Podcast appearances and mentions of james gilmore

In this episode, the fourth of our 505(b)(2) series, sponsored by Avyxa, we are joined by James Gilmore, Chief Pharmacy and Clinical Services Officer at American Oncology Network, and Joe Shupp, VP of Sales for Cencora's ION Oncology Network, who will discuss operationalizing in practice from a pharmacist perspective.If you have questions for our guests or suggestions for future topics, send us an email at OnCallGPO@cencora.com.Disclaimer: The OnCall podcast is for educational purposes only and not a substitute for any professional medical advice, legal advice, or clinical judgment. Views expressed are opinions only and not endorsed by Cencora or any of its affiliates. The opinions expressed are solely those of the author and may include certain marketing statements. The content of this presentation is owned or licensed by Cencora, and reproduction of the content is not permitted without Cencora's consent. Neither OnCall nor Cencora control the accuracy of any third-party information. Accessing any referenced site is subject to such site's terms of use.

Tá maoiniú á chur ar fáil don comhlacht SláinteTech ar an Tualach.

Bienvenue dans l'Accounting Business Club, le podcast qui révolutionne la vision du cabinet d'expertise comptable moderne. Dans cet épisode exceptionnel, Alexis Slama reçoit Ron Baker, pionnier mondial du pricing et auteur de référence pour la transformation des cabinets.Ron Baker, expert mondialement reconnu dans la gestion des cabinets d'expertise comptable et auteur de 8 ouvrages de référence, partage sa vision révolutionnaire du développement des cabinets. Dans cette conversation passionnante, il décrypte l'évolution nécessaire des modèles économiques : de la facturation horaire au prix de valeur, jusqu'à l'économie de transformation. Vous découvrirez

Episode 247FACULTY: Principal Ron BakerCLASS: #TheGuideIn this episode, Scott is in the office again with Accounting High Principal Ron Baker to discuss the future of accounting and the shift towards the transformation economy. Ron outlines the evolution of economic eras and how firms can position themselves to offer superior value by focusing on transformations rather than just services. They also touch on examples from various industries, and discuss the potential of subscription models.

Russia Is Losing the War in Ukraine, says a former senior US diplomat. In today's interview I'm honoured to be joined by Ambassador James Gilmore, who explains the broader consequences of Russia's actions and what's at stake if the international community fails to push back against Putin's aggressive imperialist and expansionist ambitions. As a Trump-era diplomat James Gilmore has had firsthand experience of negotiating with the US's European partners and our common Russian foe. ---------- James Gilmore was the former US Ambassador to the OSCE during the first administration of President-elect Donald Trump. A member of the Republican Party, Gilmore also chaired the Republican National Committee in 2001 and served as the U.S. Ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe during the first Trump administration. In 1997 James Gilmore was elected as Governor of Virginia with a majority of 56%, where improvements to education quality and teacher numbers formed one of his key manifesto policies. ---------- KYIV POST INTERVIEW: Russia is losing: Former Trump Admin Insider Speaks Out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhS-Gi4mrwk ---------- LINKS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Gilmore https://caprifoundation.org/james-s-gilmore-iii/ https://ua.usembassy.gov/tag/ambassador-james-s-gilmore-iii/ https://www.nga.org/governor/james-s-gilmore/ ---------- SUPPORT THE CHANNEL: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/siliconcurtain https://www.patreon.com/siliconcurtain ---------- TRUSTED CHARITIES ON THE GROUND: Save Ukraine https://www.saveukraineua.org/ Superhumans - Hospital for war traumas https://superhumans.com/en/ UNBROKEN - Treatment. Prosthesis. Rehabilitation for Ukrainians in Ukraine https://unbroken.org.ua/ Come Back Alive https://savelife.in.ua/en/ Chefs For Ukraine - World Central Kitchen https://wck.org/relief/activation-chefs-for-ukraine UNITED24 - An initiative of President Zelenskyy https://u24.gov.ua/ Serhiy Prytula Charity Foundation https://prytulafoundation.org NGO “Herojam Slava” https://heroiamslava.org/ kharpp - Reconstruction project supporting communities in Kharkiv and Przemyśl https://kharpp.com/ NOR DOG Animal Rescue https://www.nor-dog.org/home/ ---------- PLATFORMS: Twitter: https://twitter.com/CurtainSilicon Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/siliconcurtain/ Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/4thRZj6NO7y93zG11JMtqm Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/finkjonathan/ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/siliconcurtain ---------- Welcome to the Silicon Curtain podcast. Please like and subscribe if you like the content we produce. It will really help to increase the popularity of our content in YouTube's algorithm. Our material is now being made available on popular podcasting platforms as well, such as Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Writing on Real Clear World news aggregating and curating website former Virginia Governor and attorney general for the state of Virginia, as well as former U.S. Ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, James Gilmore declares current world conflicts are not just against Israel and Ukraine, but also against the Wes. Governor Gilmore improved education and provided tax relief legislation for working families. Guest: James Gilmore. Former Governor of the state of Virginia. U.S. Ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, Matthew Jarvis sits down with Dan Murphy, Head of Wealth Strategies at Commonwealth, to explore the evolving landscape in financial planning. Gone are the days of product-pushing and binder-heavy financial plans; welcome to the era of experience-driven advisory! Dan walks through the "Experience Economy," revealing how advisors can transform their practices from mere service providers to architects of memorable client experiences. The industry is rapidly shifting from a product focus to an experience focus, and Dan emphasizes that modern financial planning should revolve around clients' goals and values rather than just charts and numbers. From the mindset shift required to embrace this new paradigm to the operational changes needed to support it, Dan offers a wealth of insights for advisors at every stage of their careers. He stresses the importance of cultivating genuine curiosity and empathy as crucial tools for understanding clients' needs. Creating positive experiences, Dan explains, requires intentionality in all aspects of client interactions, going beyond providing services to crafting "time well spent" for clients. Crafting Unforgettable Client Experiences with Guest Dan Murphy [Episode 272] Resources in today's episode: - Matt Jarvis: Website | LinkedIn - Dan Murphy: Website | LinkedIn - Financial Planning Experience - Financial Wellness Experience - The Experience Economy by Joseph Pine and James Gilmore

In a warning to the Chinese regime, President Joe Biden is hailing the power of NATO as he vows to counter Beijing's support for Russia. And the United States is rolling out a new measure to bar China from harming U.S. industries. How is the backdrop of the war in Ukraine influencing discussions and perspectives among NATO leaders as they meet in the nation's capitol this week? James Gilmore, former ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, joins us to discuss. A bipartisan group of senators is backing a new bill that would bar lawmakers from trading stocks while in office. A growing chorus of families of the victims of two deadly Boeing crashes are speaking out, criticizing what they call a “sweetheart deal.” We talk with Michael Stumo, CEO of the Coalition for a Prosperous America, who's also the father of one of the crash victims. ⭕️ Watch in-depth videos based on Truth & Tradition at Epoch TV

On this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different, we delve into the revolutionary concept of the experience economy. Coined by Joe Pine and James Gilmore in the late 1990s, the experience economy has transformed how businesses engage with customers. This episode will break down the key insights from our conversation, offering actionable advice and thorough explanations on how to leverage the hero's journey framework to elevate customer interactions. You're listening to Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different. We are the real dialogue podcast for people with a different mind. So get your mind in a different place, and hey ho, let's go. Understanding the Experience Economy The experience economy is a concept that suggests businesses can create value by crafting memorable experiences for their customers, rather than just offering products or services. Pine and Gilmore's visionary work has influenced modern business thinking, pushing companies to focus on the emotional and experiential aspects of customer interactions. Key Takeaways: Shift from Goods to Experiences: Businesses need to move beyond selling products and services to creating immersive experiences that resonate with customers on a deeper level. Emotional Engagement: Experiences that evoke emotions are more likely to be remembered and valued by customers, leading to increased loyalty and advocacy.   The Hero's Journey Framework The hero's journey, a narrative structure popularized by Joseph Campbell, can be a powerful tool for businesses looking to create meaningful customer experiences. This framework involves a hero (the customer) embarking on an adventure, facing challenges, and ultimately achieving transformation. Steps of the Hero's Journey: The Call to Adventure: The customer recognizes a need or desire that prompts them to seek out a solution. Crossing the Threshold: The customer takes the first step towards addressing their need, often by engaging with a brand or product. Trials and Tribulations: The customer faces challenges and obstacles, which the brand helps them overcome. Transformation and Reward: The customer experiences personal growth and satisfaction from overcoming challenges, leading to a deeper connection with the brand.   Making Customers the Heroes One of the most impactful ways to engage customers is by positioning them as the heroes of their own stories. This approach not only enhances their experience but also fosters a sense of empowerment and loyalty. Actionable Tips: Understand Customer Needs: Conduct thorough research to understand the desires, pain points, and aspirations of your customers. Craft Personalized Experiences: Use the insights gained from your research to create tailored experiences that address individual customer needs. Support and Guide: Act as a mentor or guide, providing the tools and support customers need to overcome their challenges. For more insights and examples from the Category Pirates, download and listen to this episode. Don't forget to grab a copy (or gift!) of one of our best-selling books:  Snow Leopard: How Legendary Writers Create A Category Of One  The Category Design Toolkit: Beyond Marketing: 15 Frameworks For Creating & Dominating Your Niche  A Marketer's Guide To Category Design: How To Escape The “Better” Trap, Dam The Demand, And Launch A Lightning Strike Strategy The 22 Laws of Category Design: Name & Claim Your Niche, Share Your POV, And Move The World From Where It Is To Somewhere Different  **NEW!** The B2B Tech Marketer's Guide To Category Design: How To Engineer Your Market, Find What Makes You Different, And Become A Category Queen We hope you enjoyed this episode of Christopher Lochhead: Follow Your Different™! Christopher loves hearing from his listeners. Feel free to email him, connect on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and subscribe on Apple Podcast / Spotify!

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H. James Gilmore and Dr. Tracy Halcomb, the directing and producing team behind Acadia Pictures latest documentary "Fielding Dreams: A Celebration of Baseball Scouts" is on the show this week. Baseball scouts are a thankless job, and the Fielding Dreams hopes to change that just a bit. Learn more https://acadiapictures.com/. KnewAmsterdam.com --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/knewamsterdam/support

Are you feeling a little nervous? Nervous about the economy. Nervous about your business? Or just a sense of unease when it comes to what the next 12 months might look like in this new world of business. Well today we wanted to do something a little different. Here at Remarkably, we have the privilege of having what many would call quite intimate conversations with business owners about how they are feeling in not only a post-covid business environment but also in the financial climate that many think we have yet to feel properly. The other unique position we are in is that we get to speak to experts regularly about what business owners should be doing right now to ensure they protect themselves for what is to come – whatever that may be. Overwhelmingly, the feedback is just two things. Make sure you solidify the relationships you have around you.And Lean into experience as an asset. So today, we are going to replay an episode from Season One with, who many describe, as the Godfather of Experience Marketing – Mr Joseph Pine.Mr. Pine is an internationally acclaimed author, speaker, and management advisor who has dedicated his career to exploring the changing landscape of business and the role of experience in creating value for customers. He has authored several best-selling books, including "The Experience Economy" and "Authenticity: What Consumers Really Want".In this episode, we will delve into Mr. Pine's insights on the Experience Economy, a concept he co-created with his partner James Gilmore. The Experience Economy describes the shift from a service-based economy to an economy where experiences are the key driver of growth and differentiation.We will explore how businesses can create memorable and authentic experiences for their customers and why this is crucial in today's hyper-competitive marketplace. Mr. Pine will share his thoughts on the impact of technology on the Experience Economy, and how companies can leverage it to enhance the customer experience.Join us as we uncover the insights and wisdom of Mr. B. Joseph Pine II on the Experience Economy and the power of customer experience in creating value for businesses and customers alike.Get connected with Joseph Pine atwww.strategichorizons.comTwitter:  @joepineLinkedIn: /joepineRecommended Books:The Experience Economy by Joseph Pines IIhttps://www.amazon.com.au/Experience-Economy-Competing-Customer-Attention/dp/1633697975/

Wow!!! Two podcasts in two days, here's a little short episode I recorded with James Gilmore of Manchester band ROLLA, we discussed the bands career to date as well as touching on their latest EP 'Nothing Less Than Everything' which hit #1 in the itunes album charts and their upcoming dates this week in London, Birmingham and a sold out hometown show in Manchester's Gorilla.As per James picked his heroes at the end.Please go and check ROLLA out here: https://open.spotify.com/artist/1uLjBnFTDWAEVwhxZ4TKxu?si=A4D-TrHQTWe3hLD_51RrUQHere's the new video for 'Hey You' (302) ROLLA - HEY YOU - OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO - YouTubeTickets available here for London & Birmingham Rolla | (thisfeeling.co.uk)also check the band out on their socials here:ROLLA BAND | Manchester | Facebook

Welcome back to Rocket Fuel!This week James sits down with James Gilmore. A fascinating individual who is the Founder & Managing Director of leading teen media company W!ZARD Radio Media.We talk to him about how and why this all started back 11 years ago from his bedroom as a kid.We also discuss W!ZARD Radio Media what its is and what the future holds for it as they expand into the world of talent management and record labels and the challenges of having 2 brands that work side by side but with different things that are needed on a day to day to keep both ships running.And then we ramble around the topic of radio and podcasts in an ever growing visual market world of the likes of social media and advertising.We will be back fortnightly (that's every 2 weeks) on Thursdays. We can't wait for you to listen in.———————Follow James @JamesErskine (twitter.com/jameserskine)Follow Rocket @WeAreRocketHQ (twitter.com/wearerockethq)Follow Rocket on LinkedIn (linkedin.com/company/thebigshot)wearerocket.co.uk/Follow James on Twitter (twitter.com/thejamesgilmore)Follow James on Instagram (instagram.com/thejamesgilmore)Contact James on LinkedIn (inkedin.com/in/james-gilmore)https://www.wizardradio.com/Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Amb. James Gilmore - Ukraine is a test of our commitment to freedom. by John Catsimatidis

Do you want more time, attention, and money from your prospects and clients? You will love this conversation with one of my all-time favorite authors, Joseph Pine, author of The Experience Economy. Our guest today is Joseph Pine II. He is an internationally acclaimed author, speaker, and management advisor to Fortune 500 companies and entrepreneurial start-ups. He is co-founder of Strategic Horizons LLP, a thinking studio dedicated to helping businesses conceive and design new ways of adding value to their economic offerings. In 2020 Joseph Pine and James Gilmore released a new edition of one of my all-time favorite business books, The Experience Economy: Competing for Customer Time, Attention, and Money. This book demonstrates how goods and services are no longer enough; what companies must offer today are experiences – memorable events that engage each customer in an inherently personal way. I'm not alone in being a fan of this book. The Experience Economy has been published in fifteen languages and was named one of the 100 best business books of all time by 800ceoread. Joe is also a contributor to the Harvard Business Review. He co-authored a thought-provoking article in the January 2022 edition, "The New You Business." This article is packed with powerful ideas we will explore in our conversation today. If you have a sales team and you want to boost results, you need to get to know Selling From the Heart. What's excellent about Selling From the Heart is how it takes a different approach to drive sales. The goal is to build trust quickly with clients and prospects through authenticity. The result is more effective prospecting, higher close rates, and more referrals. Best of all, the Selling From the Heart methodology works with your existing sales model. To learn more, visit www.sellingfromtheheart.net and make sure to listen to me and my co-host Larry Levine each week on the Selling From the Heart Podcast!

Ron Adner is the leading strategy thinker on the topic of business ecosystems. He is the author of The Wide Lens: What Successful Innovators See that Others Miss and a new book, Winning the Right Game: How to Disrupt, Defend, and Deliver in a Changing World. Ron shares important insights on the language of strategic alignment to help you navigate the new world of coalitions and ecosystems. If your new value proposition requires rewiring your relationships - you're in an ecosystem where there is interdependence. It takes a new language to teach new strategies, and the rewards can be great. Listen in to see if you should be shifting your perspective.   Key Takeaways [2:10] Much of what Ron writes is on how to think about innovation and make sure you are doing the right work. He stresses efficient, effective action. [3:24] What kind of shifts will disrupt your ecosystem? Modern disruptions change the ecosystem, for example, making a change in how healthcare is delivered and changing the boundaries of industries. [7:11] The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the work ecosystem. It's a virus; it's supposed to stay in its healthcare box. It broke through boundaries to affect international relations, trade, supply chains, and more. An ecosystem disruption requires an ecosystem response. Ron shares a link for listeners to read Chapter 1 of his book, for free, to learn about the challenge we are all facing. [10:45] In 95% of conversations where people use the word “ecosystem,” you could substitute the word “mishmash,” with no loss of meaning. Ron claims there is a lack of structured thinking about ecosystems. He shares a specific definition of ecosystem, and how it connects to whether or not your new value proposition requires rewiring relationships. [12:53] Hans Rosling wrote in Factfulness about the secondary and tertiary effects of the globally important decisions we make. Ron says people can't confidently discuss third-order consequences. His work is built on the structure of interdependence; understanding the system that is implied by a value proposition. Think about the structure of the system that needs to come together for the proposition. [16:35] Ron believes that if we can think more broadly about the set of parties we are going to interact with, a lot of things become easier to see. It requires flexibility and true empathy for the counterparty's position. [18:36] When writing his book, Ron discovered that the structure of interdependence is changing. It's necessary to know what the changes are. In Jack Welch's GE, it was clear what the industry was and easy to rank who was number one. Today, all sorts of parties are on the same game board playing different games. Choose the game you want to win! Winning the wrong game can feel a lot like losing. [21:05] Meeting the clients' needs better than the competition was the traditional execution lens and it is still needed. But is that all that's needed? Is your ability to deliver on that promise entirely within your capability set, or are you going to be relying on other parties and partners to do something to enable you to deliver, not your product or service, but the value proposition that you're making? [22:50] Is it better to follow the traditional execution of the value proposition? It depends on whether you have easy access to the abilities and resources needed to deliver on that proposition. If not, you need an ecosystem of partners that can do something to enable you to deliver on the value proposition. And you need to put them on the same pedestal to maintain the value proposition. [23:45] Ron shares a case study from Michelin, and their run-flat tire. They didn't invest enough in their service garage partners and the product collapsed. Critical partners are just as important to strategize for as your end consumers. [24:50] Jan cites Steve Justice, former program director for Lockheed Martin, saying, “You've got to stand in the future. And if people are laughing at you, you know you're far enough out there, that you're standing in the future.” [25:48] Ron suggests asking, “What do we need to get there?”, “Who do we need to get there?”, “How do you align them?” He explains the differences between a project and an ecosystem. In an ecosystem, your partners may not know that you're planning to rely on them. In a project, everyone knows who the manager is. In an ecosystem, there is no hierarchy of authority. You rely on strategic alignment. [28:48] An ecosystem that's functioning well is one that's in balance. [29:42] Chapter 6 of Winning the Right Game is an attempt to understand what individual leadership means when you're playing in the ecosystem game. There is a distinction between the execution mindset required to succeed in a setting where the leader puts his organization first, and the alignment mindset required to align different organizations into an ecosystem coalition, putting the coalition first. [33:27] Jim refers to Joseph Pine and James Gilmore's concept of the experience economy, where the experience, not the service, is the greater value proposition. Ron talks about Amazon and Alexa's value proposition for the smart home and how they surpassed Apple, Google, and Microsoft to lead in smart homes, and how Tesla surpassed GM in electric cars. [37:25] Some leaders can't make the jump from leading others to leading the organization. Ron says there are different categories of leaders. We need execution people in industries. For others, building coalitions comes more naturally. Most of us are not at the top of the organization. Ron describes a mindset that is helpful for middle executives in choosing the projects they want to be in. [41:22] The language of strategy is inadequate for today's tasks. Ron suggests using the chapters of Winning the Right Game to communicate what underlies your strategy. Use the new language of strategic alignment to educate the people below and above you in the organization. [46:04] Ron summarizes. Chunks of the world operate in an industry mindset. Chunks of the world are shifting toward an ecosystem situation. First, figure out what side of the world you are in. Use the industry toolbox for industry. If your opportunity relies on a new set of collaborators and a new mode of collaboration, use the new ecosystem strategic alignment toolbox. If you get it right, rewards are great. [50:02] Jim invites listeners to visit theleadershippodcast.com and closes with a Stanley A. McChrystal quote that leaders should be like gardeners, creating and maintaining a viable ecosystem in which the organization operates.   Quotable Quotes “The key in a difficult world is efficient, effective action.” “Classic disruption … was a study of identifying substitute threats while they were still off the radar. … All that disruption was really a technology substitution.” “When I talk about an ecosystem disruption, it's this disruption that doesn't change the technology within a given box. It changes the boundaries that used to define these boxes that we can think of as traditional industries. That, I think, is what we're seeing, more and more.” “An ecosystem response is one where a coalition of actors is pulled together. ” “When I talk about an ecosystem, I have a very specific definition in mind. … It's the structure through which partners interact to deliver a value proposition to an end consumer.” “The ecosystem, then, is anchored not in any given actor, not in a firm, but in a value proposition and the structure through which multiple partners interact.” “Whenever you have a value proposition that requires a rewiring of relationships, that's when you're moving into this ecosystem world, which, I will argue, requires a new strategy toolbox to draw from.” “When you have a new proposition that doesn't require rewiring [relationships], you don't need to worry about this ecosystem stuff. You can go back toward traditional tools.” “Your challenge is not just winning but choosing the game you want to win. The threat, of course, is that you can win the wrong game, and winning the wrong game can feel a lot like losing.” “Can you execute in a traditional execution way, or do you need to rely on an ecosystem? Why do we see firms relying on partners? It's because they don't have easy access to the capabilities or the resources.” “How is it that great people are succeeding in one setting and being less successful in the other?” “In the real world, if you're in a room and you're the only person with the right answer, you're totally useless. Your job is to get everybody else to the right answer, and that requires language.” “It's not saying there's a new world order or everything has changed. It's saying some things have changed and perhaps you're in a situation that might be different but it doesn't mean everything is.”   Resources Mentioned Theleadershippodcast.com Sponsored by: Darley.com Ron Adner Ron Adner on LinkedIn Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College The Wide Lens: What Successful Innovators See that Others Miss, by Ron Adner Winning the Right Game: How to Disrupt, Defend, and Deliver in a Changing World, by Ron Adner Clay Christensen Canon Nucor U. S. Steel Southwest Airlines MinuteClinic® CVS COVID-19 Chapter 1 of Winning the Right Game Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World--and Why Things Are Better Than You Think, by Hans Rosling Stanley A. McChrystal Winning: The Ultimate Business How-To Book, by Jack Welch with Suzy Welch Jack Welch Steve Justice Lockheed Martin Jim Collins: Level 5 Leader Look: A Practical Guide for Improving Your Observational Skills, by James H. Gilmore The Experience Economy, by Joseph Pine and James H. Gilmore Disney Starbucks Amazon Alexa Tesla GM What Got You Here Won't Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful, by Marshall Goldsmith with Mark Reiter Michael Port Malcolm Gladwell  

If you're in business today – and even if you aren't – you can't go too long without hearing, reading or talking about customer experience, and more broadly the experience economy. That wasn't always the case. In fact it wasn't until Joe Pine and his co-author James Gilmore introduced us all to the term experience economy in a 1998 article, then authored the seminal book The Experience Economy a year later. And things in business really haven't been the same since. Recently my CRM Playaz co-host Paul Greenberg and I had the pleasure of having Joe Pine join us for a LinkedIn Live conversation on how the ideas put forth in the book have evolved over time, and how companies have done putting those principals in the book into action – especially over the past few turbulent years.

In 1999, Joseph Pine and James Gilmore offered this idea to readers as a new way to think about connecting with customers and securing their loyalty. As a result, their book The Experience Economy is now a classic, embraced by readers and companies worldwide and read in more than a dozen languages. And though the world has changed in many ways since then, the way to a customer's heart has not. In fact, the idea of staging experiences to leave a memorable—and lucrative—impression is now more relevant than ever. With an ongoing torrent of brands attacking consumers from all sides, how do you make yours stand out? Welcome to the new Experience Economy. With this fully updated edition of the book, Pine and Gilmore make an even stronger case that experience is the missing link between a company and its potential audience. It offers new rich examples—including the U.S. Army, Heineken Experience, Autostadt, Vinopolis, American Girl Place, and others—to show fresh approaches to scripting and staging compelling experiences, while staying true to the very real economic conditions of the day.

This week Russel reviews an article from Harvard Business Review called “The ‘New You' Business: How to Complete on Personal Transformations” by Lance Bettencourt, B. Joseph Pine II, James Gilmore, and David Norton. You can find this article in the January-February 2022 print edition of Harvard Business Review or on HBR.org.

Governor James Gilmore - Democrats took a real hit Tuesday. Recover by 2022? by John Catsimatidis

Shep Hyken is a Customer Service and Experience Expert and the Chief Amazement Officer of Shepherd Presentations. He is a New York Times bestselling author and has been inducted into the National Speakers Association Hall of Fame for a lifetime achievement in the speaking profession. Shep works with companies and organizations who want to build loyal relationships with their customers and employees. His articles have been read in hundreds of publications, and he is the author of five books. He is also the creator of The Customer Focus™, a customer service training program which helps clients develop a customer service culture and loyalty mindset.   Questions   Your new book is called I'll Be Back: How to Get Customers to Come Back Again & Again. And so, could you share a little bit about the book, what inspired you to write this book? How can this book help organizations? What are the core pillars or themes that the book is built on? Just give us in your own words what it's all about? You mentioned in the book, the concept of being nice. The behavior or personality of a customer service employee versus the technical side, I wanted you to expand on that for us on what is the importance of that? And what does it really mean to be nice? In the book you also mentioned to create real customer loyalty, we first need to understand the difference between loyalty programs and marketing programs. Can you explain to our audience what you mean by that? A lot of organizations clearly having to pivot over the last year and a half since the pandemic, trying to look at their customer journey, trying to incorporate digital even more, even those organizations that didn't have a digital as part of their whole process. What are your thoughts on organizations looking to do all those things, but still create that amazing experience? Can you share with us what's the one online resource, tool, website or app that you absolutely cannot live without in your business? Could you also share with us maybe one or two books that have had the biggest impact on you? Can you also share with us what's the one thing that's going on in your life right now that you're really excited about either something you're working on to develop yourself or your people? Where can listeners find you online? Do you have a quote or a saying that during times of adversity or challenge, you'll tend to revert to this quote it kind of helps to get you back on track or get you refocused?   Highlights   Shep's Journey   Me: So, I'm going to piggyback off of your last statement, “It's great to be back” because your new book is called “I'll be back.” And so, could you share a little bit about the book, what inspired you to write this book? How can this book help organizations? What are the core pillars or themes that the book is built on? Just give us in your own words what it's all about?   Shep shared that the full title is, I'll Be Back: How to Get Customers to Come Back Again & Again. And he joked about the accent, but whenever people say I'll be back, they kind of tried to do that Terminator, Arnold Schwarzengger impression.   And originally, when he started writing the book, he hadn't even thought about that, the tie into the Terminator movie and then about three hours in the starting his outline, he's going “Yeah, I'll be back. I bet I can play off of that.” So, while it really doesn't have anything to do with the Terminator, he does mention it a few times and the goal is to get your customers to say, I'll be back and you want them to not only say it, you want them to actually do it.   So, there's all kinds of tips, tactics, ideas, and strategies just for the idea of getting your customers to come back and understanding the difference between repeat customers, loyal customers, how to create a more customer focused culture that delivers that experience that gets customers to come back, so it's really about that. And the really cool thing is, he believes, even with this crazy COVID variant going around, the Delta, he gets the feeling that a lot of the world is starting to feel like they're coming back. So, there's a double message in there that he didn't even anticipate was going to happen.   The Concept of Being Nice: The Behavior or Personality of a Customer Service Employee Versus the Technical Side   Me: Now you mentioned in the book, the concept of being nice. The behaviour or personality of a customer service employee versus the technical side, I wanted you to expand on that for us on what is the importance of that? And what does it really mean to be nice?   Shep stated that being nice is a foundational concept and there's a story behind it that's pretty funny. The idea behind it was, he was asked to do a speech and he was the closing keynote speaker, the last speaker of the day, he had to end exactly on time, because these people had to go to another event and they were all being picked up by buses. So, his client said, no matter what happens, you finish on time.   And ultimately, the speakers ahead of him went longer and longer and longer, and by the time it was his time to speak, there was two minutes left, not the 40 minutes that he was supposed to do. So, he said to the client, “Don't worry, I've got this.” And he gave him this weird look but he walked on stage and the first thing he said was, “Thank you for that wonderful round of applause. I realized that we have to be out of here in less than two minutes. And I promised everybody, the client especially that that would happen. So, we're going to start over and I'm going to give you the shortest customer service speech in the world.”   So, he's introduced quickly, the applause is here, he's now standing center stage. Are you ready? Here it goes. Be nice. Then he started to walk off stage and the audience, he stopped halfway through and he goes, “I know it's pretty easy, isn't it.” But think about it for just a moment, he's still got about a minute or so left.   So let me tell you about being nice. Being nice is foundational, it's fundamental. If you're in a restaurant and they have great food, but the server is so mean to you, you're never coming back, it's that simple. But I want you to realize that being nice isn't always easy, it's simple, but it's not easy.   And you need to think about it because there's going to be times that you're going to be distracted that you're going to be busy that a customer or an internal customer, one of your own team members is going to come and talk to you and you're going to be interrupted, and you're going to be a little snappy, you can't do that.   Foundationally, you must be nice. Now, nothing's changed. He always joked about nothing's changed in customer service and they talked about that in the book. But really, that's a fundamental, people don't want to be treated the wrong way, they want to feel appreciated, they want to feel like it's a place that wants to do business with them.And if you aren't at least nice, well, think about you don't want to put yourself behind just because you weren't doing something as simple as being friendly and nice.   And by the way, they surveyed over 1000 consumers, and one of the most important top three qualities they want in dealing with somebody related to the areas of customer service, sales, whatever, is that they want somebody number one that's knowledgeable and number two, that's nice.   Me: So nice is like, good morning. Nice is, how are you doing today? Nice is the softer side of your personality.   Shep agreed and stated that it's just a soft skill and it is exactly that it is a skill. And sometimes you need to work on that skill, you need to be remembered, and it's a little bit of a smile, it's a little bit of a friendly attitude. And when you combine those together, that's what your customers want and expect from you. Doesn't that sound so simple. And by the way, they don't spend a lot of time on this in the book, but it's important, he talked about foundation and really what is the underpinning of all the experience you want your customers to have. And even if you're in the business of an eCommerce company that it's almost all automated, you still have to create this feeling that you're friendly, it's the images, it's the simplicity of how the website works and if they ever do, in fact, call you, if the customer ever does call you, it's how they're treated. In a B2B environment, maybe business to business, they say is different than B2C and the reality of it is, it's not much different today, because your B2B customers are comparing you to the best service experiences they've ever had. And that could include a retail store, it could include Amazon, it could include a restaurant, it doesn't matter, it's the best service they've had and that's what they expect from everybody.   Me: What if you have an organization where it's just not in the character of the person that's interfacing with the customers to be nice. Generally speaking, in their own personal lives, they're just not nice people, they have a very unpleasant countenance, they're not very welcoming, or approachable, and you feel very uncomfortable around them because of their demeanour and your facial expressions. How do you get that person to be nice?   Shep stated that first of all, he wouldn't have hired that person. So, part of creating a culture that's customer focus is making sure the right people are on the bus and that means you've got to hire right. Now, there are some people, they can still be nice, but they're not cut out for being on the front line, great. Put them in another job somewhere else in the organization, they still have to be nice. But again, being introverted may be awkward for somebody, and we don't want to put anybody in that situation.   But he'll also add that if you've got somebody in the warehouse and their job is to pack boxes with product based on what the customer orders, and by the way, this is a little bit off of the concept of being nice, but that person has a great responsibility to the customer. Because if they receive that box, and it wasn't packed properly and the items inside are broken, or whatever, that's going to reflect on the entire company.   Now back to this employee that never sees the customer in the warehouse, in the accounting department, whatever. If you are going to create a culture that's focused on the customer, there has to be a personality to that culture and the people who are hired have to be in alignment with that personality.   Now, again, being nice means friendly, it doesn't mean overly friendly or overly gregarious, it is really about the fundamental concept of just being friendly and nice to your colleagues and your customers, not overly so that's why even behind the scenes, they still have to have a little bit of something going on there, they just don't have to be quite as dedicated to it as perhaps somebody on the true front line.   The Difference Between Loyalty Programs and Marketing Programs   Me: Now in the book you also mentioned to create real customer loyalty, we first need to understand the difference between loyalty programs and marketing programs. Can you explain to our audience what you mean by that?   Shep stated that let's just take frequent flyer miles for a moment, they call that a loyalty program, the airlines do and the reality is it's a miles program, it's a points program. In other words, it's a marketing program. In a sense, it's kind of a discount, you buy enough airline tickets, and you fly in the airline long enough, you get a free flight, just like if you go to a restaurant and they punch your card five times, the sixth sandwich might be free. So, his question is, and he doesn't know if Yanique fly a lot or not, but I talked to people all the time he goes, if the entire airline industry were to take away the miles program, would you still fly on the same airline that you're currently spending most of your time on? Because most people will try to accumulate miles on one particular airline and he's surprised it's split. He hasn't done a formal survey, but he's going to say it's approximately 50/50 from the people that say, “Oh, I'd stay here.” or “You know what, I'd fly a different airline.” And it's that simple. The reason they're staying on the airline is because of the points, not because of the airline itself, take that away, and it's gone.   Now, the other thing they talked a little bit about related to repeat business versus loyal business, is that sometimes-repeat business is due to maybe it's a better price.   “Why do you love doing business with them? They have the lowest prices?”   “What if you found somebody with a lower price? Well, then I'd go do business with them.”   So, the customers loyal to the price, not the company. And the same thing with convenience.   “Why do you go to them? Well, they're the closest one.”   “What happens if a competitor moves closer? Well, I'll probably do business with them.”   So, what you need to do in those situations, if price is how you're competing, or convenience is how you're competing, make sure you deliver a level of service. And when given the opportunity, try to connect with that customer on some kind of an emotional level, make them want to not only do business with you, because of whatever reason they have in their mind, but also make them like doing business with you.   Me: Yeah, I totally agree. So, you're saying then that most loyalty programs or that they dub as loyalty programs are actually marketing programs. So, what really makes a customer loyal, as you said, is that emotional connection.    Shep shared that it often is, he will add that there are certain programs, like Nike has a loyalty program, it's actually a membership program, it has really nothing to do with points, it has to do with, “Hey, you're a customer and we're going to give you great information about what you're interested in.” So, if he just bought some golf shoes from Nike, and he's never bought golf shoes from them and since that time, he's received a couple of really interesting emails, not just about product, but about how he can improve his golf game, and what the new technology and the shoes are. And so, he learned about these things and he thinks to himself, they know who he is. But what they don't send him is they don't send him information on soccer shoes or football as you might call it in other parts of the world, because they know that's not something he's ever bought from them and he's never indicated in the interest. So, he considers that type of program more focused on gaining the customer in other ways than just giving them true incentives to buy. So, he thinks that's an important delineation between membership programs and marketing. Now, one other thought before we jump off of this is that some people refer to the Amazon Prime program as a loyalty program and he even thinks Amazon refers to it as the Prime membership program, not a loyalty program and if they do, it's okay. But here's what happens when you're willing to spend $120 a year and it might be $129 a year, you want to get your money's worth out of it so you're going to try to use them as often as possible. That's the idea is give them, the customer, a reason to come back and that's because you spent money with them and you want to make sure you get good value for that.   Organizations Looking to Incorporate Digital Even More But Still Create An Amazing Experience   Me: Now, the book also mentions, it piggybacks a little bit on some of your principles from your previous book, The Convenience Revolution, that was such an awesome book. And it talks about self-service, technology, subscription delivery, access and reducing friction. And I've seen a lot of organizations clearly having to pivot over the last year and a half since the pandemic, trying to look at their customer journey, trying to incorporate digital even more, even those organizations that didn't have digital as part of their whole process. And sometimes in doing that, it actually creates a lot of confusion and friction for the customer because there are so many steps that you have to take, and you're so frustrated and a lot of times you'd want to serve yourself but you can't, you have to end up reaching out to somebody either through their contact center, or even physically visiting their location. What are your thoughts on organizations looking to do all those things, but still create that amazing experience?   Shep shared that there's a lot going on there, he wrote an entire book on the concept of convenience and there's no way he couldn't reference this in the new book, because this is what drives repeat business is frictionless, easy, the company that's often easiest to do business with is the one that wins that means it makes price a little less relevant, so that may not be as important to the customer when they say, it's so easy, it's worth paying for.   And he'll give a quick example of this. Prior to the pandemic, when he wrote the book, by the way, The Convenience Revolution, in his mind it was somewhat of a breakthrough in the thought process, nobody had ever written a book about this. There was an author, actually two authors together wrote a book titled The Effortless Experience, but it was all about the getting customer support and making that easy. This is about everything related to your business, now back then it was breakthrough, then it became trendy and now it's become an expectation, especially with COVID.   So, he's thinking, well, that's the big change that's happened in this, so we've got to be more convenient. He doesn't spend a ton of time on it, he has two short chapters on number one, the self-service route, because that's what you're talking about is going digital and getting your customers to think digital first. How can I get the information that I need to have without having to talk to somebody, without having to wait on hold? And for the company, it's how can I make sure that our people are handling customer issues that are of a higher level rather than dealing with things that are so simple like, can you check on my order? Can you see if it was shipped? Can you see if the payment went through?   Insurance companies and banks, financial institutions are really making it easy for you to check balances and make claims and that type of thing. So by going digital first, if you do it right, you create this great, easy frictionless experience and when there's a problem, you need to make it seamless for the customer to transition to the human to human connection to get their help. And that's where a lot of companies fail, they actually fail in two areas.   Number one, they create a process that's not always intuitive to the customer and the good news is the design, the user experience, or the UX as they call it today. And that design is getting better and better and people are recognizing how easy it is.   Think about when you go on Netflix once you register and you're in how easy it is for you to find the different movies genres that you want okay. When you go to Amazon, the entire buying process, you have total control over and they make it so easy. So, they become like the poster children of what convenience and easy is about. And so, when you do that the right way, you create really a little bit more distance between you and your competition but he digress.   Back to what happened in the pandemic and why people are willing to pay for it. If you think about it, delivery is a great convenience. He used to have his food delivered from different restaurants, they never charge for it, once we got into the pandemic, they started charging. And he's not saying we're completely out of it, but we're out of it enough that everybody's back to somewhat business is normal like it used to be. And guess what, they're still charging, and nobody is complaining, they're willing to pay for convenience.   Last year, they did a study and they looked at over 1000 consumers and they found that, he believes it was 60%, this year was just a titch different, but it was around 60% of people were willing to pay more, they want a great service experience but they'll pay even more for convenience. And that number goes up to almost 90% when delivery is actually part of that convenience.   Me: I think a big part of it also, well at least for me personally is safety, with the pandemic and people are so concerned about being exposed, especially as we're clearly going through another wave a lot of countries are going to another wave now, people want to be safe. So if that means I can stay in the convenience of my home and place an order and it can be delivered and the only exposure I'm having is to physically come to the door and just exchange money or if I paid through the app and it's just to get the bag from the delivery person, then I'll definitely rate you higher because I feel safer and I think safety has been definitely something that customers look for that is included in the whole convenience, all because of the pandemic, at least I view it as important. If I don't feel safe in an environment, it's highly unlikely that I'm going to return to the business unless I absolutely have no choice.   Shep shared that 100% safety is of the utmost concern of some people, and you know what it's like, “I'm going to order it, set it at the front door and leave. I'll pick it up when they're gone and they're not there anymore.” But you're right and the digital experience that companies are creating that are making customers feel better about doing business with them, he thinks is a really important piece of building that trust and creating a connection. He might have been doing business the old way with somebody and they knock on the door, and they'd say, “Hello” but if the new way requires or his desire is to have that door stay closed, yet they create a system that allows him to still get everything done easily, he's still going to be appreciative that that company took the effort to make that happen.   Now, long term, you can't automate or digitize a personal relationship, you still need to create some type of connection. Just before they came on together and they're recording this, he got a call, he won't tell you the name of the airlines, but their initials are American Airlines, AA. And you know what they were doing, they were just calling to number one, say, “We saw that you flew last week and you've been flying a little bit more regular, we just want to thank you for that.” Every one of his flights is booked online, he put his boarding pass on his mobile phone. And other than dealing with flight attendants and people at the gate, he doesn't ever talk to anybody from American, they're losing that connection with him. So, what did they do? They picked up the phone and they made an outbound call just to check and say thanks for business, that's how you humanize the automated relationship.   Me: Amazing. And I'm happy you touched on that because that was actually a question I was going to ask because I get asked that question quite often, with technology and automation and artificial intelligence and chatbots and all of these things that companies are doing to enhance the customer experience. Do you feel that the human interaction is going to fade away?   And I always think, no, I think at the end of the day, human beings like to deal with human beings because at some point, that robot or automation can't answer your question. I've had the personal experience myself, it's like they're automated, they ask you a question, you log on, and they say, what's your name, and you put in your name, you put in your account number, and you tell him the issue that you're having and it seems like the robot is just regurgitating the same information to the point where I have to say, “I would like to speak with a representative.” Then it says, “I don't understand what you are saying.” then I change up how I say it, I say, “I would like to have an Agent.” And then it gets what I'm saying.   Shep shared that he gets it. And that's so frustrating and it should seamlessly take you there, there should be an easy way to get there. But that to your point, it's very difficult if all you are is a digital last company, you're not going to be able to compete with the people to figure out how to create the balance. And the magic happens in the balance and it's different from one industry to the next. And even from one company to the next but they figure it out.   App, Website or Tool that Shep Absolutely Can't Live Without in Him Business   When asked about an online resource that he cannot live without in his business, Shep shared that that is a great question. He loves his travel apps, he travels so much, so it's very difficult. So, he's looking at his phone going, what is it that he can't live without? He loves the communication apps, he's on WhatsApp a lot and they do a Zoom. How about LastPass. LastPass, which is so important, he has a virtual workforce, and they all have access to different websites, yet they have no idea what his password is, he loves that.   Books That Have Had the Greatest Impact on Shep   When asked about books that have had the biggest impact, Shep shared that one of the books that is probably his favorite aside from I'll Be Back: How to Get Customers to Come Back Again & Again by Shep Hyken and other books that he's written. He loves The Experience Economy: Work Is Theater & Every Business a Stage by Joe Pine and James Gilmore, it's one of the greatest books written on customer experience. And even though it was written over 20 years ago, and they did come out with an updated version, he believes that it is as relevant today as it ever was. So, love that book. He loves the Tom Peters book from the 1980s In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America's Best-Run Companies. And even though many of those companies aren't around, which is by the way is one of the reasons he likes it, it shows how the most excellent companies, some of them are out of business, some of them were bought out, you cannot ever rest on your laurels but he loves the lessons that it teaches. That's a great book. So, he loves The Experience Economy, probably number one business book in his choice.    What Shep is Really Excited About Now!   Shep stated that he knows he sounds like a broken record but the book just came out, I'll Be Back. So very excited about that. But you know what else? He has a report, it's called the 2021 ACA Report Achieving Customer Amazement.   He did the 2020 last year. So, the 2021 he was going to put out earlier this year, but he felt they were still so deep in the COVID dealings that he thought you know what? He wanted to wait. So, he waited until June to do the research and they just came out with the report. So, just go to his website, www.hyken.com and you'll see the link to get the report.   Me: Awesome. I will definitely be accessing that. I thought the content that you put out last year from the 2020 report and I shared it with a few of my clients, I thought it was really, really great. So, I'm happy that you have an updated one this year.   Shep shared that his favorite stat is, again, by the way, he mentioned a couple of these stats before where they interviewed the consumers. They asked, “Would you rather go to the dentist or call customer support?” 48% of the people said, “I'd rather go to the dentist.” So, it's a great report, it's free. And he thinks there's a lot of great information that would compel a company or an individual to say, you know what, if I don't deliver service, I'm going to lose my customers. This is a reason that I need to keep at the top of my game.   Where Can We Find Shep Online   Me: So, our guests, our listeners would have tapped into this episode when it's released and they are super pumped about your book, I'll Be Back. How to get customers to come back again and again, because I think that's what every business wants, not just to do a one-time sale, but to actually have their customers come back over and over again for their lifetime of that product or service that they're using. And so where can they find you online, they want to download this report, they want to tap into the book, they want to tap into your journey, see what you're up to? And just really be in touch with you. Where can they find you online?   Website – www.hyken.com YouTube – ShepTV   Quote or Saying that During Times of Adversity Shep Uses   When asked about a quote that he tends to revert to, Shep shared that this is one that he have come up with on his own. And he doesn't know if he's ever shared this but “Bad days only last 24 hours.” And here's what happened. He took a daily pocket planner where you write out like what your plans are, it's a calendar. And instead of planning, he reflected at the end of each day, what happened today that was good, and on a weekday, it was business and personal and the weekend, it was pretty much just personal because he tries not to do too much business on the weekends. And he found that within a very short period of time, he realized that even on the worst days, good things happen. So, it was very, very motivational, inspirational, if you will. But it was really inspiring to realize that as bad as the bad day is, it's really not all that bad.   Me: True, very true. I do something very similar as well. But it's more like a gratitude journal, it's digital actually. I just like have a note, I use the Notes app on my devices a lot, it's so amazing. And you can lock the note if you don't want other people to access it if they're on your phone. But I'll type out 10 things that I'm grateful for that happened in that day. And sometimes I have more than 10, I'll end up writing like 15 or 18, or 20. But then there are other times that I really have to like dig deep and things that I think are simple, I really have to give thanks for and it makes me just realize that, as you said, even if things didn't go your way, or you didn't get the contract you were looking for, maybe you weren't feeling well, or you weren't able to accomplish certain goals that you had set for yourself, there are other things that happened that makes you feel good, especially when you give thanks for them, or show gratitude for them because it really goes a very far away.   Shep agreed and stated that he likes that. It's an attitude of gratitude and that's part of what his little journaling does and you've experienced that same thing.   Please connect with us on Twitter @navigatingcx and also join our Private Facebook Community – Navigating the Customer Experience and listen to our FB Lives weekly with a new guest   Grab the Freebie on Our Website – TOP 10 Online Business Resources for Small Business Owners    Links   I'll Be Back: How to Get Customers to Come Back Again & Again by Shep Hyken The Experience Economy: Work Is Theater & Every Business a Stage by Joseph Pine II and James Gilmore In Search of Excellence: Lessons from America's Best-Run Companies by Tom Peters 2021 Achieving Customer Amazement Survey Report by Shep Hyken   The ABC's of a Fantastic Customer Experience   Do you want to pivot your online customer experience and build loyalty - get a copy of “The ABC's of a Fantastic Customer Experience.”   The ABC's of a Fantastic Customer Experience provides 26 easy to follow steps and techniques that helps your business to achieve success and build brand loyalty. This Guide to Limitless, Happy and Loyal Customers will help you to strengthen your service delivery, enhance your knowledge and appreciation of the customer experience and provide tips and practical strategies that you can start implementing immediately! This book will develop your customer service skills and sharpen your attention to detail when serving others. Master your customer experience and develop those knock your socks off techniques that will lead to lifetime customers. Your customers will only want to work with your business and it will be your brand differentiator. It will lead to recruiters to seek you out by providing practical examples on how to deliver a winning customer service experience!

Former U.S. Ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and former Governor of Virginia, James Gilmore, joined American Ambassadors Live! Podcast host Ambassador Jim Rosapepe to discuss the ongoing situation in Ukraine and Russia's activities in the region.         

Do you remember the story of the tortoise and the hare? Here's a quick refresher: a tortoise and a hare were having a race, which, you assume, would be pretty lopsided in favor of the hare. But the hare was so focused on showing off that he lost sight of the ultimate goal: winning the race. Why do I bring that up? Well, because it reminds me of a phrase you may have heard in the business world, that “marketing is meant to be remarkable.” You may have also heard that companies are always aiming to “surprise and delight.” The crux of what both of these phrases are talking about is really that companies are focused on creating experiences for consumers that they will remember forever. According to Simon Harrison, CMO of Avaya, that's also the completely wrong way to be operating your business.Avaya is a software solutions company that many people may not have on their radar, but it is steadily bringing software solutions to 90% of Fortune 500 companies, has a presence in 190 countries, and it is effortlessly improving customer experiences. How is Avaya succeeding? Simon tells us on this episode of Business X factors.Main Takeaways: Effortless Trumps Delight: Customers may be delighted to be offered a freebie like chocolates on their pillows at a hotel, but loyalty or repeat business does not come from these ‘feel good' moments. Customers have a preference for organizations who make life easy for them, solve their problems and create an effortless experience and will return to them over and over before they go back to a company that did one nice thing for them one time.   Everybody Loves a Story: A powerful way of persuading people is to unite an idea with an emotion and the best way to do that is by telling a story. People connect with stories and it builds familiarity. Ditch the PowerPoint slides and the charts and tell stories that engage and are remembered.   Design/ Reach for Utopia:  Joseph Pine and James Gilmore coined the phrase ‘Experience Economy' way back in 1998 and they have since made an even stronger case for experiences as the critical link between a company and its customers. To design solutions to create the ultimate customer experience in a booming customer experience economy, imagine a utopia, a moment or experience when there is a perfect match between what a customer wants and what a business offers. And then empower staff to come up with transformational customer experiences. ---Business X factors is produced by Mission.org and brought to you by Hyland. For over a decade, Hyland has been named a Leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Content Services Platforms, leading the way to help people get the information they need when and where they need it. More than half of 2019 Fortune 100 companies rely on Hyland to help them create more meaningful connections with the people they serve. When your focus is on the people you serve, Hyland stands behind you. Hyland is your X factor for better performance. Go to Hyland.com/insights to learn more.

Joe Pine is a business advisor to Fortune 500 companies and startups, cofounder of Strategic Horizons, speaker author and co-author of several books, primarily The Experience Economy - a classic with a third release in 2020. In this episode we talk about the Experience Economy, Mass Customisation and go through Joe's wealth of experience and case studies.

You know you have a special guest when you're finally nervous about who is on the show. It's not often you get to speak with your heroes one-on-one, let alone the person who's work set you on a course for the next +20 years of your professional career. When I read 'The Experience Economy' in 1999, a book https://www.linkedin.com/in/joepine/ (Joe Pine) authored with James Gilmore, I left my job at JPMorgan as a fixed income analyst to get into customer experience. I realized when I read the last page that this is what I needed to focus on for the rest of my life. Joe Pine is an internationally acclaimed author, speaker, and management advisor. He is also the co-Founder of https://strategichorizons.com/ (Strategic Horizons, LLP) along with James Gilmore. I had the honor and privilege to sit down with Joe and talk: His 1999 book, with the re-release in 2020, and the five core adjectives around the experience: robust, cohesive, personal, dramatic, and transformative. His recent article, Embracing the Employee Experience, and what he means by HR being brokers of time. Whether we need separate teams focused on employee (EX) and customer experience (CX). Should companies focus on EX or CX first? And an article he wrote on his site, https://strategichorizons.com/the-model-for-hybrid-experiences/ (Strategic Horizons), about the importance of hybrid experiences post-COVID (something that is coming about as we speak). I am grateful for the time with Joe and the opportunity to continue learning from someone who I hold with such incredibly high regard. Amazing episode. Mic. Dropped.

On this week’s episode, Juangi and Aaron discuss the disappearance and murder of 14 year old James Gilmore. As true crime fanatics we dive deep into this case and discuss our theories. You can also get some recommendations on our favorite true crime shows and podcasts. Follow Warning Tap on all social medias @warningtap Facebook | Instagram | Twitter Become a supporter of the POD for just $0.99/month with Listener Support. Submit Inquiries to warningtap@gmail.com Follow Aaron on Instagram --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/warningtap/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/warningtap/support

This episode we got to speak to James (Gilmore) Duru, Creative Director at DesignStudio — a branding and digital agency, originally from London, now all over the world, with James running the Sydney studio. You’ll know their work when you think about some of their clients like AirBNB, deliveroo, English Premier League and British Airways, just to name a few. We’ve actually had the founders, Paul Stafford and Ben Wright on previously, way back on episode 66. This episode we focused on James, how he and DesignStudio ended up in Australia, his thoughts on leadership in design, what he thinks about the Australian design scene and why he’s passionate about teaching the next generation of designers. As always, a big thank you to Streamtime, our supporting partner, always trying to give back to the Australian design industry. Give them a try at streamtime.net ___ Links DesignStudio: https://design.studio/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-duru-559a9912/ Semi-P: https://semipermanent.com/profiles/james-gilmore-semi-permanent-design-festival-2018 5 Things I wasn’t Taught at Uni: https://www.shillingtoneducation.com/blog/5-things-wasnt-taught-uni-james-gilmore/ Streamtime: https://streamtime.net/

The Experience Economy: Competing for Customer Time, Attention, and Money by Joseph Pine and James Gilmore Time is limited. Attention is scarce. Are you engaging your customers? Apple Stores, Disney, LEGO, Starbucks. Do these names conjure up images of mere goods and services, or do they evoke something more--something visceral? Welcome to the Experience Economy, where businesses must form unique connections in order to secure their customers' affections--and ensure their own economic vitality. This seminal book on experience innovation by Joe Pine and Jim Gilmore explores how savvy companies excel by offering compelling experiences for their customers, resulting not only in increased customer allegiance but also in a more profitable bottom line.  Translated into thirteen languages, The Experience Economy has become a must-read for leaders of enterprises large and small, for-profit and nonprofit, global and local. Now with a brand-new preface, Pine and Gilmore make an even stronger case for experiences as the critical link between a company and its customers in an increasingly distractible and time-starved world.  Filled with detailed examples and actionable advice, The Experience Economy helps companies create personal, dramatic, and even transformative experiences, offering the script from which managers can generate value in ways aligned with a strong customer-centric strategy. Click here for this episode's website page with the links mentioned during the interview... https://www.salesartillery.com/marketing-book-podcast/experience-economy-james-gilmore

The Council of American Ambassadors was delighted to host former Governor of Virginia and Ambassador to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, James Gilmore, for this exclusive event. The OSCE is the world’s largest and most comprehensive regional security organization. It is the major forum for taking action on issues of peace, security and human rights in Europe and Central Asia. While serving as Chief of Mission, Ambassador Gilmore addressed Russia’s ongoing aggression against Ukraine, as well as human rights violations in Belarus and the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan. He discussed how he was able to use his extensive domestic political experience to tackle these critical international issues and the importance of U.S. participation in multilateral organizations like the OSCE.

0 (1s): Well, good morning, everyone. Happy Thanksgiving weekend. Hope you had a wonderful time celebrating. Thanks for joining us here today. 1 (11s): Whether you're here on campus or watching at home so glad to be together and worship, would you stand with me if you're able and we'll take a moment just to pray by it. The Lord's presence to me in our midst, as we worship the Lord, we just bring our hearts of banks this morning. Even as the season, we focus on the things that we're grateful for him. God, when our hearts just bubble over just with thanks and praise for who you are in all the things you've done for us and the blessings that you've given us. So God, I just pray for anyone this morning, maybe who's hurting or lonely or does just concerns weighing upon their hearts. 1 (58s): How would you need us in this place? In this moment, you would your spirit come and fill our hearts with all that we have need of this morning. Would you help us to praise you in good times and bad times? God, you're always worthy of our praise. There's always a reason to praise your name. So do you think you 0 (1m 28s): ? Yes. Well, sitting in my heart is happy. All my digs. Oh yes. 0 (1m 50s): the same guy. Who's never, the same guy. 0 (3m 29s): 1 (11m 20s): Would you help us? Do you receive your love this morning? All that you have for us? God, even at first service, I had this picture of just like us holding our hands, like little kids receiving a gift this morning. If you want to do that, just as a symbol to the Lord to say, I want to receive the love, the mercy, the grace that you have for me today, Lord, I'm just holding my hands open wide outstretched to receive on the heart. 0 (11m 52s): It's a gift for you today. yeah, the single praise. 0 (14m 55s): Your name forever. 0 (14m 58s): where do you praise your name today? 0 (16m 32s): Gather here to adore our King. The Lord. Thank you. That we know that we do get to praise your name forever around your throne for all eternity, with all the angels singing. Holy Holy Holy is the Lord. God almighty, who was in his, in his to come. We stand on Holy ground this morning. Once again, just as the hearts of gratitude. Thanks every eye and heart just focused on you. 0 (17m 17s): Jesus. You're the reason we're here and we love you with all our hearts in your name. Amen. Amen. Church so good. Well, we're just going to share that love of Jesus with each other, for a few moments. Do you want to say hello to someone around you? You just pass on that. Love this morning, pulled back with some announcements soon. 2 (17m 41s): Good morning. Harvest Church welcome. We're awfully glad to have you here. Good to see everybody morning. 3 (17m 51s): Hopefully you are over your trip to fan coma and are bright eyed and bushy tailed this morning. Ready to ready to worship the Lord. I could hear you when I was outside and it just sounds fantastic to hear you all lifting up your voices. And that's just super, do you have a few announcements this morning? I'm pastor day, one of the, the pastors on staff here and glad to have you with us and whether you're here in the sanctuary or you're with us in the loft on the patio, we're glad you're here. Or if you're watching online, this is a great way, you know, I'm sorry. I'm not holding the mic in. I'm used to wearing Steve's daily, but the that's the technical term when you're my age, it is. 3 (18m 47s): I just going to say that, you know, Curtis just did our a report on how many views we're getting on our online for our, for those of you who are watching online, we have averaged last month, over 700 devices every week tuning in and watching our service, whether it's on Sunday morning or whether it's right now, if you're watching right now, or if you're watching this delayed either way, we had over 2,800 views last month. So that was really, and that's, I don't know how many people per device, they probably all gathered around their phones, you know, eight or 10 kids. And they've right. 3 (19m 28s): But if you are here with us for the first time, sorry, I'm taking Steve's time here, but if you're here, Where this for the first time this morning, we'd love to have you up at the stop up at the info center. What, what I call the Google of Harvest Church, that's where you find all things out and, and Curtis will help you out up there, but stop up there. They've got a special gift for you. They've got, as, as Ron said, last week, can't tell you what it is, but it looks a lot like a coffee mug and a, and there's some goodies and stuff in it too. And, and information about the Church. And so we'd love to have you stop up there and pick that up. 3 (20m 9s): Let's see. I gotta use, there we go. Okay, man, couple of things starting or on separately, timber on December 12th, we're having a men's breakfast. We realized that it had been quite a while since we'd had one with COVID, everything's been shut down and we really wanted to gather the men together. So two weeks from yesterday, the 12th of December at eight o'clock, we're gonna meet in the loft and enjoy men's breakfast together. And it's a good thing. 3 (20m 50s): You've been eating a lot. These past few days, stretch out your stomach because that's the amount of food you will be getting men. So keep stretching. Also, we have a retreat coming up on January 8th and ninth. We're calling it throttling back. It's all about slowing down. Being able to listen for God's voice, to being able to grow and be effective in your walk in Christ to be used of him, to not be tied down with so many of the things of this world that just hold you back. So encourage you to sign up for that. You sign up for that online. You go to either the website, AIG harvest.org or the Harvest app, which is a G Harvest. 3 (21m 32s): You just look that up at, in your app store and you'll be able to connect there, click on the information about the, the men's retreat. And that will take you directly to the camp website because that's where all of the registration is. So please, please do that. We want sign ups by the 15th of the, of next month. We're going to have a Christmas tree lighting ceremony here one week from today at six o'clock out on the front lawn, we're going to have carols out here, setup on the, on the front stoop of the church. And we're going to sing Christmas carols. 3 (22m 13s): We're going to like the Christmas tree. It's just going to be a great night to be together. And I know Steve was going to share more about that here in a little bit, so he can give you more details, but encourage you to come out for that. It's a great, great night. We'll be having Christmas food, basket donations starting anytime. You're ready to bring them in. Now I know we just finished up with Thanksgiving and you did so well bringing stuff in for Thanksgiving. We had so much food, got to bless a lot of people. We want to bless a lot of people for Christmas, where our goal is that we need 50 hams. And as I told them in the first service that doesn't include Steve and I. 3 (22m 57s): And so we just need to have plenty of food for Christmas and sign up up in the, at the info center or we're going to have a wagon out there every week with the food basket that you can fill in. Also one new thing starting this week on Thursday morning at eight o'clock we're resuming our midweek prayer eight o'clock in the loft on Thursday morning, the folks who were involved in that before just came to me and said, we can't not do this anymore. We shut it down for COVID and, but people are wanting to get back to the price. So we're coming in on Thursday mornings at eight o'clock in the loft. 3 (23m 37s): If you are available and would love to pray, come out and pray for an hour. And it's, it's amazing to me, how fast an hour when I'm there and one more and then Steve can come up. You know, he's chomping at the bit over there. He just seemed like in the starting gate, waiting for them to blow that bugle and open the gate. But Mark your calendars too, for Christmas Eve Thursday, December 24th, less than four weeks from now, we will be having three Christmas Eve services this year at three, four, and five, and encourage you to come out. And in the last year was our first year participating on Christmas Eve. 3 (24m 20s): And it's, it's such a sweet service come and sing Christmas carols. We have a Christmas story for the kids and, and Steve will be sharing the word. And it's just a wonderful evening to get centered in and focused on why it is that we celebrate Christmas. And it's not about trees in presence. So encourage you to come out for that. And with that, I will pass this on to Steve. 4 (24m 48s): Yeah. Sounds good. Thank you very much. Thank you, Dave. Good morning. Welcome. How many enjoy Thanksgiving? Was it good? Do you have a lots of food? Lots of good stuff. All right. With that, I've got some Thanksgiving jokes, Thanksgiving jokes. What kind of key will not open any door? A Turkey. Very, very good. Very, very good. A Turkey Turk knock, knock. 4 (25m 28s): I'm not sure if I can do this knock, knock. I can't remember. Let me see you. I'm going to get you there though. Here we go. Knock, knock. Arthur. Are there any leftovers? I know, I know. I know my family keeps telling me no more Thanksgiving jokes. I told them I, I just can't quit cold Turkey, and now we're done. The party is over. We're going to pray and be done. Just getting let's go and stand up and pray those. 4 (26m 10s): So you might hear those again next Thanksgiving holiday season, but you will, maybe you forgotten them by then. So we'll see what happens, Lord. We thank you for the opportunity to be studying your word today. Lord, we're going to be in first Thessalonians again, Lord. And so we just pray that you'd speak to us through your word. God, we invite your Holy spirit to fill this place and to fill us Lord. And whoever's got watching. I pray blessing upon them. Lord God, wherever they are on campus or online Lord, we just pray for your blessing upon each person. God encouragement would go out to them. Lord grace and peace and mercy 5 (26m 44s): Would go out to them in Jesus name, God that you would just do wonderful and profound things in this service. The balance of this service, we pray, Lord, it's in your name. We ask these things. Jesus. Amen. Amen. You can be seated. So first Thessalonians chapter two verses one through 16, where do you find courage in the face of trouble? That's the title of the message today? Where do you Find Courage in the face of Trouble. I think if we're going to find out the answer to this, it's good to go to a person who's experienced. Trouble like if nobody's ever experienced Trouble and they tried to help you to Find Courage in the face of trouble that person's got no credibility, but Paul, the apostle Paul, he's got some, the ability why? Because his life was riddled riddled with Trouble years ago, I talked to my father-in-law he's he's getting older. 5 (27m 32s): And I said, Hey Mark, do you have any regrets in life? Anything that you can pass on? And we had a great conversation out of that and to glean something from someone who'd been around a while, Paul Paul is speaking to us from this profound, the experience that he's had with the Lord, this profound experience that he's had as a minister of the gospel of the Lord, Jesus Christ. And so from Paul's experience and wealth of knowledge and understanding of God, we're going to answer that question. Where do you Find Courage in the face of Trouble quick, quick story though. I was just a little guy going back many years and I was living down in Southern California and was with a sitter, a babysitter, and my brother and I, and the babysitter. 5 (28m 16s): We were at the beach and we go out to the water and I go deeper and deeper into the water and get kind of pulled out into the ocean and I can't swim. And so I'm out there and I find my pet kind of get my way over to the piling on the pier and I hold on for dear life. And so as you can imagine the waters going up over my head and then down. And when it, when the water goes down, I do everything within me just to yell out, help, right? I mean, I'm dying out there. Literally I'm drowning under the water. And it was, it was a time in my life where I didn't know, God didn't know who he was. And so I was just calling out to whoever would listen, just calling out. 5 (29m 1s): And then I believe that God sent the lifeguard with the life preserver and he saved my life that day. But it was in a time of desperate trouble. When I was calling out to anybody maybe been there, you just, you're in a desperate place. You just calling out to anybody. I, I, I want to share with you a few things today that will help you to find the courage that you need for the circumstance that you face. Let's take a look at first Thessalonians, chapter two verses one through 16, Paul rate's you yourselves know, do your brothers and sisters that are visits. You was not a failure. He's declaring something to this Church and maybe to himself. 5 (29m 44s): Cause I know at times it feels like the ministry that God calls us to is ineffective. Sometimes we feel like what we're doing is not fruitful, not helpful. And I'm sure Paul and his human has wondered at times whether what he was doing was actually fruitful and helpful and had eternal, eternal fruitfulness attached to it. But we know from first Thessalonians chapter one, verse nine, that the Thessaloniki and Church these people in this church had turned away from their idols to serve the living. And only God, they had turned from idolatry and the culture of two or 300,000 people in their town where idolatry was part of the deal. 5 (30m 27s): It was just part of the culture. And so you can imagine how the culture was surprised when this group of people heard the gospel message, the message about this person, Jesus Christ. And they turned away from their idols to serve the living and true God you yourselves know, do your brothers and sisters that are visits you is not a failure. He's establishing that the gospel message went out and effectively produce fruit for the kingdom of God. Verse two, he says, you know how badly we had been treated in Philippi at Philippi just before we came to you and how much we suffered there. Remember we talked about the Philippian jailer last week in acts chapter 16, Paul and Silas are in prison for their stance on the gospel for preaching the gospel. 5 (31m 15s): And they were beaten with rods and they were imprisoned. And about midnight, the Bible says they were praying and singing to the Lord. And about that time, a big earthquake hit the prison, hit the jail and the doors were opened and the chains fell off of them. And they all stayed the jailer awakens from his stupor and realized that the doors are open. And he's just assumes that the prisoners are gone. So he goes to kill himself. And Paul says, stop. Don't kill yourself. We're all still here. God had a plan for that Philippian jailer. So we know that Paul had experienced difficulty before going to this place. He had been beaten with a rod and in prison, he said, you know how badly we've been treated at Philippi just before we came to you and how much we suffered there yet. 5 (32m 0s): God yet our God gave us the Courage in our God gave us the courage to declare his good news to you boldly in spite of great opposition, the temptation would be, Hey, we got into trouble. The last city we were in, let's kind of settle down this time, right? Let's just kind of fly below the radar. Let's not draw attention to ourselves. It's not fun to get beat with rods and thrown in jail. So let's just kind of fly below the radar. But Dodd God had called them. He had equipped them. He had given them purpose. Yes. And therefore God gave them Courage to do what they were called to do to proclaim the yet our God gave us the courage to declare his good news to you boldly in spite of great opposition. 5 (32m 47s): Where do you find courage in the face of Trouble number one in your notes, God will give you Courage. 6 (32m 54s): Yeah, that's great news. I think that's incredible news that if we just call out to the Lord, I mean, I think about myself bobbing up and down, clinging onto that piling with no buddy to call out to except for the open air. Like Al I'm dying here. I'm struggling here. But the reality is, now that I know God, I've got someone to cry out to. Maybe you're here today and you don't know God, you can call out to the same God, you can call out to the true and living God. And he will respond to you. He will listen to you. He will, he will come to your aid. God will give you Courage. He and Paul and Silas were beaten and 5 (33m 31s): In prison at some point, no matter how brave 6 (33m 33s): You are, Courage begins to evaporate, right? I mean, you go up against difficulty at every turn in your Courage begins to 4 (33m 42s): Great, but God, but 6 (33m 46s): God, God is faithful. And we will simply even in a faint whisper call out to him, Lord. 4 (33m 53s): Well, he responds, you were saying 5 (33m 56s): Child after all you've been created in his image, 6 (33m 59s): She's adopted you into his family. He's died for you. He loves you. He cares about you. You read resurrect from the dead. So they might know you and have a relationship with you. So by God's grace, he in his goodness. And because he loves you, he responds. If you will just simply by faith, 4 (34m 17s): Whisper, cry 6 (34m 18s): It out, yell it out, whatever it is, Lord help me. I need your grace in this moment. 5 (34m 25s): God will give you the Courage. What do you do when you're up against a difficult troubling situation, I would just challenge you to go to God and ask for what you need 4 (34m 38s): And he will give it to you. Right? 5 (34m 41s): I was reading this this morning. It's a book called on this day in Christian history. It's a great book by Robert J. Morgan. And it just takes you through the year and tells you what happened in Christian history on that particular day, in a particular year. So I read for this last week, I'm going to read from it again this week because it's a great, there's a great story. Dated November 29th. So we're going to today's November 29th. So we're going to read this story. It says when James Gilmore sailed for China in 1870, he was young, strong and in need of a wife, for sure. Right? He 6 (35m 17s): Plunged into reopening the London missionary 5 (35m 19s): Societies work in Mongolia, but with no one to lean on quote companions, I can scarcely hope to meet. He wrote and the feeling of being alone comes over me as laborers increased. So did loneliness. He continues today. I felt a good deal like Elijah in the wilderness. He told his journal. He, he prayed that he might die. I felt drawn towards suicide. Two missionaries should always go together. Oh, the intense loneliness, the pain deep in when his proposal to a Scottish girl was rejected. 5 (36m 1s): I then put myself and the direction of this affair. I mean the finding of it, the wife into God's hands asking him to look me out. Good one too. He said in 1873, Gilmore visited friends in peaking and mr. And mrs. Meech seeing a picture of mrs. Mitch's sister, Emily pranks heard James asked about her as his hostess described. Emily James found himself falling in love. He gazed at her picture, saw some of her letters and asked more and more or questions early. The next year, James wrote to Emily proposing marriage in his first letter buy the same mail. 5 (36m 47s): He informed his parents in Scotland. I have written in a proposed to a girl in England. It is true. I've never seen her. And I know very little about her, but I have put the whole matter into the hands of him. God asking him if it'd be best to bring her, if it be not best to keep her away and he can manage the whole thing. Well, what a great perspective receiving Gilmore's letter. Emily took it at once to the throne of grace later, Gilmore re recall the first letter I wrote her was to propose. And the first letter she wrote to me was to accept by autumn. Emily was in China, arriving on this day, November 29th, 1874 a week later, they were married. 5 (37m 33s): Gilmore acquired both wife and colleague and they labored faithfully side-by-side for years reaching Northern China for Christ. This guy was in a dark place. You ever been there? You know, through this whole COVID experience, I read a medical journal yesterday. A statistic says that one in four young people are suicidal as a result of the lockdown, the shutdown, the, the, the reality that we can't be together. Like we watch you work together. It's a, it's a devastating impact of COVID on our culture around the world. What, what do you do? Where do you go? You find the Courage in the face of Trouble. 5 (38m 14s): I would just encourage you to Courage out to the Lord and watch what he will do. What do you need to Courage to overcome? Is it loneliness? Is it anxiety? Is it fear and uncertain future ask God for Courage and watch what he will do when we walk, when we with God and honor him, he gives us what we need every time. Every time first three says, so you can see, we were not preaching with any deceit or impure motives 7 (38m 47s): Trickery. There 5 (38m 52s): from a pure motivation. Those outside of the church may have been questioning their motivation because they were drawing people away from idolatry into to serve this new living and true God as many turned from idols to serve the one and living true God, there may have been some jealousy, some confusion, or even anger from the townspeople. I remember I grew up in this town, so people know me. They know, they know what I was like before I knew Christ, and now they know what I'm like now. And so I, in junior high school, I gave my life to the Lord, but I didn't know what to do with my faith until I was about 17 years old, a junior in high school. And so about 17 years old as a junior in high school, I decided to give my whole life to the Lord, meaning that my life would reflect my decision to serve Jesus. 5 (39m 43s): I had made the decision to serve Jesus as a junior higher, but my life didn't reflect that decision. It took a few years. And so when I changed, people were perplexed about it because they would say is isn't that Steve, the guy that we used to smoke pot with, isn't that Steve, the guy that we used to ditch school with and go surfing with isn't that the same guy that we used to get into trouble with. Right? And now what happened to him? There's been, there's been a change. There's been, he's not the same guy that he used to be. Thank God for that. But there needs to be a change right? In our lives, in our beef before Christ days in our, after Christ days, there needs to be a transformation. And when that transformation happens, people question it they'll question the sincerity of it. 5 (40m 26s): They will question whether it's real and then they will stick around and wait to see if it lasts. So Paul, with the preaching of the gospel was upsetting the norm. He was causing people to be transformed by the message of the gospel. 7 (40m 43s): Okay. 5 (40m 44s): You know, people were probably perplexed when Paul was converted, CA was converted as well. And he, because one day he's persecuting the church and the next day he's a follower of the Lord, Jesus Christ. One day, he's killing people for following Jesus. The next day he's following Jesus in. And the church were, they were perplexed by the people in his circle. They were perplexed by it. So Paul's not unfamiliar with the reality that the gospel is going to upset the Apple card. It's going to change people and change and change people for the good. So he's, he's waiting for this to happen. And he's seeing this happen in cultures, as he's preaching the gospel, wherever he goes, people are questioning his motivation, questioning the method. 5 (41m 27s): The message are questioning everything, but Paul's motivation was pure. Verse four says for, we speak as messengers approved by God to be entrusted with the good news. Our purpose is to please God, 6 (41m 43s): Not people. He 5 (41m 44s): Alone examines the motives of our hearts. Where do you go? What do you find? Courage on the face of Trouble number one, 6 (41m 53s): God will give you Courage. But also number two, clear purpose produces Courage clear purpose produces. Courage do you have a clear purpose for your life? The purpose of our church is that we're going to impact our community and our world. What the life changing message of Jesus Christ. This is what we're here to do. Our, our visions. We want to impact our community and our world with the life changing message of Jesus Christ. That's what we're measuring everything against. And so when we hear the analytics that we've got, not only people from our church coming to church, but people outside of the community and around the world tuning in hundreds of week, hundreds of people a week tuning in where we were grateful that we're fulfilling what we feel called to fulfill. 6 (42m 41s): Where impacting our community and our world 5 (42m 43s): With the life changing message of 6 (42m 45s): Jesus Christ. What is your purpose statement? My personal purpose, 5 (42m 50s): Basically the same as our purpose statement for the Church 6 (42m 53s): Church I want to, I want to have an impact. I, I want to get to the end of my life and think about my life and one and, and realize I want to, I want to with great humility 5 (43m 5s): Say thank you, Lord, that 6 (43m 6s): There's been impact, right? I wanna, I wanna know that my life, I want to know, like Paul, I want to know 5 (43m 12s): That I finished. Well, then I ran the race and I finished the race, 6 (43m 16s): You know? And you can know that you can, you can do that. And what I want for you is I want you to know that, but you will never know that if you don't know what your purpose is, you'll never get to the end of your life and be able to hold on to that purpose and say, it is finished. I've done it by God's grace, right? Only by God's grace, because he is good. Not because we're good, but, but he works through us wonderfully in zebra. Now, supernaturally, he works through us. I want us to know when it's all said and done that God did something through us. Like there was something tangible and, and, and, and wonderful and supernatural. That happened as a result of the way that we lived our lives. And that's very possible. That's why we have purpose statements as a church. And that's why corporates, corporate businesses and others have mission statements because they want to know that what they're doing is, is actually accomplishing something. 6 (44m 3s): And there's a way to measure it. Are we impacting our community and our world of the life changing message of Jesus Christ. This is why church is open. Part of, part of my purpose statement is I want to create, I wrote it down. I'll just see if I can find it here. Part of my purpose is to create space for people to gather and worship corporately. So when Trouble comes and they want to shut us down, my courage comes from clarity about my purpose and our purpose. Our purpose, my purpose is to create a space 5 (44m 32s): Where people can gather, I believe were necessary, that were essential, that the church is essential. And so I want to create a place, a space for us to worship. And so that's why we're open. And that's what we're going to stay open by. God's grace, right? We're going to stay open by God's grace, clear purpose produces Courage where do you need courage in your life? If you attach purpose to that area of your life, all of a sudden you'll find Courage. If it's, if it's God's centered purpose, if God's planted something in your soul and is given you something to live for, then all of a sudden you're going to have Courage to accomplish those things. It will impact the way that, you know, 4 (45m 13s): You spend your time, your talent and your treasure will impact your whole life. It will in the best possible meaning of the word. It will wreck your life. You will make your life completely different than it's ever, ever been clear. Purpose produces. Courage what's your purpose. 5 (45m 33s): You could, because again, I want you to get to the end of your life, whether that's in a year from now or 20 years from now or 40 years from now, I want you to get to the end of it. And I want us as a church to be able to say this was this been my, my life, 4 (45m 45s): The purpose. And I realized it to the best, 5 (45m 49s): The best of my ability by God's grace, because he's good at that because I'm good. There was something wonderful and supernatural. 4 (45m 55s): It was accomplished in, in me and with me and through me. And then I just want to close my eyes and go be with Jesus. Amen. That's the best possible way to go, goodness. And all along the way. Cause you never know what's going to happen. Get step off the curb. And then you were with Jesus, right? And then what are you going to have to give an account for your life? Right? So you can't wait until you're, you know, out of high school to do this. You can't wait until you finish with college to do this. You can't wait until you're, you know, raise your kids to do this. 4 (46m 36s): Or until you have kids, you can't wait until you're, you know, retired to do this. You can't, you can't wait. You can't wait. What's your purpose. Now, 5 (46m 46s): Maybe as you grow and you get older, that purpose might change a little bit. Might get a little more defined 4 (46m 53s): Like you have kids. And then you're saying, man, my purpose is to make sure my kids serve the Lord 5 (46m 59s): That I live in such a way in relationship with them, that they fall in love with Jesus, like 4 (47m 3s): With Jesus, right? That becomes your purpose. You get married. 5 (47m 9s): You're like, man, I want my marriage to reflect the goodness of God. I want people to see in my marriage, the goodness of God, the love of God, the grace of God. I want people to 4 (47m 19s): See that in my life and marriage, 5 (47m 22s): Whatever season of life that you're in, God will give you purpose. 4 (47m 25s): This. That'll get you up in the morning. That will give you Courage tackle the things that God has called you to tackle. Paul was serious about his purpose and he understood it and he didn't play games with it. Never once. First five, 6 (47m 42s): Never once. Did we try to win you with flattery as you well know? And God is our witness that we were not pretending to be your friends, just to get your money. As for human praise, we've never sought it from you or anyone else. Paul was living and serving for an audience of one. He was focused on God and he wanted to make sure that what he did properly reflected the person of God, the love of God, the grace of God, that the work of God, he wanted to make sure that it was like a mirror. Like you could look at his life and see the goodness of God through and through as apostles of Christ, verse seven says we certainly had a right to make some demands of you. 6 (48m 25s): But instead we were like children, that, that word means gentle like children. We were like children with you. We were gentle like children among you, or we like a mother feeding and caring for her own children. We loved you so much that we shared with you. Not only God's good news, but our own lives too. It wasn't, it wasn't this preaching thing. Wasn't a vocation for Paul. It wasn't like, this is what I do in my nine to five. And then I turned it off. I turned it on and turn it off. It wasn't, it just wasn't that, that it was his whole life. And he said, I'm giving you the gospel and I'm giving you my whole life, giving you the gospel. And I'm giving you my life. There's something powerful about Paul's connection to his purpose. 6 (49m 8s): He understood what he was here in the earth to do. He was connected to his purpose. What is your purpose? Are you connected to it? Do you know who you are? And do you know whose you are? Do you know where you belong and to whom you belong when you figure that kind of stuff out, 4 (49m 26s): It makes just, it makes life so much better. And it's just so much more fun. 6 (49m 32s): You wake up and you know, Hey, I know what I'm doing this week. I'm gonna impact my community, my world with a life changing the gospel message of Jesus Christ. I'm going to do something for Jesus this, this day, this week, I don't know what it is, but I know God's going to use me. And then you get to define things a little bit more clearly. And you, as you walk with the Lord, you say, I know that I'm called to this, this arena, this area of ministry, this arena, this area of service too, to the world with the gospel. I know that I'm called. And then you get, there you go. You get really good at it. You get it. You get the opportunity to practice and, and continue to drill down in that gift set and use your gifts for kingdom, 4 (50m 15s): The buses. So you're not going to start out very strong. Probably you just not remember. I was 18 years old and I was asked to preach a sermon going back before then I was about 17 years old and I was asked to do my grandfather's Memorial service to officiate my grandfather's Memorial service. That was a terrible idea. By the way, it was a terrible idea. I was grieving and trying to proclaim the gospel to my family as I'm trying to do as a Memorial, sir, it was, it was not a good idea, not a good idea, 6 (50m 58s): But it was the beginning. It was, it was what God, you know, 4 (51m 2s): You used to begin to shape me into, to teach me how to communicate. And then I got a chance to, like I said, when I was 18 to do a little sermon in front of the singles group of our church. And, and then over the years you got to do different things and, and, and there's just, God, God just kind of opened the doors. And I feel like, I feel like I'm still a rookie of that. As you know, I still feel like I'm just trying to figure things out. But I, I do have a confidence that God is doing something. God is doing something. And it's a confidence that God has had to teach me because we want to, there's a point to my sharing there. 4 (51m 45s): There's 6 (51m 45s): We, we, we want to diminish 4 (51m 48s): Our impact out of a false humility. And it's not God's design. If God's using us, we want to say, thank you God for using, thank you for using me. I, I don't want to say or do anything apart from your word or your will. So Lord just stick right with me as I'm doing what I'm doing, you know, you never want to be in your own steam. As I talked about last week, talking out of it in your own steam ministering in your own steam, a minister, doing the things that God has called you to do in your own steam. You always want to be prayerful and asking God for help. So now I can say that I've got confidence that when I get up to speak, God's going to do something. 4 (52m 32s): And I'm always surprised. I'm always surprised. I'm always surprised. Number one, when I can write a message and I tell this to Jolene almost weekly, I say, well, finished another one. I don't know how, but I wrote another sermon. And then I preach it. And after church, I say, well, there's another one of the can. And, and God did something good because people come up to me and say, how did you know, that's what I was going through? And I said, I don't know. I've no idea what you're going through other than what you maybe you've shared with me, but God knew. And so when people say great message, I say, isn't God good. 4 (53m 13s): Right? Isn't God good. Right? Or if it's a bad message, I say, yeah, I didn't get much sleep 6 (53m 18s): The last night, whatever it is. My point in sharing this up is don't your 5 (53m 26s): Impact on the world that you live, you are called to have an impact with your friends and your family. So don't say it. What was me? I can't do that. 7 (53m 36s): Yes, you can. By God's grace. 5 (53m 40s): Yes, you can. So that should be the answer. Yeah. I can do that Lord, because I know you're going to be with me and it's not an arrogant thing at all. It's but yeah, Laura, I can do that. Yeah. Yeah. You'll be with me. Yeah. And so God's getting all the credit, all the glory, and all we're doing is just kind of going along with his plan. Right. So it's not an arrogant thing to say, yeah, I can do this. I can, I can, I can go minister. I can, God's giving you an assignment. Say, yeah, I can go do that. Right? Teaching, teaching Bible college or Bible school classes, whatever it is, teach teaching in a small group, Bible study, praying with a neighbor, your neighbor comes to you and says, man, I I'm, I'm fearful. Well, can I pray for you? And just, and just pray. 5 (54m 21s): And then you say, Lord, help me to pray. And then you pray and you say, thank you, Lord, that you want me to pray. Right? You take it all back to the Lord. Right? And then he does something great. And you say, thank you, Lord, for what you're doing. Right? Cause that person comes back later and says, man, you won't believe how much that prayer impact in my life. And you say, well, God's faithful. Thank you, Lord. Right. That's just what it's all about. That's what Paul was doing. He was all about the kingdom. He's the smartest guy in town, but it's all about just giving God all the glory and all the credit, because that's what, in his own strength, he was not going to do anything for the Lord. Don't you remember? 5 (55m 1s): Verse nine, dear brothers and sisters, how hard we worked among United in the day, we toiled to earn a living so that we would not be a burden to any of you as we preach. God's good news to you. You yourselves are our witnesses. And so is God that we were devout and honest and faultless toward all of you toward all of you believers. Where do you find courage in the face of Trouble will God will give it to you, but also clear purpose produces Courage and then number three, a clean conscience yields. Courage a clean conscience yields. Courage Paul clarify, clarified a few things in verse three. We won't go back and read the verse, but I'll just tell you what he clarified in. 5 (55m 43s): Verse three Said in verse three, his message was not deceptive, but true. Paul wasn't playing games, trying to deceive anybody. He was bringing the real gospel. Number two, his motivation was not in pure, but clean. His motivation was pure. He was all about Jesus. He wasn't trying to build anything. He wasn't trying to establish his reputation. He wasn't trying to do anything apart from what God had called him to do, his, his motivation was pure. His method was not to trick or to see, but to be straightforward, it wasn't trying to be impressive. Eloquent, smart. 4 (56m 26s): Wasn't trying to trick or look good or deceive. He was straightforward with the message and his conscience was clear. His conscience was clear, a solely conscience hinders Courage 7 (56m 41s): So deal with it. Deal with your solely conscience, deal with him. How do you deal with it? 4 (56m 48s): If you confess your sin, he is faithful. And just to forgive you and to cleanse you from all unrighteousness, that's how you deal with it. Just confess it. Maybe, maybe there's areas of your life, where your conscience isn't so clean, A guilty conscience, clouds, our clarity in and robs us of any Courage to do the things that God has called us to do. So maybe you're here and you've been wrestling with something. That's something that the Lord is asking you to do and you haven't done it. So I say, Lord, I'm sorry for that. I haven't done that yet. I'm going to do it now. That's how you clear your conscience. Sorry that I haven't done it yet. Lord, I'm going to do it. Now. Part of repentance is changing your mind about something, right? You're you're saying I don't believe that anymore, or I don't want to be disobedient anymore. 4 (57m 33s): So, so sorry Lord, that I didn't do it. I'm going to do it now in your conscience. It will be clear when you do that, right? How's your conscience. Do you need to do something to clear your conscience? 7 (57m 50s): Okay. 4 (57m 50s): Do you need to pay back a debt? Do you need to repent of sin? 7 (57m 58s): And again, 4 (57m 58s): Sin. Repenting is not just saying, sorry about that. And then continuing in it, repenting is saying, sorry about that. I don't ever want to do it again. You actually change your mind about it and you turn and go the opposite direction. Do you need to have a tough conversation in order to clear your conscience? Do you need to say, sorry, 7 (58m 21s): Do you need 4 (58m 22s): To humble yourself? Do you need to admit around 7 (58m 24s): Long? 4 (58m 27s): God wants you to live with a clear conscience because you are empowered. And you're courageous. When you've had a clear conscience, you are empowered and courageous to do the things that God has called you to do. When your conscience is clear. When you know, by God's grace, you've done everything that he's asked you to do. And when you fall in short, you've quickly, you felt short accounts where the Lord and say, God, forgive me. I'm going to do it next time. And then when he asks you to do it again, you do it because you've repented of not doing it the first time. And by God's grace, you want to do it the next time. Because in our humanness, sometimes we get fearful and we are disobedient and we don't do what God has asked us to do. 4 (59m 7s): So he gives us a second chance. And then another chance we clear our conscience. When, when we say yes, you're right, Lord, I, I, I heard you and I disobeyed not making excuses. I heard you and I disobeyed, but I'm not to disobey anymore. I'm not going to do it. Paul lived in ministered with a clear conscience because this is true. We had the courage, he needed to face the Trouble that he faced, including false accusations and slander and beatings and imprisonment, verse 11. You know, and you know that we treated each of you as a father, treats his own children. 4 (59m 47s): Look at the depth of commitment and the relationship with the connection that he has with his people that he's serving. We pleaded with you, encouraged you and urge you to live your lives in a way that God would consider worthy, free, called you to share in his kingdom and glory at your part of your purpose, right there, he's called you to share in his kingdom and his glory. Therefore, we never stopped thanking God that when we received, when you received this his message from us, you didn't think of our words as mere human ideas. You accepted what we said as the very word of God, which of course it is. And this word continues to work in you who believe 7 (1h 0m 29s): . 4 (1h 0m 33s): So all we have to do is humbly obediently, open our mouth and do what God has asked us to do. And God will work through us, but we have to humbly and obediently open our mouth so that God can work through us. Like that's our parts. Yes, Lord. I'm going to be humble and obedient and I'm going to be available to speak whatever it is so that you can speak through me or simply conduit conduit. That's what I am. That's what you are. We're conduit for God. And then do your brothers and sisters. You suffered persecution from our own, from your own countrymen. And in this way, you imitated the believers in God's church, in Judea, who, because of their belief in Christ, Jesus suffered for, from their own people that you use. 4 (1h 1m 16s): So persecution will be part of the deal, but are we living for God? Are we living for the approval of man? That's what we got to decide. What is our purpose? Are we living for God? Are we living for the approval of man? Are we living before an audience of one says, God, your will be done. Not my will be done, or are we living to please the people around us? Because we're living to please the people around us, we will not please God sell them. Do they agree? 7 (1h 1m 45s): 4 (1h 1m 51s): For some of the Jews killed the prophets and some even killed the Lord. Jesus. Now they've persecuted us too. They failed to please God and work against all humanity. As they try to keep us from preaching. The good news of salvation to the Gentiles, by doing this, they continue to pile up their sins. But the anger of God has caught up with them at last 7 (1h 2m 14s): Kind 4 (1h 2m 14s): Of uncertain what Paul is referring to there. It could be referring to a lot of things, but John three 30, the writer there talks about the angry judgment against the unbeliever and the disobedient. So maybe there's just, this is just a general judgment that Paul is referring 8 (1h 2m 28s): To, 4 (1h 2m 31s): But the anger of God has caught up with them. At last, the people that were persecuting them, 6 (1h 2m 39s): They didn't believe, and they didn't want others to believe they weren't content. Just not to believe themselves. They didn't want others to believe like Paul self-righteous Pharisee, who didn't want to believe and didn't want others to believe. 4 (1h 2m 53s): And then the Lord got ahold of him and changed his life, changed his life forever and ever. Where do you find Courage on the face of Trouble Where Where did Paul Find Courage in the face of his Trouble. Well, God gave him Courage 6 (1h 3m 9s): His clear purpose produced Courage and then his clean conscience yielded Courage they all kind of worked together and it's a beautiful thing. And it's a powerful thing. And it's something that God wants to usher 4 (1h 3m 25s): You into and bring you into and make you 6 (1h 3m 27s): A part of. I'm grateful that when I'm in trouble, I've got a person, the living God, to cry out to you. I think about holding onto that piling and having that water go help water up, like what? I'm in trouble. Now I can call out to the living and true God and get an answer every time, every time, because he's, he's never gonna 4 (1h 3m 45s): Do you mean, or for sake, we just won't do it. The Bible says it's true and it's not been my experience. My experience is that he's only been faithful and that's what God says to him. He is not in his nature to be unfaithful. He's going to be faithful. So what, what is your purpose? You know, as we wrap up another year, we're coming up on December 1st, pretty quick. What is your purpose? I do talk about this every year. It's core to, to who I believe God has called me to understand purpose and to help people understand purpose. I, so I, what do you wake up in the morning on your mind to do what is his kingdom purpose attached to your daily routine? 4 (1h 4m 29s): And you're in the way that you spend your time, talent and treasure. Are you, are you intimately acquainted with the living God in such a way that he's got, he's got say over the way that you live your life, is he in charge? Is he, Lord, is he, is he the boss simple terms. You see the boss. If he's the boss, then he gets to tell you how to live your life. If you're the boss, then you get to, till you get to determine how you live your life. I've been the boss of my own life. I didn't do a very good job. Maybe you'll do a better job than me, 6 (1h 5m 5s): But I'm grateful 4 (1h 5m 6s): That I'm and what I'm in trouble. I've got the living God, the boss, who I can call out to you and he's faithful to meet me and to give me Courage with that, I'm gonna invite the worship team forward. So last couple of weeks, I asked you to come up with 12 things that you're thankful for this week. I'm asking you to write a statement, a purpose statement for your own life. What is, what is your purpose? Write that down in the margin of your Bible or on a sheet of paper or on your device and reference that from time to time on a regular basis, to see what God will say and how he might use you and how your life might change as a result. 4 (1h 5m 49s): So with that, let's go ahead and stand up. Lord, we thank you for this day. We thank you for the opportunity to hear your message, hear your truth. I believe that you speak through it by, by your grace, the Lord, because you are good. And so thank you for what you've done. Continue that good work. We pray in Jesus name. Amen. Let's worship. 0 (1h 6m 17s): Bring it all of the storms around me. 0 (1h 6m 27s): your name is 1 (1h 11m 34s): Amazing. Grace. 0 (1h 11m 36s): 1 (1h 14m 50s): The first verse together. One 0 (1h 14m 52s): More time. 1 (1h 15m 28s): Thank you that we see you a little more clearly this morning, having spent time in your presence and in your word, I had a spray that you would speak to each of us this week about the purpose and plan for our, each of our lives. God, thank you for this time to be together. I look forward to what you want to do in and through us this week ahead. So he laid out our lives. Give you our hearts today in Jesus name. Amen. Amen shirts. Well, we just want to say that we're always wanting time to pray with you. If there is something that we can pray with you this morning about come on forward. Love to do that. 1 (1h 16m 8s): Otherwise have a wonderful week, say hello to somebody on your way out and enjoy the beautiful sunshine day. We'll see you next Sunday. Take care.

EVEN when the FAT LADY says it's over, it's time to LET IT GO! Otherwise, it can affect our lives and the lives of others in adverse ways! *BONUS The project, "Songs About Her" by James Gilmore is

In this episode we discuss the mystery around James Gilmore Jr. Music created by Chris Early.

James Gilmore, Creative Director of DesignStudio joins us to share his journey—starting off designing for the coolest underground labels, DJs, and bands to present day of shaping and guiding some of the world’s most revered brands. He discusses what it is was like when he started and compares it to what it takes today—solving complex problems for global companies. He dives into some big decisions he’s made in his life, what it’s like to guide the team at DesignStudio, unlocking and unblocking creativity, and reminds us we shouldn’t be creating work that everybody loves. Signup for the WGI newsletter: worldsgreatestinternship.us1.list-manage.com/su…40 World's Greatest Internship: www.worldsgreatestinternship.co Butchershop Creative: www.butchershop.co DesignStudio: https://design.studio

Our apologies, this recording began a couple minutes into the presentation.

Nikky is joined by James Gilmore, Creative Director at DesignStudio — all the way across the pond in Oz. James is a designer and creative director with over a decades experience working with global brands including The Premier League, Stake, Sweat, Logitech and Roli.⁣ ⁣ After spending the first 8 years of his career working at studios across the UK, in 2016 he moved to Sydney and rejoined DesignStudio to open and lead their first southern hemisphere studio in 2018.⁣ ⁣ Over the past two years he's helped ambitious leaders transform brands and products for leading Australian and global brands across the region.⁣ ⁣ Alongside his work within the studio James is actively involved in the Australian creative and education sphere, mentoring and teaching regularly at University Technology Sydney returning for the fourth year to mentor students through D&AD New Blood.⁣ ⁣

Innovation is only true innovation when it is put on the market and validated with customers. With our esteemed guest, Joe Pine, the author of (among many others) “The Experience Economy”, we investigate the innovation space for experience design. We dig into the value of long-term thinking and the importance of considering the employee experience next to staging the experiences for customers. We tap into a concept of regenerative management and into the importance of underpromising to create powerful word-of-mouth.Please note that this episode was recorded before the outbreak of the coronavirus   —  some of the comments refer to the situation before the pandemic. LINKSJoseph Pine II, James Gilmore, “The Experience Economy”James Gilmore, Joseph Pine II, “Authenticity”J. Robert Rossman, Mathew D.Duerden, “Designing Experiences”Roman Egger, Paul Bulencea, “Gamification in Tourism”Benjamin Hunnicutt, “The Age of Experiences”

In any industry or business, both your company’s image and customer’s experience are critical factors to being successful. How your employees serve customers can either make or break your business. The owner of Strategic Horizons LLP and co-author of The Experience Economy, James Gilmore talks the different ways experience can be seen and applied in business. He explains the effects of refining your customers experience with real life examples and how simple it can be, going deep into where excellent customer service and experience all begins. In this episode, learn how you can improve your employee’s behavior and keep your customers and business refreshed.   Love the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share! Here’s How » Join the Business Done Differently community today: findyouryellowtux.com Business Done Differently Facebook Business Done Differently Twitter Business Done Differently YouTube Do You Stand Out? Take The Yellow Tux Quiz

Featuring Emily Burns | Due to the global pandemic, this week's episode is presented via FaceTime! James Gilmore is joined by one of pop's brightest prospects Emily Burns to talk being terrified, playing arenas and all of the New Music We Love.

Featuring BiG HEATH | Due to the global pandemic, this week's episode is presented via FaceTime! James Gilmore is joined by rapper BiG HEATH to have a rap battle, talk supporting Nas and all of the New Music We Love.

Featuring Gunnar Gehl | We're back with a brand new series of New Music We Love! James Gilmore is joined by singer-songwriter Gunnar Gehl to play "What's My Dog Listening To?", talk favourite dogs and all of the New Music We Love.

Joe Pine is a sought after speaker, author and management advisor to Fortune 500 companies.  Known 20 years ago as forecasting the then ascent, just emerging Experience Economy that is in full bloom today. In this take 2 recording Joe and I talk about the transformation of industry as a result of this book and shifts in business thinking around how to create experiences as an economic offering.  We do a deep dive into specific executions and examples giving life to how this is changing the business landscape. In 1999, Joseph Pine and his author/partner James Gilmore presented a new way to think about connecting with customers and keeping their attention.  They released a book called The Experience Economy and is now a must read for anyone wanting to uniquely serve customers effectively.  Now 20 years later this forecasted economy has exploded and in this episode we discuss the journey and new the NEW experience economy and some of the subtle changes and not so subtle ones.  For more background Joe Pine wrote this celebrated article in the Harvard Business Review called: "Welcome to the Experience Economy"  "Economists have typically lumped experiences in with services, but experiences are a distinct economic offering, as different from services as services are from goods. Today we can identify and describe this fourth economic offering because consumers unquestionably desire experiences, and more and more businesses are responding by explicitly designing and promoting them. As services, like goods before them, increasingly become commoditized—think of long-distance telephone services sold solely on price—experiences have emerged as the next step in what we call the progression of economic value. (See the exhibit “The Progression of Economic Value.”) From now on, leading-edge companies—whether they sell to consumers or businesses—will find that the next competitive battleground lies in staging experiences." - credit: Harvard Business Review / Pine & Gilmore According to Wikipedia The term "Experience Economy" was first used in a 1998 article by B. Joseph Pine II and James H. Gilmore describing the experience economy as the next economy following the agrarian economy, the industrial economy, and the most recent service economy. The concept had been previously researched by many authors. Pine and Gilmore argue that businesses must orchestrate memorable events for their customers, and that memory itself becomes the product: the "experience". More advanced experience businesses can begin charging for the value of the "transformation" that an experience offers, e.g., as education offerings might do if they were able to participate in the value that is created by the educated individual. This, they argue, is a natural progression in the value added by the business over and above its inputs.[1] Although the concept of the experience economy was initially focused in business, it has crossed into tourism, architecture,[2] nursing, urban planning and other fields. The Experience Economy is also considered the main underpinning for customer experience management. Follow Joe Pine: Linkedin Strategic Horizons The Groundswell Marketing Podcast: www.Groundswell.fm Follow Scott A. Martin: Linkedin Groundswell Marketing   

Alec Feldman hosts his ‘relatively entertaining’ Saturday afternoon radio show. This week he wants to know about your weird school trips, he has a birthday surprise for James Gilmore and he's got an idea for a new diet.

Benji Hyer asks: What's your moment of 2019? Plus we have a very special surprise at the end of Part 2...

Benji Hyer asks: Who is your 'Personal of the Year'? And, what are your predictions for 2019? Plus we have a very special surprise at the end of the show...

Benji Hyer asks: Is Boris Johnson the most successful British politician in decades?

My guest today is Joseph Pine II, the co-author of The Experience Economy. He is an internationally acclaimed author, speaker, and management advisor to Fortune 500 companies and entrepreneurial start-ups alike. The economic competitive reality of the future is fast-paced change. Mr. Pine helps clients design strategies to leverage these new economic opportunities and create experiences that drive revenue. The topic is his book The Experience Economy. In this episode of Trend Following Radio we discuss: Joseph Pine and James Gilmore make an even stronger case for experiences as the critical link between a company and its customers in an increasingly distractible and time-starved world. Jump in! --- I'm MICHAEL COVEL, the host of TREND FOLLOWING RADIO, and I'm proud to have delivered 10+ million podcast listens since 2012. Investments, economics, psychology, politics, decision-making, human behavior, entrepreneurship and trend following are all passionately explored and debated on my show. To start? I'd like to give you a great piece of advice you can use in your life and trading journey… cut your losses! You will find much more about that philosophy here: https://www.trendfollowing.com/trend/ You can watch a free video here: https://www.trendfollowing.com/video/ Can't get enough of this episode? You can choose from my thousand plus episodes here: https://www.trendfollowing.com/podcast My social media platforms: Twitter: @covel Facebook: @trendfollowing LinkedIn: @covel Instagram: @mikecovel Hope you enjoy my never-ending podcast conversation!

Pastor Andy Davis preaches a verse by verse expository sermon on Luke 24:44-53. The main subject of the sermon is the sacrifices of God's people that lead to the accomplishment of the Great Commission. - Sermon Transcript- Turn in your Bibles to Luke 24. And as I mentioned in my prayer, this is the time of year that we focus on unreached people groups, on missions. We have something called The Lottie Moon Christmas Offering named after a woman named Charlotte Moon, shortened to Lottie Moon, who was a missionary that served in China for many years, 39 years. She ran a school for girls in Tengzhou and also in Pingdu, and she burned with a strong passion to reach girls, those girls for Christ and women, to bring them to faith in Christ and anyone that she could talk to about the gospel. She regularly baked fresh cookies, and the aroma, as it would waft from where she lived, from the kitchen would be attractive to people. You talk about the aroma of Christ, it was initially the aroma of cookies and it brought people in. But as she would share those cookies, she would also share with whoever partook share the gospel. She was especially known for writing moving and passionate letters to Baptists in the US to support missions. That more people would go out as missionaries, that those that didn't go would support with more money, and her letters home detailed China's hunger for truth and the struggle of so few missionaries taking the gospel to almost half a billion at that point, Chinese, in her day. And so she pleaded for more workers and for more money, and she once wrote home to what was called the Foreign Mission Board at that point, "Please say to the new missionaries that are coming that they are coming to a life of hardship, responsibility, and constant self-denial.” A life of sacrifice, disease, turmoil, lack of co-workers threatened to undo Lottie's work but she gave herself consistently to the work of the Lord, and she worked with others to help lay a foundation for a church of Christians in China that is really uncounted. We don't have any idea how many Chinese Christians there are, but we will know on Judgment Day what her labors, her sacrifices, and that of many others have done in the lives of the Chinese. She died as a direct result of her self-denying, self-sacrificial life, as there was a famine in that part of China at that point, and she denied her own food to the point where it was beyond help as people knew that she was dying, but they knew it too late. The Woman's Missionary Union started The Lottie Moon Christmas Offering in 1918 to honor her sacrifices and to move Southern Baptists to similar sacrifices for the sake of the gospel. The Lottie Moon Christmas Offering makes up more than half of the annual budget of the International Mission Board, so every dollar that we give to The Lottie Moon Christmas Offering goes directly overseas to winning lost people. Now, FBC's goal this year is $150,000. And it's our desire that every man, woman, and child, as a member of this church or involved in this church should weigh carefully what God is calling him or her to do, that we would pray about it, think about it, what level of sacrifice. It's easy... It's kind of out of sight, out of mind. It's easy for us to forget about missionaries, and it's easy for us to forget about people like we just saw in the video, who have no access to the gospel. They're living in countries where it's very, very hard to hear of Christ and we are called on to be people of faith. Who see invisible things and they press on our minds, we see not only those folks who are in different parts of the world, but we see ahead in time to what Judgment Day is going to be like, and we yearn that people be made ready to stand before God, having been cleansed from their sins through faith in the blood of Christ. And so, our desire is to focus, and what I wanna do is root this Great Commission in the Scripture that you just heard Bob read for us, that we would understand that this is not some new thing that was thrown together, but it's been going on not just for 2000 years, but even before that, as Jesus says in Luke 24, it was founded on the Old Testament Scriptures. And so we're gonna walk through that today, and I want you to see how it's rooted in Scripture, and to understand the sacrifice, the central sacrifice of Jesus Christ, it's the center of the gospel. But then the lesser sacrifices that are essential to the spread of the gospel that our brothers and sisters have done who are willing to suffer and deprive themselves and go through difficulties so that lost people may hear of the gospel. And then thirdly, that each of us would weigh our own involvement in that and see what God is calling us to do. I. Central Sacrifice of the Great Commission: The Death of the Christ So let's zero in this morning as we begin on the central sacrifice of the Great Commission, the death of Jesus Christ. Now, the Great Commission is found in five different places at the end of each of the Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; each has their own version of the Great Commission. So he gave it multiple times slightly different language, and then again in the Book of Acts, that the disciples are responsible to move out from Jerusalem through Judea and Samaria to the ends of the earth with the gospel. But we're gonna look at Luke 24 and look at verses 44-47, “And he said to them, This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled, that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the prophets and the Psalms. Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. He told them, This is what is written, that Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.” So the centerpiece of the Great Commission, the centerpiece of the gospel is the death of Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God. Now, picture in your mind this powerful poignant scene there in the upper room, Christ had died on the cross, the third day he came to life again. The women had just come back from the empty tomb. And they had declared it to be empty, they said that they had had an encounter with the resurrected Christ, and Jesus had told them to go to report to his brothers what they had seen and that he was risen, and they did so. The upper room where they were meeting together was the place where Jesus had had the last supper with his disciples just days before that. And so they were there in the Upper Room in Jerusalem with a tiny church, and now they were assembled there in fear and bewilderment. John's Gospel tells us that they were in there with the doors locked for fear of the Jews. So they were afraid of dying, they were afraid of being arrested, they were afraid of suffering the same faith that Jesus had being crucified. Now, in Luke's Gospel, the reaction is emotional and powerful. Look at verses 36-43. “Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, ‘Peace be with you’, but they were startled and frightened, thinking that they saw a ghost. He said to them, ‘Why are you troubled? Why do doubts rise in your minds? Look at my hands and my feet, it is I myself. Touch me and see. A ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see, I have’. And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. And while they still did not believe it because of joy and amazement, he asked them, ‘Do you have anything here to eat?’ They gave him a piece of broiled fish and he took it and ate it in their presence.” So Jesus is offering them what Luke tells us in the Book of Acts, in Acts chapter 1, many convincing proofs that he was alive. And why did he have to do this? Because they couldn't seem to believe their eyes. It was too good to be true. You ever heard that expression before? It's just too good to be true. You realize how essentially pessimistic that is. I mean, anything really good can't be true, but that's effectively what the text says. They could not believe it for joy. I mean, joy means it can't be true. “Friends, let me tell you something. Beyond your wildest dreams, God is gonna lavishly bless you for eternity in the new heaven and new earth. It's going to be greater than anything you can possibly imagine. In one sense, you could say the whole thing is turned around, it's too good not to be true. That's how good God is.” " God is gonna lavishly bless you for eternity in the new heaven and new earth. It's going to be greater than anything you can possibly imagine." But they couldn't believe it, and so he's got to give them all these convincing proofs. People just don't die and come to life again. It just doesn't happen. When somebody's dead, they stay dead. And so he's got to do all these things. He says, Look at my wounds, touch me and see, look at my hands, look at my feet. Do you have anything here to eat? So he eats some broiled fish. All of this physicality to prove that he had really physically been raised from the dead. That's the centerpiece. His death and his resurrection from the dead is the centerpiece of the gospel. And then Jesus explains all of this and roots it in the prophetic writings. He roots it in Scripture. And why is that? Because none of us can touch him and see. We don't get to watch him chew and swallow broiled fish. We don't get to put our fingers in the nail marks. We're going to get it from Scripture or we're not gonna get it at all. And what Jesus shows us is that the Scripture's predated his birth. These things have been predicted, they'd been written about in the Law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms. This was not new, any new thing, but the Lord had told ahead of time what he would do. Look at Verse 44, he said, “This is what I told you while I was still with you, everything must be fulfilled about me that is written in the Law of Moses, the prophets, and the Psalms.” Now, without the direct work of almighty God on their minds and on yours and mine, we'll never believe it. We'll never believe it. Our hearts are so hardened in sin. We are so far from God. We are so, so corrupted and twisted, but because of our sins and the sins of the people we live around, it's hard for us to believe God's Word. We need him to work directly on our hardened hearts. And so look what it says in verse 45, what a marvelous verse. “Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures.” I think that's something we should pray about as we have our quiet times, don't you think? As we go before the Lord and we open up the Bible, say, O God, through your Holy Spirit, would you just open my mind that I might understand the Scriptures? Help me to see what's written here so it's not just some empty words that don't mean anything to me. He opened their minds, and isn't it marvelous that he has that kind of power? He actually has access to your mind, he has access to your heart, and he can open it up to his working through the Word of God. And so, he then roots his atonement in Scripture. Look at verse 46, “This is what is written, that Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day.” So all of this thing had been predicted in Scripture, God had planned it before the foundation of the world, but he had begun to pay out the truth little by little, right from the beginning in the Garden of Eden, how the serpent came and deceived Adam and Eve, and God cursed the serpent. And in Genesis 3:15, he said, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your offspring and hers. He will crush your head and you'll bruise his heel.” And so that was the prediction of how Jesus, by his death, would crush Satan who held the power of death. Genesis 3:15, that's right from the beginning, and then right after that comes the animal sacrificial system. Even that same day, as their eyes are open, they realized they were naked, God clothed them with animal skins so that in the next chapter, Abel began offering animal sacrifice. And so throughout the Old Testament, we have animals sacrifice, the blood of bulls and goats and sheep offered under the command of God, but all of them as a picture of Christ's blood sacrifice on the cross. And the lessons are very plain and clear. All sin deserves the death penalty. The death penalty can be paid by a substitute, but the substitute can't be an animal. It's just symbolic. Those were the lessons of the animal sacrificial system, but it was all written there in the Law of Moses. And we have the story, of course, of the Exodus. Remember the 10 dreadful plagues that persuaded Pharaoh to let the Jewish people go out of bondage into the freedom of the promised land? And the last plague was the most dreadful, the most terrible, the plague on the firstborn. And God commanded the Jewish people that they should sacrifice the Passover Lamb, they should kill the lamb and paint its blood on the doorpost and on the lintel of their doors, and the angel of death would see the blood and pass over and would not bring the righteous judgment of God on the sinners inside that house. For all have sinned, the Jews had sinned too, but God had provided for an atoning sacrifice. And so that taught a very important lesson, and it's important for the Great Commission, that our salvation comes in two basic steps: Redemption accomplished and applied. The redemption is accomplished by the blood sacrifice of Jesus, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world once for all, never to be repeated. Never needs to be repeated. That's why it's different than the animal sacrifices that had to be repeated endlessly year after year. But Jesus once for all died in our place. That's redemption accomplished, and Jesus said, It is finished, and that's it. Nothing more needed. But then step two, the blood has to be spiritually painted on individual sinners, the redemption has to be applied, and that happens by the Great Commission, it happens by evangelism and missions, by people who have the message of the gospel traveling, it might be just across the office, it might be across the street in evangelism, or it could be to the ends of the earth in missions, and take that message of the gospel and apply it so that people hear it and believe, and the blood gets spiritually applied to us and we are forgiven of our sins. And he said All of that was predicted in the Law of Moses and the prophets and in the Psalms. II. The Great Commission Stated Plainly You heard the text that Jason read, Isaiah 53, “All we like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him, on Christ, the iniquity of us all.” That's written seven centuries before Jesus was born. So Jesus lays out these Scriptures for them. Everything that was planned and then written about in the Scriptures had to be fulfilled. And so that is the deliverance of the world from sin, the shedding of the blood of Christ once for all, and then the application of that message to the Great Commission. And the Great Commission stated plainly, look at verse 46-48, he told them, “This is what is written, that Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.” So Christ has entrusted to his disciples the proclamation of the gospel message. Look carefully at the words, repentance, and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations. There is one Savior, one redeemer, the Christ whose blood alone atones for sin, but this one message of the one redemption has to be taken to distant parts of the earth. And Jesus says, You are witnesses of these things. Now, witnesses, they were eyewitnesses. Mary, the mother of Jesus, was there in the upper room with the early church. And I think a lot of that information we get that we... This time of year, as we read in Luke chapter 2 about the birth of Jesus probably came humanly speaking through Mary, as she shared the experiences that she had as a virgin, bringing the only begotten Son of God, fully man, fully God into this world. You're witnesses of these things, of how he lived a sinless life among them, and how he did great signs and wonders. There was no healing he could not do, there was no... Nothing too difficult for him. He gave great displays of power like stilling the storm and feeding the 5000, all these incredible miracles. You are witnesses of these things. You saw them with your own eyes, and you saw me die on the cross, you saw me dead, and you saw me now, you're seeing me now physically raised from the dead. You are witnesses of these things. These facts are essential to the gospel, and repentance and forgiveness of sins proclaimed in his name to all nations beginning at Jerusalem. Oh, what glorious good news that is for all of us. All of us, if we repent of our sins, turn away from darkness, turn away from wickedness and turn to God; if we repent of our sins, forgiveness of sins will be ours through faith in Christ. Not by works, but by simple faith. That's the gospel, and that message will be preached in his name to the ends of the earth. That's the Great Commission. Now, the Great Commission was written in the Old Testament, not just that Christ would die, but that the message would be carried by messengers from Jerusalem through Judea, Samaria, to the ends of the earth. That was predicted too. From the original call of Abraham, where God says, I will bless those who bless you. I'll curse whoever curses you, and through your offspring, all peoples on earth will be blessed. Peoples means nations. So from the calling of the Jewish nation, God had intended to bless all nations on earth. And then Psalm 2 in verse 8, “Where God the Father says to the Son, Ask of me and I'll give you the nations as your inheritance. The ends of the earth, your possession.” That's in the Psalms. And then at the end of Isaiah 66. I love this verse. This is one of these Great Commission verses. Listen to this, Isaiah 66:19, "I will set a sign among them, and I will send some of those who survive," some of the remnants, "to the nations, to Tarshish," that's in Spain, "to the Libyans," North Africa and Lydians, Central Asia, famous as archers, to Tubal and Greece. And listen to this, "to the distant islands that have not heard of my fame or seen my glory. And they will proclaim my glory among the nations." Isaiah 66:19, the Great Commission was written. Jesus said, "This is what is written, repentance and forgiveness of sins we preached to the ends of the earth." So only as this gospel is proclaimed can people in those distant lands, like we saw in that video, hear the Gospel message and believe. But the power of the Great Commission always has been the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit. We wouldn't have moved... As a church, we would not have moved out of the upper room if it weren't for the power of the Holy Spirit. Even after seeing evidence of Jesus's conquest of death, a week later, they're still in the upper room with the doors locked. And Jesus said, "You must stay in Jerusalem until you are clothed with power from on high. You're gonna receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you. And you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea, Samaria, to the ends of the earth. Again and again, our brothers and sisters that have stepped out in faith and have traveled through the centuries to distant lands to share the gospel have testified it was only by the compulsion of the spirit in their hearts that they left behind their friends and family and went to dangerous places. III. The Subsequent Sacrifices of the Great Commission The Spirit moved them. Now, you may say, "I don't feel like I'm called to be a missionary." Maybe you're not. Not many are called to actually go to cross-cultural settings and do that, not many, but some. But we are, all of us, called to travel from point A to point B. Like I said, it could be across an office to an unsaved co-worker. And you may feel, "I don't think I can do that." Well, it's the same feeling. It's the same fear. It's the same Holy Spirit that enables us, driven and compelled by love to share the Gospel with people. You receive power, and you'll be my witnesses. Since that time, it's been a river of sacrifice. Brothers and sisters have been willing to lay it on the line to take the Gospel from Jerusalem, through Judea, Samaria, to the ends of the earth. They've been willing to sacrifice. It's amazing, Jesus was a prophet. He made predictions. And he said, "This thing here, 120 in the upper room, is not gonna stay here. It's going to go to the ends of the earth." Now, a prophet has to be vindicated by his predictions coming true. Well, that prediction has famously come true. There is not a political nation on earth represented at the United Nations in which there is not a church of Jesus Christ with people assembling to meet and worship Christ. There are hundreds of millions of Christians spread all over the Earth. His words have come true. It's not done yet, but His words have come true. His prediction has happened. In every generation, the Holy Spirit sees to it that Jesus's name is the most famous human name on earth. There is no more famous human being than Jesus in every generation. The Holy Spirit sees to it. Better than any PR department getting the name of some rock star out, that fades like grass within two or three generations. Every generation, Jesus is the greatest name because the Holy Spirit sees to it. This has happened. Now, when I look at the prediction of the distant islands, I thought, "I wonder what the most distant island is." So bear with me for the next few moments as I Googled, "Where is the farthest place from Jerusalem on planet Earth?" Remember, it's a globe, so if you go around too far, it goes back the other way. So I've asked numbers of friends. Some of them said "LA" for a lot of reasons. Others, "Alaska," different things. Well, are you ready? The most distant island on planet Earth are the Pitcairn Islands in the South Pacific. The Pitcairn, you say, "What is that?" Have you ever heard of "Mutiny on the Bounty"? It was a movie. And some mutineers went and they overthrew Captain Bligh, and they took over. And they knew that they were gonna get hunted down by the British Navy, and so they were looking for someplace. They stumbled upon some uncharted island about 1500 miles southeast of Tahiti. It is 11,305 miles from Jerusalem. Now, you'd say, "Well, that doesn't count, Pastor, there were no people there when they landed." But they landed there, and they had some battles within themselves. There was some murder that took place. And the few that were left repented of their sins and started reading the Bible and set up a flourishing, strong Christian community that's still there. And a whaler came 18 years later, just saw this uncharted island, went ashore to see if there's any water, and found a church and Christians there praising God. You just say, "Alright, but that was inhabited. What about any habited islands?" Yes, New Zealand is the farthest inhabited island. And the history of the Gospel in New Zealand is fascinating. How it was first discovered by an explorer named Tasman, and he eventually gave his name to Tasmania. And he prayed over those islands, that God's purpose would be done there. James Cook came over a century, more a century and a half later, prayed about the same prayer. Eventually, God sent some missionaries. And they took on the fierce Maori people, who were war-like cannibals, and won many of them to faith in Christ. A marvelous story. And so you have Christ's church there in Auckland and those areas. That's as far as it gets from Jerusalem. And God's Word has been fulfilled. Now, in every generation, the church has advanced the Gospel at very high cost. It's been a trail of blood, brothers, and sisters, a trail of blood. And Paul saw it coming. It was already happening in his own life. In Colossians, Chapter 1, Verse 24 and 25, he said, "Now I rejoice in what was suffered for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ's afflictions for the sake of His body, which is the church. I have become its servant by the commission God gave me to present to you the Word of God in its fullness." That's my commission. And he's fulfilling it by writing the letter to the Colossians. But he had not been there. He didn't plant that church. And he said, "I rejoice in what was suffered by the men and women that did come with the message of the Gospel. And they suffered, and I rejoice in that suffering. And I'm filling up in my flesh what's lacking in regard to Christ's afflictions for the sake of His body." What does that mean? Careful of blasphemy here. There's nothing lacking in redemption accomplished. It was accomplished once for all. But what's lacking is the second step, it has to be applied. And that takes suffering. And Paul says, "I rejoice in that suffering. I rejoice in it." Now, the Gospel spread. Initially, the persecutors were unbelieving Jews who had not yet crossed over to faith in Christ, and so they kick people out of their synagogues, and they wouldn't buy and sell from them. They arrested them, even beat some of them. Read about it in the Book of Acts. But then the Romans took over and began persecuting. And for a couple of centuries, there was on and off persecution by the Roman emperors and by the Roman authorities. Even spilling our brothers' and sisters' blood in the sands of the Colosseum until at last that ended with Constantine's conversion, hope it was genuine, in 312. And Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire. Remarkable proof of the spread of the Gospel. Whether he was genuinely converted or not, he saw it at least politically expedient to declare himself a Christian. Incredible, in a very short amount of time. But the Gospel didn't stop there. It continued to spread among the barbarian tribes, tribes of Germania. They're terrifying, militaristic. And missionaries went out and were willing to suffer and even die to bring those Germanic-speaking people to faith in Christ. And up to the islands of what we call the British Isles, Britannia, and again, the fierce peaks in the Scottish Highlands, being willing to take on courageously tribal chieftains that would have and were ready to slaughter them. But they won many of them to Christ. This has been going on in every generation.As it says in John 12:24, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a kernel of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains by itself a single seed. But if it dies, it brings forth much fruit." And so that has been the principle, Christians willing to lay down their lives, willing to die for the spread of the gospel. Now, for me, I love missionary hero stories. I just love reading about people like Lottie Moon or others. I especially like stories I haven't heard. So that's hard to Google. "Stories Andy Davis hasn't heard yet on missions" came up empty. But there is one book I was reading recently of a number of missionaries I had never heard of. And one of them, amazingly, was a man named James Gilmore in the 19th century, who was a missionary to Mongolia. I really believe we just saw mission work among the Mongolians. They just said Central Asia, they didn't say exactly, but those yurts are Mongolian style. And I wonder if those brothers and sisters are from Mongolia. I don't know for sure, but I know this, that James Gilmore, a Scottish missionary to Mongolia, suffered as much as any, just the physical deprivations of working in such a hostile land. The land itself is vast. It's about the size of the American West. And this man just went on foot, sometimes walking, hiking up to 40 miles a day on foot. He originally began as a missionary in China, but then went into the northern regions, to the Mongolians. And they're very spread out. They're herdsmen, and they move around. Their yurts, their tents travel. And so he went from place to place. It's a cold land. Sometimes the temperatures plummet as low as 40 degrees below zero. He endured long spells of hunger and thirst on his treks. His target people, the Mongolians, dwelled in filthy, vermin-infested yurts. They were very nasty places. And he would go in there, and he would share the Gospel. He would seek to win them from animism and Buddhism, Lamaistic Buddhism. And they were very... A lot of them struggled with drunkenness, with violence, with thievery. And as he would witness to them, he would do rudimentary medical care, basic medical things like extracting bad teeth and other things like that. He was not a trained medical worker, but he knew some basic things, and people would come and he would care for them. And he would share simple Bible stories and the simple life of Jesus, His death on the cross, His resurrection. And he was there for four years of diligent sacrificial labor, James Gilmore. In 1874, he could not count a single convert, and he went beyond that. There was not even a single person that he felt was interested in the Gospel. Imagine doing that kind of work for four years. But he was concerned that no Mongolian he ever talked to did not come to faith in Christ because of a lack of clear, passionate proclamation of the Gospel. That's what he said. He wanted to be certain no Mongolian would be justified in pitching into us for not pitching into them more savagely. Listen to that, pitching into them savagely, for not, in fact, taking them by the cuff of the neck and dragging them into the kingdom. Sounds a little like a frustrated missionary after a while, but sharing the Gospel, it's like, "I'm gonna drag you into the kingdom." But there's no physical place to go. It has to be by hearing and believing. And after four years, no response. He left for a short time and then came back in 1884. And he finally won his first convert. He was in a dirty Mongolian tent. There was a fire in the center of the tent. There's generally smoke in there, but this was unusually bad because an outsider came in and started stirring up the smoldering log, filling the yurt with noxious smoke. And so he was getting as low as he could to just get some air in the tent. But then out of the cloud... He couldn't even see the man. Out of the cloud, this man spoke, "I have for months been a learner of Jesus Christ, and now I am ready to trust Him." Gilmore said of that moment, "The place was as beautiful to me as the gate of heaven, and the words of the confession of Christ from out of that cloud of smoke were as inspiring to me as if they had been spoken by an angel from out of the cloud of glory." They left the yurt. They walked together for 23 miles, talking about Christian theology. You have a 23-mile walk with a man, what are you gonna tell him? So he did basic Christian follow-up. They hugged each other. They knelt together and prayed. And then as far as I know, James Gilmore never saw that man again. Gilmore continued to travel in native fashion. He walked everywhere. He ate porridge. He lived on equivalent of about six cents a day. During one eight-month stretch, he preached to almost 24,000 people, sold 3000 Christian books, saw about 6000 patients with rudimentary medical treatments, distributed 4500 tracks, traveled almost 1900 miles, spent about $200 on himself for his own needs, and reported that in all of that, only two individuals came to faith in Christ. So as I look at that, I think, "Pastor, couldn't you have chosen a more triumphant story?" There are many more triumphant stories, but do you not see the grace of God in that? His relentless commitment to share even if he doesn't get the response. That's all we're called to do. You can't grab someone by the scruff of the neck and drag them into the kingdom, but we can, at great cost, be willing to take the message to them. He reminds me of what it says in that hall of faith in Hebrews 11:37-38, "They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated. The world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains and in caves and holes in the ground." IV. The Heavenly Celebrations Awaiting These Sacrifices Now, I believe when we get to heaven, we're going to celebrate brothers and sisters that sacrifice like Lottie Moon and like James Gilmore. We're gonna celebrate them. And you have, and so do I, a massive education waiting for you on the history of missions. And you're not gonna be bored at all because I really believe God's gonna not just tell you about it, but show it to you. And you're gonna get to know them, these heroes, and all of them are going to testify that whatever glory they have for their sacrificial service belongs to Christ. And they're going to lay their crowns before Jesus. As I was doing leaves a couple of days ago, I was thinking about these hero stories and brothers and sisters and the honor that's gonna come in heaven to them. But I was also thinking about that song "God and God Alone" by Steve Green. And I was thinking, "All the glory goes to him." And these heroes and heroines are gonna say that. They're gonna cast their crowns, all of them, before the Lord. And I thought about that scene in Revelation, chapter 5, where the scroll is in the right hand of God Almighty. He sits on the throne. And a search is made in heaven and earth and under the Earth, and no one is found who is worthy to take the scroll and open its seals, except Jesus. And so we're gonna celebrate and honor the sacrifices that were made. We're going to rightly celebrate them. We're gonna learn. We're not gonna feel jealous of them. We're gonna honor them, even if they are greater sacrifices than our own. And many of them will be greater than our own. And they'll have a greater place of glory than we do. But all glory goes to Christ, so there is no one like him, and his alone is the glory of the King of kings and the Lord of lords. He alone had the right to take the scroll and open its seals. Now, I read other stories, and they're exciting. You wanna hear some of them? Come to me afterwards, and I'll tell you more. One particular man in Japan left during the period in the middle of the 19th century, when it was illegal for Japanese to leave Japan. They couldn't leave their own country. He had come across the track, had become a Christian. He wanted to get theologically trained. His name is Joseph Nisima. He was in the bottom of a boat that was a junk, that was traveling to China, and he hid under some ropes. And he eventually went to Andover Seminary, right near where I went to seminary, was theologically trained, went back to Japan and set up a school for boys, and led hundreds of Japanese boys to faith in Christ. I can't wait to meet him. I was a missionary, my wife and I were missionaries in Japan. And it's hard work there, very slow, not a lot of converts. Then there's George Mackay, who worked in Formosa, now known as Taiwan, among some headhunters who collected the heads of their victims. This guy went up into the mountainous regions of Formosa, Taiwan, and shared the Gospel in tents in which their heads strung together, all around there. And they liked him because, like James Gilmore, he was good at extracting bad teeth. So that's very painful, and so he's able to pull it out and alleviate their pain, they're willing to listen to the gospel. And he led a number of them to faith in Christ. So those were sacrifices that have been made. People that are willing to go into dangerous places and share the gospel. The question that's in front of us now, this month and really year-round, not just because of the Lottie Moon Christmas offering, but because we're Christians, because we read the Scripture, we see it. We can feel what it was like to be in the upper room. What are we called to do? V. A Call for You to Sacrifice for the Great Commission And it always must begin with prayer. Start by presenting yourself as a living sacrifice and saying, "Lord, what am I to do for unreached people groups? What involvement do you want me to have?" One of the benefits we have of being in this church is we have a number of friends that are serving amongst unreached people groups right now. If you wanna know their names, come to any of the elders or church members, we'll tell you who they are and what people groups they're working with. You can pray for them. And in this day and age, we can even stay in contact with them and ask how we can pray for them this week. The home fellowships have adopted missionaries. Be faithful in praying for them. Find out what their needs are, so we can be praying and lifting them up. You know how Paul says that we should join our brothers and sisters that are in prison as if we were in prison with them. Well, I think the same mentality, we can join people in their struggles for missions as if we are fellow missionaries with them through prayer. “We can join people in their struggles for missions as if we are fellow missionaries with them through prayer.” Secondly, financial giving. I'm very well aware that a couple of weeks ago, I urged you to consider your involvement in the More than a Building campaign, and that continues to be a need. We borrowed money, and we're going to pay it back at interest. The sooner you can give, the less money and interest we'll pay. It'll be better for the Kingdom. And that's still true, but I think we have enough bandwidth, don't we, to also think about missions. We have enough bandwidth to say, "There's that, but there's also unreached people groups." And we have the chance, as Southern Baptists, to give money directly to brothers and sisters that are gonna go and serve into the distant most parts of the earth. We can share through them financially in giving. So just go before the Lord and say, "Lord, what do you want me to give to unreached people group missions?" And then finally, go. So what does this mean? It means look for opportunities to go. We have a mission trip going to Taiwan. I don't know if there are any openings on that, but we're gonna be regularly going overseas on short-term mission trips. But there may be some of you that God may be calling. No matter what stage of life you're in, it's amazing how many opportunities there are, how many pathways there are to go and serve overseas. One family, the Hausons, were sitting in pews just like you folks. He had a successful consulting business, consulting job, and was doing very well, but God called him out of that to go do business missions in North Africa. And he's serving now. I talk to him every other week and get prayer requests from him. God called him out of a situation just like you guys are in, sitting there in the pew, to serve in cross-cultural missions. So what is God calling you to do? What will you be glad that you did when you get to Judgment Day? What will you be eternally glad that you did in heaven? What can we celebrate for the glory of God? What sacrifices are you willing to make? Close with me in prayer. Father, we thank you for the Word of God. We thank you for what it does in our hearts and our minds. Thank you for how the Great Commission is a timeless work. It is something that you planned before the foundation of the world, that Christ would be slain for the elect. From before the foundation of the world, that plan was made. And now, the call on us, that central sacrifice has been once for all made, now you're calling us to other sacrifices, that the gospel might be applied to those who, right now, as I speak, are not yet Christians. And so I pray, O Lord, that you would please call us to willing, cheerful sacrifice for the spread of the gospel. We pray in Jesus' name, Amen.

Join host Mark Gilbreath for "THE FLEXIBLE OFFICE ECONOMY" a thoughtful and thought-provoking podcast featuring candid conversations with innovators and leaders from across the Flexible Office Economy.   What you'll hear on this episode Insights from an OG of Coworking; How principles of The Experience Economy are shaping the evolution of Coworking; Expanding the margin opportunity in Coworking; Asset yield optimization; The human need to belong; The social dimension of work and workplace People and companies mentioned Fueled Collective, LiquidSpace, Coco, Joseph Pine, James Gilmore, Starbucks, Soho House, Tishman Speier, The Battery, Wingtip, Neuehouse