is a Master Manifestor, Certified Ritualist, & International Best Selling Author, She helps women go deep within in order to be who they truly are.In this She Rose Revolutionaries Podcast Episode we cover:  Her visionary story that was seeded 8 years ago, and how she has followed this so the various seasons and stages of bringing this to life. Catherine's personal journey right now with a big family move to Costa Rico in just a few days. How to create safety in grief processing and through transformation. How women are naturally designed to grieve and how we can work with it through our cyclical nature. How navigating grief can get easier when we understand how to move through it. The main ingredients for ritual The importance of allowing ourselves to be held through change. Nature connection and higher connection for transmuting fear, and grief. And of course so much more…Get a taste of Catherine's medicine here with this free gift : Unleash your sacred path activation : https://www.thesacredpathofthepriestess.com/freeactivation/

This week on A Podcast About Catholic Things, Eric (The Ambassador of Common Sense) and Dan (The Ambassador of Nonsense) discuss the latest cases of Catholic bishops persecuting good priests… especially since Pope Francis's Motu Proprio. Costa Rico bishops are pure lunatics. Some American bishops aren't much better. We're once again faced with the fact that such men either have to be stupid or evil--or both, and the time for pope-splaining and bishop-splaining is over. We've got to support our good priests--there aren't enough of them. In the news, Eric goes over some of the recent scandals in the church, including Pope Francis's statement that the Ten Commandments aren't 'absolutes', and Mayor Lightfoot receiving communion. Natural disasters continue throughout the world but have somewhat lessened. The Taliban takes control more fully and all other nations are now out of Afghanistan. A mass grave from Stalin's purge is discovered in Ukraine. Cuba accepts 'cryptocurrency'. Gunman kills woman in Garland, Texas, steeals car, and fires on police. China prohibits kids from playing video games. North Korea is using a nuclear reactor again. 20 states sue the Biden administration. SpaceX docks with ISS carrying a 4,800 pound load. In the land of nonsense, milk crate challenge is banned on TikTok. Mugshot inspires false accusations. Stingray photobombs baby picture. Cow is stuck in tree. Car thief does not want to become body thief. Woman escapes from jail by stealing identity. Saint of the week: Saint Catherine of Alexandria

After working as a lawyer on the legal staff of a judge, Nitya Bansal realized that the litigation and criminal law paths were not for her.  She went back to school and earned a master's degree in International Peace Studies from the University for Peace (A UN Mandated university in Costa Rico).  She currently focuses on mediation with a dream of building an online mediation and resolution platform . In our conversation, we discussed:What integrative law means to NityaGoing from being disheartened with the practice of law to loving her practice (changing from working as lawyer/judicial clerk to getting a masters in international peace studiesShe shared a story about how she felt when a judge ordered the death penalty in a case, where she had recommended a life sentence; this case was a turning point for her where she knew she needed to do something differentBecoming a mediator of business disputes  -- dreams of mediating international disputesDream – project of creating an online mediation platformDifference between conflict resolution and dispute resolutionHow a genuine and sincere public apology can help heal conflict  but what matters more than saying an apology is feeling the apology and the intention to make good on that feelingMindfulness and being aligned with the UniverseNotable moments: I liked law but it disheartened me. I started looking what else I can do. If you do something for a good cause and aligned with the Universe, your needs will be taken care of.What does integrative law mean to you?  It's a way of lawyering that does not separate people but brings people together.My mindfulness works at a different a level – opens space for things to come into your life that you yourself may not be capable enough to imagine or dream.When we really want to do something and that something is not just for our own personal interest, trust, and then our needs get taken care of.This podcast features the song “Panu's Bandstand” by texasradiofish (c) copyright 2020, available under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial  (3.0) license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/texasradiofish/62499 Ft: Panu

Vivian is an entrepreneur who has a big dream and big goal. She wants to help people to have fun in their travels and she wants to help women with her nonprofit. With her nonprofit she want to be able to help women with food, clothing, etc. When I asked Vivian about her dreams she says "I want to be able to leave my fulltime 9 to 5 job and help people full time. She has put her dream in the universe and it will happen. ALL ABOUT VIVIAN: Vivian loves to traveling! She was born in California but raised in Texas. She strongly believe that if you work hard, you should play even harder! Vivian knows that traveling is something that most people enjoy. With destinations from Africa to Costa Rico and every place between and beyond she can create a travel package to meet your specific needs. Vivian is a Travel Specialist with her business "Uniquely V's Travels". When you're ready to explore this BIG world of adventure and sights call on Vivian. Vivian Grafton has a nonprofit called "Free N Deed" for women. Vivian have a passion for women of all ages, culture and economic status. Her desire is to live a life that is encouraging to the discouraged, hopeful to the hopeless and a breath of fresh air to those who maybe suffocating from life. Vivian mission is to leave an indelible impression on who she meet that life is NOT OVER and it's never to late to pursue your dream.  She have over 20 years of teaching, encouraging and leading women to living a life that is free from man's expectations, past mistakes, hurts and restraints to being ALL and more than they have ever experienced. Vivian is a woman who never quits. She is an author in 2 anthologies and my own book at the latter years of my life. She loves to share how it's NEVER too late to pursue your dreams. Her books became the best sellers. Vivian says, "The key is to get started even when we don't know where to start; just start." You can go to Vivian's websites. For travels go to www.uniquelyvstravel.com and for nonprofit go to www.freendeed1.com you can also go to social media. Instagram and Facebook is Vivian Grafton or Free N Deed

From the Endangered Cover Art Games in Schools and Libraries episode 161 is the beginning of a series where Donald and Chris talk about games that support the 2021 Summer Reading theme “Tails and Tales”. Some of these are great games about animals, some are great storytelling games that can be used to tell tales about animals, and some are both! Before they get to that the talk a little bit about what they are doing to incorporate the Glowforge into their summer reading activities. Game ReviewsTiny Epic TacticsAldabasALDRTails and Tales Related GamesMice & Mystics Cockroach PokerRory's Story CubesUntold Adventures AwaitEndangeredCosta RicoCardlineOne Night Ultimate WerewolfOne Week Ultimate WerewolfWerewordsDon’t forget ShushCon is in October. Check back for details as they develop. Games in Schools and Libraries is produced in association with Inverse Genius and the Georgetown County Library System.Games in Schools and Libraries Guild at Board Game GeekKathleen's resources https://www.kathleenmercury.com/Email us: schoolsandlibraries@gmail.comThe ideas expressed in the podcast are not expressly endorsed by the Georgetown County Library System. 

Photo: Postcard written in 1898. It is one of the oldest postcards of San José, in Central America. Lithographically printed..The New John Batchelor ShowCBS Audio Network@Batchelorshow#NewWorld: Social welfare Costa Rico sags into unsustainable debt during the virus. @JMHumire @MariaFdaCabalhttps://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/costa-rica-e2-80-99s-president-says-cutting-the-deficit-will-be-his-legacy/ar-BB1ftvd0

It's the 100th Episode of The Second Phase Podcast and You're Going to Get the Inside Scoop! Special Episode to Celebrate To celebrate I wanted to do something special so I decided to give you, the listeners, the inside scoop of my life behind the scene. I know I've said it in previous episodes but my kids are my life!  It was such an honor to showcase their personalities and have them by my side to celebrate this major milestone. The Inside Scoop Josh - Question 1 If I could personal brand Josh in 20 seconds. A: "I'm Joshua Graham. Your go-to for everything health, wellness, and fitness." Gracie - Question 1 What is your favorite vacation? A: I don't really have favorites. But, if I had to choose, Italy, Hawaii, and Costa Rico are probably my top three. Most important for me is spending time with just the five of us having fun and being relaxed. Sam - Question 1 What is your favorite memory carrying out my life's dream? A: I've had so many incredible clients and wonderful experiences. So many amazing conversations and inspiring people that I've gotten to work with. Josh - Question 2 Have you set any goals for 2021? A: I just launched my 1:1 6-month coaching program. My passion is to help entrepreneurs build a strong foundation for long-term success. I want to reach 50K downloads for the podcast. There are financial goals that I've set and I want to help at least three women brand themselves and their businesses every month. Sam - Question 2 What drives me in my business and work so hard after being in the business for so long. A: I am rewarded every single day when I help people build their brands. Seeing them light up when they realize something and to be able to capture their true essence and feel confident and beautiful. I also love to help others succeed and see my goals come to fruition. But, an important note, is that when you are passionate about something, it isn't like work. Josh - Question 3 After a long day of work, what is the first thing you do to relax? A: Just being together to talk or play games.  I love a good book, a cup of tea, or a glass of wine, or maybe a good TV show. Gracie - Question 2 Do you ever miss when you used to just take pictures and put them in galleries? A: Yes, I do. But, because I'm so busy I don't get the opportunity to just create still lifes like I used to. But in 2021, I do hope to get back into it.  Photography actually is one way I relax, the creativity takes me away. Sam - Question 3 What is the biggest driving factor for my business? A: When I first began, it was practicing. I loved to photograph and create and learned as much as I could.  But, I love to work with people and love human connection.  That is what drove me to do portrait photography. There was a fear component to jumping straight into portrait photography. But once I had my first shoot, I fell in love with working with branding clients. Then, over the years, I realized how much I could help people and teach them from a branding perspective and that is what set me on the trajectory of coaching and working with clients the way I do today. Josh - Question 4 Do you see yourself staying in this phase, or do you see yourself moving onto something else? My next goal is to publish a book and become an author. Turning the Tables on The Inside Scoop What has inspired you to get the degrees you are on the course to get and who were the big influencers in your life. Josh - Answer I have a passion for learning chemical and biological processes in the body and how food affects the body. Growing up you always taught me not to accept everything but challenge it. You showed me all of your work ethic. You've always been an inspiration and taught me how to find out and promote who I am and who I want to be.  Sam - Answer I just always knew I was going to go to college. Everything about sports is what led me to Syracuse to study sports management so that I can be an agent. The biggest inspiration for going to school and wanting a good life is seeing how hard mom and dad worked. We come from a long line of people who work hard and I want to carry on that tradition. Gracie - Answer I'm not exactly sure what I want to be yet.  (Gracie was being shy.) To Get More Inside Scoop on Your Host, Robyn Graham, Click HERE. To learn about The Brand Marketing Insider by Robyn Graham, click HERE. Join the Female Entrepreneur Insider Facebook Group HERE. Book a Brand Marketing Strategy Session HERE. Ask Me Anything HERE. Connect with me, Robyn Graham: Website | Instagram | LinkedIn | Facebook | Twitter | YouTube | Pinterest  

Have you heard the statement: "You are only as sick as your secrets?" In this episode, our guest Dr. Vanessa Dunn Guyton shares her expert advice on healing from trauma.Dr. Vanessa Dunn Guyton established Consulting Experts & Associates, LLC (CEA) in 2010. CEA is a global training consulting firm that provides premium customer service and delivers creative training on the HUSH Topics. We specialize in providing training on topics that organizations and individuals have a hard time discussing: Sexual Harassment, Sexual Assault, Domestic Violence, Sex Trafficking, LGBQT Inclusion, Diversity, Bystander Intervention, etc.. Dr. Guyton also produced her first documentary, HUSH No More, and published the HUSH No More book that shares the stories of Survivors to bring awareness of the HUSH Topics and how they affect our community. Here are a few things we talked about…What she learned from traveling to Costa Rico by herselfHer superpower and how it helps her to connect with peopleHow she coped with the disruption to her business because of COVID-19What she does as an advocate for survivors of domestic violence to make “good trouble”Why she challenges adults to see domestic violence from the eyes of their childrenBystander intervention and the importance of taking action Why Alicia Key’s song “Girl Is On Fire” is her theme songThree actions you can take to be the change you want to see in our worldHow she prevents perfection from holding her back from pursuing and achieving audacious goalsThe actions she took to address her drinking and depression to get out of her own wayThe military experience that inspired the HUSH NO MORE documentary and bookWhy speaking our truth to power helps us and others heal from trauma and reclaim our power to create positive change in our lives Contact Dr. Vanessa Guyton www.hushnomore.org1-888-285-2161 admin@thehushtopics.comFacebook: HUSH No More Movementwww.consultingexp.comvguyton@consultingexp.comFacebook: Consultingexp.com Contact Jackie Capers-Brown WebsiteFacebookLinkedinAmazon BooksJackie's Courses Music Credit:Adobe Audio SuccessSubscribe to Podcast: Apple Itunes | Spotify | Amazon TuneIn | iHeartRadio Support the show (https://paypal.me/jackiecapersbrown?locale.x=en_US)

Podcast Episode #17 by Kathleen Peddicord and Lief Simon––Live And Invest Overseas PodcastSubscribe to our Newsletter at https://www.liveandinvestoverseas.com... Join our Overseas Living Clubhouse at https://www.facebook.com/groups/overs... Here are the questions addressed in today's episode:#1: From Alex S.:I am currently in Panama and looking to find solid CD options abroad (can be Panama or another country but not the United States). Can you recommend solid banks in Panama or abroad that have good options?#2: From Ada H.:We are looking for a bank where we don't have to travel to, as our government advice is to avoid travel due to the COVID-19 pandemic.I am not sure if this is possible?#3: From Sue H.:I’m a single 69-year-old gay woman. I was thinking about buying in Panama or Costa Rico. Are there any friendly gay communities in these countries?#4: From Ari M.:I have lived in Panama City and found the heat and humidity oppressive. I would move back to Panama to a place like Boquete except for the constant rain. I would consider Belize, but isn't it steamy, too? Would you have any suggestions?#5: From Vern C.:Kathleen, I’ve been reading you for a very long time and, like you, I love Belize. I'm looking at buying a beachfront condo. Any feedback you could provide? Thanks.SHOW LESS

Nic Marks is the special guest on show 18. He is the CEO and founder of Friday Pulse, Statistician, Happiness Expert, and Ted Speaker. Learn from Nic about: What happiness is and how to measure it How feelings and emotions come before cognition Why some nations and people are happier than others What leadership activities increase happiness in the workforce How human appreciation increases happiness in us all Follow us and explore our social media tribe from our Website: https://leadership-hacker.com Music: " Upbeat Party " by Scott Holmes courtesy of the Free Music Archive FMA Transcript: Thanks to Jermaine Pinto at JRP Transcribing for being our Partner. Contact Jermaine via LinkedIn or via his site JRP Transcribing Services Find out more about Nic Marks Below:  www.fridaypulse.com Connect with Nic on LinkedIn Follow Nic on Twitter https://nicmarks.org   Full Transcript Below:    ----more----   Steve Rush: Some call me Steve, dad, husband or friend. Others might call me boss, coach or mentor. Today you can call me The Leadership Hacker.   Thanks for listening in. I really appreciate it. My job as the leadership hacker is to hack into the minds, experiences, habits and learning of great leaders, C-Suite executives, authors and development experts so that I can assist you developing your understanding and awareness of leadership. I am Steve Rush and I am your host today. I am the author of Leadership Cake. I am a transformation consultant and leadership coach. I cannot wait to start sharing all things leadership with you.   Joining me on today's show is CEO and founder of Friday Pulse. Statistician, happiness expert, and Ted speaker, its Nic Marks. Before we get to speak with Nic, It is The Leadership Hacker News.   The Leadership Hacker News   Steve Rush: In our role as leaders, we have likely to have made some significant decisions of late. Our approach to making decisions will vary from individual to individual and while some considered and thoughtful strategic decisions would have absolutely been a must at work, recent research has found using a coin toss to decide major life decisions may ultimately make you happier. The new study has found overall happiness increased after a six-month period. The study titled, The Review of Economic Studies published in the Oxford University press also found that people that rely on a coin toss to make a decision are more likely to follow through with their choice and be more satisfied as a result. To find out the impact of using a coin toss economist Professor Steven Levitt from the university of Chicago, asked people to make important decisions such as whether to quit a job, move home, end a relationship or quit smoking using affirmative and negative assigned to either heads or tails of a coin.   Users were also asked to include their own questions such as, Should I get a tattoo? And prior to the coin toss, volunteers were also instructed to help identify third party judicators to verify the outcomes and assessed independently the results. After two months participants and their third party judicators were asked to conduct a survey; which found that participants favoured the status quo, making a change less frequently than they would predicted they would before the coin toss, according to phys.org. However, a further study conducted after six months found that this bias towards the status quo had gone, according to the six month survey. Those who were interested to make certain changes regarding major decisions were more likely to do so, and be happier as a result. Participants also said that they were more likely to make the same decision if they were to choose again.   According to the researchers, the findings were inconsistent with the conventional theory of choice, which states that people who are on the margins should on average report equal happiness, regardless of where they made the decisions. Professor Levitt said, society teaches us quitters, never win and winners never quit. But in reality, the data from his experiment suggests we would all be better off if we did more quitting. He went on to say, “a good rule of thumb in decision making is whenever you cannot decide what you should do choose the action that represents change rather than continue with the status quo”. The leadership lesson here is, we often get stuck in change and we're not sure on which direction to take, and whilst tossing a coin might give us a yes or a no to a certain direction. Does that change really bring something new? So that's been The Leadership Hacker News. We would really encourage you to share with us your insights, ideas, and funny stories around leadership, leaders around the world. Please get in touch.   Start of Podcast   Steve Rush: I am joined on today's show with Nic Marks. He is the CEO and creator of Friday Pulse. He is an author, Ted speaker and a statistician. Nic, welcome to The Leadership Hacker Podcast.   Nic Marks: Thank you very much, Steve.   Steve Rush: So statistician, numbers, I guess that must have started at an early age for it to become such a big feature in your life? Tell us a little bit about that.   Nic Marks: Yeah, there is a lot of syllables in that word as well isn't there statistician? I just was, I was good at maths and was not very interested in much else at school. I mean, I did my A- levels with double mass Physics and half of Physics is mass as well. It was sort of I could do, and therefore, you know, I was top, of the year at school, pretty much all the way through and pretty much ended up at Cambridge reading mass before I made a decision about anything and actually ended up not liking maths at Cambridge. Because it is very, very pure and therefore discovering, I was really an applied statistician. I liked using numbers to solve problems rather than the sort of abstractness of mathematics, which is what you get into in that space. So yeah, was kind of, what I was good at.   Steve Rush: So the fascination really was not just about the patterns and the numbers, but actually how can you use these numbers in a positive way and how can I apply them in doing something that is relevant for people?   Nic Marks: Yeah, that was the big eye-opener. When I started sort of solving things, particularly on health statistics, you know, they start setting you problems to solve maybe in A-level and anything that sort of had a bit more human side to it. I got quite, I enjoyed those questions more and that is what I was actually able to do at Cambridge. I was able to switch into an applied statistics course and you know we did sort of industrial psychology and Queuing Theory. I accused even now if I get in a queue and I can see it is badly organized. That put me in a rage and it is partly my Queuing Theory sort of ideas, but yeah, so anything, it was very practical I got interested in.   Steve Rushs: And even more so, during lockdown where there are queue everywhere, I should imagine for you particularly that is really challenging, Right?   Nic Marks: Well actually, what I don't like about queue is when they're not fair, I don't mind a fair queue, and actually the lockdown queue are very fair, aren't they, you know, you're standing there in order and you let older people pass if you're a certain time or key workers and that all seems very fair. What I really hate is like when you come into an airport and you're queuing up and there's a big queue at the, you know, the passport control and you know, one, they haven't put enough people on, but then you can't see if the front of your queue has got one or two people on it. And so the queue go at different rates and you always end up in this lower queue. In fact, you are statistically more likely to end up in this lower queue anyway, and then it feels unfair. And I once actually had an argument with passport control guy, not an argument as a discussion. I said to him, you know, why don't you queue up in a snake? And he said, Oh, actually it makes the average queuing time go up, which is a very fair thing. And I said to him, well, the problem is the experience of queuing is related to the standard deviation, not the mean and he looked at me and went…   Steve Rush: I should imagine that when down well?   Nic Marks: …Can you put that in writing please? My kids were very embarrassed.   Steve Rush: And who would have known that queues have so much applied maths behind it; Which I guess if you look around society that we are in, there are maths and numbers behind everything.   Nic Marks: I mean, totally. I mean, if you do marketing these days, digital marketing, you've got a lot of queuing theory and mathematics in there and about friction and flow and the way you model it. There is so many ways that at least a sort of A-level understanding of mass can really, really help you. I don't think you need to go much beyond that, but well obviously some people do, but it is very interesting to me anyway.   Steve Rush: So beyond University, then you started applying your learned mathematics, what happened next?   Nic Marks: I did a Masters and then I joined a consultancy. Anderson consulting who sort of now called Accenture and did programming and things like that. I quit really, when I realized they were going to sort of move me around the country to wherever they wanted me to work. And I just got engaged and was in London and didn't really want to move around. And I also started to make more choices in my life. I mean I think some people, this comes earlier, but I started thinking actually, what do I really want to work on? And I went to work for sustainability, environmental investment company, and I started getting more interested in things which were sort of, as I say, sort of more socially useful statistics. Yeah, and I did that for a bit, but I also had a slightly kooky side, but slightly different side. I got very into sort of personal development and I used to go to sort of men's encounter groups. Cause I did not really quite understand how to be a man in the world. I found slightly misogynists, and so I just started exploring all that. And the reason for that really was my mum was a therapist and in the end I trained as a therapist as well as do math statistics, which sort of makes for, I think, a very creative mix, but then unusual mix anyway,   Steve Rush: So that creative mixture you now have, has smudged that psychotherapy and your statistician background together to create what you do now. The last 12-15 years of your life. You have been really focusing on the whole principle of happiness and how we can be more focused and understand some of the metrics and numbers that sit behind happiness. Tell us a little bit. About how that came about?   Nic Marks: Yeah, it started in about 2001. I was doing some other work with a think tank in London called New Economics Foundation. And the director then director said to me, Nic, there is this word called wellbeing coming into public policy and no one knows what it means. And can you help us, he said drive some meaning under the word? And I being a statistician, I said, well, I'd like to know how we could measure it because then, you know, policy makers might take it seriously. So we started a project which eventually became my whole work, and it became something called a centre for wellbeing, but we even started to create metrics around wellbeing that was useful for local, national, and international agencies about people's experiences with life effectively. And some people in the field were already calling that happiness and I shy away from that for a while because it sounded a bit light for the government policy.   But I started to realize that it was a much more attractive word than wellbeing and also more relatable. Ultimately, you know, whether we enjoy our lives or not in whatever basis we want to do, there is kind of, what it is about, so you know, and you can talk to anyone about whether they're happy or not. We can then discuss what that means and we can discuss, you know, whether we mean the same thing, but it makes a much more fruitful discussion, so that is kind of how I got into it. Yeah.   Steve Rush: It is really neat principle. The whole happiness thing that I have explored and there are a number of great authors that have written around the similar subject over the last sort of 10 or 15 years. It almost feels a little bit pink and fluffy and subjective, and I guess what you are seeking to do is to create some more objectivity so that leaders can be a bit more thoughtful of their personal impact around that. Would that be a kind of fair assumption?   Nic Marks: It is kind of fair, but I don't like… it is not you, but I don't like this sort of split between objective and subjective because our experience of life is sort of necessarily subjective. You know, we are the subject of that experience and actually, what a lot of statistics and data does is it objectifies things, so it will say we can measure your standard of life because we can see that and touch that. So we can touch your housing, your income, your whatever, we can measure that, but we don't know what you're feeling, so we can't measure that and actually that's not true. It is just a different type of measurement, and then you have to be careful about how you do it, but you can put numbers on it, and so there is a way we use the word subjective. Which makes it feel like it's very loose and it would change for everybody, but actually, whether people enjoy their lives or not is sort of gradable.   Steve Rush: Yeah, that makes those a sense actually. If somebody was to ask you, what does happiness mean? How would you describe it?   Nic Marks: Yeah, I have had various descriptions over the years, but so I often say its feeling good and doing well. And by that, I mean that it got a feeling element, but it's got a functional element to it and we use the word happiness very broadly in English language. So we use it as a sort of momentary feeling. I feel happy, but we also use it as what's tends to be called a cognitive assessment. You know, I feel happy with, or I am happy with, so we are sort of reflecting on a sort of judgment about something. And then there's a school of thought that thinks that happiness is a sort of capability that it's, you know, that knowing or feeding that I can deal with, anything is a feeling of happiness. It is sort of like a perceived resilience going forward that, you know, I can cope with things. So in that sense, I think that there is a functional element to an actually purely from a psychological perspective or a nuisance perspective than our feelings and emotions actually help us acts in the world. So there is a sort of, they are not just there as sort of a nice sensation actually motivate us to behave in certain ways. So that is how I tend to think of it as a, you know, feeling good and doing well.   But then there's another nuance, which I quite like, which goes actually right back to ancient Greek Philosophy, which is whether it's about pleasure and meaning. And the hedonist talk about pleasure and Aristotle and people had talked about, eudemonia thought about it as sort of meaning and virtue. Justified this idea that you can only know if you're happy when you're at the end of your life and you're looking back, which is quite harsh, but in a way I think it's both in the sense that if we have a life which is meaningful, but no fun, then we run out of energy quite quickly. And if it's all fun and pleasure and there's no meaning, then we sort of lose our way and we kind of need both of those parts and, they work in different timeframes and so there's a nice tension between them and a nice synergy between them. And obviously there are times when it get you in life, which, you know, you feel you've got lots of meaning, but no pleasure. And you can get yourself into a crisis about that. I mean, I been divorced and I have actually gotten a situation where my marriage was hugely meaningful to me, but I really did not enjoy it and that created a sort of crack in my life that I had to resolve. I think that way as well, so that's sort of two different ways of feeling good and doing well and pleasure and meaning.   Steve Rush: I quite like the whole principle of it is quite an emotional response as well isn't it. It is a personal response to what is going on around us, I guess.   Nic Mark: Yeah, Our feelings are very much about what is going on around us. They are sort of us, and our environment. In fact, the neuroscientist Antonio Damasio don't know, if you've ever read him. Have you read him?   Steve Rush: I have, I have.   Nic Marks: Have you read his most recent one? The strange order of things.   Steve Rush: Maybe give us a snippet from that.   Nic Marks: It is a funny title of a book, but basically he's talking about feelings and emotions come before cognition come before central nervous systems in our evolutionary history.   Steve Rush: Right.   Nic Markss: And, that they actually help us do three things, feelings. They help us monitor our environments. They help motivate us to act and they help us adjust those actions over time. And that first one of monitoring is sort of, you know, our feelings are actually, I have to say our feelings are data that they actually give us information about what's going on around us. And that's not just our feelings become emotions, but, you know, do we feel hot or cold? Do we feel hungry? Do we feel thirsty? It's basically telling us about, and it's motivating us to act in some sort of ways, but you know, our feeling of feeling frightened is that it feels like there's a danger out there and that we need to help avoid or get ourselves out of that threat. And we often have the feeling well before we have the cognition and that's really his argument is that the feeding comes first. Then we apply our intelligence to that feeling and deciding how we are going to act.   Steve Rush: And the cognition of course prevents us from doing crazy things, which is why the executive part of our brain slows down and stops in some cases what we will deal with those emotional reactions, of course.   Nic Marks: Yeah, I am not a total expert on the absolute specifics in it, but they absolutely are interconnected. Actually, even if you think about something positive, like happiness, which is a little bit of a sort of gateway word to a whole range of positive emotions. We can use the word very broadly, but then actually gets specifics. You know, some people would say, even if I say what happiness, mean to you? They will say contentment and other people will say joy. Contentment and joy quite different. Yeah, one is very high energy and one's quite low energy, and of course, there is actually a whole range of things in there. Like, you know, joy and enjoyment are different and amusement. And, you know, things like enjoyment, amusement, laughter are sort of very social and they are very about bonding with other people.   So when you're having a laugh with people or mucking around, you actually slow down…you shut down your executive decision making and your full intelligence because you're trying to bond, but it doesn't pay you to be your brightest, most sort of challenging self at that moment. You better to conform, so, you know, so actually, there are times when we are happy when, we are probably less intelligent, but there are other times, you know if we think about other forms of happiness, such as curiosity or interest, which are very engaging parts, that sort of positive emotion when we are absolutely fully using our intelligence. And I think it's sometimes why in business and organizations, people get worried about happiness. They try to think people be happy, clappy and not very bright. Well, there is certain forms of it, which that is true for, so they can point to it. But actually what they really want is people to be positive and safe, enthusiastic, and sometimes to have a laugh, but just maybe 5-10% of the time and other times we are doing other bits, so there's really this whole myriad of different positive emotions and we want to be agile and moving around between them.   Steve Rush: Sure. Now society also plays a massive part in this doesn't it? So over the last 10 or 15 years, if you think about it, societies describe happiness with good economies, wealth, good social wellbeing and obedience, having researched just that, all over the planet, what's your take on how that plays out?   Nic Marks: Well, it is for certain that nations have different levels of average happiness and actually different distributions of happiness in them and some that both the averages and the distribution can be explained by economic and societal factors. And, and then there's stuff more below that but you know, if we look at rank orders of nations on happiness, then Scandinavian countries tend to come top, and that's a lot to do with their social safety net. Which is, it's not really to do with the fact that that's the sort of…I was going to say the average, but by the average, I mean the media and the person in the middle is not particularly happy and Scandinavia and say in the UK or the U.S. but where they are, they do much, much better. Is that the bottom half of the distribution or the lowest 25% in terms of income are match less unhappy in Scandinavia than they are in the UK, the U.S. and places like that, so it is more that they don't have the tail of the distribution pulling the mean down. They have more equal distribution of happiness within it, and that's kind of interesting if you, you know, because people often go, oh, well, you know, you could say the Swedes are happier, but, you know, don't, they have high suicide rates, don't they have this. And, you know, I don't find the fins very extrovert, but, and that's probably all true. I mean, but there are other factors also, which is if you live in a broadly happy society and you are unhappy, you probably take it more personally, and so actually countries with a higher happiness rate may possibly have a highest suicide rate. Whereas if you live in a country such as India or Pakistan, or somewhere where there is much lower levels, you know, suicide rates are probably lower because people feel more normalized about their happiness.   Steve Rush: Less highs and lows, is that how I am reading it?   Nic Marks: Yeah, sort of. You feel less personal; you know if everyone around you is happy and you are miserable, you feel it is very much your fault. And so therefore, you know, I'm a burden on other people. Then you get into this very difficult logic where you start thinking it is actually better for you to take your own life, which is tragically, how some people get. Whereas if everybody is, you just feel like, what does that mean to all of us? Which you know, which in the current situation with the anxiety around looked down and COVID because everybody feels in the same boat, we are not sort of; we are feeling more open about our anxiety because we kind of know it's not about us feeling bad. It is about the environment, so that makes it easy to talk about.   Steve Rush: You also spent a significant amount of time pulling together, enormous research to create the Happy Planet Index. Just tell the listeners a little bit about what the Happy Planet Index is?   Nic Marks: Yeah, the Happy Planet Index is sort of a proposed alternative to GDP as a way of measuring the progress of nations. And I've always felt that GDP was a really bad measure of welfare, of the wellbeing of a nation. In fact, one of my first published bits of work is from 94 and it was an alternative to GDP, but it was very complicated. It was very objective. It was basically a huge cost benefit analysis of the economy and had a lot of assumptions in it. And I knew it was very complicated, but when I used to go talk to talks about it, rightly or wrongly, but it did show was that about the mid-seventies was about the highest in this index and it trading often. People go to me, that is how it feels to me, particularly older people would do.   Steve Rush: Right. Nic Marks: And I always thought that is interesting. It does not say anything about what you feel. It is just a whole lot of economic data put together. That started me perhaps thinking about how you measure what you feel, but when it came to the Happy Planet Index, which was released in 2006, so like 12 years after that first bit of work, I want to do something very simple and easier to agree with. I sort of learned that complexity and indicators tends to put people off, or if they get interested, they then start looking at all the assumptions and the debate gets about the detail and not the bigger picture. And so what I did with the HPI was I said, well, you know, what's the outcome you really want from a country, and I said, it's to produce good lives that don't cost the earth and the planet, but in there is the sustainability element of it.   And so I went, well, you could measure good lives by asking, by looking at the data on happiness, across nations, say the quality of people's lives, you can then adjust that for the length of our life, so life expectancy, which is a very good, reliable piece of health statistics. You've got data on from around the world, but you've also got to think about the efficiency as a nation. Like how much resources does it use to get there? So the Happy Planet Index became a, you know, environmental efficiency of delivering wellbeing, a sort of bang for your buck indicator and that is what it is. It rank ordered nations across the world and basically you have some countries which have got high wellbeing, but high environmental impact and that will be typically Western rich countries. You've got countries which have got low wellbeing, but low environmental impact, so those are sub Saharan Africa and other nations, which are really struggling. Then you've got countries which are interesting, which I've got pretty good levels of wellbeing and much lower resource use and typically they were central Latin America and, some of the islands of the world, or some of the Asian countries, which were doing well. And that became interesting to think, you know, okay, how can we create a sustainable future, which is also a good future. Because the problem with the environmental movement, which, you know, I certainly have been a part of and absolutely bought into. I think they sell very negative visions of the future with the idea that you can scare people into changing their behaviour and I think we can all see over the last 25 years that has not worked.   So, you know, how do we do it in a way which we actually say to people, actually, this could be a better future. And in some ways, some of that is going on right now with COVID in that people are thinking about, oh, I'm staying at home, I'm traveling much less. It is actually less stressful for me, and it is about identifying those positives, you know, as we come out of COVID. It would be a shame if we don't take some benefits in reducing carbon emissions and other things. I mean, that would be disappointing having had this forced on us to not, gets some positives out and not everyone welcomes COVID; we could still get some positives out of it.   Steve Rush: Almost the planet's opportunity, if you just start giving back, isn't it at this time?   Nic Marks: Yeah, I mean, there are people that go all that way and say it's in a guy's feedback and I don't go quite to that level, but it's an opportunity, isn't it? I think like any setback is an opportunity to learn, even if you didn't want to get into it.   Steve Rush: We are going to start to talk a little bit about what you're doing at the moment with Friday Pulse, but just before we do, what is the happiest place statistically on earth?   Nic Marks: Well, last year's data showed Finland as the happiest nation. Then I, the only within country data that I know very well is the UK. And the regions of the UK, and I think it always surprises people, but actually London is the least happy region because it's urban because inequalities are high there and things of that, and people are very close together. Whereas the happiest region of the UK is Northern Ireland, which is much more rural and of course, recent memories of troubles, so they've actually got sort of point to go back to.   So there's sort of different things, but at the national level, it's Finland at the moment, but it has been Norway previously and Sweden, Switzerland, Denmark have done well. Costa Rica is a very surprising one that comes through that is particularly happy compared to its GDP. So yeah, that is the way it is sort of is.   Steve Rush: Cool, and what would be the kind of one or two things that are consistent across those higher ranking, happier places?   Nic Marks: So there is income distribution, which they basically tend to be more equal countries which is what Scandinavia is, and actually even Costa Rica is more equal than such of neighbours around it, you know, Nicaragua, Guatemala and all those other places around there. So it does very well in that and there's also high levels of literacy. Gender equality in Costa Rico, which of course are things that Scandinavia is particularly good at, so equality tends to come out stronger than people think, but of course, you know, richer countries are happier. That is sort of undeniable. They are just not becoming any happier with the extra amounts of wealth we have. We are not seeing those countries on a trajectory to become happier. The countries that are on a trajectory to become happier are some of the developing countries because they are reducing poverty. They are reducing, you know, early deaths, so you know that obviously is a positive.   Steve Rush: And I wonder, is it more visible to them at the same time?   Nic Marks: Yes, it probably is. I mean, there are differences between them, like South Korea has been studied quite a lot because they have obviously been one of the Asian tigers and, you know, their happiness levels have gone up, but they are very, very materialistic there. And they haven't gone up as much as say a country like Vietnam or something like that who is slightly less so, so there were interesting differences between them. And some of them have to do with density of population as well, but there's not just sort of one straight pathway, there are differences.   Steve Rush: Makes lots of sense. Thank you very much, Nic. So the organization you lead now, Friday Pulse. Seeks to take that distillation of happiness data, but from the colleagues and customers of the organizations that you work with. To create something that leadership and other colleagues can actually use as a lens to get a sense check of how their workforce feels, how happy they are almost. Tell us a little bit, about how Friday Pulse was created?   Nic Marks: Yeah, I did my Ted talk on the Happy Planet Index and other work I have done in 2010. And obviously that's quite an honour, and I sort of came out of it, thinking it sort of allowed an opportunity to sort of bookend that part of my work and I accidentally got into policy and I done it for 10-12 years then. When you are working on something like climate change, it is quite slow moving and, you know, I thought when I have got something in and maybe do something and I was always interested in business, my dad was a businessman. He led an organization and I thought, well, this is very applicable there. You know, if leaders knew how happy you are not, teams were, that would get them useful information. So I started creating a happiness at work survey, which was a one off survey to begin with and learned a lot about how the data worked in organizations started to get my own opinion about what I thought the drivers of happiness at work were and how we could measure them. But actually hadn't created a tool that was exceptionally responsive. You know, it's like a one off survey, like most other surveys are, but started to think, well actually, what really an organization needs to know is how it's moving through time.   And so start thinking, there is a way of measurement of happiness we call. There is three ways of measuring happiness really, We can do, what is called a cognitive assessment, which is what most surveys are, which is we ask people to look overall and reflect on it. You can do something which is called experience sampling, where you basically bleed people during the day or text them or whatever. Say, how do you feel right now? It gives really nice data, but it's really annoying. So the one in between is called episodal, measurements and you get to the end of an episode, you ask people to reflect back on it. And I decided to go for that way of measuring it and started off asking people various cadences, so a month, how has the last month been. A day, how has your day been? and settled on a week because daily was a little bit too annoying.   And also you could only just ask people how happy were you or not, and nothing more. If you ask them monthly, it was not very responsive. You so much can happen in a month. As we have learned recently and weekly is the sort of sprint of work. We go; we tend to work too, so we ask people on a Friday that is why we called Friday Pulse. You know, how was your week? How did you feel this week? And that creates a very responsive, we call it happiness KPI, but a very responsive metric, which when you group at a team level, there's effectively a measure of team morale. When you group at an organizational level, it is people's experience of the culture of the organization, experience of work right now. And so you can look at that, and I mean, the good thing about a question like that is you can ask, you know, truck driver, that question, you can ask a CEO with that question and they can give you an answer to it.   Whereas if you ask people how engaged were you this week, most people don't even know how to answer that question. They have an idea of what the top of the scale is particularly. They know if they are disengaged, they know where the top of the scale is. So when you ask people how you felt and were you happy or not? They can give you an answer that is very good, reliable data in that way.   Steve Rush: And what do you notice the themes are that contribute to a happy culture at work for leaders listening to this podcast?   Nic Marks: There are some general themes across an organization, and there are ways that you can articulate it. So the way that we do is we say there were five ways to happiness at work and, and they are connect, which is relationships are the most important. They are the cornerstone of creating good experiences or undermining experience for that case, for that matter.   The second one is to be fair, which is if people feel they are treated fairly, respectfully, then they can bring themselves to work much more. The third is to empower them sort of their autonomy delegating yet and use their strengths. The fourth is to challenge them, so this is sort of misunderstanding of happiness that people are happy doing nothing. It is actually not true they board and actually, people would like it when there is a bit of stretch. Not, if you stretch them too much, challenge them too much, they go and stress. If you under challenge them, they are going into apathy and boredom. You've got to get the right sweet spot, which has always tends to be the way anyway, and then the fifth one is to inspire, which is about meaning purpose, where they feel it doing is worthwhile.   So those five things connect be fair, impact, challenge, inspire are the big drivers, but then there is specific things that go on, which has really to do with the environment and what is going on around them very locally. Which is that some people, some teams will find them in a very stressful situation or their work environments are stressful. So with people moving remote at the moment and very quickly moved remote a few weeks ago, you know, that some people were happier working at home than others and lots to do their environments, whether they got children, whether they have the right equipment at home, where they had a quiet space, you know, whatever it was. So some of those things are very, very local and some of those bigger, broader cultural things. So yeah, those two effects really.   Steve Rush: And like any business and any part of any business it is feedback, data that I am getting an also alien to that is that leadership choices to what I do with that information as I receive it. Right?   Nic Marks: Totally and in fact, the whole of Friday Pulse is really a feedback loop. And actually it's very similar to therapy in some ways, which is that in therapy. Therapist listens to their client, and they reflect back to them and then they work with them about the challenges that they are facing. And we listened to the population, the employees by asking them every Friday, how do they feel? We feed that back to them and the team leaders, and then senior leaders, you stack the data up in nice reporting, and that enables people to then work together to make better experiences. So one of the things I am very keen on this, people don't just focus on the negatives. Don't just focus on the deficits. They actually appreciate the assets and the positives going on, and so on a Friday, we don't only ask people how they felt. We also asked them, what was success for you this week? Have you got anyone you want to thank because appreciating each other, is really important for both sides of that equation. Then we give people the opportunity to share a frustration or an idea to make things better. But actually most of our clients really, really work on accentuating the positive because in lots of ways, businesses tend to focus on how do you solve problems? What comes up? And actually probably often don't take the time to go, yes, good job, and to actually get that human appreciation, which actually we all really respond well to.   Steve Rush: And hitting back to the neuroscience we talked on a little bit earlier; of course, it will release different neurotransmitters that create that self-fulfilling prophecy of getting additional positive outcomes from our thinking and our behaviours, which helps improve happiness of course.   Nic Marks: It certainly does. And I mean, all of this works together, you know, physically, but I always think about it as like, you know, if someone compliments you and your sort of head goes up and your shoulders go back and you sort of feel bigger because you're feeling confident. Whereas when someone criticizes you, you can tend to sort of hunch up and pull your shell in, you know, and protect yourself. And we're much better when we're expensive and shoulders back, and actually other people like working with us more like that as well. So there is so much to be gained from being positive, but of course you have to be realistic. You know, it does not mean to say you let people travel down into a sort of fantasy world where everyone is doing a good job. No, it was a point is, you know, really differentiating and really understanding and helping people build on their positives.   Steve Rush: So this part of the show, we are going to turn away from you being a statistician, but look at you through your leadership lens of running an organization. And at this part of the show, we like to ask our guests to share their top leadership hacks or ideas. So if you could share based on your experience as a leader, your top leadership hacks, what would they be? Nic.   Nic Marks: I think that the big thing is listening to people, you know, I don't employ people to tell them what to do. I employ people to work with them and, get the best out of them and actually learning to bring the best out of them. The main way is listening to them even when they disagree with you, so I think listening is probably the first one.   Second one is I think little and often, I think I've tried to where I've gone wrong previously would be when I've tried to do big interventions. And actually I think doing smaller ones, checking is a much better way. But consistently I definitely have had to learn that, you know, leadership is a, weekly process, maybe even a daily process, but a weekly one, you know, where you're asking questions every week and you're listening every week rather than just sort of going, right. These are our goals for the next quarter. Then checking in 2-3 months later, realizing people have gone down a different tangent or, something has emerged, maybe for good reasons, but you don't know about them so I think little and often is probably.   The next one for me, definitely, I think inspiring people, which is that I hold the vision for the company. I don't necessarily hold the solutions, but I hold the vision for where we're going and why we're doing it. And remembering to remind people about that, so reminding them of the why, but it's actually, you know, bringing that into, your weekly work. I mean, particularly with all the adjustments we have made just recently and COVID and everyone going remote, you know, I sort of had to remind myself to remind everybody why we're doing this. If that makes sense.   Steve Rush: It makes sense. One of those things that you set up a vision to start with and other things get in the way. And we, as leaders also need reminding that is our job to remind people and to make sure that, we continually talking about the journey and how are we going to get there and what's going to get in the way and remove barriers. It's part and parcel of that. Isn't it?   Nic Marks: Yeah, it definitely is and it is actually a bit of the job I really like. Some of the detail bits, I am less good at it. I mean, it is funny; I am very good at details and stats. But I can sometimes of like, you know, I probably like many people not got the longest attention span and I sometimes sort of get stopped and I have to beat myself up for it, but the inspiring bit and the listening to how they feel and what they're doing. I mean, I can do that for ages because I really liked people and I really believe in what we are doing. So those are the bits I find easier. It is keeping people on track and the detail that is always my learning edge.   Steve Rush: Thanks for being so honest and great hacks also. So when we start to think that this partnership we've really enjoyed getting into the heads of our leaders and our guests where they've maybe screwed up in the past or something's gone catastrophic wrong, and indeed they are now using that experience as a positive in their life. We call this Hack to Attack. What would yours be?   Nic Marks: Hack to Attack? Well, I mean, in some ways I've sort of pointed to it with a little bit of those last bits, but I think that I have definitely been guilty of letting things run for too long cause I wasn't confident enough to challenge people. And, and so, you know, previously had someone in the business and you know, she has some really strong qualities, but just sort of always going pear shapes. And, and I, kept on coming back to every three or four months, but really we should have partied companies at least a year before we eventually did. And that cost us a lot, and she wasn't happy. She was not doing quite what she wanted. I was trying to, I guess, force her, so there was a role that needed doing and I was wanting her to do that role and she was not quite wanting to do it and she was definitely capable of it. But it just sort of ran on far too long, and in the end it all became very messy and angry. If I dealt with it much earlier. We would have had a lot less problems and it's the same problem I had with my marriage actually, which was that, you know, I let things run too long and I should have been challenging about that earlier. I think that is my weaknesses tending to gloss over some of the negatives, my positivity overrides listening to negative feedback or negative signals. And I think that's actually really important leadership is to be able to one, hear the negative signal and two, deal with it because it doesn't go away.   Steve Rush: It is great learning, Nic and also think about the themes that you are now encouraging other leaders to talk about through Friday Pulse. There is a lot of synergies there in terms of what your learned behaviour. What you are encouraging others to learn from now, so that is super stuff. The last thing I wanted to talk to you about, and this is where we are going to ask you to do some time travel. I want you to think about if you were able to bump into Nic at 21; you are able to give him one bit of advice that would make the difference. What would it be?   Nic Marks: I quite like my life, even my mistakes. So, you know, that is not like something I would massively want to change. I mean, I think I was a little uptight as a 21. I was a little serious and I had the future weighed on me quite a lot. I sort of kind of had this feeling. I wanted to do something and I probably wanted to do it quicker than was possible. And you know, and I mean, I have actually done things which are interesting. I think I would just say, you know, relax. It will be okay. Follow what you are interested in, I mean, in some ways I have done that actually. So, but when I was 21, I was a little bit; I was a little bit still uptight, yeah.   Steve Rush: If only Nic would know the 21-year-old, Nic who might have been a little bit uptight. Still found is way to be where you are now, which is, you know, impacting the lives of many of the people, so that's great advice.   Nic Marks: It is nice to think that. The 21-year-old Nic would be horrified at the thought that that 55-year-old Nic got divorced. He would not like that at all, but apart from that, he pretty much take the rest.   Steve Rush: Good stuff. Okay, as people have been listening to you, Nic. We will make sure that we encourage him to get over to Ted and have a look at the Happy Planet Index talk, which I think is really inspiring and I love that, but where else can they find out about the work that you do with Friday Pulse and indeed some of the things that you do now?   Nic Marks: Yeah. Friday Pulse is the name of the company, so it is fridaypulse.com and it is actually, we are offering it free for organizations up to a thousand people at the moment. So they can try it for three months and see how they go with it and see how they like the data and how they can work with it. I create blog articles and posts on LinkedIn most week. Connect with me on LinkedIn; I always like meeting new people there and I have a personal website, which is more my sort of speaking musing, which is nicmark.org. Nic is no K a in that, so those are the main ways to find me.   Steve Rush: We will make sure there in the show notes to accompany this podcast as well Nic. So as people are finished listening, they can literally just click into those links and then hop over to find you.   Nic Marks: Fabulous, thank you.   Steve Rush: Nic, I just wanted to say I am incredibly happy that you have chosen to be with The Leadership Hacker Podcast. I have spoken to you a few times now and I have loved the conversations that we have had and as a result, I know we're going to get a lot of happy hackers listening to you too. So thanks for being on, The Leadership Hacker Podcast.   Nic Marks: Thank so much for having me.     Closing   Steve Rush: I genuinely want to say heartfelt thanks for taking time out of your day to listen in too. We do this in the service of helping others, and spreading the word of leadership. Without you listening in, there would be no show. So please subscribe now if you have not done so already. Share this podcast with your communities, network, and help us develop a community and a tribe of leadership hackers.   Finally, if you would like me to work with your senior team, your leadership community, keynote an event, or you would like to sponsor an episode. Please connect with us, by our social media. And you can do that by following and liking our pages on Twitter and Facebook our handler their @leadershiphacker. Instagram you can find us there @the_leadership_hacker and at YouTube, we are just Leadership Hacker, so that is me signing off. I am Steve Rush and I have been the leadership hacker.    

When I first started following London River on Twitter I was already a fan of her work and very much wanted her on the podcast. What happened after I started following her was mind blowing she followed me back instantly which made me think awesome we can get her on the show right away. After she started following me we NEVER spoke lol. I was starting to think maybe this was a hoax maybe I was being cat fished, but I stayed the course and kept asking. Finally she replied and we agreed on a time and date to have her on. London has done it all and done it well! We talk about her career how it got started, what her connection with Costa Rico and Chicago and so much more. Be sure to take a listen! Now available on YouTube, Spotify, Breaker, and www.mixmastab.com --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/mmbradiopodcast/support

Hello listeners, We have indeed gone into 2020. But I reckon it has been a very bumpy transfer of the year for many people. Particularly in this current strange and fearful coronavirus pandemic time, I wish everyone stay safe at home and keep positive. I hope this podcast could bring you some stress relief and a contact to the art at home.This first episode of 2020, is a conversation made in December 2019 between Zamara Zamara, Emanuel Rodriguez and I.  It was just before Emanuel returned to his home country Costa Rico. In the conversation, Emanuel shared his experience of visiting MONA at the first time, in particularly his personal experience of visiting Alfredo Jaar’s spectacular installation titled The Divine Comedy shown at MONA at that time.  Joined with Emanuel, Zamara talked about their experiences of seeing some performance artworks in Documenta 14 and the 57th Venice Biennale in 2017. Please enjoy listening this episode. More episodes will come up shortly. **Apology for the mistake in this episode: The title of Alfredo Jaar's work shown in MONA is The Divine Comedy. Episode Notes:Speakers:Emanuel Rodriguez Chaveshttp://www.emanuelrodriguez.netZamara Zamarahttp://zamarazamara.comThe artists and exhibitions talked about in this episode: Alfredo Jaarhttps://alfredojaar.net/projects/“The Divine Comedy” 2019https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=470846330447160Peter Greenawayhttps://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000425/James Turrellhttp://jamesturrell.comJamie McCartneyThe Great Wall of Vagina (2008)https://jamiemccartney.comTino SehgalLiving Memory 2016https://www.artnews.com/art-news/reviews/living-memory-tino-sehgal-takes-over-pariss-palais-de-tokyo-with-300-performers-and-a-few-friends-7186/Aphidswww.aphids.net

In this months episode Latinx Mental Health: Costa Rica , NiEtta and Cary discuss how Costa Rica’s active aging, judicial system, community, and foundation of education have a long, storied place in this Central American nation. Costa Rica has one of the most  incredible biodiversity and rich cultures, a passion for freedom, a history of democracy, equality, and education for all. The people of Costa Rica, who call themselves Ticos, are famous for their cheerful outlook, their conflict-averse nature and their laid-back approach to life. These cultural traits, combined with the country’s relatively high standard of living, have led some researchers to conclude that Costa Rica is the “Happiest Country on Earth.”   NiEtta interviews Dr. Rebecca Judd, an Associate Professor and current department chair for The School of Social Work at Texas A&M Commerce. They talk about the importance of having culture, humility, and being able to embrace the curiosity of other races and getting out of your comfort zone while trying new experiences. Dr. Judd also gave some mental hygiene tips on how to improve your quality of life. NiEtta also interviews Tropical Biologist Francisco Morazon, native from Costa Rico. They talk about the environmental economy in Costa Rica and even the positive reaction the rain forest has to your body.

In this months episode Latinx Mental Health: Costa Rica , NiEtta and Cary discuss how Costa Rica’s active aging, judicial system, community, and foundation of education have a long, storied place in this Central American nation. Costa Rica has one of the most  incredible biodiversity and rich cultures, a passion for freedom, a history of democracy, equality, and education for all. The people of Costa Rica, who call themselves Ticos, are famous for their cheerful outlook, their conflict-averse nature and their laid-back approach to life. These cultural traits, combined with the country’s relatively high standard of living, have led some researchers to conclude that Costa Rica is the “Happiest Country on Earth.”   NiEtta interviews Dr. Rebecca Judd, an Associate Professor and current department chair for The School of Social Work at Texas A&M Commerce. They talk about the importance of having culture, humility, and being able to embrace the curiosity of other races and getting out of your comfort zone while trying new experiences. Dr. Judd also gave some mental hygiene tips on how to improve your quality of life. NiEtta also interviews Tropical Biologist Francisco Morazon, native from Costa Rico. They talk about the environmental economy in Costa Rica and even the positive reaction the rain forest has to your body.

Perky Hagadone-Smith, Principal at Northside Elementary and Marcea Marine, retired teacher from Sandpoint Middle school bring nine students in to talk about their recent trip to Costa Rico.

Benny and Surenny road test a product from a new sponsor. Plus chats with magician Mad Gino, Mr Costa Rico and Mr McBob.Ft Alexei Tolioupoulos, Freddie McManus & David Woodhead

Kristina chats with Stacie Freeman, co-executive director at Bright Light Volunteers and associate professor of sociology at Bethel University in Tennessee about global citizenship. Bright Light Volunteers is dedicated to fostering the common humanity in the global setting and how individual students and others truly can make a difference in the world. When Freeman began offering global learning to first-generation college students almost a decade ago through the global studies department, the goal was to enable these students to take responsibility for what is happening in the world, in part, by offering volunteer opportunities through Bright Light Volunteers, which partners with nonprofit institutions far and wide, including in Costa Rico, Thailand, and Cuba. Recently, Freeman notes, Bright Light Volunteers is beginning to measure the achievement of high school participants and found that 100 percent have graduated from high school and 100 percent have attended college. The college retention rate for global studies/Bright Light Volunteers is an amazing 97 percent. This episode was sponsored by Bright Light Volunteers, www.brightlightvolunteers.org; Routledge, www.routledge.com; and PeerForward, www.peerforward.org.

Lush green forests alongside modern cities - Rwanda is a country leading the world on green growth with a mission to maintain a clean and healthy environment.Explore your boundaries and discover your next adventure with The World Nomads Podcast. Hosted by Podcast Producer Kim Napier and World Nomads Phil Sylvester, each episode will take you around the world with insights into destinations from travelers and experts. They'll share the latest in travel news, answer your travel questions and fill you in on what World Nomads is up to, including the latest scholarships and guides.World Nomads is a fast-growing online travel company that provides inspiration, advice, safety tips and specialized travel insurance for independent, volunteer and student travelers, traveling and studying most anywhere in the world. Our online global travel insurance covers travelers from more than 135 countries and allows you to buy and claim online, 24/7, even while already traveling.The World Nomads Podcast is not your usual travel Podcast. It's everything for the adventurous, independent traveler.

Man accused of dipping his testicles in customer's salsa. Service tongs used as swords at a buffet over crab leg brawl. Unvaccinated French boy brings the measles to Costa Rico for the first time in five years. Calls and DMs! Show your SUPPORT by donating to the Weird AF News Patreon where you'll get bonus episodes and you'll get to hang out with the host Jonesy! http://patreon.com/weirdafnewsWATCH Weird AF News on Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/weirdafnews and FOLLOW Jonesy at http://instagram.com/funnyjones or http://twitter.com/funnyjones or http://facebook.com/comedianjonesy or http://Jonesy.com --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Xavier Himma takes the love and joy of cycling to a whole new level, as he has embarked on an endeavor to travel across the Americas, that of course being North, Central and South America, by bicycle, just because he wanted to, and to take in all the cultures, sights, sounds and feel of the road, and doing it solo just for the love of being on your own and exploring. We all go out for bike rides now and again; can you say you would travel across countries just like it were going to the grocery store? On his travel since crossing the Canada/U.S. border back in October of 2017, he has been making the most of his travels and making good time, and meeting new and helpful people along the way. We touch on all the reasons why he started his journey, some things he has encountered, places, and of course what it's really like to cross an international border on your bicycle with no planned itinerary or formal destination. His jouney is not over yet; at the time of this recording he was resting in Costa Rico, but he will definitely be back again to talk about his journey and his return home to small town Rockland, Ontario Canada To support Xavier on his travels, please subscribe to his YouTube channel, The Hum of the Earth, as well as visit the links below to learn more about him and his travel thus far: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKQnvltsAb4AITUPwscBwXA Xavier's Blog: http://followthehumoftheearth.com Follow Xavier on Instagram: @FollowtheHumoftheEarth      

Our intrepid talkers spin pipe dreams on what they'd like to see in the next NFL CBA, breakdown new NFL rule changes and laugh at the ridiculous idea of two potential new pro Football leagues. They also check in on the IJB Police Blotter and talk coke dealer extortion schemes against former ESPN head honcho John Skipper, Michael Bennet running down elderly paraplegics and smuggling in good times to Costa Rico.

Lior Gantz: Bio + Expert speaker, that is on interviews, live radio and podcasts, receives many thank you and feedback for his honesty and easy to understand explanations that are simple to relate to. Lior has been nicknamed “Globeionaire” by millionaire entrepreneurs, investors, and businessmen who have seen him in action. He has a global approach to life and business, and that’s where the name originates from. Over the past 16 years, Lior has built, run, and managed various exciting ventures across 2 continents. With Portfolio Wealth Global, Lior provides a glimpse into his inner thoughts and work processes, so loyal members get to grow and expand their financial expertise along with him. His drive to consistently outperform the markets with an elevated degree of safety on one end and his commitment to seek out and find the most explosive “under the radar” opportunities on the other end will be clear to you with every word you read. Lior’s essential goal is to help you become wealthier by arming you with advanced strategies and a rich plethora of tools. Lior’s background is the ultimate blend of dividend investing, specialized high-yield companies for retirement, and the inner circle of venture capital, where his rolodex and contacts will become your unfair advantage and secret gateway to opportunities. Readers and members can anticipate Lior’s meticulous and unceasing pursuit of in-depth knowledge and ambition of living a wealthier, more balanced life, inspiring you to act and pursue your financial goals. Our guests are experts, CEOs, insiders, and veterans of their industries: biotech, nanotech, technology, finance, natural resources, marijuana, and high-tech. Candice Marschke: Bhang Travel Inc. is quickly becoming the go-to cannabis event travel promoter in the industry. Bhang Travel specializes in combining international cannabis-friendly destinations with industry experts and cannabis enthusiasts for an amazing adventure with cannabis on land and at sea. Our events include Turks & Caicos Health & Wellness Cruise, Alaska, Pacific Coast, Costa Rico, Spain, all-inclusive trips to existing events and festivals, special events to international destinations, our Annual Caribbean Cannabis Cruise and so much more.

Tonight's special guest is Dr Anna Carol Salter, Ph.D., from Madison, Wisconsin, author of "Predators: Pedophiles, Rapists and Other Sex Offenders: Who They Are, How They Operate and How We Can Protect Ourselves and Our Children." Dr Salter's impressive career includes an BA from University of North Carolina, a Masters Degree in Child Study from Tufts and a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology and Public Practice from Harvard University. She's the author of numerous fiction and non fiction books and educational DVDs, and currently serves as a Consultant for the Department of Corrections, State of Wisconsin. Dr. Salter has conducted trainings on sexual abuse in 46 states and 10 counties (England, Canada, Scotland, France, Sweden, Holland, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Costa Rico), and has lead numerous workshops, published many professional publications and received a number of awards, including winning the Significant Achievement Award from the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers. She was nominated for a 2003 Edgar Allan Poe Award in the category of Best Original Paperback, for her non fiction work, "Prison Blues." Please see her extensive bio: Anna Salter - BIOGRAPHY

In this episode, Kira talks with comedian and daddy of 2, Al Jackson. Kira tells her favorite story about Al. They talk about sex; orgies in Costa Rico and life on the road and parents and comedians on the road. It gets real and hilariously funny.

Tonight's SPECIAL GUEST is Anna Carol Salter, Ph.D., from Madison, Wisconsin, author of: Predators: Pedophiles, Rapists and Other Sex Offenders: Who They Are, How They Operate and How We Can Protect Ourselves and Our Children. Dr Salter's impressive career includes an BA from University of North Carolina, a Masters Degree in Child Study from Tufts and a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology and Public Practice from Harvard University. She's the author of numerous fiction and non fiction books and educational DVDs, and currently serves as a Consultant for the Department of Corrections, State of Wisconsin. Dr. Salter has conducted trainings on sexual abuse in 46 states and 10 counties (England, Canada, Scotland, France, Sweden, Holland, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Costa Rico), and has lead numerous workshops, published many professional publications and received a number of awards, including winning the 1997 Significant Achievement Award from the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers. She was nominated for a 2003 Edgar Allan Poe Award in the category of Best Original Paperback, for her non fiction work, Prison Blues. Please see her extensive bio: Anna Salter - BIOGRAPHY

I think this will be the first time our 8:00 service was bigger than our 9:30 Sunday morning service. I appreciate your coming out. Actually, yesterday was much worse (Pastor is referring to the weather. We were in the middle of a heavy snow storm.). If we were going to cancel anything, we should have cancelled yesterday because this is nothing compared to yesterday. I got stuck going home. I was stuck for a while. That was the worst weather Id been in in my life. The snow was hitting me so hard, it hurt while I was trying to get my car out of there. I think we cancel churches in our city largely on the forecast rather than reality because, unless you are coming from where the Jacobs did-coming from Clinton, it wasnt that bad. I wanted to get on WCLO and put Faith Community Church-OPEN in big letters; but Im guessing, having seen three [services] now, well probably be down about 400 people or so-which means we need to take another offering (congregation laughs along with Pastor Jeff). Im glad you appreciate the Saturday night team here this morning. Mrs. Bales is now back, but Mrs. Bales team is taking the night off. Peter and Janet are back from Costa Rico, and were looking forward to hearing some good stories there and adventures. They just had one of those laid-back honeymoons, kayaking, zip-lining, whitewater rafting-one of those quiet ones. So anyway, Im glad youre here. I am wearing a shirt that is supporting our missions team. Well be telling you why were wearing these at the closing of the service today. So lets go ahead and dig into the Word, shall we? In the Book of Luke, I believe, is where were parked for a while. Youre getting version #3. I preached this last night. I didnt like it, so I parked in a restaurant after the service for about an hour. That was my mistake last night because I let the snow get worse, and that got me stuck. I revised it, and then I got home and I still didnt like it. So, at one in the morning, I finally said, Okay, Im happy with this now. So I did the third revision, so youre getting version #3 there, which were going to stick with. So, last time we left John the Baptist, he was a baby. He was the fulfillment of the prophesy of Isaiah, of the prophesy of Malachi, that one would be born to prepare the way for Messiah. Zachariah and his wife, Elizabeth, welcomed their son, John, into the world. Thirty years have now passed, nearly 30 years, and John the Baptist goes into the desert to hear from God. He goes where he can be alone. He goes away from the hustle and bustle of the city, but now the time of ministry has come, so he leaves the desert and goes back towards the city. He stays on the outskirts in the countryside. The people meet him half way-they come to Him. He has an in-your-face style. John is brazen. He is probably the first hellfire and brimstone preacher. He is a turn and burn kind of guy. Yet, the audience, the crowd, theyre listening to John. Theyre compelled. After all, hes wearing camels hair for clothes. He has a leather belt. He lives on locus and wild honey. I would bet you his hair is not exactly G-Q. Its probably…Hes been in the desert, windblown, sun…Hes quite a sight. Yet, hes not a raving lunatic. The words that come out of his mouth are true, and theyre from God. This man is anointed of the spirit. So people come to him, and they want to find out what do I have to do? Whats required of me? The first thing that John will do is tell them they are accountable to God. Hell talk about accountability. In Verse 3 [of Luke Chapter 3, page 1016 of pew Bibles], it says, He went into all the country around Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. If you didnt have your sins forgiven, you must repent. Its not enough to simply go through the rituals, the hand washing, ceremonies, observing the festivals and the Sabbath, put your phylactery on and recite your prayers-your schema-and do all these things a good Israelite does. You have to repent. You have to get your life right before God. Repent means to change your mind, to do an about face- to rethink your attitude, rethink your position and make a change: thats repentance. He says, Youre accountable to God. Stop the excuses. Stop passing the buck. The buck stops with you. Thats Johns message. Johns message is still as appropriate, still as applicable, to us today as it was when he first spoke these words. All of us try to justify our sins, justify our wrongdoings. We come up with reasons why we do or say what weve done or said. We learn from the Book of Genesis that God holds us responsible, doesnt He? Lets take a look right now at a clip which is reminiscent of Genesis. You might even see yourself in it a time or two (log on to www.sermonspice.com and type in the title the bite in the search box you can view what was played). I think we get the drift, dont we? Weve offered up some of those excuses. They offered up the same ones. John the Baptist said, God doesnt buy it, and I dont either. Were accountable to God. He gave them a reality check. Lets look at the next verses, 7-9, John said to the crowds coming out to be baptized by him, You brood of vipers! Thats a good way to start your message, John. Thatll really hook them in right there, get them on your side. …Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, We have Abraham as our father. For I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. For ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire. Thats a pretty graphic word picture there. John is pretty straight forward. He pulls no punches. His reality check, Have you been trusting in your own goodness, your own righteousness, your spiritual heritage? Oh, because we are descendents of Abraham, thats good enough. Because we were lucky to be born as descendents of Abraham, as Israelites, then were righteous. We have favor before God. John the Baptist says, Reality check. That doesnt mean anything. It doesnt mean a thing. Do you know of people who trust in that sort of thing? Are you somebody who trusted in that, a member of the right church, growing up in the right denomination, the right spiritual family? Maybe you had gone through the right ceremony as an infant or a young adult, so youre all set in matters of eternity? You can recite the right creeds and say the right thing. Because I can say the right thing, therefore I must be okay. John says, Those things dont mean anything. Those things mean nothing. If you think because youre a child of Abraham, youre right before God, God can raise up from these stones, children of Abraham. What a blow to their system, to find out that the spiritual reality they had thought was true was an illusion. My wife used to give me points for certain things Id do around the house. I would negotiate on those points. I would ask her, How many points is that worth? Doing the dishes, thats 5,000 points. Id be excited about it, so Id do the dishes thinking, Im getting 5,000 points. I was supposed to take out the garbage or cut the grass, but instead Id make a meal-which doesnt happen very often. That has to be worth some points. Id negotiate, This was harder than that. I got 5,000 points for that! This should at least be worth 10,000! Sometimes, shed say, Okay, 10,000 points! Id say, Oh yeah! Im amassing this volume of points. Im talking six figures worth of points. So there was coming a day when I decided I was going to cash in my chips. I went to her, all excited, and I said, I have like 100,000 points. What can I get? I was like a little kid redeeming his coupons at Happy Joes or Chucky Cheese, How many presents will these tickets buy? What can I get? She looks at me and says, Nothing. My points are worthless? Yeah. I guess so. But I did jobs and I got points. What do I get? Thanks. Thanks for carrying out your share of the load as a member of this family. What a rip off! Ive been trusting in these points! Ive been working for these points. These points are meaningless! I was devastated. Never again will I fall for the point system. If I just know the right stuff…If I just go through the right ritual, the right ceremony, certainly thats going to score points with God. If I just dress the right way, if I just say the right things…If I just make sure I give the right amount of money, do the right good deeds… We were joking around this week about a very sad chapter in the history of the church. Some of you might have heard during the reformation…Now this is not a knock on, this is just a history reality. The Catholic Church-Catholics-would be ashamed of this, just like Protestants have done things we are ashamed of, the Catholic Church-before the reformation-sold letters of indulgences. They needed money to build St. Peters Basilica. The dome was not there, so rain and the elements and wind and birds could fly in the Basilica. It was a disgrace, so Leo-the Pope-came up with an idea that some people just barely make it into heaven, but other people get into Heaven with righteousness to spare. You can tap into that righteousness, and for the right amount of money, well give you an indulgence that will pardon you of your sin. It will even free your loved ones from purgatory. Theres a man by the name of Johann Tetzel, who was the marketing guru. He traveled around Germany selling these things. He had a catchy little phrase that says, When into the coffer a coin rings a soul from purgatory springs, and they made all kinds of money. The more you gave, the more sins were atoned for; you could even free loved ones from purgatory; you could even pay for freedom from future sins with enough money. What do you think their surprise and shock is when they get to Heaven and find out the letter is no good there? Their money is no good there. And Luther says, You dont get to Heaven by buying indulgences. We get to Heaven by grace through faith. Thats what Christ has done. You cant purchase your way to Heaven. We shake our heads at them, and we say, I cant believe people really believe that. Yet, people believe that now. Some people will listen hook, line and sinker to evangelists who tell them on television, If you just send me $1,000, youll be in right standing with God. He is going to bless your life. So they write the check. But it doesnt matter, just like if I say, If you give a million dollars to the building fund, youre going to go to Heaven. Wait a second, now well have to think about that. I want to get the elders together and talk that through. Nope, not even then. Its by the grace of God. Its not what you do; its not your goodness and morality. There are people who are thinking they have a whole mess of points, only to find out thats not the system that God uses. Thats not where righteousness comes from. Salvation is a gift that was purchased at a very expensive price through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. So John gives him a reality check. Thirdly, he talks about consistency. We are in Luke, Chapter 3. In Verses 2-3, he talks about accountability. In Verses 7-9, he talks about reality, and in Verses 10-14, he is going to talk about consistency. The way you live your life matters. What should we do then? the crowd asked. John answered, The man with two tunics should share with him who has none, and the one who has food should do the same. Tax collectors also came to be baptized. Teacher, they asked, what should we do? Dont collect any more than you are required to, he told them. Then some soldiers asked him, And what should we do? He replied, Dont extort money and dont accuse people falsely-be content with your pay. So he is telling them the way you live your life matters. If youre here today, and you think youre right with God, but if your life is not displaying the fruits of repentance, true repentance has not happened. If there is true repentance, there will be a change. If there is true repentance, it will affect how you treat your fellow man, how you live your life. What you do matters. What you do is a reflection of whom you belong to, of the condition of your heart. Thats what the Lord is concerned with. Some of you know Im an old comic book geek. When the movie Batman Begins came out, I was really excited. I went to go watch the movie, and there was a line in the movie that was probably one of my favorite lines in a movie of all times. Let me set the stage for you. Multi-millionaire Bruce Wayne is coming back to Wayne Manor, but hes not Batman yet. He doesnt know who he is. He has millions of dollars, but he has no job. So he decides to spend the money on wine, women and song. He is living the life of a playboy, and he is in some fancy restaurant having dinner with some attractive women. One of them jumps into the restaurant fountain, and soon he follows suit. They are frolicking in the fountain in their clothes. Hes all wet; he comes out, and he runs into a childhood sweetheart, a childhood friend. Hes embarrassed about his appearance and his behavior. Then he gives her a nice excuse as to why he is the way he is. Lets watch and see. This is from Batman Begins. (Summary: Bruce is seen frolicking with two young socialites. He sees an old flame and says, rather embarrassed, All this, this is not me. The old flame replies, Bruce, its not what you are on the inside that counts. Its what you are on the outside that truly matters.) Its not who you are underneath. Its what you do that defines you. John says, You have to have your walk match your talk. If your walk doesnt match your talk, your talk doesnt matter. Youre not fooling God; youre not fooling me, John says. You need to have consistency between the two. If youre going to really be serious about God and really repent…But youll notice the one thing that John cant say. He cant say, And the Holy Spirit will help you do this. Why? Because the Holy Spirit did not yet come. The Holy Spirit was promised by John. He foretold of the Holy Spirit. In the Book of Acts 2, Peter gives a similar message. Its a call to repentance. People ask, What must we do? He says, Repent, but then Peter adds something that John cant. He says, We baptize in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. What we have that those people did not have is we have the Holy Spirit of the living God who lives and dwells the believer, and He powers us and equips us to live a kind of life that pleases God. He equips us to say no to sin. He equips us to live lives free. Its not that were not sinners; were still sinners, but were no longer bound by the power of sin. We sin, but we sin because we choose to. Were not a slave of sin any longer. Were certainly free from the penalty of sin because Christ took that penalty for us. So he says, Youre accountable to God. He talks about accountability. He talks about spiritual reality; the point system you are trusting in is invalid. God doesnt grade on a curve. God doesnt hand out arbitrary points for your good deeds. He is looking for authenticity, sincerity of heart. Thats what hes going to talk about in these last verses. In Verse 15, The people were waiting expectantly and were all wondering in their hearts if John might possibly be the Christ. John answered them all, I baptize you with water. But one more powerful than I will come, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. And with many other words John exhorted the people and preached the good news to them. As abrasive as John was, as in your face as John was, his motivation was right, and his desire was to see people come to Christ. He talks about it with a word picture here of a winnowing fork. What was that? A winnowing fork was when you would take your harvest of grain, while it was on your threshing floor, and youd take the fork (we do it with combines now) and lift that wheat into the air. The heavy stuff, the grain, would come down on the floor, and the chaff would blow away. Usually, youd just sweep it up and youd burn it. So youd separate the wheat from the chaff. John says, When He comes, Hes going to separate true believers from those who are just putting on a good act. How will He do that? Lets turn to Matthew 5 together. Jesus is teaching in what is called the Sermon on the Mount. He is going to raise the bar to an unbelievable height. Who are the most righteous people of the day? The Pharisees? The teachers of the law. They were regarded as the holy men. They were the elite of society. The common people deemed them as being right with God. There was no way they could obtain to their level. Jesus, with that as a backdrop, says something unimaginable to them. Verse 20 [page 959], For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of Heaven. Surpasses! Not just equal to, or not close to their righteousness: you have to pass their righteousness. That must have been such a defeating thing to have heard if you were listening that day because you would have said, I dont compare to the Pharisees let alone surpass them in their righteousness. Those guys are as righteous as it gets. It would be like saying to you, Unless your golf game is better than Tiger Woods, you will not be considered a golfer. I guess theres no hope for me. But the stakes here are a lot more serious than a game of golf. He says, You will not enter the kingdom of Heaven. Whoa! This is bad news. How in the world can my righteousness succeed? Their righteousness was a false righteousness. Their righteousness was a righteousness concerned with externals. It was concerned with appearance. It was concerned with the temporal. Christ spoke of a righteousness which came from God. The righteousness that you have that surpasses the righteousness of the Pharisees is none other than the righteousness of Christ. Its received as a gift. Its offered to you freely through Gods grace and mercy. Its a righteousness thats more concerned about the inside than the outside, about condition of the heart. Its more about the life we live than just the words we profess. He talks about how its enough to say dont murder. Jesus says, You shouldnt even hate. You think youre doing great when you dont commit adultery. Jesus says, Dont lust. Do not oppose the sacredness of marriage. He talks about forgiving those who strike you. He talks about loving your enemies. He talks about taking righteousness to a new level. Thats what it means to exceed. What it meant to exceed was the righteousness of the Pharisees was all about them. It was about self-advancement, self-promotion, self-preservation; it was about me. What would this do for me? How will this improve my standing? How will this improve my clout? Jesus said the righteousness from God is not about advancing your kingdom and your agenda. Its about advancing the kingdom of the Lord Jesus. Its about His cause in the world. Authenticity. How did John do in that regard? Lets turn to John 3. This is some more teaching by John the Baptist. John the Baptist, his ministry is about to end. Its about to subside because the Messiah has come. So John baptizes Jesus, and now Jesus launches His earthly ministry. Whats happening is a lot of the people who are following John are now starting to follow Jesus. A lot of the crowd that was following John is now going after this new young upstart, Jesus of Nazareth. He not only gives a good sermon; He performs miracles too. He starts to steal John the Baptists press. How is John going to handle that? In Verse 26 [page 1052], They came to John and said to him, Rabbi, that man who was with you on the other side of the Jordan-the one you testified about… Were talking about Jesus now. …well, He is baptizing, and everyone is going to him. Hes stealing your thunder! Hes stealing your sheep! What are we going to do? John the Baptist says, That dirty rascal! That dirty dog! I gave Him His start! Without me, Hed be nothing! Now Hes taking away my sheep! All right, boys! New marketing campaign! New strategy here! Gather around! Were going to take back whats ours! Hes not going to steal our good givers! Does John get territorial on Him? John simply says, You know what, guys? It was never about me. He gives them a little speech about the bridegroom and the bride. He says, You know what? Verse 30, He must become greater; I must become less. He said, This has to happen. He has to increase, and I have to decrease. This should be what every believer believes in his or her heart and practices in his or her life. There is no such thing as a superstar in the Kingdom of God. I cant tell you a single Christian singer, author, pastor, you name it, that I would meet-well, maybe Billy Graham, I take that back; other than him, theres probably not a one that I would meet and go, Ahhh. Its you. Theres no such thing as a superstar in the Kingdom of God. A Christian celebrity-thats an oxymoron. It makes you want to gag. Its about Jesus. Its not about us. The greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven are not going to be the pastors with 15,000 people in the congregation and diamond rings on their fingers. Its going to be the shut-in who never stopped praying, the person who gave everything they could to fund missions and never told anybody. It will be the people who left everything they had to follow Christ. The Bible knows nothing about celebrities. Building our name, building a name for ourselves, is nothing but vain and glory. It just passes. Its nothing. Vanity. Forty years from now, my prayer is that Faith Community Church is still here, and the Gospel is being preached, people are hearing the name of Christ. Will it matter whether they knew that Jeff Williams was the founding minister? Nope. All Star Ministries is going, and there are 150-200 kids coming. Mike [Powers], if they never heard your name, does it matter? It doesnt matter. All that matters is that you know Christ. You see, if thats my attitude when I started ministry or served in a ministry and I didnt receive accolades or praise, nobody strokes me, I dont get offended. I dont quit because nobody appreciates me. They dont appreciate what I do. Nobody patted me on the back. If youre doing it for the reward, and not for Him, it doesnt matter. If not one person this weekend says, That was a good sermon, Pastor Jeff, am I going to get offended and say, Nobody cares. Do you know how much time I put into that? Three drafts and nobody liked it? I quit. Im going to sell shoes. No. Its not about us. John said, It is not about me. Ive done my part. John now is going to fade into the annuls of history. Soon he will be arrested for exposing immorality. Thats going to backfire on him. Hell fade into a memory in church history. As far as John was concerned, it didnt matter because the One he was there to serve, the One he was there to prepare the way for, had come. His job was done. Someday well all be gone. But if we have lived our lives for the advancement of the Gospel and made Jesus known to the world, we truly have not lived in vain. Lets pray: Father, thank You for the message of John. Thank you for the importance of authenticity, being real. You look at the heart and not the appearance. Thank you for the importance of consistency that our walk matches our talk. Thank you for the reality check, the point systems that we trust in that are erroneous. What matters is the grace of God, the love of God. Thats reality: the accountability that we are to repent, that there is a God we answer to, no excuses. Johns message is just as pertinent today as it was then. We thank you for teaching us through Your Word this morning, through Your Holy Spirit. In Jesus name, I pray, Amen.

Lior Gantz:Bio + Expert speaker, that is on interviews, live radio and podcasts, receives many thank you and feedback for his honesty and easy to understand explanations that are simple to relate to.Lior has been nicknamed “Globeionaire” by millionaire entrepreneurs, investors, and businessmen who have seen him in action. He has a global approach to life and business, and that's where the name originates from. Over the past 16 years, Lior has built, run, and managed various exciting ventures across 2 continents. With Portfolio Wealth Global, Lior provides a glimpse into his inner thoughts and work processes, so loyal members get to grow and expand their financial expertise along with him. His drive to consistently outperform the markets with an elevated degree of safety on one end and his commitment to seek out and find the most explosive “under the radar” opportunities on the other end will be clear to you with every word you read.Lior's essential goal is to help you become wealthier by arming you with advanced strategies and a rich plethora of tools. Lior's background is the ultimate blend of dividend investing, specialized high-yield companies for retirement, and the inner circle of venture capital, where his rolodex and contacts will become your unfair advantage and secret gateway to opportunities. Readers and members can anticipate Lior's meticulous and unceasing pursuit of in-depth knowledge and ambition of living a wealthier, more balanced life, inspiring you to act and pursue your financial goals. Our guests are experts, CEOs, insiders, and veterans of their industries: biotech, nanotech, technology, finance, natural resources, marijuana, and high-tech.Candice Marschke:Bhang Travel Inc. is quickly becoming the go-to cannabis event travel promoter in the industry. Bhang Travel specializes in combining international cannabis-friendly destinations with industry experts and cannabis enthusiasts for an amazing adventure with cannabis on land and at sea. Our events include Turks & Caicos Health & Wellness Cruise, Alaska, Pacific Coast, Costa Rico, Spain, all-inclusive trips to existing events and festivals, special events to international destinations, our Annual Caribbean Cannabis Cruise and so much more.